Rock 'N' Roll Wine School.

I did something a bit out of the ordinary today: I went wine tasting.  What?  Is that really that unusual for Vinogirl?  No, not really.  But please, let me elucidate.  I went wine tasting with an in the flesh, genuine rock star - and his lovely family.  Yup, I went drinking with the stars (sounds like a TV show, maybe it should be) at Black Cat Vineyard (BCV).  Being a bit starstruck, it would all have been a bit of a blur if I hadn't been roused out of my reverie by the fabulous, expertly crafted wines at BCV.  A truly fun, and tasty, event.
When it comes to producing fine wine, Tracey Reichow is a bit of a rock star in her own right.  Winemaker and proprietress of BCV, Tracey is a brilliant person to taste wine with, very engaging and terrifically passionate about her art.  Our little, socially distanced group was schooled on the wonders and trials of making wine; the challenges and rewards that different vintages can bring; and the varying approaches and skill sets needed to work with fruit sourced from different AVAs across the Napa Valley.
Our tasting began with a 2018 Napa Valley Chardonnay.  Focused and crisp (lots of Granny Smith apple), aromatic and generous with just a touch of oak (quite Mersault-esque).  The rest of the tasting was comprised of red wines all from the 2017 vintage; the Winemaker's Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, the Family Cuvée, the Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon and the Rutherford Cabernet Franc.  All beautiful and distinctive.
My favourite amongst the lineup was the Cabernet Franc (CF).  At once intense and subtle, the fresh yet super-ripe-perfumey-raspberry component was delightful.  As the wine opened up in my glass the telltale vegetal characteristic of the varietal began to pop, but not in a bell pepper-like way.  No, the green character in the CF was more like gently bruised grape leaves, sun-warmed and earthy.  Stunningly complex, the CF went from strength to strength, palate-pleasing with supple, polished tannins and just a hint of dark chocolate.  Yum!
Overall, the entire tasting was a lesson in quaffability.  #funfortracey and everyone else.

Je t'aime Rosé.

Vinomaker, our friend Sky King, and I decided to have an impromptu rosé tasting tonight.
It is a testament to living in one of the better known wine regions of the world that such a tasting can be pulled together with just a moments notice. There are not many places on the planet that you could do such a thing, but thankfully there is a large assortment of varietals available to the oenophile here in Napa. The selection of wines was quite diverse; two French, one Spanish, one from Oakville, and the last from a vineyard just a stones throw from where we were sitting. It was a very interesting tasting.
I have always loved rosés, ever since I was a teenager, and have never quite understood why they haven't been more popular, until recently that is...now they are quite trendy. My favourite was the French one in the front of the photograph. It was quite a mongrel really, in view of it being a blend of 6 different varietals. I suppose just like my choice in poochies, a blend can be best in show.

Never blend a loser.

Vinomaker has declared this Friday a bottling day in Vinoland. With that in mind, we sat down this afternoon and barrel sampled our '07 vintage, attempting to identify blending possibilities.
Blending can be a very under estimated part of the whole wine process. Most wines are a blend as, generally, a small addition of a different varietal may enhance the finished wine experience. In the United States, any wine need only be 75% of a varietal to call it by that single varietal on the label.
On the flip side, it is common knowledge, and common sense, that you should "never blend a loser." Blending in an inferior wine would bring down the quality of an entire batch, resulting in a finished wine diametrically opposed to your original goal. Of course, I'm not a winemaker...Vinomaker just told me to say that!
We will be bottling two different batches of a Sonoma Valley Syrah, clone 877. The grapes are from a grower who wishes to have wine made from his vineyard, but does not have the wherewithal to make that happen himself.
Vinomaker fermented the Syrah with two different yeasts; ICV-D21 and ICV-D254 (both Saccharomyces cerevisae.) ICV-D21 is a yeast strain isolated from the Languedoc, and ICV-D254 a strain isolated from Rhone Valley Syrah fermentations. The two finished wines were very noticeably different from each other. The D21 exhibited in your face pepper and perfume with an extraordinarily long finish. The D254 showed as big, intense, ripe fruit with a full, mid-palate cherry bomb and slightly higher acidity.
These two very dissimilar batches of Syrah will be bottled without blending, their winning differences too good, and too interesting, to dilute their allure by blending them with anything else, or each other for that matter.
Never blend a loser...words to live, and drink, by.

Berryessa Reflections.

I was invited to an 'End of Year' party held in a beautiful big home in the Berryessa Highlands last Sunday. Plenty of food, plenty of wine and plenty of unbelievable California, December weather...I spent most of the evening on the deck.
The highlight of the event for me though was meeting the maker of one of my very favourite Napa wines. I had spied a bottle of the 2005 Smith-Wooton Cabernet franc on the bar and had made a bee line for it. It is a wonderful wine, more in the tradition of a fine Chinon, but definitely a new world rendition of an old world classic. To my surprise the host informed me that Gary Wooton was also a guest and proceeded to introduce me to him. I followed him around the kitchen, behaving like a gushing teenage fan, or stalker (you decide), but I wasn't about to let him out of my sight. I told him that I always sent my brother home to England with a least one bottle of his fine wine and he seemed genuinely impressed. He shared some of his winemaking philosophies with me, including a very interesting barrel protocol and then I learned the source of his grapes...right next to the vineyard in the Oak Knoll District where Vinomaker gets ours. Small world.
As the party drew to a close, I was left reflecting on how great the wine was, how great the entire Northern California wine community is, how great is the talent of the winemakers that I know and how wonderful it will be in 2009 to meet more...and drink their wine of course.