This article from the LA Times website, pointed out by our friends @AlmaSolWinery via Twitter, speaks to the issue of corkage fees – something that people often find confusing. A corkage fee is a fee that you pay at a restaurant when you bring your own wine. It normally includes glassware, opening and pouring the wine by the sommelier or server, and disposal of the bottle.
As I have noted before, Dorianne and I will soon be leaving for an extended period in Europe – mostly Spain and France, with some side trips to Portugal and/or Morocco on this leg, then back to the US for a bit to see our daughter graduate from Boston University, then back over to Switzerland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium (maybe) and Denmark. Here is a link to a NYTimes.com article about a couple who have retired and are using Airbnb.com – which we will be doing for most of our stays. Our trip will be more focused on wine, of course!
Last night, another dinner with Mary Stec and Richard Clark. Mary made 40 Clove Chicken – AMAZING. Now all that garlic needs a big red wine, in my opinion, to make it work. It was also Dorianne‘s Birthday! So there was a rich, chocolate dessert. Quite a culinary evening.
The wines were, first, a 2009 Ampelos Pinot Noir Rho (LINK to the 2010). Ampelos uses Greek letters for each of their wines. The Rho is a fairly big Pinot Noir by Santa Rita Hills AVA standards, inky color, spicy with a nice sense of terroir both on the nose and in the mouth. Hints of pepper and dark fruit bring a fullness to the flavor of this wine. It is a wine that holds up to red meat well, and the 40 clove chicken was a good pairing.
Next, we opened a 2003 O’Shaughnessy Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon (LINK) that had been in the cellar for a while. Here is what Robert Parker had to say about it: “The 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain has a big, sweet nose of chocolate, blueberry, black raspberry, and currants with some crushed rock and a hint of toasty oak. The wine is long, rich, pure, and impressively endowed, but strikingly elegant and complex. It is already drinking well and should age nicely for 10-15 or more years. The final blend on this was 83% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Merlot, and the rest Petit Verdot and Malbec. (2006)” I agree with the master in this case, and would add that the wine has aged well.
The O’Shaughnessy was a good match for both the chicken laced with garlic, and the rich chocolate confection that followed. A very happy evening.
Last night, Dorianne and I joined Richard Clark and Mary Stec at Niroj Restaurant in Agoura Hills, CA. Since it was the eve of the Lunar New Year, I figured (correctly) that it would not be a big night for Kurdish food. The restaurant was not crowded, and we had a leisurely and delicious meal and some good wine.
I brought a bottle of 2009 Dover Canyon Che Vito Da Cano, a 70% Sangiovese, 30% Syrah Blend. This wine is smooth, fruit forward without being out of balance, and had a very nice finish with a hint of spice aftertaste. Delicious. The wine doesn’t even appear on their website, so I guess there is no more of it to be had. Dover Canyon Winery is a great stop if you are in the Paso Robles area.
Luqman Barwari, the owner, oversees Niroj Cuisine with a loving hand. A former executive at Amgen, he began the restaurant a couple of years ago to follow his passion for the food of his home culture. Niroj is, I believe, the only Kurdish Restaurant in the southwestern U.S. The food is beautifully prepared – very much like the variety of Middle Eastern cuisine. We shared a cold Mezze Platter of appetizers with the made-on-the-premisis soft bread, then the four of us shared two entrees – a lamb shank and a shrimp tawe – all excellent.
Then, for our second bottle, we ordered a Lebanese wine – a 2010 Massaya Silver Blend from the Bekaa Valley. This wine with its unusual blend of Southern French( 40% Cinsault, 30% Grenache, 15% Mourvedre) and Bordeaux (15% Cabernet Sauvignon) grapes benefits from the sunny climate of the Lebanon tempered by cool night-time temperatures as a result of the height of the vineyards. The wine was very smooth, with medium tannins and a nice blend of fruit and minerals on the palate.
Some house made Baklava ended the experience at Niroj Cuisine. I took a photo of the Lebanese and Turkish Wines on the menu.
The Wine Stalker (LINK) is a wine blog by Joey Casco, CSW, who writes some interesting and knowledgeable stuff. He recently did two posts on “Wine Formulas” – how wineries get their wines to present the way they want them to. The techniques range from blending different varietals in larger quantities than you might think, to adding a variety of additives to the wine during the wine making process, to using procedures to add oxygen or color.
The posts are very fair and objective – giving wine lovers access to information that is otherwise hard to come by, given the lack of wine labeling regulations.
I found it very interesting to see how some of my favorite wines are manipulated to get to that certain place where the scores, and therefore the sales, will peak.
Here are the links to parts one and two of this series.
This is a very informative article from Snooth.com (LINK) on the up-and-coming nature of Barbera, one of my favorite varietals. Follow the link for the article. What is your experience with Barbera?
On Saturday, Dorianne had a late-morning appointment with her allergist, and it just happened to be in the same shopping center where the Sunland Vintage Winery Tasting Room (Link) is located in Thousand Oaks, CA. The proprietors, Michael and Debby Giovinazzo, were in when I peeked in the door at 11:00 am (the sign said they open at 1:00 pm). I asked if they were open and was invited in.
I blogged about their Tantalizing Thursday Events (LINK), where they combine $5 per glass wine with a food truck in the parking lot two weeks ago. That event was so crowded, that I was unable to have a conversation with Mike or Debby, so I returned to do just that.
Mike and Debby have been in the wine business for five years. Their wines are produced in Lodi, CA, and sourced from all over the state. His goal, he said, was to bring Italian Varietals to Southern California, which his Giovinazzo Wines label does, and does very well. There is also a newer label, SVI Wines with more traditional varietals – Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Malbec, and Albarino.
Total production this year is 1350 cases, making Sunland Vintage Winery a small producer, but one with great variety. Mike told me that he just contracted for some Dolcetto fruit from Northern California growers that he is excited about. Mike and Debby clearly love being in and talking about, the wine business, and it looks like they have carved out a nice niche for themselves with their Italian Varietals and blends.
If you are in the area, check them out.
This article (LINK) from WineFolly.com, has some very good information about decanting and serving wines. Decanting, and how long to decant, is often a mystery, and this article gives some good guidelines. There is very little about wine that is exact, so I recommend that you see these as guidelines, then explore and make changes as your experience dictates.
(LINK to Article) How to decipher a Bordeaux Wine Label.
A very good Wine Enthusiast article that also teaches you a bit about Bordeaux Wines
Two more stops on last Saturday’s group wine tour to the Santa Rita Hills AVA (LINK) – Tyler Winery (LINK) and LaFond Winery & Vineyards (LINK – lots of photos).
This was my first visit to Tyler Winery in Lompoc, CA. Located in a stand-alone building, it is not in Lompoc’s famous “Wine Ghetto.” This statement from their website (LINK) speaks volumes about this winery: “We currently produce 12 different bottlings each year from 22 parcels within 7 different vineyard sites. Total production is approximately 2500 cases annually.”
Tyler produces only Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs. They source from a number of vineyards in the Santa Rita Hills and Santa Maria Valley AVA’s (LINK). We tasted Chardonnays from the Bien Nacido Vineyard (LINK), a storied vineyard in Santa Maria, and from the Sanford and Benedict Vineyard (LINK) in the Santa Rita Hills. Both were beautifully crafted wines with hits of oak – kind of a middle ground between the oak-bombs of older California and the unoaked newer styles that are becoming so prevalent.
We also tasted two Pinot Noirs from the same two vineyards, These wines were a nice balance of fruit, spice, and minerality. The Bien Nacido wine had a bit more body, but the winemaker’s style showed in both wines – restrained and likely to age very well.
The winery itself is very eye-appealing, a working winery with stacks of barrels adjoining the small tasting area. Tyler is a small producer, and the focus is obviously on the craft of wine making. I was very impressed with these wines.
Our next stop was LaFond Winery and Vineyards on Santa Rosa Road in Buellton, CA. The plan was to have lunch in the meadow outside the beautiful tasting room and adjacent winery – but it was raining, so tables were set up in the barrel room. Not bad.
Our subset of the larger group purchased a 2010 Lafond Vineyard Pinot Noir Martin Ray Clone ($50.00) and a 2012 SRH Santa Rita Hills Syrah ($27.00) to go with our boxed lunches. Both wines impressed. The Pinot was spice and well-balanced with a smooth finish; the Syrah was also fruity, but balanced with minerality and a heavier mouth feel.
After lunch we tasted a selection of LaFond’s current releases, Riesling, Chardonnay, Syrah, Pinot Noir – I must say that I was impressed. I first visited this winery in 2006, and found the wines generally promising but uneven. This time, everything was beautifully crafted, even elegant.
This is emblematic of the evolution of the Santa Rita Hills as a prime wine region in California. Good news all around for wine lovers!
Jim Lockard On Wine 