The Golden Vineyard.

This past Tuesday, the 19th, was Vinomaker's birthday, whoo hoo!  To celebrate the anniversary of his birth, I bought yours truly, ahem, Vinomaker a bottle of Vigna Dorata Brut (Franciacorta DOCG).  I am just so good to myself him.  Titter, titter.
In all honesty not the world's most complex sparkling wine, but very enjoyable nonetheless, and seemingly a tad unbalanced on first impression, the Vigna Dorata opened up to reward the palate and nose with huge dollops of delicious appley-ness.  A blend of 80% Chardonnay and 20% Pinot noir, I, I mean we, quite enjoyed this bottle of metodo classico Italian fizzy stuff.
I also gifted Vinomaker a bottle of Château Du Tariquet Bas-Armagnac.  Armagnac is one of Vinomaker's favourite after dinner tipples and this particular bottle, aged for 15 years and made exclusively from the Folle blanche grape, apparently did not disappoint.  I wouldn't know, I am not a spirits drinker, I'll have to take his word for it.  More bubbles, please.

San Franciacorta.

Yesterday, I chose to venture out of Napa. Jeremy Parzen (aka Do Bianchi) was hosting a Franciacorta tasting in San Francisco and I decided that I wanted to attend.  So I trekked across the bay, and quite a trek it was, (note to self: public transport is only as good as the parking availability at the terminals/stations), to participate in what turned out to be a fun and very informative tasting.

Alongside importers, distributors, professional winewriters and Franciacorta enthusiasts, I tasted through 16 wines (or "16 skus" in wine-promotion parlance) from about 10 different Franciacorta producers.  All four categories of Franciacorta were represented; Brut, Satèn, Millesimato and Rosé.  Made by the metodo classico, but with only 4.5 atmospheres of pressure instead of the traditional 6 atmospheres, all of the wines had less fizz than one would normally associate with a bottle of bubbly, (more reminiscent of a Crémant), which meant the wines showed a little more softness and elegance on the palate.  There were several standouts in the Franciacorta line-up for me. Here is a selection of my WhiffsNotes;

Best nose:  Barone Pizzini Satèn, NV - Wow! Baked apples and toast. Soft fizz.  Easy to swallow.

Best mouthfeel:  Il Mosnel EBB Extra Brut, 2009 - At once clean and complex.

Best finish:  Montensia Brut, NV - Nice.  Opened up beautifully.  Long, long finish.

Overall drinkability:  A tie between - Il Mosnel Satèn, 2010 - Super soft, ozoney-alpiness. What a mouthfeel!  And, Berlucchi Brut '61, NV - Dry, clean, toast, nice finish.

Special mention:  Camossi Brut, NV - Fruity, soft with unexpected Turkish Delight/rose petal vibe.

It is not without a soupçon of irony that I acknowledge that some of the most appealing wines to me at the Franciacorta tasting were 100% Chardonnay.  Yes, Chardonnay. Surprising, considering I usually avoid Blanc de Blancs wines, both French and Californian, like the plague.  But never say never.

Thanks for the invite 2B!

About that Franciacorta stuff.

Everything one could possibly want to know about Franciacorta, the sparkling wine that hails from the province of Brescia in Lombardy, can now be found at 'franciacorta: the real story'. Jeremy Parzen, Ph.D. (aka Do Bianchi) has recently been tasked with getting the word out about this wonderfully elegant bubbly.  In a recent post on Jeremy's blog there are several links to the Franciacorta consortium's new Facebook page and Twitter account, etc., where one can read the 'real story' behind this intriguing wine/appellation.  Or just look at some rather pretty photographs.
In my wine cooler, at this very moment, I have a bottle of Contadi Castaldi Stile Franciacorta Brut which will be quaffed this coming weekend.  I have had this particular wine before and although I'd like to try a Franciacorta from a different producer, alas, this one was all that was available in my local-ish BevMo.  (But at $19.99 - regular price, not sale - I am not complaining.) Hopefully, further promotion of this delightful wine will lead to more Franciacorta wines being available in the U.S.  Go 2B!

Happy anniversary: Version 2014.

Today is my, and Vinomaker's, 8th wedding anniversary. Happy anniversary to us!
After a quick glass of Contadi Castaldi Franciacorta, Vinomaker and I dined at a neighbourhood restaurant, Cordeiro's Bar & Grill.  Under new owners (at a location that used to be the Bay Leaf restaurant), Cordeiro's was a bit of a confusing dining experience.  Pleasant, but confusing.  Fairly high prices (that won't do anything to attract new customers) and a poor wine list.  That is all I am going to say about Cordeiros's.
Happy anniversary Vinomaker.

The Italian Job.

It's a tough job, but somebody had to do it.  Just joking, it was lots of fun showing these four lads around TWWIAGE this afternoon.  Giovanni Arcari (winemaker and blogger), Jeremy Parzen (aka Do Bianchi, blogger, food and wine historian, Italian translator and rock musician), Nico Danesi and Andrea Rudelli (both Franciacorta winemakers) were a joy to host.  A quick couple of beers in downtown Napa at Norman Rose Tavern, then a really quick glass of wine in Vinoland, and they were off over to Sonoma.  Lots of fun.
Happy solstice.  Grazie e buona notte.

Franciacorta.

Since last June, when I met Giovanni Arcari, a winemaker for Camossi in Franciacorta, I have been dying to get my hands on some of these little known wines from the Lombardy region of Italy.  Having a presentation on Franciacorta wines in my Wines of the World class further fueled my curiosity.
Fortunately, in a way, I have been out of Napa quite a lot of late and have been able to visit some proper wine stores, (with the demise of JV Wine & Spirits buying wine in Napa is no fun), where I was able to purchase this bottle of Contadi Castaldi NV Brut. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a bottle of Camossi, sigh.  So what is this northern Italian wine region, Franciacorta, all about?
Franciacorta is a small, hilly wine appellation on the southern shore of Lake Iseo, northeast of Milan and close to the city of Brescia.  The appellation gets it's name from the village of Corte Franca where, in the late middle ages, the local monasteries and abbeys enjoyed the luxury of not having to tithe to the ruling lords. Having produced still wines for centuries, it was not until the 1960s that the sparkling wine industry made its first appearance. Granted DOCG status in 1995, (since 2008, the still wines of Franciacorta are known as Corte Franca), Franciacorta wines are made in the true champagne-method.  In fact, if truth be told, the sparkling wines of Franciacorta are made under the most demanding standards for sparkling wine anywhere in the world; longer bottle aging on the lees, smaller yields in the vineyards etc.  The most popular style of wine is Brut (which allows up to 12g per litre of residual sugar), but Franciacorta's flagship style is called Satèn - a name conjured up by a marketing firm in Milan to convey the idea of silk and satin.  Satèn is made primarily from Chardonnay with a soft and creamy mousse, the result of lower pressure in the bottle - what would be called a crémant in France.  Currently, there are about 100 Franciacorta producers, 90% of whom would be considered small to medium in size, with most only producing 100,000 bottles per year.
Which brings me to the bottle of Contadi Castaldi I bought.  I love their little symbol-logo, it reminds me of medieval runes, or such-like, which are repeated in a cartouche on the glass up towards the neck of the bottle. The wine itself was a light straw colour which spoke of youthfulness and purity - interestingly though, I couldn't find the sboccatura date on the back label.  With a toasty fresh-fruit nose, a light and refreshing acidity, a whiff of lemon grass, apple skin and almonds, and a nice, clean finish, I was surprised at how large the bubbles were - portly, vigorous and authoritative - which, for me, instantly distinguished this wine from Champagne proper.  I want to try more.

A racy tasting.

Week 6 and my taste buds are aching!
Eastern Europe was the destination of my Wines of the World class tonight.  I, somewhat stoically I might add, tasted my way through the wines of Georgia, Ukraine, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Moldova.  Oh, and Israel - 21 wines in all.
Some of the wines were quite nice, for instance, a 2006 Yarden Merlot hailing from the Golan Heights region of Israel was rather decent.  Some of the wines were truly awful, here, a special mention has to be given to Serbian producer Rubin ad Krusevac for two of their wines, Czarina Milica and Czar Lazar, both non-vintage reds.  The highlight of the evening for me was a 2007 Royal Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos - smooth, unctuous and just plain delicious. Interestingly, the evening's wine selection also featured a 2010 light, dry white table wine from producer Olympia, which was made from the Furmint grape variety, a grape more famous for being the botrytised grape that goes into Tokaji's dessert wines.  This easy drinking white was pleasingly palatable.
I and my fellow students really had to race our way through the Eastern Bloc as the first 30 minutes of tonight's session featured a special presentation of some methode traditionnelle champenoise bubbles from the Lombardy region of Italy.  Paul Wagner, an instructor at NVC and owner of Balzac Communications, has amongst his clients the sparkling winemakers of Franciacorta. With all the oily glibness of a used car salesman, Mr. Wagner took us on a fuel-injected, Ferrari-like, PowerPoint aided tour of the Franciacorta region, it's people and it's wines - including a speed-tasting of four wines.  Twee comparisons of Renault automobiles and Champagne versus Lamborghinis and Franciacorta were thrown about with reckless abandon.  It was all a bit too much, but I must admit I did find a Berlucchi 2008 Brut Rosé to be a very, very nicely put together wine, followed by a La Montina NV Brut.
Next...