lgsjr – Page 25 – Power Tasting – The Wine Tasting Experience

Green Wine Tastes Good

Of course, we don’t mean wine that’s green in color. Nor red wine with heavy accents of green pepper; those don’t taste good at all. Nor the vinho verde of Portugal, whose green-ness means that it is young. We are talking about wines made using sustainable agricultural methods and in many cases eschewing pesticides, fertilizer and additives. When we visit wineries around the world to try some of their wines, we know nothing about their farming practices and not much more about how their wines are made. To be honest, we don’t care. What’s important to us is what’s in our glasses.

But with a little bit of contemplation, we do realize that what the farmers are doing contributes to our enjoyment and in several ways to our enjoyment in the future. If they don’t care for the land there won’t be wine from their fields in years to come. If they aren’t respectful of the climate, they may not even have any wine this year; the fires in Napa and Sonoma counties are proof of that.

The best agricultural practices would be unavailing if the wine weren’t good. Our experience tells us that when the vineyard manager and the winemaker collaborate on sustainable and sanitary winemaking, the results are worth the effort. Simply put, making wine well produces well-made wine. While we are unaware of any scientific evidence in support of this proposition, we do have a lot of anecdotal support.

For example, the Famille Perrin Côtes-du-Rhône Réserve Rouge is a widely available, inexpensive red wine. It’s the kind of wine found on many a French table every night (and ours, from time to time). The same house also produces a Côtes-du-Rhône Nature for a few dollars more. It’s only recently available in the United States, but we have tasted and compared the two wines in Québec and it is clear that the Nature is far superior.

The indicator of biodynamic certification

Perhaps not coincidentally, Perrin also owns Tablas Creek Vineyard in California’s Paso Robles. They are proud to declare that they are certified as biodynamic and organic winemakers. According to their web site, Tablas Creek uses:

“a mobile flock of 150+ sheep and alpacas to weed and fertilize the vineyard, interplantings of hundreds of fruit trees around and within the vineyards, compost made on site from prunings and grape must, applications of compost tea from the on-site compost, natural pest controls including 39 owl boxes around the vineyard and sections of native vegetation left to attract insects and predators, and our own hives of bees to support all these different plant species”.

Now, we’re not quite sure how much difference sheep, bees and owls contribute to the winemaking process. But we are certain that, to our taste, Tablas Creek makes the best Rhône-style wines in Paso Robles.

We believe that specific farming and winemaking practices are not in themselves the reasons why being eco-friendly results in better-tasting wine. It requires more attention to detail, to sanitation, to taking good care of the environment in the field and in the factory. This seriousness of purpose finds its way into the bottle and ultimately into our mouths. This is no secret formula, but it does taste like it works.

Sustainable Sonoma

Readers of Power Tasting don’t need to be told that Sonoma County in northern California is a mighty nice place to visit. Its size and vineyard diversity make it one of the best places to sample many of California’s finest wines. However, Sonoma’s commitment to sustainability in its vineyards and wineries does offer a different reason to visit there.

The symbol found on bottles of sustainably made Sonoma wines

A lot of this is a matter of survival for the winemaking industry in the county. It isn’t newsworthy that northern California suffers from many multi-year droughts. In fact, they are in one right now. If the growers did not pay attention to water and land conservation, it would not be long before the quality of the wines would suffer. And that would be the most positive result. The worst case would be the inability to grow wine grapes at all.

The trade organization, Sonoma County Winegrowers, is justly proud that 99% of the vineyard acreage, more than 60,000 acres, in the county are independently certified to be sustainable. The group established a goal in 2014 to make Sonoma County the premier sustainable winegrowing region in the world. Their interest was not pure environmentalism. While there are some massive properties there, the majority of vineyards are family owned and operated smallholdings. Accordingly, they are not only preserving a crop but also a way of life.

Look carefully and you can see the hoses dripping water onto the vines. Photo courtesy of Sonoma County Tourism.

How does all this make Sonoma County even more of a place to visit? It’s difficult to watch water not evaporate or land not get parched. We believe that every wine tasting visitor spends at least a little time looking at and admiring row after row of vines. Now, when you go to Sonoma County, look a little more closely. Do you see hoses running through the vineyard for drip irrigation? Or maybe nothing to water the vines for those growers who prefer dry farming? In the heat of the middle of the summer, are the canopies over the vines thick with leaves to inhibit evaporation?

Most of this doesn’t matter to your main purpose: trying wines. But it should matter than it’s a concern for the grower and the vintner. So when you get to the bar, maybe ask a few questions about what that winery is doing in the sustainability effort. You may stir up a bit of controversy. For example, the dry farmers think the irrigators are irresponsible, while the irrigators think the dry farmers are nuts.

So when we visit, let’s tell them that we appreciate what the Sonoma growers are doing to preserve both winemaking and the local community over the long haul. They are the ones making the investment and we are reaping the benefits. Letting the growers know that you’re grateful may elicit just the kind of personal interaction that makes traveling through Wine Country so rewarding.

Using Winery Maps

Napa Valley is big, 29 miles from Napa to Calistoga. Sonoma County is even bigger, 1,768 square miles. (You can look it up; we couldn’t believe it either.) In both cases, there are wineries almost everywhere. There are 375 in Napa Valley and 425 in Sonoma County. Words of advice: You can’t try them all, at least not in a single trip. Maybe not in a lifetime.

So if you’re going to go wine tasting in these two renowned corners of Wine Country, you’re going to have to know how to get around.

An issue of a free magazine with winery maps. Photo courtesy of Wine Country This Week.

Plan A: Check a winery map before you go. There are a lot of them available, but if you look closely they pretty much all come from the same source, Wine Country.com. The maps are fairly detailed and show the location of most of the wineries you’d like to visit.

Pros: It’s always a good idea to think ahead about where you want to go on a vacation or a day out. So, for example, let’s say you’re really intent on visiting Beaulieu Vineyard. With a map, you will learn that Grgich Hills, Franciscan and Inglenook are quite nearby. With a little time for lunch, that should make your day.

Cons: Keep in mind that distances on a map look a lot shorter than what you actually experience when you’re there. The important lesson is to spend your time tasting, not driving from one end of the region to another. An inch on your screen may be ten miles of weekend traffic. So read the map with care.

Plan B: Pick up a map when you get there. Almost every winery has a stack of free magazines by the door and many of them contain maps. The most commonly found magazine is Wine Country This Week, which is mostly advertising for wines and wineries. And the map is from Wine Country.com.

Pros: Even if you study in advance, it’s good to have a map. With rare exception, every winery has a supply and it does help to know where you are and where you’re going next. And magazine maps make nice souvenirs, especially if you circle the wineries you have visited.

Cons: Remember that the free magazines make their money through advertising. Some of the wineries shown in bold letters or with a big star denoting their locations are in no way the best nor the ones you should necessarily be aiming for. Maps can lead you to your destination, but they can also mislead.

Plan C: Wing it. Especially if you’ve been to either Napa Valley or Sonoma County before, you may know your way around. Google Maps makes this a much more acceptable plan than in years before.

Pros: For some people, a little serendipity makes a wine tasting trip into an adventure. If you keep your eyes – and your mind – open you may just discover a little gem you drove past on familiar roads in the past.

Cons: We have no argument if taking your chances is your style, but for many others with a limited amount of time to spend wine tasting, it’s a better idea to know where you’re going. And just because you think you know the roads like the back of your hand, experience has shown us that things can look a little strange on the back roads of Napa Valley and Sonoma county. And we have found that for wineries off the main roads, Google Maps can be just flat out wrong.

Beaulieu Vineyard

There are few wineries in California with more history than Beaulieu Vineyard, familiarly known as BV. Georges de Latour, a Frenchman, established his holdings in Rutherford at the turn of the previous century. He had the foresight to obtain a license to make sacramental wine, so that when Prohibition came into effect in 1919 and almost all other wineries had to close, BV was still operating, sending bottles to churches across the country. If a few found their way to a restaurant or a speakeasy, what could Mr. de Latour do about it, eh?

Critically for the California wine industry, in 1938 he induced a famed French winemaker, Andre Tchellichef (“The Maestro”) to be BV’s winemaker, which he was for 30 years. In his time at the helm, Tchellichef bottled the wine that the de Latour family was keeping for its own use and sold it commercially. It was one of the first signs of the possibilities of California winemaking. To this day that wine, the Georges de Latour Private Reserve, is the top of the line at BV and one of the most sought after Napa Valley wines. If you visit the winery, you can taste it (including well aged versions of this wine).

As with all Napa Valley wineries during the pandemic, tastings are served outdoors. In the past and we’re sure again in the (near?) future, there are two wine tasting experiences at BV. As you enter the property, there’s a modern building on your right and a vine-covered old stone building on your left. There, you can taste BV’s copious selection of widely available commercial wines. The stone building is where you can taste their finer wines.

The lights are kept low in their reserve tasting room, perhaps to give the impression of a church (remember those altar wines) or a fine restaurant. The room is not very large, but they have other facilities in the building if they get crowds. The servers are, for the most part, quite knowledgeable about BV’s wines and wine in general.

The first pour will usually be a Chardonnay but BV has built its reputation on Cabernet Sauvignon. They have quite a few Cabs at different price points. We have always been fond of their Bordeaux blend that they call Tapestry. Like many Napa Valley wineries, BV is experimenting with different, non-traditional grapes. Today they make a Cabernet/Syrah with a nod to Australia and a Touriga Nacional from Portugal. We have found that if they’re not too busy and you show a proper appreciation of the wines, the servers will find some gems just below the bar.

Depending on what they’re serving that day, you may get a pour from one of BV’s original vineyards or some single clone wines that are quite unique. If you want to taste the George de Latour, they’ll charge extra. We advise you to pay the fee; it’s worth it if only to know what a foundational Napa Valley wine tastes like.

A little extra tip. BV shares its parking lot with the Rutherford Grill. We often eat lunch there before we go tasting; if you want to go, you’ll need a reservation. It is a popular restaurant and the food is quite good.

We are never quite sure what Rutherford Dust was all about, but you certainly can find it (if it exists) at BV.

Visiting Napa/Noma in September

This article concludes Power Tasting’s irregular series on visiting Napa Valley and Sonoma County (“Napa/Noma”) in each of the months of the year. So many people ask when the best time would be, and the answer is always the same: There is no best time. Every month has its charms and its drawbacks. If you’d like to read all of the series, scroll way down on the masthead on the left of on our Welcome page and click on Months.

One thing differentiates a visit to Napa/Noma in September from all the other months: the harvest is in full flight every day. There are plusses and minuses to that fact. There are some things that you can only see and do if you are there for The Crush, as they call it. On the other hand, there are some things that you might want to see and do that are more difficult when the harvest is on.

Carneros in September, between Napa and Sonoma Counties.

If you want to get a visceral understanding of the industrial process that is winemaking, you can surely do that in September. Just drive around a bit and you’ll find workers in the vineyards picking grapes, loading them in baskets and dumping the fruit into trucks. However, just as often these days, you’ll see giant harvesters doing the job without hand laborers. You’re more likely to see the manual process at the vineyards producing more expensive wines; the cost of labor is a factor in the price. But the quality also comes from selective picking.

Making wine at Saintsbury.

Some wineries process the grapes in outdoor facilities. Easiest to find are the sorting and de-stemming operations. You may very well not get to see the actual crushing and maceration of the wine. These are industrial processes and the last thing winemakers need is a crowd of tourists trying to figure out what’s going on. You may find that winery tours available the rest of the year are not available during the week or two that the harvest is on.

Because so many people do want to visit during this time of the year, hotel rooms are harder to get and more expensive when you do. Restaurants also tend to fill up sooner because of all the tourists, but fewer tables are taken by locals, many of whom are exhausted from making wine.

As elsewhere, the beginning of the month is still summer, while autumn rolls in at the end. But California stays warmer for longer than other places, sometimes much warmer for much longer. Sadly, one of the considerations about visiting Napa/Noma in September is the possibility that wildfires will erupt. In 2020, the biggest of the Napa fires began in late September and lasted into October. But in Sonoma County, the fires began in August. In 2017, they occurred in October in both locations. There is no reason to think that wild fires will happen, but plenty of reason to think they might. This has to be part of your travel planning in these perilous times.

Whatever the issues, it’s a lot of fun to see The Crush. That’s a powerful reason to visit Napa/Noma in September.

Visiting Geyserville

The way that California allocates postal addresses, a great wide swath of the northern end of Dry Creek Valley is officially listed as Geyserville. So such redoubtable wineries as David Coffaro, Dutchers Crossing and Sbragia Family all have addresses there, even though they are far from “downtown” Geyserville. The quote marks are used because the actual downtown area on Geyserville Avenue is only about two blocks long.

We would not recommend Geyserville as a destination on its own merits, but if you are tasting in the area, there is a certain charm that’s worth taking in. While the town contains all the modern appurtenances, there’s still enough left of ol’ time Geyserville to give you an idea of what Sonoma County’s Wine Country used to be.

Photo courtesy of Sonoma County Tourism

The most notable taste of the past is a store with a large sign proclaiming it to be Geo. M. Bosworth & Son, General Merchandise. There’s another sign in the window that lets you know that they sell Gents’ Furnishings and Notions. This is the general store you’ve read about and seen in old Westerns and if you’re in the market for a cowboy hat this is the place for you. And if you want that hat to be custom crushed, they’ll do that, too. Today, Bosworth & Son is also a museum and a gift shop and there’s a statue of a horse out front.

There are a few tasting rooms on Geyserville Avenue, among them Meeker and Pech Merle. Three in particular stand out. Tonti Family and Etrusca share a tasting room and call themselves Duo Vini I Bocce. That’s right – you can taste their wines and play bocce. Further down the avenue is Ramazotti. Together, they are a reminder that this area (all of Napa/Noma, actually) was settled in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries by Italian immigrants. They brought with them a winemaking tradition and replanted it in Northern California soil. Ramazotti in particular features Italian wines such as Barbera and Sangiovese that are quite convincing reproductions of the Italian originals. These wineries provide visitors with another hint of California history.

Photo courtesy of mycatellis.com

We first started coming to Geyserville to dine in a restaurant called Santi. The food was remarkably good and the restaurant was recommended to us by many winemakers. Alas, it closed more than a decade ago; another restaurant named Catelli’s occupies the same place, and we have not tried it yet. But here’s the back story: There was another Catelli’s “the Rex” that was opened in 1936 by Santi and Virginia Catelli. The owners, Nick and Domenica Catelli are lineal descendants of the original founders. More history!

Château Puech-Haut

Château Puech-Haut (www.puech-haut.com) is just about the eastern-most winemaker in Languedoc, France. Their winery is located in the Pic St-Loup appellation, with vineyards in Saint-Drézéry and in the Cevennes mountains further north. The tasting room is an easy drive from the city of Montpellier, which is well worth a visit itself. Now, all these place names may be fairly foreign to American readers. They’re in a less visited section of southwest France, and they’re worth knowing about.

The tasting room at Château Puech-Haut.

There are a number of reasons to visit Puech-Haut if you’re in the vicinity. Of course, there’s the wine. For the most part, their wines are quite pleasant, especially their rosés. They make them from the usual Rhône grapes: Syrah, Grenache, Carignan, Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne. Their usual tasting menu gives you a good idea of what they make in white, red and rosé. We found that if you show a serious interest in what they make, they’re quite willing to open some of their better bottles for you.

Puech-Haut is located near the foot of the Pic St-Loup mountain, which gives its name to the AOC. The winery is surrounded by grape vines and overlooked by a vine-covered château that is more of the nice French country house. A big deal is made about the massive barrel near the château. It is indeed large, holding so they say, 300,000 litres, which they claim to be the biggest in the world.

One of the painted barrels, with some containing wine in the background.

There is more to say about barrels at Puech-Haut. It’s not often that we take any notice of bulk wine, a bag-in-a-box. These serve a purpose; Puech-Haut has a different approach. They sell wine in bulk is three-litre barrels. Moreover, the barrels are painted in colorful, amusing, modernistic themes. When you finish most boxed wines, you throw away the box. Puech-Haut’s are collectibles. They also show off some of their actual aging barrels, which are also gaily decorated.

They also make a deal out of some of their bottles. They’re elongated and nearly triangular in profile with a squarish base. The bottles for the whites and rosés are frosted and they have glass stoppers (pink ones for the rosés). In a wine store, your eye is immediately attracted to these bottles and we bet that many people buy one with the thought of reusing the bottles as vases or carafes. Puech-Haut realizes that they make good advertising and give them away at the tasting room.

A few notes in case you do visit Puech-Haut. The tasting room is spacious and well furnished, but the layout is such that it can get quite crowded rather quickly. Those of us who go wine tasting often are used to heading for one winery and then visiting others in the area. This doesn’t work well at Puech-Haut; there’s virtually nothing else around.

Oh, and by the way, it’s pronounced (sort of) poosh oh.

Advising Friends

Sometime in the near future, we certainly hope, people will start traveling again. Some of your friends may plan on a vacation in which wine tasting will be a part. Because they know that you’ve been to the part of the world that they’ll be visiting, they may turn to you for advice. This can put you into a very tricky position. You don’t want to be planning their vacation for them and they might not have the same level of knowledge about wine. You don’t want to be evasive but you don’t want to be too prescriptive, either.

Let’s assume that they’ve been wine tasting before, so you don’t need to tell them about the basics. At the same time, you don’t want them to be annoyed with you if they follow your advice and don’t have a good time. Here are some tips to help you be to be helpful, without putting a strain on your friendship.

Tell them about the views.

Avoid the “favorite” question. There’s no way you can deal with “What’s your favorite winery?”. For one thing, you may not have a favorite (and ought to say so). But then there’s the matter of favorite for what? The best wine? The best tour? The most fun? The most knowledgeable servers? You’re better off listing these types of categories and suggesting several places that fit in each one.
Steer them away from places you didn’t like. It’s better to tell people what to avoid than what they “absolutely must taste”. If they go to your big time recommendations and aren’t as happy as you were, they’ll be disappointed. But if you tell them that a certain winery has awful plonk or that the décor is lugubrious, they’ll thank you. It’s a good idea to say why you did and didn’t like a particular winery. For example, we remember one where the wine was just dreadful but they had an interesting collection of antique instruments. If your friends are musicians or music lovers, they might put up with the wine just to see the cellos.
Consider the seasons. If you visited the area they’re going to in autumn, and their trip is in the early spring, they’ll have a different experience than you did. You saw the radiant colors; they’re going to get bare vines. They may have a wonderful trip but it won’t be the same as yours. So qualify the advice you give them with the time of year in mind.
Think about their vacation, not just their wine tasting. No matter how great the wine wherever it is they’re going, it won’t be the totality of their trip. The guidebooks will tell them about the great, new, chic restaurant. You can tell them about the spot two blocks away with killer Mexican food. Or the bar with jazz on the weekend. Or the greatest chocolate ice cream you’ve ever tasted. Let them discover the wines on their own. They’ll never find that ice cream cone without you.

Wine Drinking in Arabia

When we say “Arabia” we are quite sure that the image that comes to mind is endless desert, Bedouins in robes and camels. Well, yes, there’s a lot of sand. It does get awfully hot. Tourists do take camel rides. And many of the men do wear robes, called thobes. But today many of the countries of the Arabian peninsula have ultra-modern cities, with skyscrapers (including the world’s tallest), restaurants, museums and sports arenas.

What they don’t have is alcohol or, at least, not much.

The dining room at the Abu Dhabi Sheraton.

Muslims aren’t supposed to drink any alcohol and many observe this stricture. But a lot of the cities in Arabia, such as Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi are centers of finance, trade and of course oil. Quite a few expatriates live there, working for the big companies and governments. There are a lot of tourists these days, too. A fair number are Americans and Europeans who are used to a beer after work, a little whiskey on the weekend and wine with dinner. So, in some cases, exceptions are made for non-Muslim visitors.

We have worked in that part of the world and were usually able to have some wine when we wanted to. In the hotels that cater to Westerners, there is almost always a bar and a wine list available with meals, but there aren’t any in the unaffiliated restaurants. Prices tend towards the high side for what you can order and there isn’t a lot of variety.

On Dubai Creek.

Many Lebanese people work in Arabia. While Muslim, they make wine and do enjoy drinking it. Many of the wines you’ll see on the lists come from Lebanon and some of them are quite good. Chateau Musar is the best known and, in our opinion, the best tasting. You’ll also see Ksara and Massaya, which are worth trying. There are some American and European wines on the lists, but they’re not the ones you’d choose back home.

There are occasional problems that remind you that you’re far away. Women are not allowed in the bar of our hotel in Doha, Qatar without a male escort. They also check for passports to make sure that those men and women who enter are not Qataris. And one evening we were informed that it was a local holiday and no bars were open anywhere. (Room service bailed us out.)

Business dinners can be problematic. If your host is observant, you don’t want to impose on him (your host will always be a man) and order some wine. At the same time, we have been to dinners many times where half the group wants a glass or two with dinner, while the others abstain. It can be a little awkward, but it seems that everyone is used to it. If you’re the host, ask if anyone else wants any wine. If no one else is interested, it’s diplomatic to skip it yourself.

There are no wine stores and we strongly recommend that you not try to bring a few bottles in your luggage. (We have had no personal involvement with the police authorities, but the word is that such interactions are not very pleasant.) We were told that registered expatriates may have alcohol in some countries, with a permit. Saudi Arabia, however, is very strict in forbidding alcohol and there really is no chance of getting any there.

So if life should bring you to this vibrant part of the world, be a good guest and stick with the hotel bars.

Memories of the Barossa Valley

There are sections of Wine Country that we return to over and over: California, France, Italy, Long Island among them. We suspect that many wine tasting enthusiasts focus on these and other popular destinations. And then there are the wine making areas that are near cities where life just happens to take us. It has been many years since we visited Australia’s Barossa Valley, because we had some work in nearby Adelaide, only 45 minutes away. We’re sure that much has changed in the interim, but some things have remained the same.

The Barossa Valley, among the most beautiful wine-producing regions in the world. Photo courtesy of TrailHopper

We are certain that they still drive on the left side of the road, with the steering wheel on the right side of the car. If driving while wine tasting concerns you, then doing everything backwards won’t ease your worries. Maybe this is the occasion to take a tour. (We were hosted and chauffeured by a business colleague, so as they say there, “No worries, mate”.)

A distinctive feature of the Barossa Valley is its German heritage. Many of the wineries there sport Germanic names and a lot of the restaurants are the wurst places to go. (Sorry about that.) Of course, there are many people of British extraction there as well.

Barossa is famous for one grape: Shiraz. Yes, it’s called Syrah in France and America, but Aussie Shiraz is really distinctive. The first time we were served it by Australian friends, we thought the wine had gone bad. Then we realized it was just different from anything we’d ever tasted before. Of course, Australian wines are better known these days but be prepared for some eye (and mouth) opening experiences.

Wine tasting in Barossa is familiar to many Americans. The people are friendly and welcoming and if possible even more casual than the servers in Sonoma or Paumanok. Being Australian, they are hearty and bold, and the same can be said of their wines. If you like power hitters, you’ll be in heaven here.

The Henschke winery tasting room. Photo courtesy of the winery.

They are intensely proud of their wines, as they should be. Their wineries were little known outside Australia when we were there but wines from Seppelt, Peter Lehmann, Torbreck and Wolf Blass (note all the German names) can be found in wine stores around the world. Of course, what we get at home are the mass production wines. You can taste some of the rather spectacular wines they keep for themselves if you visit Barossa.

Two Barossa wines can hold their own with the best in the world. The most famous is Penfolds Grange. Even greater, to our taste, is Henschke’s Hill of Grace. These are massive wines, 100% Shiraz and sought after by wine lovers everywhere. Of course, they come at quite a price, north of $650 American dollars at the winery. To give an idea how long ago we visited the Barossa Valley, we were able to pick up bottles of both at $25 American dollars, equivalent to $63 today. Here’s to the memories.