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California Wine Experience 2013: Day Four

20 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by totalwineandmore in California Wine Experience 2013, Wine

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amici cellars, Caymus Vineyards, Chuck Wagner, Long Meadow Ranch, Napa Valley, Philip Togni, Salvestrin Winery, Wagner Family of Wine, Whitehall Lane

Today begins the first of three days in Napa!

Winemaker Philip Togni pulling barrel samples for tasting

Winemaker Philip Togni pulling barrel samples for tasting

First on our agenda is driving up Spring Mountain to visit two producers. Because the wineries are so small, we had to split into two groups. My group visited one of my absolute favorite producers, Philip Togni. He has been making wine in the Napa Valley for over 40 years, and in the early 80’s he planted vines of his own on Spring Mountain. Today, he, his wife Birgitta and his daughter Lisa, manage a small plot of land where they produce two Bordeaux varietal based wines and one dessert wine. There is no sign indicating the winery from the road, no tasting room, and no place in the valley to taste their wines so this visit is a special and exclusive treat!  I first tasted Togni’s wines in 2000, when I lived in Napa Valley and was working at Dean & Deluca where my wine team got a bunch his wines from the 1980’s. It was my true first experience tasting mature aged wines, one I will never forget. These wines are proven to withstand the test of time, and today Philip shared the 2011 vintage in barrel and both the 2005 and 2008. I cannot pick a favorite, they are all equally amazing. Thank you Brigitta, Lisa and Philip for hosting us!

View of Barnett Vineyards

View of Barnett Vineyards, Spring Mountain, Napa Valley

Next was Barnett Vineyards – hosted by owner Fiona and Roy Barnett along with their winemaker, David Tate. The property features a stunning view of the valley, I can’t imagine waking up to these views every day! The Barnetts are super-organized, we were escorted into the caves where the three of them had tables set up classroom-style for our team to really focus on the wines and take good notes. We tasted two Chardonnays, three Pinot Noirs, a Merlot, their famous Cabernet Sauvignon and the legendary Rattlesnake Cabernet were all open for us to taste. I was really impressed with these wines, there definitely will be a few of both Cabs going into my cellar and some of those tasty Pinots for enjoyment over the rest of the summer.

The Wagner family

From left: Joe Wagner, Cyrus Hazzard, Chuck and Jenny Wagner.

After the tasting, we headed down the mountain to the town of Rutherford for a visit with the team at Caymus Vineyards. Our group was particularly inquisitive this year, and had so many great questions for each stop with our Caymus visit being no different!  We were greeted by the fantastic team of Jenny, Joe and Chuck Wagner – a family of Napa Valley icons. Jenny is the newest addition to the Wagner winemaking team, and there will be another addition to the Wagner Family of Wines soon, Emmolo Sauvignon Blanc which Jenny is in charge of. Joe Wagner is making the Pinot Noirs from Belle Glos, and of course, family patriarch Chuck Wagner makes the great Cabernets of Caymus. All were tremendous hosts, greeting us with a glass of Conundrum white as they led us out to the vineyards for some education on growing

Owner Chuck Wagner speaking with our team

Owner Chuck Wagner speaking with our team

Cabernet grapes, hosted by Chuck. It was a bit warm out there, but not to worry, once we were finished The Wagners refreshed us with a crisp glass of Emmolo Sauvignon Blanc and then took us into the cool caves for an amazing lunch and tasting with Chuck and Joe. We tasted Mer Soleil Silver, Mer Soleil, Meomi Pinot Noir, Belle Glos Dairyman Pinot Noir and the upcoming release of the 2011 Caymus Vineyard Special Select Cabernet Sauvignon and as a special treat, their 2003 Special Select. A big thank you to the Wagner family hosting us!

Rich Salvestrin

Rich Salvestrin (right) speaking about his winery

A quick jaunt up the road to St Helena took us to Rich Salvestrin, owner and winemaker at Salvestrin Winery. There’s a cool story here, the Salvestrins actually own the property that the Dr. Crane (of the famous Beckstoffer Dr. Crane vineyard fame) lived on and includes some of his original vineyards. The Salvestrin Sauvignon Blanc was bright and refreshing and their Cabernet Sauvignon was silky and elegant.

Long Meadow Ranch

Long Meadow Ranch

From there, we headed down to Whitehall Lane Winery and then up the Mayacamas Mountains to Long Meadow Ranch. Long Meadow Ranch is a very interesting property, it’s not only a winery, but they have olive orchards including a stone wheel oil press for producing olive oil from those orchards. Here was another amazing view of the valley, overlooking the small town of Rutherford, with views of St. Helena and Oakville. Long Meadow Ranch also owns the restaurant Farmstead in St. Helena, which features delicious farm-to-table cuisine where they showcase as much as possible from their ranches on the menu.

Our team with the owners and winemaker of Amici Cellars

Our team with the owners and winemaker of Amici Cellars

The last stop of the day was at Amici Cellars located just off Old Toll Road near Calistoga. After last year’s visit, Amici set the bar very high!  As expected, they were up to the challenge, greeting us at the winery with their Sauvignon Blanc (there seems to be a lot of great ones today!)  and a tasting of their new releases of Olema Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and No Curfew Red Wine. After the tasting, we walked down to a beautiful clearing to taste through the entire line of Amici wines – and like last year, the Morisoli Vineyard Cabernet was a stunner!  Sadly, there’s not a whole lot of this around but if you really want to treat yourself, this one is the one to get. They also introduced us to the newest addition to the Amici family of wines – the Amici Reserve Cabernet which will be available soon at your local Total Wine & More, it was spectacular!  As if the tasting wasn’t a good enough, we were treated to Gott’s Roadside for dinner – for those of you that have visited the Napa Valley, you would remember it as Taylor’s Refresher, definitely the best burger in town!  As we watched the reflection of the sunset off of the beautiful Palisades mountain range, the night came to a close.

Tomorrow the agenda is packed again, this time with some of the biggest hitters in the Napa Valley, stay tuned!

Cyrus

P.S.,
Check out more of my photos from the trip here!

California Wine Experience: Day Three

10 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by totalwineandmore in California Trip 2012

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Tags

Amici, Barnett, Moone Tsai, Philip Togni, Pina, Salvestrin, Spring Mountain, Wine

Bright and early 8am on the bus, off to visit some more great wineries!  Today’s agenda: Barnett Vineyard & Philip Togni Vineyard on top of Spring Mountain, lunch at Moone Tsai in Coombsville, Piña in Oakville, Salvestrin Winery in St Helena and dinner at Amici Cellars in Calistoga. A very promising day!

Barnett Vineyards was the first stop, at the very top of Spring Mountain. It was a beautiful morning with stunning views of the valley floor. Usually there is a fog bank that we would be above from there but this morning we missed it. We didn’t miss the great wines though. We tasted Chardonnay from the Sangiacamo Vineyard, two Pinots, their Merlot, Spring Mountain Cabernet, and the superb Rattlesnake Vineyard Cabernet. David Tate was an outstanding host, sharing his story with us – he has traveled the world making wine from Australia to France, finally ending up here in California atop Spring Mountain. The tour of the caves was a real treat.

Then we were off to the famous Philip Togni Vineyards. Philip and his daughter run the vineyards and make the wine. It is a tiny production annually with only 2000 cases produced using 100% estate grown fruit for all the wines. Philip is originally from England and did a lot of wine making in Bordeaux prior to coming to Napa. He’s a bit of a legend in that he was the first winemaker for Chappellet in the late 60’s. We had the opportunity to taste four wines – three of the top tier Philip Togni label, 2008, 2005 and1998. The 1998 was a stunner! This was considered a poor year for California but at 14 years old this wine is just hitting stride. Their dessert wine Ca’Togni was outstanding as well.

The trek to Moone Tsai Vineyards in the Coombsville area was a fun one! We took a little detour along the way because our directions to this very remote spot got us a little lost.  We took a right and ended up a private driveway. Let me tell you, turning around a 30+ person bus on a one lane road was entertaining. Then a guy we didn’t know showed up on his 4-wheeler shaking his head and asked what we were thinking.  The man turned out to be John Caldwell of Caldwell Vineyard! He was hosting us and guided us to the correct driveway, down to the caves where we had lunch. This lunch was no ordinary lunch.

We started off with lobster risotto, then onto local grilled vegetables and balsamic glazed butterflied leg of lamb and roasted ribeye, ALL paired with different Moone Tsai wines. As if that wasn’t enough, we had an amazing guest, Philippe Melka!  For those that don’t know who he is, I’m sorry, you should do some research. Go buy a bottle of Moone Tsai as your first piece of research!  Philippe is one of the greatest winemakers in Napa Valley. I had the opportunity to sit next to him during lunch and he is a really down to earth guy. Our hosts were no less than spectacular – Larry and Mary Ann Tsai were perfect. Their passion for their wine and the business we share together was humbling. Of course, John Caldwell was colorful throughout the visit. He is truly one of the great grape growers in the Napa Valley and wines were OUTSTANDING!

We were then off to Piña Vineyards in Oakville.  Our group was late due to our little detour on the way to Moone Tsai and when we called to tell them that we were a little behind, they just laughed and said that they’d see us soon. Right on the Silverado trail on the valley floor is this small, family run business of four brothers. We had the opportunity to taste through their wines; the D’Adamo Vineyard Cabernets from both 2007 & 2008 were outstanding. Yogi, the winery dog was particularly friendly and a good host as well.

Salvestrin Winery was next on our travels, right off of Hwy 29 in St Helena. As the food coma wore off, we stepped off the bus and were greeted with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. It was a very hot day but, we still braved the vineyards to learn what makes Salvestrin special. Their vineyards are actually quite famous. They are part of the original Dr. Crane vineyards. In fact, their home was Dr. Crane’s! They had some really great wines. The Estate Cabernet Sauvignon was outstanding and the Cult Cabernet was definitely one of the greatest values produced in Napa Valley.

Stop 6 of the day, and the last stop on Day 3, was to Amici Cellars in Calistoga. It was nothing less than amazing.  The winery is just above Jericho Canyon on the eastern side of the valley at the foot of Mt St Helena.  Greeted by the owners and their children there couldn’t have been a better place to end the day. We started off with a little Sauvignon Blanc and then went into the caves for a rigorous tasting. These folks also make the Olema line of wines which we tasted through. There were a couple new wines that were absolutely STUNNING —a Spring Mountain Cabernet and Morisoli vineyard Rutherford Cabernet, both 2009’s. That Morisoli was something else. It was the most powerful and structured wine of the day. I’d have to call that a bruiser, something that strips the enamel off your teeth. I’m going to pick up a case when it hits the store in the fall. Sadly, there are not much of these to go around with both under 100 cases total production. Just when we though it couldn’t get any better, it did. We got to taste two samples of the Morisoli 2010, one from barrel and the other from tank. What a great experience. If you get the chance to do this at a winery, do it.  It was really amazing tasting the difference between the two and then “blending” your own in the glass to taste the final product.

Amici gets another paragraph just for the meal. What a spread they put on!  To start off, there were a variety of small hours d’ouvres that were all delicious, then first course was smoked leg of lamb pita’s and the main course was a whole 20lb salmon caught right off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fransisco and smoked in a smoker that was the size of a small trailer. Lars from the Culinary Institute of America Greystone was our chef for the night, another true treat! Of course, there was copious wine available but there also was beer.

Another day down, tomorrow more Napa!

Cheers,

Cyrus

**Check out more photos from all of the wineries we’ve visited on flickr: California Wine Experience 2012**

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