Author: lgsjr

Château Léoville Barton

There’s a lot to be said, both positive and negative, about wine tasting in Bordeaux.  In fact we’ve already said some about the subject.  What makes the snobbishness, the appointments and the limited variety of wines worth putting up with is, well, the wine.  We are not the first to note that Bordeaux produces some of the world’s greatest wines.  If you’re going to make the trip you really ought to taste the best of the best, and Château Léoville Barton (https://www.leoville-barton.com/) certainly falls into that category.

As with everything in Bordeaux, and especially the section north of the city called the Médoc, there’s a lot of history.  Let’s start with the name, Château Léoville Barton.  While there is a beautiful château to see when you visit, it is not properly speaking a château in winemaking terms.  The grapes are actually pressed in the adjoining estate of Langoa Barton.  However, they are blended and aged on the château property.

Photo courtesy of Château Léoville Barton.

You may recognize “Léoville” with names other than Barton after it.  That’s because it was once a huge estate – the largest in Bordeaux, in fact – but was split up.  That’s why you can find Léoville Las Cases and Léoville Poyferré as well.  (An interesting tasting might be the three side-by-side.  We’d love to do that someday.)  The three are in the heart of St. Julien, an appellation known for sunny, approachable but profound wines.  All were named as second growths, or deuxieme crus, in the 1855 ranking.  That doesn’t always mean much today, but it certainly holds up for the Léovilles.

Finally, the name Barton comes from an 18th century Irishman named Thomas Barton who established himself in southern France and bought up some vineyards.  (You may have heard of Barton & Guestier.  Same Barton.)  Power Tasting is all about the wine tasting experience, and when you are in a great Bordeaux château, the history is a part of the experience.

Your tour must be booked in advance and you had better arrive promptly.  You will be met, escorted and explained to by your designated guide.  Ours spoke English, but since Lucie was raised in French and Steve can get along, much of the tour was conducted in a mix of the two languages.  If you have even a little French, you may get better explanations if you use that language.

Much of the tour is of the château itself, which is lovely in the same way that Downton Abbey is lovely.  It is still the Barton family home.  At one point, we were in a corridor with windows facing the gardens.  We saw a man in running clothes jogging by with some hounds.  Our guide exclaimed, “Oh, there goes the count!”

As on most winery tours, you get to see the blending and barrel rooms.  The huge wooden tanks (not stainless steel as in the United States and even much of France) are quite impressive.  Our guide told us that Léoville Barton still holds with tradition.  We think that all that really matters is in the glass, so let both tradition and modernity reign.  Of course, the rows of barrels full of future great wine does raise a thirst.

The tasting itself consists of two wines: Langoa Barton first and then Léoville Barton.  (There is also a Léoville Barton second label, but we don’t remember it being offered.)  Langoa Barton is itself a third growth, so it’s not shabby.  Having the second growth Léoville Barton alongside – both made by the same people from grapes on adjoining ground –  really brings out what makes one wine better, or at least different, from the other.

As we have said before, wine tasting in Bordeaux is snobbish like nowhere else in Wine Country, but it is worth going at least once.  Let’s not forget, they have real châteaux there and they’ve been making great wine a long time before the New World did. You can taste their experience in the glass.  Santé !

Wine Tasting…on a Cruise

On a day at sea on a cruise we took recently, they had a show at lunchtime.  It was a musical called “Wine Lovers: The Musical”, (https://www.wineloversthemusical.com/) billed as wine tasting comedy show.  There was no way we could resist a meal with six wines to taste and a show, so we went.  It was as much to pass the time pleasantly as it was to learn anything about wine or wine tasting, and have a pleasant time.

Photo courtesy of Wine Lovers: The Musical

The lunch was no more than agreeable.  The wines were pleasant but fairly common labels and varietals.  The show was cute but predictable, with performers of quite some talent.  The information about wine was introductory.  But there was one song in the show that caught our imaginations.  It was called “See, Swirl, Smell, Sip, Swish, Spit.”  There it was – how to go wine tasting in six simple words, all beginning with the letter S.

What an interesting idea to build a musical on wine tasting and combine it with a wine tasting luncheon.  As we said, for us it was quite basic but it must not have been so for everyone in the room.  We’re sure the experience was valuable for some people.

Wherever our travels take us, we look for wine bars as a way of spending a pleasant time, especially in wine-making counties.  That’s the way to learn about the wines they make there.  At every wine tasting, we learn something;       that’s part of the experience of going wine tasting, be it at the vineyard, at a wine bar or (you never know) on a cruise.

You should always be open to experience, to new tastes and new ideas, especially form unexpected sources.  As we say in Power Tasting’s mission statement on our cover page, we want our readers “not to be intimidated by wine snobs on either side of the bar”.

The best advice to someone trying to learn from more experienced people is to keep your ears open and your mouth shut.  If you are new to wine tasting – or if you’ve been doing it for decades – our advice is to keep both your mind and your mouth open.

 

Frank Family Vineyards

There is a certain type of winery in Napa Valley (and elsewhere, too) that sets our teeth on edge.  Someone is a great success at something other than wine making, buys a property in Wine Country and vows to make wine that’s not only great in itself but reflects the values of his (always his) family and their tradition.  After all, this is the description of Joseph Phelps and many other great, great wine makers whose products have enriched our lives and those of many other wine lovers, so we cannot be doctrinaire.

To that select group we must add Rich and Leslie Frank, whose Frank Family Vineyards are located in Calistoga, at the northern end of Napa Valley.  They were big shots in television before opening their winery.  It is not our purpose at Power Tasting to review wines, but it is fair to say that we enjoy their wines very much.  Our objective is to pass along our views on the experience of wine tasting at wineries we have visited, and Frank Family gets high marks there, as well.

The site itself is historic.  There is a rather spare stone building, which was once the building of Hanns Kornell’s winery, where methode champenoise winemaking was introduced to America on a commercial basis.  The Franks bought the vineyards and the winery that Mr. Kornell had built.  As you drive up, you’ll find a spacious picnic area under the trees.  Evidently, Frank Family was grandfathered in; Napa County doesn’t give permits for picnicking to newer wineries.

The building hosting the tasting room has the feeling of an old home, with lots of wood and rooms leading from one to one another.  Cleverly, Frank Family has set up bars in several of the rooms, so it never feels very crowded.  You can also have a seated tasting, which we found worthwhile as you get to really savor their reserve wines.  This being Napa Valley, the top wines are Cabernet Sauvignons, especially the Patriarch, which is 100% Cab and quite expensive as well.

One of the bars at Frank Family

We found the servers to be quite knowledgeable about their wines and wine in general.  This may be because they knew we were from Power Tasting, so we hope that it is representative of the entire staff.  If you do take a reserve tasting, you’ll find it valuable to have several glasses so that you can compare different wines and, if you’re lucky and they have them open, different vintages of the same wine.  Our experience at Frank Family is that if you exhibit real interest in their wines, they go out of their way to provide you with an interesting experience with a lot of variety and interesting insights into their wines.

Many visitors to Napa Valley drive up from San Francisco and go wine tasting only in the southern end of the valley.  Now, we love the wines there too, but sometimes it pays to just keep driving north.  Calistoga itself has its own charms, being a bit more of an old-fashioned feel than some of the other towns in Napa Valley. There are very nice cafes and restaurants where you can enjoy your lunch.   And it has mud baths (ugh!).  It’s worth making the drive and if you do come up that way, make sure that Frank Family is on your itinerary.

 

ved Stranden 10, Copenhagen

Many of the world’s great cities have landmarks that are central to their images.  Tourists and locals alike gather at the Eifel Tower, Big Ben, the Coliseum and Time Square.  Other cities without such internationally known monuments offer something different; they’re great hanging out cities.  San Diego is one; so are Milan, Amsterdam and Madrid.  Let us introduce you to yet another, Copenhagen, and in particular a wine taster’s destination bar known by its address, ved Stranden 10.

First about the city.  The most famous locale in Copenhagen is Nyhavn, which is a long harbor, mostly for fishing and tourism boats.  All the buildings along the harbor are brightly colored and alongside is a long row of cafes under welcoming umbrellas.  Of course it’s full of tourists, but you find Danes there as well, especially at night. As we said, it’s a great place to hang out.  But so are the sidewalk restaurants on Gothersgade; the big square in the fashionable shopping district, in the middle of Højbro Plads (or Place); and the Street Food center across the main harbor.

Nyhavn, Copenhagen’s “new harbor”, only 300 years old

Which brings us to ved Stranden 10 (http://www.vedstranden10.dk/). It’s located alongside a canal  and from the outside, it’s an unassuming building on a quiet little street.  In warm weather, they have tables outside along the canal.  Ved Stranden 10 is a wine store and also a wine bar.  Inside, there’s a very small bar up front with pourers, waiters and customers scurrying about like mad.  There are a few tables and stools along one wall, but for the most part all you can do in the bar is stand and order.  There are several more rooms that are far more like someone’s rather chic Danish Modern living room than a wine bar.

So far, so nice.  What differentiates ved Stranden 10 from all other wine bars we’ve ever been to, is that most of the waiters are sommeliers and that there is no wine list!  Instead, you negotiate with your waiter.  He or she will ask, “What do you feel like drinking?”.  Maybe one wants a light white, somewhat austere, not very fruit forward and the other a robust red, chewy and full of fruit.  (That would be Lucie and Steve, respectively.)  The waiter will get a few glasses and bottles and pour little tastes.  “Does this work for you?”  If so, your glass will be filled.  If not, he or she will go get something else.  No one goes away disappointed.

Inside ved Stranden 10

You can’t say, “I’ll have a Pinot Noir” or a Bordeaux or a Sauvignon Blanc. They don’t work that way. You tell them you like Bordeaux but they don’t carry Bordeaux.  They will bring you a taste of what they think is similar to Bordeaux.   They have a lot of wines from obscure places, like Serbia or Turkey or some valley in Italy you’ve never heard of.  So the light white wine came from Sardinia and the big red was a Blaufrankisch from Austria.  We might have ordered those ourselves, but if there were something on a list that was more familiar, we never would have gotten to these wines.  The result is that we both got to drink some wines we weren’t familiar with, that met our taste preferences at that moment.

A word about the glasses.  If you choose to sit outside, they will use very nice glassware, but nothing you’d notice one way or the other.  But inside, they use some of the most delicate stemware we’ve ever drunk from.  The glasses are very light and the stems are so thin you feel like you’re going to snap them with your fingers.  (We didn’t.)  They don’t use them outside because the slightest breeze would knock them over.

Fair warning: you’ll have such a good time at ved Stranden 10 that when it’s time to sum up and pay, because you have no idea what the cost was of that glass of wine that you just ordered (remember, no wine list),  you’ll find that you had so many wines that the bill is bigger than you thought it would be.  You’ll probably conclude that it was money well spent, like we did.

Une dégustation, Monsieur?

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?

Reynier Wine Library

This is one in a continuing series, irregular though it may be, about favorite wine bars where you can do wine tasting.  It wasn’t meant to be a series, but since we’ve already introduced our readers to the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto and L’Ecluse in Paris, then three such articles seals the deal. 

So let us introduce you to Reynier in the City of London, that is the sector of London known as The City, where all the financiers are.  Actually, many of them have moved on to Canary Wharf…Oh, forget about it.  This is the old, historic part of London, where London Bridge is, where the streets are tiny and curvy and have names like Threadneedle and Poultry and Pudding to memorialize the trades that were once practiced there.  And there are still many bankers and brokers and insurance chaps and they like to drink with their lunch.  Which brings us to Reynier.

Now what’s funny is that the name of the place is actually the Wine Library (www.winelibrary.co.uk), which isn’t such a bad name, but I’ve only ever known it as Reynier (pronounced RAIN-yay) and no one I know who goes there calls it anything else.  But other than the mystery of the name and the little streets, why should you go there?  Well, “Wine Library” should give you a clue.  It’s a fine wine shop with a  great selection, running heavily to Bordeaux and Burgundy.  “Wait” you must be thinking, “this was supposed to be about a wine bar, not a wine shop.”  And so it is, but with a difference.

Reynier wine Library.  Photo courtesy of Yap.

As you can see from the photo, there are a lot of wine bottles and we can assure you that they are all for sale.  And you can see that there are tables.  That’s because you can buy a bottle, pay a small corkage fee and drink the contents on the premises.  Of course we can hear you objecting that you’d never sit down and drink a bottle by yourself.  Indeed not! So go to Reynier with a friend or two.  Which is exactly what all those bankers and brokers and insurance chaps do at lunch time.

It’s not French cooking, or English or Italian because there’s no cooking at all.  What there is is a magnificent spread of pates and hams and terrines and cheeses.  And grainy mustard and crispy baguettes.  And of course the wine you just bought.  No king ever had a finer repast.

Photo courtesy of Reynier Wine Library.

I distantly remember seeing the room in the picture with the chairs and tables, but if you want to move with the in crowd you go to the cellar         (which is where the buffet is) and sit with the fellows in the skinny suits with wide chalk stripes and loud ties (i.e., the finance set) where you will rest your backside on a low stool and eat off the top of an upturned barrel.  If you’re with a few other people, you’ll have to shoulder your way to a seat.  It’s worth it because when you’re with a group you’ll run out of the first bottle rather quickly and someone will have to get up and buy another, and maybe another after that.  And they say that they return to work after lunch?!?

Great wine, great food, history and the three new friends you’re bound to make at lunch.  What could be better?  Come and get it while the dollar is hot and the pound is not.

Visiting Napa/Noma in April

This is the second in Power Tasting’s series on the best times to visit Napa/Noma.  Since all months are good months, this isn’t much of a challenge.  We wrote about visiting in January in a previous issue.

Ah, springtime!  T.S. Eliot may have said that April is the cruelest month, but we bet T.S. never went to the Napa Valley or Sonoma County in April.  It is a particularly lovely time of the year.  If you go in the early part of the month, you may catch the end of mustard season, in which the space between the rows of vines is occupied by brightly colored yellow flowers.  Even if you don’t, you will be there for bud break and the initial flowering of the vines.  In the colder areas, like Carneros and in the mountains it will be later in the month (or even into May).  In warmer spots like Calistoga you are likely to see greenery earlier in the month.

With winter past, you won’t have the freezing days that can happen even in Napa/Noma in winter.  There probably won’t be any rain either.  You might want to have a light sweater or a long sleeve shirt in the morning but you’ll leave the sweater in the car and roll up your sleeves in the afternoon.  If you come from colder climates, you’ll think that summer is upon you.

Napa Valley in April, with art on display among the vines.  Photo courtesy of Visit Napa Valley.

But note that we said you won’t see freezing days.  It can get pretty cold at night, sometimes getting below 32 degrees.  As bad as that temperature is for visitors, it’s a lot worse for grapes.  The tender buds are at their most vulnerable and a snap freeze can cripple a harvest before the grapes even appear.  You’ll see giant fans in the vineyards to blow the cold air away.  Others wet the vines so that the resulting ice insulates the vines.  It gives you an alert to bring your jacket with you for dinnertime.

The crowds of wine tasters are not as intense as in the summer months but they’re not as sparse as in the dead of winter, either.  If you can get away for a few weekdays, you should have plenty of time to chat with a wine educator or to sip without someone crowding you at the bar.  Weekends are another matter.  This may be the first chance for many others to taste springtime and you’ll see plenty of them all along the roads and in the wineries.

While there are leaves on the vines, the scenery isn’t as lush as it is at the height of the summer.  If taking in the view is part of the reason for your visit (as it should be), this isn’t the time to visit wineries with grand commanding panoramas, like Sbragia Family in Sonoma’s Dry Creek or William Hill in Napa.  It would be better to think in terms of snuggling up to the vines, which makes Grgich Hills in Napa Valley’s Rutherford or Limerick Lane in Russian River in Sonoma County better April destinations.  If springtime brings a smile to your lips, all the wines will taste better then.

 

Volpaia

If you buy a bottle of Volpaia Chianti (http://www.volpaia.com/), either the Classico or the Classico Reserva, not only will you get a bottle of rather nice wine (it seems to be our house red these days) but you will also receive a nice little sketch on the label, shown below.  If you don’t mind taking a long drive up a steep hill to visit the only winery around for miles, you can see the sketch come to life.

The sketch on a bottle of Volpaia Chianti Classico

The nearest large town to Volpaia (pronounced vole-PIE-ya) is Radda, definitely worth a visit in itself if you are visiting the Chianti region of Tuscany.  It is in the heart of the Classico region where all the best Chiantis come from.  (It’s called Classico because it’s from this region, a brilliant marketing ploy on the part of the local wine makers.  There’s nothing any more classic about it than Sangiovese from other areas of Tuscany, but you do get the DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita or “controlled and guaranteed denomination of origin”) label and the other marketing inspiration, the Gallo Nero or black cockerel.

According to Google Maps, it’s only 7.4 km or 12 minutes from Radda to Volpaia.  Evidently Mr. Google looked at the road from a satellite and never drove it.  The road is full of hairpin turns and it’s straight up.  There are some beautiful views to be had along the way, but the driver (Lucie was driving) won’t be able to look at them and the passenger (Steve  was), who will, will be more terrified by the drop than thrilled by the beauty.  But never fear, they lose very few tourists.

On the road up to Volpaia

And then you get to the village and you understand why you made the voyage up the mountain.  It looks exactly like you expect a tiny Italian village to look.  There are the villas, the osteria, the cistern and the castello…and that’s about it.  It seems that all of this is owned and operated by one family, the Mascheronis.  It attracts tourists all right, but it’s no tourist attraction…it’s the rarest find a tourist can make; it’s the real thing.

The Castello de Volpaia

And, oh yes, you can taste wine.  In a way, it’s a typical wine tasting setup: a bar, some bottles, a young man pouring you some wine and explaining what you’re drinking.  But it’s in an 11th century castle!  There’s more to taste than Chianti, although the Reserva has been getting good numbers from the rating magazines.  There’s a Cabernet Sauvignon that has also been well received, a few whites and a Vin Santo dessert wine worth contending with.

Walk into the room next to the bar and you’ll get a sense of the centrality of wine (and olive oil) making in this village.  The bottles gathering dust are yet another reason why you’ll think you’re in a post card.

Wine history, Italian style

So now you have to drive down.   Steve tasted the wines, Lucie being the driver, she had just a sip of the Chianti and said: it tastes like hard cherry candy !  The young man said, you’re right, that’s what our Chianti should taste !

No Left Turns

There’s no place in the world that’s more fun for wine tasters than Napa Valley.  So many wineries.  So many great wineries!  And they’re one after another after another, primarily on two main roads and the cross streets that connect them.  Of those two main roads, the one with the greatest concentration of top-flight wineries is Route 29, also known as the St. Helena Highway. However, the ability to choose from among such a plenitude means that lots of people want to drive along that road and visit.

Especially on weekends and holidays, traffic is so dense that it is difficult to get from one place to another.  If you only have the chance to travel to Napa Valley on a weekend of holiday, you’re pretty much stuck with a bumper-to-bumper crawl.  There’s nothing you can do to make it easy, but there are ways to make a voyage into this fabulous corner of Wine Country easier, less onerous.

  • Do your homework before you go.  Don’t expect to show up in Napa Valley on a gorgeous summer weekend (and they seem like they’re all gorgeous weekends) and go to a favorite winery in St. Helena, then down to Yountville, back up to Oakville and finish in Calistoga.  For one thing, the stretch of Route 29 with all the wineries is nearly 30 miles long.  Don’t plan to go back and forth all day long.  You’ll spend all your time in the car instead of in tasting rooms.  So get a map and plan your destinations before you get behind the wheel.  There are several good maps available on the web; try https://www.visitnapavalley.com/wineries/winery-map/.
  • No left turns.  One thing that the map won’t tell you is how difficult it is to get from one side of Route 29 to the other.  Even with all the traffic, it’s still a country road with very few lights.  So if, for example, if you’re at Heitz Cellars and you want to go across the street to Flora Springs Winery (you can see it from there),  it can take as long as 15 minutes for the flow of cars on the two sides to part long enough for you to get across.  So plan your itinerary so that you visit a few on the east side heading north; then go to an intersection with a light; turn around and go to some on the west side heading south.

Photos courtesy of Heitz Cellars

  • Some areas are easier than others.  There are certain strips of Route 29 where it’s easier to visit excellent wineries without having to drive very far between them…and not turning left.  For example, on the east side between the Oakville and Rutherford Cross Roads, there are Opus One, Nickel & Nickel, Cakebread, Sequoia Grove, Foley Johnson and St. Supery.  If you can’t find a few sips of wine that you like amongst all of those, you either have extraordinarily high standards or you’re just not trying.  And then at the end you have Rutherford Grill, where you can get something to eat.
  • Avoid Route 29 altogether.  There are great Napa Valley wineries elsewhere than this crowded road.  The roughly parallel artery running north and south is the Silverado Trail, which is wider and much less travelled.  Wineries along there are not to be sneezed at either, including Clos du Val, Chimney Rock, Regusci, Stag’s Leap, Stags’ Leap (watch that apostrophe), Pine Ridge and Silverado Vineyards.  Left turns are no joy here either so you can follow the same strategy as on Route 29.

The best advice, as always, is to prepare your trip in advance and to be sensible in both your selection of wineries to visit and the amount of wine to taste.  Don’t let “Oh, it’s so crowded” discourage you from visiting one of, if not the, best American winemaking region.  If so, go visit during the week, not on weekends.

Tasting the Barrels

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.