Tannins.

One word: Tannins.  I cannot count the number of times that I have been told, in almost a folkloric way, that a Mayacamas Vineyards Cabernet sauvignon when young is so tannic that it is almost impossible to enjoy.  It is advised that one ages this wine for 20 to 25 years before drinking it.  (Hmm, that would take a lot of forethought.)  I have tasted a few vintages of this winery's Cabernet sauvignons (CS) in the past and, yes, I found them to be tannic.  I have also tried a barrel sample of their CS (and Chardonnay) when I visited the winery for a hillside viticulture class (as part of my degree programme at Napa Valley College) and it was, of course, very tannic.  So I was very curious to try this, not quite, 26 year old bottling from one of the classic wineries and much lauded producers of CS in California.
Tannins are naturally occurring phenolic compounds (technically, they are plant derived polyphenols) found in wine-grape skins, seeds and stems.  Tannins in wine are felt, not tasted - they are the textural component of a wine that has that astringent, tooth enamel stripping effect on the mouth.  CS as a wine-grape variety is inherently high in tannins.  And this particular wine is made from mountain fruit, so tannin extraction is elevated.  In addition to contributing texture, tannins act as a preservative enabling the cellaring of wine for an extended period.  So how tannic was this 2½ decades old wine?  Drum roll, please.
The 1994 Mayacamas Cabernet Sauvignon was simply fabulous.  The cork was a little dry and broke on removal, usually not a good sign.  The colour was amazing, a deep garnet, showing very little age in the meniscus.  On the nose, cedar, blackberries, blueberries and an appealing savouriness.  On the palate, cedar again, woodsy, red currants, black fruits and vanilla.  Amazingly long finish.  Amazing!  Velvety and silky, but firm and precise structured tannins, pepper and other spices.  Delicious.  Despite how tannic this wine may have been upon release, right now it is elegant, luscious, classy, refined and mind blowing.  I'd predict that the 1994 still has many years of ageing ahead of it.  Thank goodness for polyphenols.
Mayacamas oozes tannins.

Smoke gets in your eyes.

The wonderful view that usually greets me and Vinodog 2 when we reach the top of the hill behind Vinoland on our daily walk doesn't exist right now.  Well, the view is there, but at present it isn't visible due to the amount of smoke that is in the air.  My Mayacamas Mountains vista is in hiding, I can barely see it at all.   Also the overall light quality is very odd making everything yellow and muted.  However, I'm thinking a photographer would probably see some benefit to the perpetual golden hour the Napa Valley is experiencing.
There are two major wildfires burning in Northern California right now.  The Mendocino Complex Fire is now the largest wildfire in California history (recorded history, that is), it has currently burned over 300,000 acres and is still not contained.  The Carr Fire in Shasta County, at present the 6th largest fire in California history, at approximately 180,000 is a mere tiddler in comparison.  And all the resulting smoke is drifting south to wine country.
I'm not really worried about smoke taint in the grapevines, but the possible reduction in light- and temperature-dependent photosynthesis is a little bit of a concern.  When it is this smoky, and it has been for the past 10 days, or more, the chlorophyll in the vines cannot absorb enough sunlight to synthesis the sun's energy into carbohydrates.  Bit of a problem when Vinomaker needs those carbohydrates (think sugar) to synthesise into alcohol.  It has already been a cool growing season, so lack of good quality sunlight now is an ongoing concern of mine.
Of course, my first thought is for the safety of anyone, or any animal, in the path of the many conflagrations burning around the entire state.  Godspeed firefighters.

Take me to church.

Vinomaker loves wine.  Vinomaker also loves tennis.  But when he doesn't love playing with a particular tennis racquet he'll barter said tennis racquet for a really nice bottle of wine.  Really nice.  And I always benefit.  Hallelujah!  This bottle of Long Meadow Ranch Winery's E.J. Church, 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve (Napa Valley AVA) was one such bottle of wine. And it was simply fabulous.
Produced from fruit grown at 1300 feet, relatively high in the Mayacamas (yes, the same Mayacamas as in my last post), this wine was young, but oh-so-flavourful.  With abundant sweet vanilla, red fruit and white pepper I found it a little hard to believe that this wine was 100% Cabernet sauvignon.  But what do I know?   And I did't even care.  The E.J. Church paired well with my meal of dead-cow (piled high with mushrooms and onions).  So moreish.  I'm a believer.

The Mount Veeder AVA.

I had intended to leave my exploration of the Napa Valley's mountain AVAs until Thud arrives this summer, but last Saturday I found myself up in the Mount Veeder American Viticultural Area (MVAVA).
Nestled high in the Mayacamas Mountains (which were once a seabed), the MVAVA is a relatively small AVA of around 25 square miles with approximately 1,000 acres planted to grapevines.  Some of the steepest vineyards in California, certainly in the Napa Valley, are to be found here: farming on a  30° slope is, to me, the very definition of hillside viticulture. Difficult to farm, the shallow volcanic soils mean that crop yields can be a full 50% less than what a grower could expect to harvest from a valley floor vineyard (for Cabernet sauvignon that could mean a mere 2 - 2½ tons per acre).  The Mayacamas range can receive nearly twice the amount of rainfall than the valley floor, a rather soggy 35 - 40 inches a year. Abundant with firm tannins, brambly is a word quite often used when describing the red wines of the MVAVA. And apparently the wines age very well.  I have had a few MVAVA wines, but not a lot.
Notable wineries (to me) are; The Hess Collection (in part for being on the site of the former Christian Brothers winery, Mont La Salle), Rubissow (I had a wonderful hillside-viticulture field trip up there once) and Mayacamas Vineyards and Winery (where my NVC viticulture professor Dr. Krebs was once employed as the vineyard manager.  And also where A Walk in the Clouds, starring Keanu I-couldn't-act-my-way-out-of-a-paper-bag Reeves, was filmed).
Ten down, six to go.

The Spring Mountain District AVA.

It has been over a year since I last did a post on the American Viticultural Area (AVA) signs in the Napa Valley.  How did that happen?  I know I have been a little busy, but so busy that a whole year has passed, sheesh! To remedy that I offer up, for the reader's delectation, the Spring Mountain District AVA sign.
The Spring Mountain District (an area, not a peak) was officially established as an AVA in 1993.  Located on the eastern slopes of the Mayacamas Mountains, on the western side of the Napa Valley, this AVA encompasses about 8,600 acres on elevations that range from 400 feet, beginning down in St. Helena, to 2,600 feet at the top.  Up there, one feels like the Napa Valley is a million miles away.
Today is Vinomaker's birthday and so, as is our tradition, we decided to go winetasting.  Usually it is me who chooses which winery to visit, as a surprise, but this year Vinomaker requested that we visit Pride Mountain Winery.  Pride produces a lovely Merlot that we have both enjoyed over the years, but neither of us had ever visited the winery, so we loaded ourselves into the Vino-mobile and headed north.  Driving six miles from the valley floor, up through the Spring Mountain District AVA, to an elevation of 2,200 feet, over the Napa County line and into Sonoma County, an hour after leaving Vinoland and a half mile downhill into Sonoma County, we eventually arrived at Pride.
Pride's winery and vineyards actually straddle both Napa and Sonoma counties (there is a cobblestone-strip in the pavement outside the winery's caves that delineates the boundary).  An interesting fact is that Pride has to specify on their wine labels the percentage of grapes from each county.  And, of course, Pride has to make sure they pay the correct taxes to each county.
The tasting and tour at Pride was a really nice experience, in no small part due to the hospitable Nikki who hosted our small group of eight Pride-enthusiasts.  Vinomaker was a little disappointed that they had already sold out of their 2014 Viognier, (total production for Pride is approximately 18,000 cases a year), but Nikki assuaged Vinomaker's fear of going Viognier-less on his birthday by treating him to a tank-sample of Pride's soon to be bottled 2015 - he was delighted.
Great wines, nice facility, interesting history, genial host, wonderful drive up the mossy-ferny-redwoody-winding Spring Mountain on a grey, drizzly day.  Good fun.
Happy birthday Vinomaker!
Nine down, seven to go.

True Wine Lover 13.

Recently, the owners of TWWIAGE decided to do a bit of wine-library spring cleaning, which resulted in all of the staff receiving six-packs of miscellaneous wines.  In the Marketing Queen's (MQ) six-pack was the above pictured bottle of a 1979 Louis M. Martini, Monte Rosso, Sonoma Cabernet sauvignon.  The MQ brought the empty bottle into work to show me as she thought I would like the label, and I did.  The colourful pastoral scene on the front label is delightful in it's simplicity and the verbiage on the back label is pretty much the same marketing spiel that wineries still use to this day.  And just look at the alcohol - 12 1/2%, written as a fraction, not as a decimal.  But how did this 1979 wine taste?  "Delicious" was the MQ's answer: almost 33 years later this wine apparently still had a lot to offer.
Louis M. Martini, born in 1887 in Pietra Ligure, Italy, was just 12 years old when he traveled alone to join his father in the USA. Agostino Martini was a fisherman in San Francisco and the young Louis began working alongside his father selling seafood from a cart.  Louis first made wine with his father in a small shed behind the family home in 1906.  Agostino sent his son back to Italy where Louis studied oenology at the University d'Alba.  He returned from Italy in 1911 determined to pursue his passion and make a living as a winemaker.  
In 1922, Louis founded the Louis M. Martini Grape Products Company in Kingsburg, California.  During the Prohibition era, the company thrived by producing medicinal and sacramental wine, and by also selling boxes of  'Forbidden Fruit' - with the express instructions:  "Do not add water, yeast and sugar or fermentation will result."  Martini emerged from Prohibition as one of the best winemakers in California and resolved to concentrate all of his efforts on the production of premium table wines. Anticipating the repeal of the Volstead Act, early in 1933 Louis purchased 10 acres south of St. Helena and rushed to get his newly planned winery into operation for the coming  vintage. 
Convinced of the superiority of mountain grown-grapes, in 1938 Martini purchased the Mt. Pisgah vineyard high on the Sonoma side of the Mayacamas Mountains. He renamed it Monte Rosso for it's bright red volcanic soil.  It is from this vineyard that the MQ's elderly bottle of wine originated.

Described by André Tchelistcheff as an "apostle of the California wine industry," Martini was extremely instrumental in fashioning the Napa wine industry as one would recognise it today, in fact he was a true pioneer in a number of ways.  It is said that Martini was amongst the first, if not the first, in 1968 to varietally label Merlot and he later championed Zinfandel as a fine wine varietal.  In 1944, as a vintner with "arm-twisting powers," he was able to convince 7 other vintners to join him in the founding of the Napa Valley Vintners Association - a cooperative effort to facilitate the exchange of practical wine-related information common to all wineries.  Martini was the first to practice temperature controlled fermentation and he is also credited with the invention of the wind machine to combat frost damage.  The list goes on...

Gallo purchased the Louis M. Martini winery in 2002, but to this day the business remains the oldest, continuously family operated winery in the Napa Valley.
Louis M. Martini died in 1974.

Snow alert.

My commute to work 15 miles up through the Napa Valley is always pleasant, but today it was especially delightful. A sprinkling of snow on both ranges of hills, but more noticeably on the eastern Vaca Mountains, had succeeded in making my familiar drive all the more enjoyable. The snow may only have lingered for a few hours but during it's sojourn, high above the sleeping vines below, it delivered a quick blast of Christmassy cheer.