lgsjr – Page 4 – Power Tasting – The Wine Tasting Experience

Choosing Where to Go

Sometimes your destination for wine tasting is chosen for you. If you have a business trip to San Francisco, you may want to add on a day or two of visiting wineries. You’re most likely to decide to go to Napa Valley or Sonoma County, if only because they are the closest. Similarly, if you are just looking for a pleasant day in the country – with wine of course – you’ll drive to the winemaking area nearest your home. So, for example, we New Yorkers head out to Long Island’s North Fork.

But sometimes, your objective is to take a wine tasting trip, without a particular destination in mind. How do you select the region of Wine Country to visit?

Tuscany in September.

Is wine tasting the only objective? If it is, then you want to go to an area that has many vineyards open to the public, where the quality is well known and accommodations are easy to find. Once again, NapaNoma suggests itself, but so does Bordeaux or Tuscany or the Rioja. That’s different than a Paris vacation with a day out in Champagne or the Loire Valley. If everyone in your party loves wine, the first option makes some sense. But if you have teetotalers or teenagers with you, maybe you should only inflict wine on them for a day.

Would you prefer a new experience or would you like to re-visit favorite places? We can never get too much of wineries in some of our favorite valleys, Napa and the Southern Rhône. We go back as often as we can, given available time and budget. But California’s Central Coast or the Northern Rhône, where we have not travelled to as frequently, also have their allure. And we’ve not yet tasted wine in Switzerland’s Dôle or Austria’s Burgenland. Maybe this upcoming trip is when someday becomes now.

Carneros, on the Napa County side.

What kind of wine would you like to try for several days in a row? We appreciate a cold glass of Gewürztraminer on a hot summer day, but we’re not up for a week of it. So while we have tasted wines in Alsace, it was only briefly. At the other extreme, maybe the 16% alcoholic wines of Paso Robles are too much for you this time around. Ah, yes, Pinot Noir would be perfect! Now you only have to choose among Burgundy, Carneros, Los Olivos and Santa Barbara, to name a few possibilities.

When do you want to go? Power Tasting has long recommended that you avoid the most popular destinations on weekends. But some of the best wineries in certain regions are only open Thursdays through Sundays. For instance, we have experienced this in Paso Robles and the Santa Rita Hills. Time of year also matters. If all you’re interested in is the wines, then there’s no problem making a trip in the depths of winter. Many California wineries release their wines in February, so that might attract you. But if you want to see the vines with dense coverage, you need to go in the summer. And if you want to see the harvest, you have to be in Wine Country between August and October. (Unless you want to go to the southern hemisphere, when February through April is the right time for you.)

Passalacqua Winery

We’ve often been told that in California, Cabernet Sauvignon is king. That’s true, except where it’s Chardonnay or Pinot Noir. For some reason, the grapes originally from France are the most widely grown in California. Why aren’t there more Italian grapes planted there? Well, Zinfandel is descended from Italian Primitivo and there is certainly enough of that grape in California. And at Passalacqua Winery (https://passalacquawinery.com/) you will find quite a lot of Zin. You’ll find a fair number of Italy-inspired wines as well.

Members of the Passalacqua family have been making and selling wine in Dry Creek Valley since 1895. After operating in several locations around Sonoma County, Passalacqua settled at the western end of the Lambert Bridge Road. This was previously the location of Pezzi King, known for their Zinfandels, which Passalacqua still features. In fact, there are five of them, most sourced from nearby vineyards and one grown on their own land.

The winery building is a simple, wooden structure without pretense. A Napa Palace would feel out of place in Dry Creek Valley, and Passalacqua certainly has a sense of place, which they invite you to share. We recommend that visitors take their tasting out on Passalacqua’s terrace. Of course, it’s always pleasant to taste wine out of doors, but the experience at this winery is more than that. The views across the Dry Creek Valley are nothing less than spectacular. In case the vines didn’t provide enough scenery, fountains and some well-placed olive trees add just the right touch. You will find yourself sipping slowly, just to extend your time taking in all that beauty.

The Passalacquas’ Italian heritage comes through in several of the wines they make. Their aptly named Radici della Famiglia (Roots of the Family) is now in its fifteenth release, so they add Quindici (15) to the name of the wine in the current release. It’s meant to tase like a Super Tuscan, as it is made of Cabernet and Sangiovese. Italian it may be in style, but there’s no missing that it’s a California wine. Of course, they still bow to the king and make Cabernet Sauvignon as well. They also make a white Fiano, and almost no one else in America makes wine from this southern Italian grape. Interestingly, the majority of the Fiano grapes are pressed the old-fashioned way, by foot. Roots, indeed!

Quite a few of the wines that Passalacqua makes are available only to their club members, although just maybe an odd bottle or two will show up in the tasting room. And if you want to taste their wines, you’ll have to do so at the winery or join their club, because they don’t distribute commercially.

Napa Valley and Sonoma County have many wineries established by immigrants from Italy. Not many others pay tribute to their heritage in the wines they make. (David Coffaro, nearby, is another exception.) With regard to Passalacqua, we say come for the views; stay for the wine.

Changing Hands in Sonoma County

There is a sad, empty feeling that we get when a favorite bar, restaurant or shop changes hands and the new ownership changes it into something else. Our favorite local tavern was once the best place for an honest burger and a beer; now it tries to attract a hipper crowd. There’s a line of twenty-somethings waiting to get in to order designer beers and avocado toast. And an old-fashioned family grocery store that featured locally made products was bought by a French couple that made it an outlet for French imports. It went out of business. Ah, well.

The same thing happens to wineries and in-town tasting rooms. In a previous issue, we wrote about “lost wineries” that simply closed to visitors or were sold out. There are a number of others in Sonoma County that we remember fondly.

Francis Ford Coppola Winery. Photo courtesy of Tripsavvy.

Chateau Souverain has had a Sonoma County presence for more than 80 years. We weren’t around for its early days, when the legendary Mike Grgich (sadly, recently deceased) was given his first American job. But we did visit their second home in Alexander Valley. It was quiet, a bit out of the way and rustic in appearance. In 2006, the location was bought by Francis Ford Coppola who turned it into a swimming pool with wine (and Coppola tributes). Yes, Chateau Souverain can still be bought. They in turn took over an existing winery and are now not open for visitors there.

There is a tasting room on the northeast corner of the Healdsburg Town Square that is today the tasting room of Ernest Vineyards. It was previously the place to taste DeLoach wines, principally their Pinot Noirs as we remember it, when they were acquired by the Boisset family from France. It was more convenient to taste there than in the western part of the Russian River valley, where they still operate. Before that, the space was occupied by Gallo Sonoma, when the well-known mass producer made a foray into fine wines. There may have been some intermediary tenants there, but these are the ones we can recall.

Chateau St. Jean

It’s not all sad stories of demise. Sometimes new owners inject money to improve a vineyard’s wines without changing their overall style nor the experience of visiting. For example, Chateau St. Jean was long a favorite of ours in Sonoma Valley. Treasury Wine Cellars took it over and then in 2021 it was sold to Foley Family Wines. As far as we can tell, the quality of the wines has remained consistent. More important for Power Tasting, which is about the experience of wine tasting, the architecture, gardens, palm trees and statuary have all been preserved.

Elsewhere in this issue you can read about the former Pezzi King vineyards that have been replaced by Passalacqua Winery. In the old days, if you wanted to try a heavy, highly alcoholic Zinfandel, Pezzi King was the place for you. Thankfully, the wines are very different now.

Gallipoli, Italy

We specify that this is the Gallipoli in Italy, because there is a far more famous Gallipoli in Turkey, where a notable battle was fought in World War I. This Gallipoli is a seaside village in Puglia (which some have anglicized to Apulia) near numerous vineyards where the principal grape is Negroamaro. There is a new town, which you can ignore, but the old part offers a tourist a number of reasons to stop there.

The antecedents of the town are from ancient Greece, not Rome; in fact, Gallipoli mean “beautiful city” in Greek. Over the centuries, it has been ruled by many foreigners, including the Goths, Byzantines, Normans, the dukes of Anjou, Venetians and Spaniards. Each of them has left a trace on Gallipoli.

The Castle still guards Gallipoli’s harbor and the ancient bridge to the mainland.

The most impressive monument to Gallipoli’s past is the Castle. It is a huge, round fortress that overlooks the harbor. The old town is actually an isthmus, with a narrow bridge connecting it to the mainland. The castle hovers over the bridge and was intended to keep invaders, like Saracens and Tripoli pirates, at bay. We’re not sure it always worked, but conquests seem to have come from the land side, not the sea.

The Cathedral of Sant’Agata was erected in the 17th century in a plateresque style, reminding you of the Spanish overlords who were in charge at time. The exterior has statues of some martyred saints, but it is the frescoes on the interior walls and ceilings that dazzle the eye. They are so large and there are so many that it is hard to take them all in. We found it best to choose one or two and just focus on those works of art.

The grindstone for making olive oil.

An interesting attraction is a museum of olive oil, or more formally, the Frantoio Ipogeo di Palazzo Granafei. There were once dozens of underground olive mills in Gallipoli; this is the only one remaining. They were below the streets in order to keep the olives as cold as possible in Southern Italy’s heat. The work of pressing the olives, collecting the oil and purifying it was grueling. Local lads would work there for a year, because they were paid so handsomely for their labor that they were set up for life. The donkeys who went round and round endlessly to drive the presses were not so lucky.

Alas, tourists have discovered Gallipoli, so as you walk along the town’s narrow streets, you’re as likely to hear English being spoken as Italian. You’ll find shops selling t-shirts and the like, but you’ll also find enough other things to keep you interested for a while. However, this shouldn’t stop you from wandering around. The well-maintained buildings are alluring and some of the shops are rather interesting.

As a parting stop in Gallipoli, we recommend the fish market, naturally down by the harbor. It smells a bit (more than a bit), but you can eat fresh seafood there and you know that it really is for the locals, not for the tourists.

Special Occasion Wine Gifts

The Wall Street Journal has long had a feature they call “Open That Bottle Night”. The premise is that many people have a few bottles that they’re saving for a special occasion. But the occasion never seems to come and so the wines linger until they’re no longer so special. The Journal advises that we all should open and savor one of those bottles at least once a year.

Photo courtesy of Marketview Liquor.

We do in fact have a certain number of bottles that get extra care and, yes, we do open them on some special occasions – birthdays, anniversaries – and some not so special, like that first barbecued steak of the season. But then there are some reasons for wines that are important for someone else. These might include welcoming a new addition to the family, reciprocating a friend’s wine generosity or celebrating some relatives’ fiftieth wedding anniversary.

We have confronted that situation over the years and have taken a few different approaches.

The easiest is simply to look through our collection and choose one of those wines to share with others. That works well if we’ll be drinking it at our house, where we can control the handling of the wine from cellar to table. But if we’re going to someone else’s place, all the care that has been given to a bottle over the years is likely to be for naught. The sediment will be shaken, the temperature will be unpredictable and so the wine really shouldn’t be drunk that night.

So off to the wine shop we go. But what to look for? First, we really need to understand the tastes of the intended recipient, the nature of the occasion and possibly the menu. There’s no sense bringing a California power hitter if the people we’ll share the wine with favor delicate Burgundies. The intent is not to say, “Here’s something we like” but rather to show that we have an appreciation for what they like.

Another approach is to avoid table wines altogether. How about a Champagne, say, or a Port? The problem with giving Champagne these days is that there seems to be no middle ground. Any given Champagne maison will have a base-level bottle that’s not quite special enough and a top-end premium bottling that may be beyond a reasonable price range. For example, the wine shop we usually patronize has Pommery’s Brut Royale for $55 and their Cuvée Louise at $220. Just how special is that special occasion?

Port has some of the same problems as a red table wine. First, vintage Port that’s ready to drink (20 years old or more) can be very pricey. And even more than aged red wines, Port throws a lot of sediment, making it difficult to consume at the time it is offered. Sauternes might be a good alternative, but these dessert wines don’t have the same cachet as Port does.

In the end, the wine version of the Golden Rule (“Give what you would like to receive”) applies, combined with some serious consideration for what we know of the recipient’s tastes. The secret is to say, “We hope you enjoy this wine. You don’t have to serve it tonight.” If that means we don’t get to share it with them, there will be other occasions and other wines.

Pugliese Vineyards

Winemaking in Long Island’s North Fork has been going on long enough that there are beginning to be two types of wineries. The first is the pioneers, built by the hardy individuals who thought they could make quality wine where once potatoes grew…and to a greater or lesser extent, they’ve done it. The other is the newcomers, building on the success of the pioneers but bringing a lot of money earned doing something else, such as software or manufacturing. Pugliese Vineyards (www.pugliesevineyards.com) is one of the oldest of the pioneers.

Established in 1980, Pugliese was and is a family enterprise. The founding father has passed away but his wife is still to be found in the tasting room, dispensing wine, gifts and advice. We’ve learned that there are now five generations involved in production and sales. For those of us with respect for tradition in winemaking, this fact alone is a reason to visit the winery.

Photo courtesy of Foursquare.

The building housing the tasting room is simple, made of white clapboard. There is a touch of a farmhouse about it. But really, don’t visit Pugliese for the architecture. Find a perfect warm afternoon, with blue skies and lots of sunshine. That’s the time to come to this winery.

Around the aforementioned building are acres of lawns, trees, a lake with a fountain in it and, gloriously, a long pergola covered in vines with plentiful picnic tables below it. You can bring a picnic or buy cheeses, cold cuts, snacks and olives on the premises, all designed to accompany the wines. (Hint to the owners: they should offer Pugliese bread.) Most of Long Island is flat; Pugliese isn’t exactly hilly, but they do bill themselves as “The Winery in the Hollow”, which only adds to its attractiveness. As is the case with many North Fork wineries, Pugliese does a side business in weddings. We can see why people would want to get married there.

Like many Long Island vineyards, Pugliese makes wine from a wide variety of grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Riesling, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Grigio, Sangiovese, Gewurztraminer and Niagara, to be exact. We have often said that this is an error by the local wineries. Yes, they want to appeal to all tastes, but we think they would all be better off making better wine from fewer varietals. We notice that some of the newcomers are also doing this.

Pugliese takes great pride in their sparkling wines, which they still call Champagne. Of course, by law the real thing comes from that place in France, but Pugliese has been making their sparklers long enough that they were allowed to continue using the term as long as they identify it as coming from Long Island on the label. They have four of them, and you can try a flight of all four.

To be honest, we don’t find Pugliese’s wines to be to our tastes. That’s really unimportant. For one thing, Power Tasting isn’t about the wines but about the wine tasting experience, and the experience at Pugliese is great. Moreover, it seems that they have developed a dedicated following. Whenever we have been there, we have seen groups of visitors buying lots of wine and enjoying it quite a lot.

Tasting to Buy

There are a lot of reasons to go wine tasting, ranging from a pleasant day in the country to serious connoisseurship. In some instances, the reason may be (or at least include) the specific intent to buy a certain wine or type of wine. Of course, we usually buy a few bottles from many of the wineries we visit on any given trip, but there are also times that we’ve been specifically looking to buy a particular varietal or a blend.

Sometimes the objective is obvious: If we’re in Burgundy, we’re going to buy wines made from either Pinot Noir or Chardonnay, because that’s what they make. But for us Americans, we’re used to tasting at wineries where as many as a dozen types of wine are on offer. If we are intent on filling a hole in our wine collection while we’re out tasting, we could just rely on the luck of the draw. But we have found that following the tips we give below, we’ve been more successful in finding what we were looking for.

Photo courtesy of Kreglinger Wine Estates.

Be as specific as possible as to what you’re looking for. If you start out thinking, “I’d like to buy some white wine”, don’t worry, you’ll find it everywhere. That’s not the same as looking for a certain style. Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Chenin Blanc are all whites but with very different flavor profiles. So before you leave home, consider what you like, what you’re likely to serve it with and how soon you intend to drink it. If you trying to buy, say, a flowery white with lots of fruit and a hint of sweetness, then you can buy accordingly.
It’s like going to a wine shop, except it isn’t. At the store, all you can do is look at bottles and ask the salesperson for advice. At a winery or a formal tasting, you can try before you buy. That’s a plus. But you probably would never go to ten wine shops to buy ten bottles to try at home. On a wine tasting trip, you are going to taste the type of wine you’re looking for, then another an hour later and two more the next day. Are you enough of an expert taster that you can remember all of the ones you’ve tasted and choose the best? And will you want to drive back to the winery you visited yesterday to buy the one you remember you liked best?
Improve your odds by choosing the right wineries to visit. As noted, you’re likely to encounter many different grapes and styles, all at the same winery. A little homework before you set off on your trip will guide you to the places where it’s more probable that you’ll find what you want. If a particular winery has six single vineyard Zinfandels and, oh yes, a Chardonnay, you have less of a chance if it’s a white wine you’re intent on buying. Yes, there are exceptions and you should take advantage of them if you encounter them, but don’t bet on it.

Bacigalupi Vineyards

We love driving down Westside Road in the Russian River Valley. Healdsburg is just behind us; great Pinot Noir and Chardonnay lie ahead. Westside is a well-tended country road, with wineries on your right side, heading south, and occasional glimpses of the valley floor to your left. And there on your right you will find Bacigalupi Vineyards (https://bacigalupivineyards.com).

The Bacigalupi tasting room. Photo courtesy of the winery.

Bacigalupi is a family vineyard, which means a lot in these days, when “family” often means “We made a lot of money doing something else, and bought ourselves a vineyard”. The Bacigalupis have been growing grapes on this property since 1956, with the first plantings of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in 1964, possibly the first Pinot Noir in Russian River. They must have done some things right, because their Chardonnay was in the blend that won the Judgement of Paris in 1976, included amongst Chateau Montelena’s grapes.

Bacigalupi’s Pinot Noir. Photo courtesy of the winery.

In fact, you may have already tasted some of Bacigalupi’s production. They sell more of their grapes than they use for bottling under their own label. Williams Seylem and Gary Farrell are among their customers, who gladly announce the vineyard they source from. We don’t know if this is true (and the family won’t tell) but it’s only reasonable to expect that they hold back their best grapes for their own wine.

To this day, Bacigalupi is truly family-owned. Charles, the founder, has passed away, but his wife Helen is still with us. John and Pam, son and daughter-in-law, run it and Katey and Nicole are in management positions. We have found that if you stop by for a tasting, a family member is likely to be pouring your wine. And in keeping with that of-the-soil tradition, the winery is simple, more of a farmhouse than a tasting room. It’s far enough off Westside Road that it feels rather isolated, as though it were the only farm property for miles, instead of one of the many Russian River wineries.

To this day, Bacigalupi has stuck with what they do well: Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. In fact, they have kept the 2½ acre Paris Tasting Vineyard. Wine from this vineyard is available (though hard to find) under the name Renouveau. Our tastes run more to their Pinot Noirs, from several of Bacigalupi’s vineyards. We find them representative of Russian River Pinot Noirs, which is saying quite a lot. If you want to know what good Russian River Pinot Noir tastes like, try theirs. They are full-bodied, but not like some of the bruisers from Santa Lucia Highlands, nor thin and acidic as you find at other Russian River vineyards.

While the wines are modern and bright, the experience of a visit to Bacigalupi is homey and laid-back. It’s as though you are being invited into the Bacigalupis’ home, which after a fashion you are. The wines are well worth tasting but they’re not the only reason to stop there. You get to feel a part of a culture that is sadly dying out, of honest people making quality wines because that’s what they do. More, it’s who they are. If you’re a serious wine taster, you’ll appreciate the people as well as the wine.

Right Place, Wrong Grape

They grow Cabernet Sauvignon in Bordeaux. They grow Tempranillo in the Rioja. There’s Chardonnay in Burgundy and Malbec in Argentina. But let’s keep it domestic. Napa Valley has Cabernet Sauvignon; Pinot Noir is grown in the area around Santa Barbara; and Zinfandel is the hot grape in Dry Creek Valley. There are reasons for these grapes in these locations, including terroir, history and farming techniques.

Pinot Noir from Paso Robles. Photo courtesy of Paso Robles Daily News.

But there are some times in your wine tasting travels when you might encounter grapes growing in places where they aren’t expected. For example, Pinot Noir usually grows best in a cool, moist climate. But there are quite a few wines made from that grape that can be found in the hot, dry region around Paso Robles. And in Champagne, famed for sparkling white wines, you can find Bouzy red wine.

So if in your travels you should come across wines made from grapes that shouldn’t be there, what should you do?

Does it make sense to try these wines? Well, yes, what do you have to lose? More to the point, you may have a lot to gain. Some vineyard managers may take advantage of microclimates on their properties to grow grapes that can take profit from those conditions. So, for example, many of those Paso Robles Pinot Noirs are grown behind the Templeton Gap, which gets its cool, foggy breezes from the Pacific. These wines are never going to be confused with Burgundies, but some of them do express their own terroir, so they’re worth tasting on their own merits.
Why look for the unexpected wines? That’s one of the reasons to go wine tasting in the first place. If it weren’t for trying these out-of-the-way wines, you could skip wine tasting and stick with your local wine store. In some cases, they may be the only chance you have to taste these kinds of wine at all in that region. We recently wrote about the wines made from Croatian grapes at Grgich Hills. We’ve been to a couple of wineries where we were told that they were the only ones growing Tannat in California. And I can think of only one where we have tasted Peloursin.
Is it worth the trip to try these wines? Probably not. But that’s not the point. If you’re already tasting the grapes that an area is famous for, trying something unusual is just an addition to your experience, not the basic rationale for an excursion. There are places in Wine Country where the growers plant every grape they can, in hopes that the casual buyer will seek a specific varietal. For the most part, most of these wines are not very good, because of both an unfavorable climate and an unfamiliar farmer. There’s a reason they don’t grow Zinfandel in Canada or Marechal Foch (look it up) in Temecula, California Or, at least, they shouldn’t.
Are these wines worth buying? If you like them, then sure, go ahead. And if you want to share something really unusual with your friends, these offer the chance to do so. But make sure you explain what makes them unusual. Don’t be a wine snob.

Managing Wine Clubs

Over the course of years, we have been members of at least 20 wine clubs (not all at the same time). These clubs are effectively an agreement for the members to buy a case of wine each year from each sponsoring winery. In return for that commitment, you get a discount, normally 20%, and free tastings when you are at the winery. In addition, in many clubs there are events that members may attend, almost all of which entail plentiful servings of their wines. If you like the wines a particular winery makes, joining the club makes good sense.

Loading the truck. Photo courtesy of August Hill Winery.

However, when you join you quickly learn that there are matters that require management on your part, eating up time and detracting from the pleasure of having fine wines delivered to your home.

You like some of the wines, but not all. Some clubs allow you a degree of specificity, such as only red wines or only certain varietals. But many have a policy of sending you what they want to send (that you must pay for). If customization is permitted, that means that when you receive the notification of an upcoming shipment, you need to make decisions about which ones you want and don’t want, replacing them with other wines and communicating these choices to the club’s designated contact (often nowadays the “ambassador”. Thus are wine snobs made).
You won’t be home for a delivery. If you know at the time of ordering that you will be traveling, you can notify the club contact. Most are accommodating to your schedule. When you get a notice that a shipment is on the way, you usually get the tracking number from the shipping company so you can track your order. But then you (or someone) must arrange to be at home to receive the wines, which usually means the whole day.
You want to speak with someone at the club. Some wine clubs, alas not the majority, are eager to engage in person with their members. They’re available by phone, they reply to emails and know more about wine than order numbers and ship dates. In all too many instances, so we’ve found, the contacts disappear between shipments. It’s just frustrating and this type of difficulty has sometimes been the reason we’ve quit certain clubs.
You’ve become tired of their wines. With a few exceptions, we resign from our clubs after two or three years. No matter how much you liked the wines at the beginning of your membership, you may not like what they send you at the rate of a case a year. Especially if you’ve been buying age-worthy wines, they begin to accumulate in your cellar. The expense of club membership may deter you from drinking other wines you know and like. Yes, you can quit, but that means remembering to put it in writing and checking that your resignation didn’t get lost somewhere in the winery’s back office.

All this may make it sound like wine clubs aren’t worth the effort. With membership in five or six at a time, we are definitely advocates of joining clubs at wineries you love. Just remember that there’s work on your end, too.