Category: Experiences

They say that no good deed goes unpunished.  Be that as it may, it’s not always the case and here’s a story to prove it.  In the summer of 2000, Steve got into a cab in New York City and there sitting on the back seat was a wallet, full of cash and credit cards.  He could have given it to the driver to turn in to the city’s Lost and Found, if there is such a thing, but instead he leafed through the cards and found a driver’s license.  Using his cell and Directory Assistance, he called the owner’s home in Windsor, CA.  Of course no one was at home – Steve found the wallet in New York after all – but he left a message.  Minutes later he received a call from the fellow who had lost the wallet.  He was amazed that he would get his wallet back, in New York of all places.

When the handover occurred, the gentleman offered Steve some money, which he turned down.  Steve told him to pass the word along in California that the nasty myths about New Yorkers weren’t all true.  Steve was asked for his business card and, expecting a thank you note, he gave one and sent the lucky tourist on his way.

A few weeks passed and Steve found a box on his desk with three wine bottles in it, his reward for returning the wallet.  Two of the wineries have become favorites of ours; sadly the third never lived up to its promise.  The two were Limerick Lane and David Coffaro.  In keeping with our practice not to speak ill of a winery, the third one will go unnamed.  They are still there to be visited and we’ll reflect on what they were like then as well as how they have changed since.

 

As it happened, Lucie and Steve made their first visit together to Napa/Noma a few weeks after the bottles arrived and we made Limerick Lane, in Russian River, our first stop.  Then and now it’s a bit hard to find, although in the ensuing years more wineries have opened on the eponymous road.  Lucie had never tasted a proper Zinfandel, nor had she seen or tasted the grape itself. (It is small and very sweet.) So this winery was a revelation.  At the time, the tasting room was little more than a garage with a folding table and some bottles, but the wines were eye-openingly good.  Back then it was owned by  Michael Collins, who focused on the Zins and in time added a very good Pinot Noir.  We joined the wine club and were quite happy with the wines Limerick Lane sent us.

The Bilbro brothers in today’s Limerick Lane tasting room.  Photo courtesy of Limerick Lane Winery.

In 2011, the winery was sold to the brothers Jake and Alexis Bilbro.  They changed the label (we preferred the old one), dropped the Pinot Noir and somewhat amped up the wines.  We were unhappy at the time and dropped out of the club.  In retrospect, 2011 was a terrible year across California and the Bilbro brothers picked a lousy time to take over the property.  We are happy to report that Limerick Lane no longer has a wine club because their wines have improved to the point that they get huge numbers from the press and many of their wines are allocated.

David Coffaro in his vineyard, in his habitual “suit”.  Photo courtesy of David Coffaro Vineyard and Winery.

As much change as there has been at Limerick Lane, there has been very little at David Coffaro.  It is still sitting alongside Dry Creek Road, with Dave very much still in charge.  If you like big, fruit-forward wines made from familiar and unfamiliar grapes alike (and often blended together) then you’ll like what come from this winery. For sure, Dave’s wines aren’t for the faint of heart so if you like big, bold California wines, Dave’s your man.  See our previous review of David Coffaro Winery for more information.

Don’t you just like stories with happy endings?

 

If you love going wine tasting, as we quite obviously do, and if you enjoy telling friends about it, you will inevitably be asked whether you have seen the movie Sideways.  Well, yes we have and we liked it quite a bit.  But since the movie may be all your friends know about a wine tasting trip, you owe it to them to point out what is and is not realistic about it.

First, the film gives you the idea that people who visit Wine Country for tasting are jerks and geeks.  (We deny being either.)  In our experience, the jerks are most often people who want to drink rather than taste and have often been previously overserved.  Most wineries are pretty good at dealing with this sort, for their own protection and to preserve the positive experience of other visitors.  As for geeks, these are often normal people who are enthusiastic about one topic – wine tasting, in this instance – and are eager to share it.  As long as they aren’t intimidating wine snobs, they are usually nice to deal with.

Often, people will tell you that they really liked what they saw of Napa Valley in the movie.  However, the wineries and other locations shown in Sideways are from the Central Coast, in and around the town of Los Olivos.  This is a wonderful sector of Wine Country, with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grown to the west and Syrah to the east.  There are some excellent wineries in the movie such as Fess Parker, Foxen and Firestone, well worth visiting.  But they are hardly representative of California wine tasting as a whole.  In particular, the town of Los Olivos is unique.  It’s a quiet little California village that just happens to have an exceptionally high concentration of tasting rooms along its Grand Avenue.  This is an opportunity for some interesting wine tasting, but this kind of atmosphere usually is found in urban settings, not a small town like Los Olivos.

What we find most evocative in the movie is the passion for wine experienced by its protagonists (well, some of them).  The scene in which Paul Giamatti and Virginia Madsen explain what wine means to them is eloquent and affecting.  Of course, you would be eloquent and affecting too if you had script writers.  All the same, there is a spirit of seeing beautiful scenery, trying fine and not so fine wines and eating Wine Country meals that comes through in Sideways.  That spirit is instantly recognizable to those of us who go wine tasting often.

There is much in the movie that evokes the real experience of wine tasting, despite the characters’ love lives and other shenanigans.  Probably the worst thing in the movie is what it did to Merlot production in California.  The fellow who keeps crying “No more Merlot” is a Pinot Noir lover, fair enough, but he doesn’t really know what merlot tastes like, as shown by the St. Emilion he drinks at McDonalds.  That’s right, it’s made primarily from Merlot grapes.

So when Sideways comes up in conversation – and even thirteen years on from its debut, it will – tell your friends that it’s a fun movie and that some of it actually reflects your own experiences in Wine Country.  Then suggest that they take a wine tasting trip and experience the real thing for themselves.

Cheers !

If there’s anything better than a good wine, it’s a good story.  And a good story about a good wine is even better.

Many years ago, Steve was vacationing in the south of France and of course he had to go wine tasting.  At the time – this was a long while ago – he hadn’t had much experience with Rhone wines.  Being in the Rhone valley, this trip was in fact his real introduction to the wines of the region.  He asked the hotel he was staying at for recommendations of wineries to visit and they handed him a list of their favorites.  Thus informed, Steve set out for wine tasting adventures.

Adventures indeed!  The hotel didn’t mention how small and convoluted the roads are in the southern Rhone valley and he got thoroughly lost.  But little by little, he did locate most of the wineries on the list.  Of course, in France they are all closed for lunch, so many of Steve’s finds did not lead to wine tasting.  Near day’s end, he rolled into the village of Vacqueyras (va-KAY-rass) and asked about one of the places on his list.  His French was good enough that the local folks knew what he was talking about (okay, maybe they read it off his list) and with some finger-pointing and sign-reading, he eventually arrived at Clos de Cazaux.

What he saw was a farm house, surrounded by a vineyard, with a few outbuildings scattered around the house.  A very small, frail, old woman came out of the house, looked Steve over, and figured out that he must be a wine tourist.  What ensued was a conversation in Steve’s barely adequate French; fortunately the old lady spoke very slowly so Steve could understand her.

Here’s what ensued:

 

Entrez dans ma cave, monsieur.

Come into my cave, sir.  This was one of the outbuildings.

 Nous avons quatre vins, deux Vacqueyras et deux Gigondas.

We have four wines, two from Vacqueyras and two from Gigondas (the next village over, also well known for its red wines.)

Les vins de Vacqueyras sont traditionnelle, fait de Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre et Cinsault.

The Vacqueyras wines are traditional, made of Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre et Cinsault.  Steve nods.

Un de Gigondas est traditionnel aussi, mais l’autre est fait juste pour les Anglais.  Syrah pur.

One of the Gigondas wines is traditional too, but the other is made just for the English.  It’s pure Syrah.

Steve realized that by “les Anglais” the woman meant him.  And so she poured him the first taste he ever had of a Rhone wine that’s one of his favorites even today, Cuvée des Templiers.  The Templiers, or Knights Templar in English, were an order of knighthood in the Middle Ages who (supposedly) kept themselves pure to fight the Crusades.  They were and are well represented on the label.

Photo courtesy of wine-searcher.com

Now roll forward some 25 years.  Steve and Lucie are vacationing in the southern Rhone valley.  Steve has learned quite a bit about Rhone wines in the intervening years, but Lucie is an expert, a Chevalier de la Commanderie de Costes de Rhone.  They are in Rasteau on a Sunday and all the wineries are closed.  The only place in town to buy wines is the Tourist Information Bureau.  So they go, buy a few bottles and chat with the young woman who is staffing the bureau.  By now, Steve has forgotten the name of the vineyard but remembers the story, which he relates in his now much improved French, courtesy of Lucie.  Can the information woman help them to find the winery again?

She says (in French, of course), “Of course I know the winery.  The old woman is my mother-in-law and she’s still alive.  But Cuvée des Templiers is not made just for the English.  We love it too.  And it’s not and never was pure Syrah.  I’ll be working there tomorrow, so come by and I’ll open a bottle for you.”

Small world, n’est-ce-pas?

Some time ago, we took a class at the Joseph Phelps winery in St. Helena on the subject of cooperage, the making of wine barrels.  We learned that the source and treatment of the oak makes a distinct difference in the taste of the wines matured in them.  Then, on a visit to Paso Robles we got a graduate course.

The location was the Écluse winery (www.eclusewines.com), on a hill on the west side of town.  Écluse is the French word for the locks that accommodate slopes in canals, opening and closing to allow boats to pass at different levels.  The owners are Steve and Pam Lock, hence the name of the winery.  We had heard about their Rhone varietals and asked for an appointment to come visit.  Like many wineries in Paso Robles, Écluse is only open for the public on weekends.  As we were in the area Monday through Thursday, a special appointment was de rigeur (more French).

We pulled into a gravel lot in front of a barn-like structure and were greeted by Steve Lock himself.  Inside the barn were racks of barrels full of maturing wine and a small bar area with some boards stretched between a few barrels and wine bottles resting on them.  This was wine tasting like it used to be, Napa in the ‘70s!  We explained to Steve that our interest was in the Rhone grapes and he was happy to oblige us.  Then he explained that Écluse is as well known for its Cabernet Sauvignons as its Rhones.  Would we like to try some?

Steve Lock serving in the barrel room.  Photo courtesy of Yelp

We guess we must have given Steve an idea that we were really interested in wine because he then involved us in a fascinating experiment.  He had juice from the same vintage of his Cabernet Sauvignons aging in new French, American and Hungarian barrels.  The French barrels have the finest grain, imparting a mellow, oaky flavor.  The Americans have the widest grain, giving the wines a distinct top note.  The Hungarians are in-between and project a creaminess to the wines.  Steve took a wine thief and poured some of each, one at a time, into three different glasses.  We sipped each and had never understood the impact of the cooperage on the taste of wine as much as we did that day.

A wine thief in use.  Photo courtesy the Weekly Grape.

Then we got to play assistant winemaker.  Steve gave us each another glass and encouraged us to blend some of the wine that we still had from the three barrels.  We have no memory of what we made that day, but we are quite certain that it wasn’t as good as what came out of the bottle we received a few years later, since we joined the Écluse wine club that day.

Napa Valley is the most beautiful winemaking area in California.  It stretches 30 miles between two mountain ranges, the Mayacamas and the Vaca.  There are hundreds of wineries there and many of them are the most famous in America.  We always have a wonderful time when we visit there.

Sonoma County contains the most beautiful winemaking areas in California. There are several distinct growing areas, several of which specialize in certain grapes.  There are hundreds of wineries there and many of them are the most famous in America.  We always have a wonderful time when we visit there.

Does that sound just a tad schizophrenic?  Well, there’s a lot of truth in that.  Both Napa Valley and Sonoma County are very special places for us and we visit one or the other or both almost every year.  That raises a question that is the theme of this article: for the wine tasting visitor, as opposed to a winemaker, are they two distinct places or just one, divided by mountains?

The view from William Hill in Napa Valley

The case for distinctiveness starts with the grapes.  Chardonnay is grown plentifully on both sides but Cabernet Sauvignon (and to a lesser extent, Merlot) is the king of Napa Valley.  Sure, there is lots of Pinot Noir in Carneros on the south end, but that sector is  split between Napa and Sonoma Counties, so by definition Carneros is an outlier.  Sonoma County also has lots of Cabernet Sauvignon, but it’s concentrated in Alexander Valley and Chalk Hill.  Zinfandel is in Dry Creek and Pinot Noir is the star in Russian River, Green Valley and the aforementioned Carneros areas.

[To be sure, all the foregoing is an over-simplification.  You can find some of everything everywhere.  But the reason that the wines in each AVA are world-famous is because of the grapes mentioned.]

The view from A. Rafanelli in Dry Creek

Of course, they’re much the same as well.  Both Napa Valley and Sonoma County have great restaurants, attractive wineries and ample opportunities to learn about wine.  Sadly, the hotels on both sides are getting waaaay too expensive, as are the charges for tasting.  They both offer mountain and valley fruit, along with the disputes about which is better.

The strongest argument for treating Napa Valley and Sonoma County as one wine tasting destination is the ease of traveling between the two.  Route 121 traverses them both on the south end; the glorious Oakville Grade is in the middle; and Mark West Springs/Petrified Forest Roads are at the north.  Or you can continue up Route 29 until it leads you into Alexander Valley.  The counterargument, by the way, is that you shouldn’t attempt the mountain crossings at night after a day of wine tasting.  We learned that lesson the hard but fortunately safe way.

For many years, we visited one or the other but not both.  Recently, we have been packing our bags and spending a few days in Napa Valley and then a few in Sonoma County.  That’s great if you have the time.  But this strategy doesn’t answer the question as to whether they are one place or two.  At the end, we say that the answer is “Yes”.  They are one place just as Manhattan and Brooklyn are both New York and they are different for just the same reasons.  They are much alike but they feel different.  A Sonoman tell you that they are jus’ folks and the Napans are snobs.  Napans say that they are cultured and the folks on the other side are hicks.  There are palaces in both places (although more in Napa Valley). There are interesting little out-of-the-way places in both but more of them in Sonoma County.  Visit both.  Reach your own conclusions.  Enjoy the wine.

When we go wine tasting, we tend to visit the better wineries in the regions we visit.  What’s the point of travelling such long distances just to sample the ordinary wines we might find at a store back home?  But even the best wineries are reluctant to open bottles of their most expensive, rarest wines for casual visitors, and we are not accustomed to buying the highest priced bottles. So we hardly ever get to taste the wines with top scores granted by Wine Spectator, Wine Advocate, or Wine Enthusiast, and certainly nothing rated 100.  So here’s how we got to try a 100-point wine.

In 2002, we were visiting Bordeaux at the vendange, or harvest time. Wine tasting there is a lot different than Americans are used to.  We may be used to names that are Chateau This-or-That, but in Bordeaux the famous wines are really grown in the estates surrounding actual castles.  They do offer tastings, but not to just anyone who happens to be driving by.  There are “appointment only” wineries in the US, but if they have an opening, most will accommodate the casual visitor.  Not so in Bordeaux.

So if you plan to visit, make appointments months in advance or use a broker.  These brokers charge a hefty fee just to get you into the best-known chateaux.  We used one on our trip, and she spread out our visits around the region: Macon one day, St. Emilion the next and then Sauternes.  The latter is probably the world’s best known producer of dessert wines, named after the village of Sauternes.  What most people don’t know is that there is only one winery, Guiraud, that is actually in the village.  The others are in the outskirts or in another nearby village, Barsac.  Even with France’s strict appellation rules, wines from Barsac are allowed to use the name Sauternes.

After a memorable lunch at a relais in the village, we pulled up to a winery in Barsac named Doisy Daene, where the broker had arranged a tasting.  This was no grand castle, but a working facility.  “Okay”, we thought, “we have an appointment so let’s go in”.  There was only one person in the winery, a rather elderly gentleman.  We introduced ourselves and he immediately recognized Lucie’s Quebecois accent.  “Nous adorons votre accent”, he told her (We adore your accent).  This was amusing because the French are usually rather proprietary about their accents, so Lucie was pleased to hear him say it.

It worked out that he was the former winemaker, now retired, and he was filling in for his son, the current winemaker that afternoon.  He took us for a tour and let us try some white table wine right out of a fermenting tank.  Because it was the harvest, the grapes had been pressed only a few days previously.  It was horrible, and we two visitors looked at each other disappointedly.  We hadn’t visited Bordeaux to drink lousy white wine.

Then he took us into a small room to sample what we had come for, their dessert wine.  This was no tasting room, just a little office off the barrel room.  First he offered us a 2000, which was very good but still a bit young.  Then he poured some Sauternes from the 1990 harvest, known to be a millesime.   This was a really excellent wine, amber in color, round in the mouth, deliciously sweet.  Finally he opened a little refrigerator and took out an unlabeled half bottle, with no cork but a piece of aluminum foil on top.  This was the as yet unreleased, unbottled 2001, just a year from its harvest.  He told us that he was offering us this special treat parce que vous êtes Canadienne (because you’re a Canadian girl), with what might have been a wink at Lucie.

With the first sip, fireworks went off in our mouths.  This was the most magnificent Sauternes, in fact any dessert wine, we’d ever tasted.  (It still is.)  We wanted to buy some, but since it wasn’t even in bottles yet, how would we get it home?  Sadly, we let the opportunity slip.

As you might have guessed, when the wine was released a year later, Wine Spectator gave it 100 points.  You never know.

In most cases, the best way to go wine tasting is to drive out into the countryside; see the vines; snatch a grape or two if it’s harvest time; and get to know the area where the wine is produced.  But there are times when this is not necessarily the best idea.  In the Napa and Sonoma Valleys on a weekend (especially a holiday weekend); in Europe during the vendange, in remote areas where just getting from place to place takes up too much time it is often best to look for other alternatives.  One of these is to do your tasting in a town, rather than in the vineyards.

It’s a bit unfair to the wineries that have opened in-town tasting rooms, but most of these have, for a long time, been pretty terrible.  We are happy to report that this is no longer the case, at least not everywhere.  There are reasons to stay in town, but there are also drawbacks.

Priest Ranch in Yountville, CA

Perhaps the greatest advantage of tasting in town is that you don’t have to drive from winery to winery.  A very little shoe leather will take you from one to the next.   On the other hand, unless you are staying in the same town, you do have to get back behind the wheel to go home.  So the plus is you can taste more wine without driving but that’s the minus as well.  Take it slow and easy in town just as you would out among the vines.

When you taste in towns, you trade off the beauty of the trees, sky, lanes and vines for the less ethereal attraction of cafes, shops and everyday life.  In Santa Barbara, for example, the tasting rooms are in two main locations: along the railroad tracks in the aptly named Funk Zone and uptown in shopping centers.  Neither of these are necessarily bad, but a lot of the artistry or wine is lost in an atmosphere that is either party time (!) or commercial.

You lose a connection with the terroir is towns.  The wines are there because that’s where the owner opened the room, not because the wines come from right around that area.  Again using Santa Barbara as an example, many of the wines you can taste are from Santa Barbara County, but many are from Santa Maria, San Luis Opisbo or even Sonoma Counties.  There’s wine there, but no there’s no there there.

In Italy, in our experience, wineries don’t open tasting rooms in town.  For one thing, the vineyards are just outside the towns, within a few minutes’ drive.  For another, many of the towns are too small to attract visitors.  They are little more than a few houses gathered around a crossroad.  Exceptions include Montalcino and Montepulciano in Tuscany, where you find sale di degustazione that feature certain wineries that they represent.  You pay a fee and you get a guided tour of the region, sitting on a bar stool.  It always felt like a shame to us to be there when the real vineyards were just down the road.

A degustazione in Montalcino.  Photo courtesy of Sempione News

Virtually every village in France’s wine growing regions has a cooperative, where the farmers who don’t have the money or interest to make wine for sale on their own band together for common facilities and marketing.  If, as happened to us in Beaujolais during the last harvest, none of the wineries are open, the cooperatives are there to give you an idea of what the regions’ wines are like.  In some, sadly, all you get is a distant hint of the greatness in that denomination, not the true glory of the AOC.  There are some great exceptions, such as in Rasteau or Chablis.

 

At Walt Wines in Sonoma

There is hardly anything more pleasant than passing an afternoon taking in the scene in the street or on the piazza or the petit place sipping lovely wines.  As with everything else having to do with adult beverages, that pleasure should be indulged with discretion.  We like tasting in town sometimes, but we know where the real magic of Wine Country comes from, too, and it’s not on the streets.