A Taste of Chinese Wine

I’ve had two opportunities to taste wine made in China. The first occasion was a blind tasting where we were asked to guess the country of origin of eight wines. I was the only member of the Roanoke Fine Wine Society to identify the Chinese wine correctly, not because I actually thought it was Chinese wine but because I thought it was cooked. I believe my exact words were “it tastes like it came on a slow boat from China.” Ding, Ding!

My most recent occasion was a Thanksgiving dinner where the host offered up a wine from China which had been given to him by friend who was a frequent traveler there. My husband Robert also travels to China for business but he has never been temped to bring back Chinese wine. Having sampled more than a few, he prefers to stick to Chinese beer and green tea.

I understand why after this last taste of Zixuan Wine. I actually tasted this wine on two separate days. The first sip was on the day of the Thanksgiving dinner when I rescued the bottle from being dumped by the host after his first sip. Give it a day or two, I thought, maybe it’s just bottle shock. My notes below are from the later tasting but I must say the wine hadn’t changed much with some air.

Nose: Tar and plum, medicinal and hot--not enough to singe the nose hairs but pretty close.

Palate: Lot’s of grainy tannin, chalk, blackberry. And something I remember from my youth in Alberta called chokecherry, a wild berry also known as prunus virginiana, that has a toxic pit but once removed the remaining berry can be eaten and used to make wine, if you dare. My dad actually made wine out of these berries but that experiment proved unsuccessful and we left a case of it for the new owners when we moved out of our house in Calgary.

Finish: Very long, not entirely unpleasant but with lots of new oak, some metallic components, and a dry, chalky feel on the tongue that lingered for over a minute.

I have no idea what grape this wine was made from (I would guess Cabernet Sauvignon) or what it cost to buy and I could not find this label on the company website, but I don’t think I would enjoy this wine at any price.

Much like my father’s chokecherry wine, some wines are best left behind.

From the Cellars and Vineyards of Napa and Sonoma (Part 3)

Our third day in Napa was fairly laid back. We started the morning off in St. Helena for a bit of shopping and then for a lunch at Taylor’s Automatic Refresher. If you haven’t had a chance to do lunch at Taylor’s you are missing out on the best expression of the classic American take-out burger and shake. Pick a nice day when you can linger with your milkshake or beer at one of the many picnic tables in the yard surrounding the small building that is the kitchen and choose from an amazing menu of modern American classic sandwiches and burgers.

After we waited in an order line that stretched to the parking lot, I went back and forth over the menu and ultimately chose Taylor’s BLT (Bacon, Lettuce & Tomato) sandwich with a Pistachio milkshake. After we picked up our order and dug into our food, I realized I needed to go back for a spoon because my shake was so chocked full of whole pistachio nuts that it was impossible to enjoy it through a straw. This is the kind of generous fresh ingredients that you can expect to find at Taylor’s Refresher which is why this place draws a steady crowd here in St. Helena and in their Napa location and their location at the Ferry Building in San Francisco.

Our stomachs girded, we left Taylor’s to head up Howell Mountain to Robert Foley’s new winery. Our friends Jeff and Rita had recommended we pay Bob Foley a visit and we were pleased to find him and his team bottling wine on his open-air crush pad. Robert Foley Vineyards does not offer conventional tastings and tours, however he will make appointments when he’s not on the road at wine events or on tour with The Robert Foley Band, a band he founded and which remains his passion and diversion from the hard day-to-day business of making yummy wine.

Most wine buffs remember Bob Foley from his days at Pride Mountain Vineyards but since 1998 he has been bottling wine under his Robert Foley Vineyards label, starting with a Claret that continues to be a strong seller in a small portfolio that now includes a Petite Sirah, a Pinot Blanc, and a reasonably-priced red blend called the Griffin. He specializes in “big, monster” reds but we really enjoyed his Pinot Blanc which was equally well extracted and ample bodied.

Although Bob clearly has his fingers in every aspect of the wine-making business from choosing the grapes to designing the crush pad and cellar to his exacting, though unconventional, specifications his wife Kelly is a true partner in this endeavor and functions as the family and business CEO. She had family in town that day so Bob took us on a tour of his cellar which includes a performance cave and soon-to-be recording studio.

As we departed Robert Foley Vineyards and wound our way through the town of Angwin, California, I couldn’t help but marvel that so many great wines are coming from a place on Howell Mountain known for its large of community of tee totaling Seventh-Day Adventists. An increasing number of wine makers and wine drinkers agree with these folks that Howell Mountain truly is God’s country.

So it was with that kind of veneration that Robert and I left Napa Valley days later to make our way to the rival California wine region known as Sonoma Valley. Sonoma has long been considered the poor step-child to Napa but that is quickly changing as Sonoma’s diverse microclimates produce wines worthy of all the accolades they are garnering thanks to Chateau St. Jean, Quivira, and Williams & Selyem and other noted producers who consistently craft wines of a quality prompting worldwide attention and acclaim.

Thankfully our time in Napa had primed our livers for a two day wine splurge that would include a reserve tasting at Chateau St. Jean, a private tour and food pairing at Ferrari Carano, a release party at Skipstone, and a farm to table dinner at Quivira. Our hosts and friends Sharon and Steve Riedel made most of these arrangements but wine events such as these are frequent in this valley and equally hospitable. In fact, Sonoma has the well-deserved reputation for making good wine accessible to all, not just in the reasonably-priced tasting fees but also in their more laid back yet dedicated commitment to wine appreciation and education.

Every one of our visits to Sonoma has included a stop at Chateau St. Jean, not only because of their terrific lineup of top-shelf wines but because Chateau St. Jean happens to have one of the most beautiful wine shops and gardens in Sonoma. The same can be said of Ferrari Carano, the grounds of which are regularly featured in ads promoting this picturesque region. Both wineries are exceptionally tourist friendly and tastings are available most days without appointment.

Sonoma valley proprietors and winemakers are also leaders in sustainable viticulture as evidenced by the farm and vineyard tour we received at the Farm to Table dinner Quivira Vineyards hosted where Quivira’s winemaker Steven Canter and farm manager Andrew Beedy outlined the many ways they utilized on-farm resources in ways that were ecologically beneficial to the land, animals, grape, and consumer. Nothing is wasted here and I’m sure any table scraps from the dinner that night went into Ruby the wild pig’s food trough the next day.

After a week in Napa and Sonoma I felt not just a tad hoggish as I recalled all the decadent meals and great wine we consumed, the highlight of which was a dinner in a small hole-in-the-wall gem of a restaurant called Mosaic in Forestville. The fact that such a place could thrive in this tiny town with little else to boast signaled a dedication to excellence that belied its humble storefront and said to me “Don’t be fooled by Sonoma’s casual ambiance. These people take their food and wine very seriously!”

From the Cellars and Vineyards of Napa and Sonoma (Part 2)

On our second day in Napa we had made two appointments for tastings—one for Reynolds Family and one for Del Dotto.

Reynolds Family Winery is owned by Steve and Suzie Reynolds who gave up their dental practice to fully embrace the challenge of turning a chicken ranch into an award-winning winery. Their hard work and determination shows in their wines, one of which is aptly named Persistence.

As we sat outside at one of the tables overlooking their duck pond, we tasted five of their wines. I particularly enjoyed the’07 Napa Chardonnay which was long and silky on the palate with notes of citrus, melon, roasted pineapple, and vanilla. We also enjoyed the ’05 Estate cabernet, and the ’05 Persistence, a blend of Cabernet, Cabernet Franc, Syrah, Petite Verdot, and Merlot.

Both of these reds were very well-balanced, with dark fruit, chocolate, spice, and mineral components and enough tannins to see you through to a long finish. We bought a few bottles to take back with us to the rented house in Calistoga and ended drinking one right there, as we nibbled on the bread and cheese we had brought along with us.

When we finished our picnic lunch we realized we had enough time before our next appointment to do a quick tasting at Turnbull. Turnbull has been a favorite of ours ever since we happened upon one of their Napa Valley cabernet and instantly fell in love. In 2008, we just couldn’t get enough of their ’05 Napa Valley Cabernet and went on a search for every last bottle in stock in Roanoke, Virginia, our home town. Even though the ’05 cab was their largest production to date, when we arrived in the tasting room in October 2009 they only had five cases left of this wine in stock.

Part of the reason for the success of Turnbull wines is that despite producing some very quality wines they have managed to keep prices down to a reasonable level for Napa. All wines are made from grapes grown on Turnbull-owned properties and at present they have 200 planted acres of vines. I was surprised to find some Tempranillo along with the Merlot and Sangiovese in their ’07 Old Bull Red. Later I would find that Vincent Arroyo, a well-known Napa grower and winemaker is also growing Tempranillo, but it’s not something you see everyday in Napa. Old Bull a well-priced juicy, crowd-pleasing kind of wine that would be a very welcome guest at your next Super Bowl party. The Barbera, Cabernet, and Cabernet Franc in this wine give it enough testosterone to pair with a spicy chili or chicken wings.

Up until now Robert and I had been sharing tastings but when we left Turnbull and arrived a Del Dotto, we decided to have our own glass thank you very much. Robert and I had visited this tasting room the year before and we had tasted enough Del Dotto wine to know that we didn’t want to be wrestling each other for the last sip in the glass.

Del Dotto is a family-owned winery with properties in both Napa and Sonoma. David Del Dotto is the son of Dominic Del Dotto a native of Lucca in Tuscany and he credits Dominic for instilling in him an appreciation for good red wine.

David and his wife Yolanda started out with a property on Zinfandel Lane in St. Helena and initially sold most of their grape off to other winemakers but eventually decided to keep the good stuff for themselves and make the best wine they could make. Gary Galleron consulted at the beginning and since 1997 Nils Venge has been the consulting winemaker.

The Del Dotto family had recently opened a stunning Venetian-style tasting room in St Helena. However, since our family had never been to Napa before we opted to go to the Del Dotto historic winery location in Napa where we could get barrel tastings in their 120 year old wine cave, the second oldest wine cave in Napa. We were fortunate to get the facility manager as our tour guide and he proceeded to fill our glasses with ten or so wines thieved from the barrel. This was more wine than we could swallow, literally, but he encouraged us to splash the sides of the wine cave with any leftover wine in our glass.

David Del Dotto has been experimenting with various cooperages for years and during the cave tour your are invited to sample the same juice from two different barrels—one French oak, one American oak—and taste for yourself how barrels made of different oak impart vastly different characteristics to a wine. We were asked to vote for our favorite and in our tour group of eleven the votes were pretty well evenly split. This just shows that there is no universally superior oak—it’s just a matter of taste and what you want the oak to bring to the wine.

I was particularly enamored with the '08 Del Dotto Cinghiale Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir. Our barrel taste so impressed us that we bought futures. Of course, the wine will be a different wine once it makes it into the bottle but I was blown away by the complexity and elegance of this Pinot Noir even at this young stage in its’ life.

From the Cellars and Vineyards of Napa and Sonoma (Part 1)

I invited family members from Canada and Scotland to join Robert and me in Napa Valley, California for five days. None of my family members had been to California wine country before so I wanted to give them a taste of wines that generally do not escape our borders.

Our first stop was Saddleback Cellars, the proprietor of which is Nils Venge, one of California’s hottest consulting winemakers. Nils has been making wine under his own label and for others for a very long time. He’s an unpretentious kind of guy who likes nothing more than kicking back with a well-crafted wine and some good country music blaring from the speakers, but he takes wine-making very seriously and consistently creates some of the best value wines in what is typically a very pricey neighborhood, the Oakville floor.

The tendency on the floor is focus on the big reds, the high-priced cabs this part of Napa is so famous for. Nils does offer the best of Napa fruit in his cabs, merlots, and zinfandels but he is equally attentive to the whites in his Saddleback Cellars range, and we tasted a very lovely ’07 Viognier and very impressive ’07 Napa Chardonnay. Nils also does a nice, crisp Pinot Blanc, offering aromatics of green apple, melon, and honeysuckle, which we have tasted and enjoyed over multiple vintages and consider to be one of our favorite hot weather whites.

We were tempted to linger at the picnic tables bordering the edge of the vines but we had another appointment down the road at Gargiulo Vineyards. Jeff Gargiulo and his team have been making estate wines in Oakville since 2000 with fruit from two properties—the Money Road ranch and 575 OVX. Kristof Anderson joined as winemaker in 2003 and uses gravity-fed techniques to gently coerce the best flavors and aromas from the grape. We tasted the ’06 Aprile Sangiovese/cab blend, Money Road Cabernet, and the 575 OVX G Major Seven Study, a Bordeaux-style blend which was my favorite of the bunch with bramble, blackberry, cassis, and vanilla on the nose and a smooth, well-balanced finish.

It was obvious this was going to be a music-themed week when Grammy winning artist/songwriter Billy Dean passed by the tasting room on his way to the recording studio (which sits among the vines) and our hosts asked him if would play us a song. He set down his glass of chardonnay, grabbed a guitar from Jeff Gargiulo’s displayed collection, sat down, and played his song “ The Penny” much to the delight of all.

Can you think of a better way to start a week in Napa and Sonoma?

Check back next week for Part 2 of our adventures in Napa and Sonoma.

Time for the 2000

It our effort to clean out the cellar (see my article Free Your Cellar Captives on the Love that Grape! Website) we recently tasted two 2000 vintages: A Oregon pinot noir and a Bordeaux.

2000 Chateau Lagrange Saint-Julien Grand Cru
This wine had a very pretty dark purple color, and on the nose I got blackberry, tar, smoke, leather, and clove. On the palate I tasted bright sour cherry, earth, and wood with some good acid and long heart-warming finish. This is certainly primed for drinking but the structure tells me you can hold it for a few more years, too.

2000 Torii Mor Oregon Pinot Noir
This wine did not taste quite as I expected it would. I think this may have been the last year Patty Green was making this wine so maybe she was saving her best efforts for her new label, I don’t know. There was some cherry there but it seemed a bit fruit-robbed. The oak and tannins where present on the palate and in the finish, but the roundness had gone, leading me to think we had waited too long to drink this wine. I’m going to pull some 2000 Patty Green single vineyard pinots out of the cellar to see how they compare. If this wine is any indication, it’s time to drink our 2000 Oregon pinot noirs.

Chateau Montelena Estate Cab '93 and '98

Robert and I have been fans of Chateau Montelena Estate cabs since our first trip to Napa back in '96. It's quite possible we bought the '93 back then and carried it home with us to our newly- built cellar.

Unfortunately when we opened the '93 for dinner with another couple (also fans of ch. Montelena cab) the first look and sniff told us we had waited to long to enjoy what we clearly fell in love with back in '96. The rim was clear and the wine looked and smelled oxidized. Our palates confirmed it--this former beauty was past her prime. Too bad.

Luckily we also had the '98 on hand and it was just what we expected--round, layered, with heady, lovely nose so characteristic of this cab.

But one bottle was not enough for dinner so we finished with a '05 Turnbull Estate cab which nicely contrasted newer Napa fruit with old and was a perfect pairing for upside-down pear and walnut cake and strawberries with whipped cream. Yummy!

Beyond Venice—On the Wine Road

Recently hubby Robert and I took three days ahead of a cruise out of Venice to drive two and a half hours north east of Venice to the vineyards of Valpolicella, home of Amarone.

This was our first taste of this area which is steeped in traditional wine making and culture. Our home base was a B & B just west of the city of Verona—Casa Villa D’Arco, a beautifully restored villa in the tiny village of Corno. Our hosts were Roberto and Vittoria Girelli, a gracious and tireless couple who offer three rooms, a sitting room, garden, and recommendations to guests, along with the best organic and homemade breakfast goodies we have tasted in Italy.

In the middle of a heat wave we plied the wine road in search of our favorite vineyards. Tommasi was our first stop. They prefer you call or email ahead, but they accommodated us with a quick taste of their ’05 Amarone Della Valpolicella Classico and Ca’ Florian single vineyard. We also tasted their ’03 Il Sestante Vigneto “Monte Masua” and their ’06 Fiorato Recioto Della Valpolicella, the region’s traditional sweet red wine.

This tasting prepped our palate for tastings at the Allegrini showroom and a tour of the villa and winery at Serego Alighieri, former home of Dante, where we tasted a flight of Amarone Classico and one white wine, a blend of Sauvignon Bianco and Garganega. Serego Alighieri is in partnership with Italian wine giant Masi, so you are able to taste wines from both producers in the wine shop. Wine tastings at both Allegrini and Serego Alighieri are priced depending on what you want to taste. A more detailed review of these wineries and tasting rooms will be posted soon on the Love that Grape website.

In Valpolicella it is best that you book appointments well in advance. We visited during the start of the vendemmia (grape harvest) where the winemakers were hurrying a harvest of their white grapes, afraid of prolonged heat exposure. It was a busy time where split-second decisions were being made regarding harvesting. Despite a nail-biting growth season which included hail, sleet, and a late summer heat wave, winemakers felt very optimistic about the 2009 vintage. We will see. The 2009 vintage Amarone will, in most cases, be released in 2013.

If you want to taste the best of Valpolicella now, it was suggested to us that we taste ’97 and 2000 vintages. Give us your recommendations and suggestions.

Making a List, Checking it Twice

Heading out for a vacation that will include visits to Canada, Croatia, Italy, Turkey, and Greece.

What am I packing?

Here's a list of the must haves:

• Quick dry undies
• Picnic baggie: includes cheese knife, wine screw, plastic utensils, tea towel/tablecloth
• Camera
• Passport
• The Wine Century Club application/checklist
• Map for Italy
• Manila envelope for trip confirmations, vouchers, etc.
• Guide book recommendations condensed to two printed pages
• Bill Clinton on speed dial in case we get lost (just kidding)

What do you pack for a wine soaked trip?

A Washington State Wine Bargain

I picked up a bottle of 2007 Hogue Columbia Valley Cab because it was on sale and I needed some daily drinkers for summer barbeques. I bought one bottle as a test and came back for six more.

Why?

It was lovely big cherry, unctuous, and silky on the palate and it tasted like something you would spend $20.oo or more for. With the case discount I was able to purchase this wine for under $9 at Krogers.

It's a screwtop but don't let that scare you. Maybe that will keep Uncle George from drinking all your wine at the family cookout.