lgsjr – Page 14 – Power Tasting – The Wine Tasting Experience

Affordable Tasting in Napa Valley

Less than four years ago, Power Tasting’s January 2020 issue contained an article entitled, “How to Enjoy Wine Tasting in Napa Valley without Spending a Fortune”. It makes rather odd reading today, since at least half the piece is no longer true. Of course, when that was published, we didn’t know that a deadly pandemic, which closed down California wine tasting for many months, was just ahead. On this side of those dreary times, as we have noted in a previous edition, wine tasting in America’s prime winemaking region has become so expensive that it prices out many potential visitors.

Photo courtesy of Napa Valley Tours and Transportation.

Today, there are no longer any free tastings; buying a bottle won’t result in waived fees; and the less expensive tasting flights offered are as costly as the pre-pandemic reserve tastings. Sharing a tasting glass is far more difficult when almost all tastings are seated and served. Nonetheless, there are some things wine lovers can do in Napa Valley to make the trip more affordable, if not cheap.

Pass up the “big names”. It is not unusual to find tasting fees of $125 or more per person at the better known wineries. Lesser known wineries, such as Cosentino (reviewed in this edition) or Hagafen offer tastings at far lower prices. You should do some comparison shopping online before you leave home.
Look for discoveries. The reason to visit the wineries you’re already familiar with is that you know what you will get. There is an alternative approach. If you are already experienced in going wine tasting, try to cast your mind back to when you first started coming to Napa Valley. You have the chance to discover wonderful wines that you didn’t bother with in the past. In many ways, we have found that we have gotten the most pleasure from enjoyable wines we had never heard of.
Maybe splurge on one expensive tasting. Yes, the fees wineries charge are outrageous. But that’s what’s happening to many other forms of entertainment. Consider what you would pay for a Broadway show or a hockey match. With the way tastings are presented today, it is not unusual to spend more than an hour sipping wine. Add the time to walk around and look at the gift shop, and you can be at a winery for quite some time. It doesn’t make the price of tasting easier to take, but it is easier to understand.
Choose wineries with interests other than the wine. In addition to tasting, you might find it fun to take in some interesting architecture and beautiful grounds. Chateau Montelena or Stags’ Leap might be good candidates. If you’re a shopaholic, Robert Mondavi and Darioush might be just the ticket. These won’t reduce your cost for sipping wine, but will expand tasting experience.
And as we said, there are other great places for wine tasting. Napa is wonderful but it’s not to everyone’s taste. If you prefer your tastings to be more rustic and laid back, you might find Sonoma County, Central Coast or Amador County more amenable. Take your dollars elsewhere and maybe the owners of those Napa palaces will lower their prices.

Cosentino Winery

In a sense, there are two Cosentino Wineries (www.cosentinowinery.com), the historical one and the winery as it is today. It was established in 1980 in other parts of California and settled in Napa Valley after ten years. The founder was a fellow named Mitch Cosentino, who was both a pioneer and a rather different sort of winemaker. For one thing, he was a self-taught winemaker (not quite that rare in those days) but more so because he made the wines that he wanted to drink. If you agreed with him, fine. If not, buy from someone down the road.

What he particularly liked were Italian-style wines. He made a Sangiovese and a Nebbiolo, and his best known wines were well-rated Zinfandels that harkened back to a time when Napa Valley wines were made for local consumption by Italian immigrants. He was also the first to sell a Bordeaux blend labeled “Meritage”.

In 2010, Mitch sold his winery to a big conglomerate, which leads us to today’s winery. In one way, it is as it was, at the same location as ever at the edge of Napa Town. The winery building is still there, an Italianate (of course) structure covered in vines. But the name and the building are the main links to Cosentino’s history. Yes, they do make Zinfandel, but it’s not what they are known for any longer. Today, their premier red wine is the one that Mitch introduced, “The Poet”, a Meritage, about which more later.

The wine tasting experience at Cosentino is quite pleasant. The winery is easy to find, right next to Mustards restaurant along Route 29. There is a wide patio with a large stone wall at one end in which there is constantly lit fireplace. Seating is well spread out and the view of the traffic passing by is softened by a large hill just across the street with a Victorian mansion on top. If you go, try to have your tasting on this patio; in our opinion the indoor tasting room is far less inviting.

As everywhere in Napa Valley, Cosentino is “by appointment”. We were seated without one, perhaps by luck or the fact that we got there before the crowds did. The servers are eager to please, what we would call “hosts” as opposed to “educators”. A typical tasting flight is two whites and two reds, one of which is the aforementioned “The Poet”, which brings us to the issue of price and quality.

In all honesty, Cosentino does not make the best wines in Napa Valley, but they are pleasant and easy to drink. They fit the surroundings in that they are the types of wines you might enjoy sitting on your patio with friends on a sunny afternoon. They cost considerably less than wines made at the better known wineries in Napa Valley, and the tasting fee is also lower, currently $30. The Poet is unquestionably their top wine (so they say and we agree). It too is priced well below other wineries’ best offerings.

So if your plan for wine tasting in Napa Valley is to visit the Big Names, by all means do so, but be prepared to pay for the experience. If, however, you want to have a pleasant experience, sipping tasty wines and at least one that’s worth savoring, Cosentino may be what you are looking for.

Vineyard Tastings

The model for most of our wine tasting experiences over the years was having a drink in a bar. We would stand up and taste selected wines. More recently, especially in Napa Valley, the model has been restaurant style. We sit at a table and servers bring us wines to try.

There’s another model that we have encountered more rarely but have enjoyed quite a lot: a wine tasting in the very vineyards where the wine comes from. This way of wine tasting is often, but not always, combined with a tour of the winemaking facilities. There is quite a lot of variety, in fact.

The vines of Chimney Rock

For one thing, many wineries are situated in the middle of or adjoining their vineyards. There is nothing to stop anyone from picking up their glass and wandering out among the vines. This is especially fun during the days just before the harvest, when the tasting can be paired with a few stolen grapes. Once, on a slow day at Chimney Rock in Napa, our server went with us and showed us around the vines. (We understand that this winery now offers a vineyard tour with a tasting, though we have never taken it.)

Chappellet is a winery that incorporates a brief walk through the vines as a part of its regular tastings. From experience, we can say that this is a more pleasant experience from March through November. It gets cold up on Pritchard Hill in the winter.

Most American vineyards are rather protective of their properties, but in many places in Europe, it’s easy to walk through vineyards on your own. So we have sometimes made ourselves a picnic, bought a bottle of the local wine and sipped while eating and walking. Those Burgundy wines aren’t bad, y’know, and actually being there added to their luster.

Some wineries, including the recently reviewed Black Stallion in Napa Valley and Dry Creek Vineyard in Sonoma County have model vineyards so that visitors can get a sense of what the vines and, in season, the grapes actually look like. These are not the ones that wind up in your glass, but learning to recognize the vines, leaves and grapes is valuable anyway.

Winemaker Jon Priest explains Etude’s way of making Pinot Noir, at their flagship Heirloom vineyard in the Grace Benoist Ranch.

We recently had a unique vineyard tasting experience. Etude hosted a members-only tasting in its Pinot Noir vineyards in Carneros. Interestingly, although the Etude winery is in Napa County, their premier vineyards in the Grace Benoist Ranch are in Sonoma County. We were bussed from the winery to the vineyards and had a barbecue lunch under some shady trees with about 35 fellow members. The vineyards for the wines we were served were right nearby! There is a thrill for wine lovers to marry the sights, smells and tastes of the wines we enjoy with the sights and smells of the vineyard. Added to the pleasure, we were joined by the winemaker, Jon Priest, who explained what we were looking at in terms that satisfied both the wonkiest of wine lovers as well as those who cared far more about what is in the bottle than how it got there.

As noted, there are a lot of ways to combine wine tasting and vineyards. We heartily recommend taking one.

Pay Attention to Farming

Essentially, wine tasting is all about what’s in the glass, plus the amenities and architecture of the wineries themselves. But it’s also about the factory that is often found right behind the tasting room. And it’s about the farms (we call them vineyards, of course) that produce the grapes that ultimately wind up in that glass.

Wineries offer tours of their industrial facilities and occasionally take visitors into the vineyards, but they do not emphasize the farming aspect of wine. In some part that’s because many wineries source their grapes so the farming is someone else’s job. But more so, it’s because there really isn’t anything to see, except perhaps at harvest time, when the best a visitor can do is stay out of the way of the workers.

Photo courtesy of Wine Australia

But when someone is visiting a winery, especially one with vines right outside the window, it’s a good idea to learn a bit – maybe only a bit – about its farming practices. Here are a few things to think about.

What accommodations does the winery make for their specific micro-climate? We remember being at a renowned Bordeaux château and asking why their wines were so much more expensive (and better) than the one that adjoined their property. The answer was, “Do you see that little hill between the vineyards? We get the morning sun and they don’t.” A few questions about the siting and orientation of the vines can provide a lot of insight as to why one particular wine tastes the way it does.
What is the winery doing about climate change and sustainability. Of course, everyone is concerned about the environment. Noticeably hotter summers and wetter winters are challenging winemakers to find year-to-year consistency in the wines they produce. Even more, these conditions are making it increasingly difficult for vineyard managers to grow the same amount of grapes in the same varietals with the same quality every year. As a visitor and wine lover, we think you’d like to know what they’re doing about it.
Along the same lines, how do they use water? It seems that wine growing regions are experiencing either drought or floods. The way in which they use water – or protect themselves against it – are important factors in the quality of the wines you taste. Despite perennial panic about running out of water, California winemakers did pretty well during the drought years, but how long can this go on? Dry farming works in some climates, but others are virtual deserts and need irrigation. It’s worth asking how they do it.
How do they deal with cool springs or excessively hot summers? You may know that the pruning and trellising practices of various vineyard managers differ. It’s interesting to find out how each winery’s approach leads to what winds up in the glass. An average server may not know, but if the winemaker or some farmhands are around, they can explain it. Even if it all seems a bit geeky for the average taster, it’s worthwhile to know what’s going on in the fields.

Seated Tastings – Plusses and Minuses

In the not very distant past, a typical wine tasting would involve entering a tasting room, finding a space at the bar, getting the server’s attention and sampling a few wines as slowly or as quickly as one pleased. The server would explain what each wine was, very briefly on busy days, with more detail and conversation on slower ones. The trend in wineries these days, particularly but not exclusively in Napa Valley, is to take a seat at a table (by appointment, if you please) and be served a selection of wines by someone who acts more like a waiter than a bartender.

Photo courtesy of Medlock Ames.

In some ways, we like this experience, but in others we miss the way things used to be.

Beginning with the upside, a seated tasting more closely matches the way you would enjoy these wines in your own home. You might stand up and sip some Chardonnay at a party or a barbecue, but the wine would not be the center of attention, nor would the wines in question be of the quality you expect at a wine tasting. Especially if the server offers you something to eat, even a few crackers, you get a better sense of how you would enjoy each wine were you to purchase some.

Almost without exception, the interaction with the servers is cordial and as informative as the server’s knowledge can make it. That’s because they aren’t being pulled from one visitor to the other, trying to serve as many people in as short a time as possible. In the worst days of the pandemic, wineries were forced to seat their customers at widely spaced tables. Finding employees was more difficult as well. Both these trends are still apparent now that Covid has ebbed. As a result, with seated tastings, servers have more time, less pressure and can give their guests more attention.

It must be said that the facilities, in or out of doors, are more attractive. Visitors can look around rather than stand at the bar facing the scurrying servers.

However, there are some negatives. At a bar, if you were served a wine you don’t especially care for, you could pour it out at strategically placed buckets and move on to the next wine. At a table, you may have to ask for a bucket and then wait your turn for the next wine to be served. (A few wineries, such as Duckhorn and Black Stallion, both in Napa Valley, serve the entire flight at one time, so visitors can drink at their own pace.)

Yes, you have more of an opportunity to speak with the servers. What you want from them is their knowledge of wine in general and that winery’s products in particular. But you didn’t come there to hear their life stories, which teams they root for and where their kids are going to school. (Honest, these have happened to us.) One of the big plusses of seated tastings is having the chances to sip at your leisure. Having some stranger dominate your time eliminates that advantage.

Finally, seated tastings take more time, an hour at a minimum but often more. This significantly reduces the number of wineries anyone can visit in a day. That’s a plus for sobriety, but for those who sip and pour, as we do, it’s not so positive. And we find that in sitting and waiting for our servers, we drink more of what’s in front of us than we would have otherwise.

The Silverado Trail

Route 29 is the main drag of Napa Valley’s portion of Wine Country. Parallel to it and a few miles to the northeast is the “other” road, the Silverado Trail. There are plenty of wineries to visit along the Silverado Trail, many of which are counted among the best in the valley and some among the best in the world. But there are no restaurants nor any place even to buy a sandwich. There’s no train track carrying diners nor is there as much traffic, although it gets a little busier at what passes for rush hour in Napa Valley.

Photo courtesy of Great Runs.

The Silverado Trail begins in the town of Napa, where it is mostly residential and becomes of interest to wine tasters only when it crosses over Trancas Street. At that point, for about four miles, the Oak Knoll AVA is on your left, while the wineries on the right exist in a sort of limbo, identified only as Napa. Since several of the wineries on that side are quite renowned, such as Darioush and Signorello (still rebuilding after the 2017 fire), it doesn’t seem quite fair.

The Trail then passes through the famed Stags Leap AVA (on both sides of the street), where it would be easy to spend a day or two just going from winery to winery. You had better like Cabernet Sauvignon there, because that’s what this area produces in great quantity. Because of the proximity of the wineries and the generally flat lay of the land, there are quite a few visitors who bicycle this part of the Silverado Trail for their tasting experiences.

The Yountville AVA hosts the Silverado Trail for just a short distance with only one winery of note, before the road enters Oakville. There are several wineries there, but they are well separated from each other. The same may be said for the stretch in the Rutherford AVA.

The Silverado Trail is more extended in the St. Helena AVA, where the distance to Route 29 narrows. The AVA with the longest section of the Trail is Calistoga, where the road finally peters out.

Photo courtesy of Destination 360.

This abbreviated tour belies the attraction of the Silverado Trail. It runs along the foot of the Vaca mountains and has far fewer wineries to visit than Route 29 or the cross roads between the two. As a result, the wide expanses of greenery, sometimes vineyards and other times just mountainsides, make it a pleasure to drive along (or to bike, so they tell us). There are few stop lights from one end to the other. The absence of significant traffic enables you to just motor along and enjoy it all without stopping and starting all the time. And you can even make a left turn if you have to.

If we are going somewhere on Route 29, we generally use the Silverado Trail to drive north-south and then cross over when we near our destination. It is both easier on the eyes and on the nerves.

Stags’ Leap Winery

There are a number of reasons to enjoy a wine tasting visit to Stags’ Leap Winery (https://www.stagsleap.com/): history, architecture, vistas, beauty and of course the wines. The tasting “room” is actually a house, more of a mansion that has been lovingly restored to its condition around the turn of the previous century. It has been the home of rich people, a resort hotel, a speakeasy, a home to squatters and, finally, a commercial winery.

You learn all the details and get to see much of the building as a part of what they call a Manor House Experience. You can also taste the wines without the tour, but we highly recommend being shown around. As you enter the property, you pass through an arcade of trees and see vineyards that date to the 1880’s. You climb a hill to the parking lot and view across the estate, with more vineyards below. You will notice magnificent gardens everywhere around you and then you’ll see this Victorian mansion, made of stone with a grand veranda running along one side.
When you step inside, the room you enter is resplendent of early 20^th century design, somewhere between Gatsby and your (rich) grandmother. The chandelier made of stags’ horns certainly catches the eye, as do all the burnished wood accoutrements. You don’t have to whisper, but you do feel as though you ought to.

A tour guide takes you through the house, outbuildings and gardens, offering tastings of Stags’ Leaps’ lighter wines as you go. You wind up in an equally impressive dining room with the crest of the winery in stained glass. Here you sit and are served their more well-known wines. Since this is Napa Valley they serve a Cabernet Sauvignon, but interestingly, this is not Stag Leaps’ flagship wine. They are best known for Petite Sirah, both in the more widely known white label with a leaping stag and their black label premium bottling. It is the latter, more interesting wine that they serve on the tour.

The overall impression you get from a visit to Stags’ Leap is of old-money luxury. In fact you learn during the tour that there was once a lot of money but it ran out and was only restored to its former glory in the 1980’s. It has been kept up by the current owner, Treasury Wine Cellars. What you see is gracious, as are the guides, and the wines project a full-bodied savor that may not be quite as fashionable as it once was but echoes what Napa Valley has always been. In fact, that may be said about the visit as a whole.

We cannot fail to relate the history of the apostrophe. The AVA is Stags Leap, with no apostrophe at all. It merely says that stags do leap. Down the road is Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars (a leap by one stag). This winery is Stags’ Leap (the leap of many stags). Is that clear? Actually, no it isn’t and it was the subject of lawsuits for quite a few years. The guide tells the story with a little chuckle, but it’s clear that there are still some bruises felt after all this time.

Without Reservations?

If you’ve decided to go wine tasting in Napa Valley, you’d better make advance reservations and be prepared for an experience lasting at least an hour. [This is largely true for Sonoma County as well, but let’s keep the focus on Napa Valley.] You’ll sit at a table and be served one wine after the other, usually four or five, often with something a little special added in, especially if you express an interest in a particular grape or a style. Just keep in mind that the server will bring you the next wine to taste whenever he is available and after serving other customers.

Photo courtesy of Spring Valley Vineyard.

The above is good advice but it’s not entirely true.

Walk-ins are still available. It helps, we’ve found, if you appear a bit abashed, saying, “Gee, we don’t have a reservation, but do you think you can take us without one?” If the tasting room (or more likely, in good weather, the tasting patio) isn’t busy, they’ll take you. Groups of two will be taken, but larger than that and you’re less likely to be seated.
The issue is labor shortages. We have been told that the reason for the “by appointment only” policies is that qualified tasting room staff are hard to find in the years after the end of the acute phase of the pandemic. If the schedule for the day is known in advance, they can staff appropriately. However, although most wineries won’t admit it, they often have staffed up for some walk-ins.
It’s easier at the lesser-known wineries. The biggest labels, which have historically drawn the most visitors, are the most likely to enforce their reservation systems. You can tell by checking their web sites. If they state that they have a strict reservations-only policy, they probably mean it. Many of the wineries that aren’t household names are eager to please and attract new customers. And quite often we’ve found that there’s little or no sacrifice in the quality of the wines we have tasted by sticking with the smaller wineries.
It’s also easier at the less busy times of day. You are more likely to find availability if you arrive just as the tasting rooms open their doors or an hour before they close them. The morning is better. The servers are more chipper and they’re not in such a rush to get home.
And you have a better chance on weekdays. Naturally, wineries are busier on weekends, just as they were before the pandemic. But the reservation-only regimes have eliminated the wild party mob scenes of yesteryear, and that’s not bad at all.
You may not get prime seating. If it’s a beautiful day and you want to sit on the veranda, you may find that you can only be accommodated inside. The wine tastes exactly the same and since you didn’t make an appointment, you have no right to complain.
Maybe ask for all your wines to be poured at the same time. If you are a fan of the extended tasting experience that is the rule in Napa Valley today, by all means let them serve you one wine at a time and plan to sit there for more than an hour. But if you need a lunch break or have an appointment at another winery, you can save some time and reduce the irrelevant patter by having all four or five wines poured at once.

Gott’s Roadside, St. Helena

Power Tasting is not in the business of restaurant reviews, so this is not a restaurant review. Yes, Gott’s Roadside is a restaurant but in its way it’s a great deal more. It is definitely a place to visit if you are going wine tasting in the northern end of Napa Valley. Gott’s is an institution. Now, an institution might seem a bit stuffy, but this one definitely is not.

As you drive along Route 29 into St. Helena, you can’t miss it there on your left. It’s a big white building with lots of parking and seating all around it. There’s quite a history to go with it. Originally, it was known as Taylor’s Refresher, established in 1949 by Lloyd Taylor. At that time, Napa Valley was mostly planted with fruit trees not grape vines, and the clientele must have been largely farmhands and truckers. It was an unapologetic burger joint that, as we remember it, was a place to get a quick meal but not a destination.

In 1999, Mr. Taylor’s heirs sold the restaurant to the brothers Duncan and Joel Gott. Together, they were entrepreneurs; Joel was an is a winemaker as well as a restauranteur. (Duncan has since passed away.) They kept the name, Taylor’s Refresher, until 2010 when they changed it to the current name. They also significantly expanded the place. The Taylor family was a bit upset that their name was being lost, so it seems that the settlement was to change the name but keep the old sign.

Gott’s is still a burger joint, but in keeping with “Napa Style”, it’s somewhat fancier than that. The beef is Niman Ranch. There are salads, tacos and sandwiches as well; we have no idea how they taste because we’ve only ever ordered hamburgers. And what kind of burger joint has a wine list? For some legal reasons, Joel Gott’s wines aren’t served there anymore.

Part of the reason for eating at Gott’s Roadside is to be able to say you’ve eaten at Gott’s. It’s the same reason people have their pictures taken in front of the Eiffel Tower – to prove they’ve been there. There are some excellent restaurants just up the road in St. Helena, but none of them have the retro cachet of Gott’s. You’ll be able to say “yes” when friends ask, “Did you have lunch at that famous burger place? What’s it called again?”

Another reason, a better one in addition to the food, is to partake in a tradition with all the other folks dining there. Part of the seating area is under canopies next to the parking lot and there is also a grassy picnic area where families gather; kids run around; and there’s a general sense of fun. Just eating there makes you feel like you’re a part of Napa Valley, not just visiting it.

There are now Gott’s establishments in other locations. Don’t be fooled. They’re just restaurants, not pieces of Napa Valley history.

Black Stallion Estate Winery

We first encountered Black Stallion (https://www.blackstallionwinery.com/) about a decade ago. All that stuck in our minds since then was the large statue of a horse and the fact that they were emphasizing the food they served then more than the wine. We are happy to report that the statue is still there; the facility has been greatly expanded and improved and that we will now remember the wines they serve.

Before discussing the wine tasting experience at Black Stallion, it’s worthwhile explaining a bit of the back story. The winery is owned by the Indelicato family, now in its fourth generation in America. Gaspare Indelicato arrived in 1924, planted a vineyard and expanded his holdings so that the company named for him today owns many wineries, the best known of which is Coppola. Now, about that horse: The land on which the winery sits was previously an equestrian academy. Situated in the Oak Knoll AVA, the land is better used today for wine than horses, so we believe. All that’s left is the statue, which they call Bucephalus, the horse of Alexander the Great. Great horse, great wines – get it?

We did not realize, on our previous visit, that the winery had just been erected and wasn’t yet finished. The tasting room was long and narrow, had a bar and some outdoor seating. The bar is still there, but is no longer used in this era of seated tastings. The tasting area is in a large, canopied patio furnished with low tables and comfortable chairs, from which you can see vineyards and olive trees. It’s the patio you wished you had, times thirty. That’s the impression that Black Stallion wants to give, that you are at home, relaxing with some fine wines. We felt welcome the moment we sat down.

We were offered a choice of four tasting flights, running from $40 to $80 for the Prestige Tasting of their better wines. In the latter flight, two wines were a mini-vertical of the 2014 and 2018 Barrel Reserve Cabernet Sauvignons. There were also a Cabernet Sauvignon called Gaspare, named for Grandpa, and a Bordeaux blend that they call Transcendent. We expressed interest in the Tempranillo and the Pinot Noir from other lists, and so were given tastes of these as well. Power Tasting does not review wines, but suffice it to say that these wines pleased us much more than those we can (barely) remember from a decade ago.

The educational vineyard at Black Stallion.

Alongside the tasting patio, Black Stallion has planted a micro-vineyard with vines of all the grapes they use in their wines. It’s there for educational purposes and adds a serious vibe to the comfortable setting. We can’t resist relating the comments of one patron who clearly needs some wine education. “Oh, Malbec is a grape, too. I thought it was a brand. And the grapes all come from France!” There is another garden which they call the “insectory”, where they raise plants that attract birds and bugs that are beneficial to grape vines. This is further evidence of Black Stallion’s commitment to informative wine tasting.

One of the pleasures of wine tasting travels is the opportunity to discover new experiences. In the case of Black Stallion, the revisit was just such a discovery.