lgsjr – Page 16 – Power Tasting – The Wine Tasting Experience

Wine Tasting at Parties

Fine wine goes with fine dining. No one serves an ’05 Latour at a barbecue (well, at least no one we know). When anyone is planning a party, in the office or at home, he or she rarely scans the cellar to find the finest. Alas, there are too many people who figure that the beer and the hard stuff are the beverages of choice and, if they serve any wine at all, it comes from one of two jugs – red and white.

Photo courtesy of Zonin Prosecco.

At the same time, there is no reason that the wine at parties has to be plonk. With a little thoughtfulness and a budget just above rock bottom, it’s quite possible to offer a variety of wines that can please both the knowledgeable taster and someone who just wants a pleasant beverage to pass the time.

Here are some tips for potential hosts.

Don’t serve anything you haven’t tasted. Sadly, you can’t always trust the advice of a clerk in a wine store. The wine so highly spoken of may be just the one the store couldn’t get rid of. There are plenty of worthy wines under $20 and even some that are under $15. Wine Spectator and the New York Times generally have issues each year dedicated to available bargains. Use it as a guide.
Plan to serve at least four wines. Why four? If you assume that most people who choose wine at a party will select either a red or a white, there may well be someone who doesn’t care for one of your choices. If there’s only one offering, that person is stuck. If you have two of each on hand, it significantly raises your odds to please most people.

If you find yourself a guest at a shindig organized by a thoughtful host and are confronted by a small array of interesting wines, here are some tips for you.

To begin with, try a little of each wine. Even if you’re partial to white wines, try those and the reds. It shows respect for the hosts and the effort that they put in to please you. It enables you to say, “I’m generally not into big red wines, but that Beaujolais really appealed to me”.
Think of the party as an impromptu tasting. Try to appreciate the wines for what they are, not comparing them to other labels of the same grapes. And if you’re being served something from somewhere you never heard of, think of it as an adventure.
If there’s a wine you find particularly pleasing, don’t hog it. In fact, recommend it to other guests. If nothing else, it gives you something to talk about with people you don’t know. Again, your host will appreciate you talking up one (or more) of the wines served.
Don’t worry about the glassware. If it’s a catered affair the glasses will be of the sturdy restaurant variety. At someone’s home, expect plastic cups. After all, you’re not going to be the one washing up afterwards. Sure, good goblets enhance good wines, but party wine can survive inferior goblets.

Orange

Americans have a lot of difficulty with the word, orange. We’re not sure if it’s two syllables or one or whether the first two letters are pronounced ah, aw or oh. With Orange counties in New York, California and Florida, we’re not even sure where it is. So a discussion on Orange, a city in France’s Rhône valley, ought to start with the pronunciation, which is oar-AHNZH, with the r sort of strangled at the back of the throat and the n stuck in the nose.

The city of Orange has a lot of history. First there were the Gauls. Then when Julius Caesar won his war, some Roman veterans set up what became Orange. The name is based on the Gallo-Roman name for the fort that was there and over time it’s morphed into the color we know as the Syracuse University basketball team. Oh, yes, and that fruit of the same name.

The Roman Theater in Orange, in performance. Photo courtesy of All About World Heritage Sites.

There are no Gallic ruins that can be seen but there is a lot of ancient Rome still in Orange that can be visited and admired. The best known is the Roman Theater, still in use for concerts and plays (in French, not Latin). The seating was restored in the 19^th century, but the stage – overseen by a statue of the Emperor Augustus – is original. The theater accommodates 10,000 people to this day.

There is also an Arc de Triomphe that had been incorporated into the walls of the medieval city and now stands alone in restored glory. The triumph in question was Caesar’s victory over the Gauls, which does seem a bit like rubbing it in.

Orange sits very much in the midst of Provençal Wine Country. Châteauneuf du Pape is the next town over; Beaume de Venise, Vacqueyras and Gigondas are due east, twenty minutes’ drive on small rural roads. There is no shortage of great wine to be had if you’re in Orange.

The market in Orange. Photo courtesy of The Good Life France.

As wine tasters, you’ll certainly take advantage of travelling through the environs of Orange. But be sure to leave time to enjoy this fine little city. It is much more than ruins. Of course, there’s a museum and a cathedral, as there are in virtually every French town and city. But the people of Orange (Orangians? Orangeois? Orang-utans?) live there in leisure and comfort.

We have had the occasion to shop and cook in Orange, due to the pleasure of having friends there. The chickens are plumper and more flavorsome than we’re used to in America. The bread and pastries are indescribable. And they grow more than grapes in the region around Orange. If you manage to be there on market day, make sure to have some apricots, prune plums, figs and an incredible fruit called mirabelles. They put whatever you buy at your local grocery to shame. And for all you know, they could have been grown in an orchard only a few blocks away.

At those same markets, you can find the fabrics, table cloths, herbs, pottery and honey that Provence is famous for. Take advantage of them while you’re there; you never know when you’ll pass that way again.

Planning for a Napa/Noma Trip, Updated

For more than four decades, we would travel to California at least once a year to go wine tasting. Occasionally we’d go to the Central Coast or a smaller, outlying sector of California’s Wine Country, which means most of the state. But usually our destination was either Napa Valley or Sonoma County, sometimes both. Then the pandemic came along, and like a lot of people, our travels were interrupted for a few years.

For a long time, planning for a wine tasting trip was fairly simple: flight, car and hotel. The rest was mostly a matter of serendipity. We’d choose an AVA, drive there and stop wherever we wanted. We would park, walk in, belly up to the bar and taste. When we were finished, we’d get back into the car and head up the road to do it again.

For better or worse, more planning is required these days.

It still makes sense to limit a day’s tastings geographically. We want to be tasting, not driving from Calistoga to Napa and then back to St. Helena. Why waste time behind the wheel when we could be in a tasting room? More important, when the purpose of the day’s activities is sipping alcohol, it’s really advisable to minimize driving as much as possible.
Appointments are necessary. Many wineries now have a “By Appointment Only” policy. Smaller wineries – and some of the larger, snootier ones – have long been that way. That prohibition was once a ruse to keep rowdy crowds away; today the tastings are seated and the limitation is for real. Since the pandemic, almost all Napa/Noma wineries are available only with a reservation.

A seated tasting at Black Stallion. Photo courtesy of the winery.

Expect fewer but longer seated tastings. Many wineries, as a by-product of their appointment requirements, now only offer seated tastings. Bellying up to the bar is not an option anymore or there is no bar to belly up to. Therefore, we taste on their schedules rather than our own. The ambiance is more guest than bar patron, which has plusses and minuses.
Sharing is more difficult. Since they are seated tastings, two people can’t occupy one chair. As a result, both will have a full tasting. Sure, we can each sip only a little but the temptation to take a few more sips is quite apparent and the cost of tasting becomes more expensive.
Lunch is more important than ever, but harder. If we are likely to drink a little more at each tasting, we need to get some food into us. But fitting in a restaurant between winery visits is a challenge, especially in areas where restaurants are few and far between.
Packing a picnic may be the only choice. There are no restaurants and often not even delis in certain areas. For example, there used to be the Jimtown Store in Alexander Valley, but there isn’t anything now. And try finding a restaurant in the further extremes of Russian River. Even with a packed lunch, there aren’t that many wineries with picnic tables in Sonoma County and hardly any at all in Napa Valley. Dining in the car may be necessary but it’s unpleasant.

All of which is to say, Napa/Noma still has some of America’s best wineries available to visit. They just take more preparation to enjoy them than it used to.

Écluse Wines

Écluse Wines (www.eclisewines.com), in Paso Robles, offers wine tasting the way it used to be in the long gone Napa Valley times. The tastings are held in the barrel room. The bottles are laid out on a plank between two barrels. And if you’re lucky, your glass will be filled by the owner and winemaker, Steve Lock.

Steve Lock, proprietor and winemaker, Écluse Wines. Photo courtesy of the winery.

Mr. Lock and his wife Pam started their vineyard in 1997 and began making wine from their own property in 2001. They have focused on Bordeaux and Rhône grapes ever since. And, of course, since they’re in Paso Robles, they grow Zinfandel.

The setting of Écluse, atop a hill off a back road in Paso Robles, is quite rustic. However, there’s nothing bucolic about the winemaking. They are quite proud of the awards they have won, especially those from the San Francisco Chronicle’s annual wine competition.

The Central Coast climate leads to very high sugar concentrations. The Locks believe in letting their grapes ripen to their peak flavors, so the alcohol content of their wines tends to run quite high. Since they offer a significant number of their wines at each tasting, a bit of restraint is in order for the visitors.

Those wines fall into two categories. There are single varietal wines, such as Merlot, Malbec and Zinfandel. But then there are blends. For a few examples, Ensemble is Écluse’s five-grape Bordeaux blend. This you will find elsewhere. The others are like nothing else you’re likely to find in the Central Coast, or in all of California for that matter. Improv is Zinfandel, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Syrah, Merlot, Malbec and Carignan. Insider has Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec (not so unusual) but half the wine is made from Tannat grapes! A visit at Écluse is like a trip to Australia, without having to cross the Pacific.

The barrel room at Écluse. Photo courtesy of Paso Robles Wineries.

Another distinguishing feature of a tasting at Écluse is that all of them include a barrel tasting. If they’re not too crowded and you show genuine interest, Mr. Lock may treat you to an extraordinary experience. He’ll draw wine from three barrels, each with oak of a different origin: France, Hungary and the United States. The wine you taste will be from the same grape and vintage so the only differentiator is the wood. This is an unforgettable experiment that offers proof of Écluse’s commitment to their wines.

Écluse is only open from Thursday through Sunday and reservations are advisable. But we have found that if you’re not going to be in Paso Robles on the weekend, a call might win you a private tasting, if they can accommodate you.

There’s a sly play on words in the name. Écluse is the French word for lock, of the sort that are found on canals to raise and lower the boats. Pictures of a lock are on the labels and considering the family name of the owner…

Visiting Napa Valley for the First Time

Decades ago we visited Napa Valley for the first time. It was a life-altering experience…well, vacation altering, at any rate. Traveling to winemaking areas for the purpose of visiting wineries and tasting their products is an experience we have relived many times since. Napa Valley was not only our first destination but also the one we have returned to the most often over the years.

The iconic Stag’s Leap winery in the 1970’s. Photo courtesy of The Rainbow Times.

It is a very different experience today than it was then. In those days, wine tasting was much more casual. The founders of many namesake wineries were alive and pouring tastes for visitors. The servers – owners and workers, generally – stood behind a plank stretched between two barrels and poured a few thimblefuls of wine into tiny glasses that we were urged to take home with us. No one thought of charging for a tasting.

As first-timers, we were in awe. There were rows and rows of vines stretching, so it seemed, in all directions as far as the eye could see. There were no Napa palaces at that time. All the wineries were combinations of factories, warehouses and working farms, much as can be seen in less-discovered parts of the world these days.

The wines that were available for sale were a great deal less expensive. The best in the house could be bought for ten dollars or less. (To be fair, $10 sounded like a lot more money in the 1970’s and ‘80’s.) Some of the wines that we bought then are still among our favorites, such as Robert Mondavi or Louis M. Martini. (Although we never had the pleasure to meet Mr. Mondavi, Mr. Martini once served us wine.) The cost of their top wines are now counted in the hundreds of dollars.

Stag’s Leap winery today.

We try, with some difficulty, to imagine what the experience of a first-time visitor (and novice taster) must be like today. Almost all the founders have passed away. Warren Winiarski of Stag’s Leap and Mike Grgich of Grgich Hills are approaching the century mark, but they are virtually the only ones left. Most of the major wineries are the property of multinational corporations. The vines are still there but the tasting facilities are in many cases “visitors centers” architected to impress. Impressive they are, but visitors’ encounters are starkly different than ours was.

Even before the pandemic, the cost of a tasting had become rather steep in many wineries, enough to be prohibitive for tasters as young today as we were then. Of course, the price for a glass of wine in a restaurant or bar has also increased, so wine tasting is not that out of line in dollar terms. Since the pandemic, almost all Napa wineries are available for tasting by appointment only and the price for tasting has increased tremendously. That prohibition was once a ruse to keep rowdy crowds away; today the tastings are seated and the limitation is for real.

We still have a sense of wonder when we visit sectors of Wine Country we’ve never encountered before. And we still have a great time in Napa. But it will never be our first time again.

Mustards Grill

Power Tasting does not review restaurants. This article is about a restaurant, but it’s not about the food, the drinks or the service but rather a special restaurant as a destination in itself.

Mustards Grill has been sitting alongside Route 29 in Yountville since 1983. It was opened by Cindy Pawlcyn back then as a self-described “deluxe truckstop”. We’ve been to truckstops, and that’s not what Mustards is. Truckstops have big rigs in the parking lot, showers, and large persons more intent on nourishment and a quick getaway than on fine dining.

Photo Courtesy of Open Table.

What Mustards is and always has been is a roadhouse, a great American throwback, and that’s what makes it a Place to Visit. If you feel as though you’ve heard of roadhouses, that’s probably because you came across the term in the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was the ultimate chronicler of an emergent upper middle class in the 1920’s, now a century past.

A roadhouse was a drinking and dining establishment in the rapidly changing outskirts of major cities. The boys had come marching home from World War I and having seen Gay Paree wanted no more of life on the farm. Prospering in the post-war boom, they had snazzy roadsters and straw boaters and wanted to get out of town and have a good time. The girls of the time were no less eager, with their bobbed hair and turned down hose. Roadhouses spring up to meet a market demand.

Which brings us to Mustards. Napa Valley was making some pretty fine wine in 1983, but once the sun went down, there was no place of any quality to get a meal or a drink. Like the soon-to-be-suburbs of the 1920’s, Napa was changing its identity from a rural sector not too far from San Francisco into a winemaking (and tasting) mecca. Ms. Pawlcyn started Mustards to meet a latter-day market demand for a simple place with not so simple food and lots of wine. (It’s also worth visiting for its vegetable gardens, which we addressed in a previous article – still worth reading.)

She tipped her intentions on the side of the building, announcing that steaks, chops, ribs and “way too many wines” are to be had within. From that day to this, Mustards has kept its promise.

There was a seamy side to roadhouses back when, including dancing flappers , gambling, bar fights and prostitution. None of that is present at Mustards, of course, but for out-of-town visitors there is a sense that you’ve happened upon something only the insiders know about, something like a speakeasy (the urban equivalent of a roadhouse). That’s because you’re as likely to be dining at a table next to locals and winemakers as other tourists.

A Stutz Bearcat. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

We always drive up to Mustards in a car we rented at the airport. Please excuse us if we pretend that we’re in a Stutz Bearcat, the quintessential roadster, wearing racoon coats. We’ve been stopping at this bit of Americana through all the years of its existence and we can’t thinking of being in Napa Valley without going there.

McCall Wines

Driving along Route 25 on Long Island’s North Fork isn’t much like motoring up Napa Valley’s Route 29. Yes, there are wineries on both sides, but the California version is much grander. There are a few wineries in Long Island with architecture that’s impressive, such as Raphael and Pellegrini, but most are understated. Architecturally speaking, McCall is understated to the point of a whisper. As you drive up to the winery, it seems like it could be farmhouse or a stable.

The tasting room at McCall Wines.

Well, it was a stable. The owner, Russell McCall, is a horseman. The tasting room has retained its equine charm, with a décor of saddles, farm implements pictures of Mr. McCall playing polo. Two of the stalls have been retained and you can taste your wine in them, if that’s your wish. There is a small bar but tasting is done as table service, outside in the summer.

The site has historic interest. It was once a meeting place of local Native Americans, known hundreds of years ago as Fort Corchaug. The vineyard at the winery (they have another nearby) is still known as the Corchaug. In good weather, we prefer to leave the stable behind us and sit at a picnic table on an expansive lawn overlooking that vineyard.

Tasting by the vines.

McCall also raises cattle on the property. One of the popular attractions at the winery is Burger nights on seasonable Thursdays and Fridays, with the main attraction made from their own Charolais beef. It may be a little unsettling to know that what you’re eating once lived just over there, but we recommend you wash down your concern with some wine.

We were first attracted to McCall by their Pinot Noirs, of which there are four. It’s not a grape that is generally found on the North Fork, where Bordeaux grapes are more commonly grown. These wines are not Burgundies, nor are they much like Pinot Noirs from Russian River. They have their own local character. You’ll have to judge for yourself how Long Island terroir plus maritime breezes work for these wines.

There are also Chardonnays and Rosés to sample. But the star of the show, to our tastes, is a Bordeaux Blend they call Ben’s Blend, named for their founding winemaker. McCall ages these wines – the youngest available for sale in 2022 is the 2014 vintage – and we find it more Californian in character and quality than any other red wine we have tasted from a Long Island winery.

One thing we appreciated when we last visited was that the winemaker, Miguel Martin, walked around to each table and had a few words with the patrons. Mr. Martin is a Napa Valley veteran, transplanted to the East Coast. We were quite impressed with the experience of wine tasting at McCall and urge visitors to the North Fork to include it on their itineraries.

Red Dessert

Often when we visit a winery and have tasted what was on the list for that day, we’ll sort of nonchalantly ask, “Do you make dessert wine?”. Sometimes the answer is “no” and sometimes it’s “yes, but it’s not available”. But quite often the server will reach below the bar and bring out a small slender bottle that’s full of nectar.

Wineries very rarely advertise their dessert wines for tasting for a few reasons. These wines are usually made in low volume. They may not be made every year. And they tend to be rather expensive. But they are a distinctive wine category and wine tasters should get to know them and recognize that they’re not all the same. One obvious distinction is that some are red and some are white. In this issue we’ll focus on the red ones.

First of all, red dessert wines are NOT just red table wines with sugar added, even if they are sometimes made from the same grapes. The winemakers stop the fermentation before all the sugar is eaten up by yeasts, so the residual natural sugar is quite high.

Photo courtesy of Porto Running Tours.

The most famous red dessert wines are Ports. To our way of thinking, if it doesn’t come from Portugal, it isn’t Port, no matter that some American wineries make dessert wines from Zinfandel or Pinot Noir and call it Port. The real thing is made from grapes uniquely found in the Douro Valley, such as Touriga Nacional and Tinta Roriz. It is distinctive and highly alcoholic, because it is fortified with neutral spirits. There are many varieties of Port including from ruby, tawny, late bottled vintage (LBV) and best (and most expensive) of all vintage Port. Take a trip to Porto and you can taste them all. Oddly, the Portuguese don’t drink it much, but it is beloved by British academics and anyone with a sweet tooth on a wintry night.

There’s a style of red dessert wine not often found in the United States. In France it’s called vin doux naturel or naturally sweet wine; there is no equivalent English term. Almost all of it comes from the south of France, in Provence and Languedoc, usually from Grenache grapes. You may be most familiar with wines known as Banyuls. Of course, all grapes are naturally sweet, but they aren’t all processed the way these wines are. Fermentation is stopped by the addition of some eau de vie, which stops the fermentation. There’s less alcohol than in Port, but it still has a kick.

Finally, there are some specialty wines with long and unique histories. For example, Recioto is made in Italy’s Valpolicella region. It’s Amarone that’s been stopped before it’s finished. The people of that region like dessert too, and you’d better sample it there because it’s not found that often on American wine store shelves. Another is the Greek Mavrodaphne, which you may find in some Greek restaurants and neighborhoods, and is another fortified wine. It may remind you of Port.

How to Order from Unfamiliar Wine Lists

When we go wine tasting, we are almost always tasting wines we’ve never tasted before. Even if we’re at a familiar winery, we’re going to sample a new vintage. Often, the tasting room will put some bottlings on their menu for the day that we’ve never heard of, much less tasted. If we’re visiting a winery we’ve never been to before, especially when we travel abroad, we’re in the dark.

This is all great preparation for ordering wine off a restaurant’s list, where we know nothing (or almost nothing). What to choose? This is where our experience with wine tasting trips comes to our aid. A few tips might help you, too.

You could ask your waiter. These days, your waiter may not be old enough to drink, much less to develop expertise in wine! The best you can hope for is that he or she can tell you what’s the most popular. In fairness, the type of establishment that has inexperienced wait staff often has a less-than-inspiring wine list, sometimes consisting of two choices: red or white.

Photo courtesy of Sommeliers Choice Awards

Or a sommelier. At the other extreme, restaurants that do have quality wine lists may also have someone trained to help you choose, i.e., a sommelier. But there are problems here as well. The sommelier is an employee of the house and has an incentive to direct you to the more expensive items on the list. A good one will ask you what types of wine you like and the characteristics you prefer, such as robustness, acidity or intensity. And definitely what your price range is. Even then, you’re going to be offered what he or she thinks meets your tastes, which may or may not work out.
Go with a wine that’s from a familiar region. If we’re dealing with wines from California, France or Italy, for example, we know enough to say “We don’t know these wines, but we know that a Bordeaux usually pleases us”. But if we’re at a Hungarian or an Argentine restaurant, for instance, that’s not going to help. And when we’re overseas, our best hope is to try our luck.
Choose on the basis of price. Think about your overall restaurant experience with wine. How much do you usually pay for wine as a percentage of the overall meal. A third? A half? More? Less? Use that as your guide.

Or go at it the other way round. How much do you want to spend on a bottle that night? Probably less on a random Tuesday, more on a weekend and even more for a special occasion. Let’s say you’re ready to spend $75. Look for a number in the $65 to $85 range on the right side of the list. If the restaurant is knowledgeable and honest, you’ll get a bottle that satisfies you. This isn’t a perfect rule, but it has worked out pretty well for us.

Visiting Beaune

If you are a true wine lover, then at some point in your life you have to go wine tasting in Burgundy. Now, Burgundy is a big place and it includes winemaking areas such as Chablis, Beaujolais and Mercurey, all sources for very fine wine. But when people think of Burgundy what they really have in mind is the fabled Côte d’Or, French for the Gold Coast. That’s where the Grand Cru Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs come from. It runs from Dijon (of mustard fame) in the north to a cluster of villages on the road to Chalons to the south.

And smack in the middle is the town of Beaune.

Anyone who goes wine tasting in the Côte d’Or will pass through or around Beaune. For many visitors, Beaune is simply a starting point for going somewhere else. Mostly they’re going to villages that equate to wines, like Nuit St. Georges, Gevrey-Chambertin, Volnay, Pommard or Montrachet. We would like to recommend that you stop a while in Beaune itself.

The Place Carnot in Beaune. Photo courtesy of Beaune Tourism.

The center of town is the Place Carnot, named after 19^th century President of France who had the ill luck to be assassinated. There is a small carousel in the middle of that, that in its way says this is pleasant square is in a pleasant town where visitors are always welcome.

Cheeses at the shop of Alain Hess. Photo courtesy of Wine Keller.

The square is ringed by shops and cafes. One shop kept bringing us back time after time: Alain Hess, Maitre Fromager (Master Cheesemonger). Charles DeGaulle once questioned how anyone could manage a country with 500 types of cheese. We never counted, but we think you can find all 500 of them at M. Hess’ shop. And of course he can sell you the wine and some charcuterie to go with the pique-nique you’ll have next to a vineyard.

There are lots of interesting things to do while you’re in Beaune. In a previous edition, we’ve described the Hospices de Beaune, which is a treasure not to be missed whatever else you do in the region. You can do some in-town tasting at Louis Jadot or at numerous oenothèques. There’s the Musée de Vin, which is installed at the former palace of the Dukes of Burgundy. And here’s a special tip: We’re not sure it still exists, but if you walk down the Rue du Faubourg Madeleine, away from the Place Carnot, on your right there’s a nondescript tabac with the best chocolate ice cream we’ve ever eaten.

There are many restaurants in the Côte d’Or where you can dine on French haute cuisine, and a few of them are in Beaune itself. But if you want to feel French while you dine, go to a little café in Beaune where you can order a meal made from the fine Burgundian farms. Start with escargot, drowning in garlic butter. Then it’s either a boeuf bourguignon made from local Charolais beef or a roast poulet de Bresse, considered the finest chicken in France. There will be local cheese before dessert, such as the bleu from the aforementioned Bresse. You will soon realize that you’ve spent an afternoon indulging yourself, all the while pretending that you’re a local.