Category: Wineries

Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars has long been one of the treasures of California’s Wine Country.   In fact, we’d say it was one of the treasures of the world of wine, period. Along with Chateau Montelena, Stag’s Leap won the famous Judgment of Paris in 1976, establishing the fact that California could match France for the quality of its wine. And if you should visit those two wineries, they won’t let you forget it.

But today, Stag’s Leap is not the same company as it was when founder Warren Winiarski was in charge. (Lucie met him at a wine tasting some years ago in New York, got a signed bottle and a hug, has a fond memory of him and still refers to him as Warren.) When he decided to retire in 2007, he sold the company to a huge international consortium and agreed to consult for another three years. Yes, they still make the Cabernets they’re famous for: SLV, Fay and Cask 23. (We actually prefer their Artemis, which is not completely estate-grown.) But if you do the math, 2011 was the first year that Mr. Winiarski no longer had anything to do with Stag’s Leap.

Until the end of 2014, the winery itself looked like a large wooden California house with a gorgeous garden. The tasting room was in a somewhat dark, wood-paneled room that always seemed crowded. We have been told that they often had to ask visitors to wait outside until there was space available inside. The tasting experience may have been a bit cramped, but the wine was great and the room had real presence. You could just feel that a master had made wine there.

Stag’s Leap no longer has a tasting room. Now they call it a Visitors Center, beautifully designed and imposingly modern. Made of stone, steel and glass, it has a panoramic window that looks out onto the famous vineyards and the mountains beyond. Open and airy, there are tables around a large room where a waiter brings you one wine after the other.

To us, the change from a tasting room to a Visitors Center says a lot about what is happening to much of Napa Valley. The wine is less important than the experience that the visitor receives. The owners want to be seen as making something important for people who are important. Therefore an important building is required to demonstrate the importance of all involved. Perhaps there is no intent to intimidate people who are just wine-loving folks, but that is the net effect.

At Stag’s Leap today, you don’t just walk up to a bar where a server asks, “Would you like to taste some wine today?” Rather, you are met at a front desk by a receptionist who asks if you’ve got an appointment. You’re then walked to a table and introduced to your waiter. It feels more like dinner at the snazziest restaurant in town than a visit to a winery, which after all is just a combination of a farm and a factory. If you are someone who would never get to taste a $225 bottle of wine (Cask 23, 2010) except in a tasting room, or for that matter have dinner in your city’s best restaurant, you’re made to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

On top of that, the 2011s we were served were the worst we’ve ever tasted from Stag’s Leap.   Perhaps it’s just the vintage, admittedly a terrible one everywhere. Perhaps it’s because it’s the first year without Mr. Winiarski’s hands.

Wine Country is full of surprises and encounters.  Here is one of those.

The last time we were in Napa Valley, we had dinner at one of our favorite local places in downtown Napa called Bounty Hunter Wine Bar and Smokin’ BBQ.  First, this is an amazing “mixed place” – a wine shop, a bar and a restaurant, decorated Far West style.   They carry a selection of wines, some very rare, at very good prices.  Their wine list is also quite interesting and you can taste great wines there, or find something very unusual that you’ve never heard of.  The food is all about BBQ and they make the best pork ribs in the Valley.  We can’t go to Napa Valley without eating there!

On our last visit, we’re looking at the wine list to choose a bottle for dinner and Lucie saw that they had a Pinot Noir called Gauthier, spelled exactly the same way as her name.  Lucie told the waiter that her name was Gauthier and asked him to bring us two glasses of this wine, but we were told that it was not sold by the glass, only by the bottle.   So we decided to buy a bottle and if we didn’t like it, we’d order something else.  We could not leave without tasting that Gauthier Pinot Noir.  It was a smooth Pinot; we enjoyed it and of course finished the bottle.  We took the empty bottle with us with the idea that we would try to find the winery and pay a visit.

We found the address of Gauthier Cellars and on our way to visit Etude and Truchard wineries (we are members of their clubs), we finally found a winery with that address but the name of the winery was Bouchaine Vineyards. We knew and had visited Bouchaine in past years.    We walked inside the tasting room and Lucie asked one of the guys at the bar pouring wine for customers, “Does anyone know where we can find Gauthier Cellars?”   The answer came from the other man at the end of the bar who was helping customers. “Yes I do. I’m Greg Gauthier, the winemaker”.   Lucie replied that her name was also Gauthier.  They shook hands, talked about each other’s roots and Lucie told Greg that we had tasted his wine at Bounty Hunter and that we felt we had to find the winery, bien sûr!  He immediately gave us each an empty glass and invited us to follow him for a private tour of the cellar. We were introduced to Michael Richmond, the winemaker at Bouchaine and the owner of the vineyard that grew the grapes of that Pinot Noir we drank.  We walked all together through the cellar.   We had a fantastic time, listening to Greg Gauthier’s winemaking story, talking with him and tasting wines directly from the barrels.

According to Greg’s research on the history of Gauthiers in the wine trade, the name can be found in France in the Champagne, Cognac and Loire Valley regions. But he says that his roots and passion for winemaking are strictly American.  In 2002, with the acquisition of three tons of Carneros Pinot Noir grapes, Gauthier Select Vineyards was founded.  Gauthier Select Vineyards (that’s the name of the company, although the label says just Gauthier and the web site is www.gauthiercellars.com) is now in its 13th year of operation.    His production of Pinot Noir is small and unfortunately his wine cannot be found in New York, but can be ordered directly from Gauthier Select Vineyards.

You understand that this is Lucie’s post.  She is from Québec and very proud of her roots.

We’ve been going wine tasting for a long time. Steve has been to California wineries at least once each year since 1977. Lucie first visited there in the late 1980’s and the two of us have traveled to some part of California Wine Country together for 15 years now. There have been a lot of changes, and some of them for the better. Unfortunately some have been for the worse, but we’ll save complaints for another day. From time to time, we’ll post some recollections of what it was like in the old days, mostly in Napa Valley, both to keep the memories alive as well as to point out that similar experiences are still available in Napa and other parts of the California.

In the early ‘90s, Steve’s son Ted was at USC in Los Angeles.   Steve and Ted took a driving tour up the coast, as far as Napa Valley, a nice opportunity to introduce Steve’s son to fine wines and wine tasting.

One of the stops, at around 11:00 am, was the old Louis M. Martini Winery. Martini is now owned by the mega group Gallo. The Martini tasting room is well worth visiting, if only for the Monte Rosso Cabernet Sauvignon. Monte Rosso was once considered among the top wines in California. It has been forgotten in the age of Opus One and Screaming Eagle, but it’s still a pretty good wine and it should be tasted. Today’s tasting room is fancier than it was in the days when Louis M. and his son Louis P. ran the place, but it’s not one of the palaces dotted around Napa Valley today.

Back in the day, there was simply a bar placed in front of the barrel room. Not quite two barrels and a plank, it was still very much a place where winemakers worked and visitors were welcomed in for a few sips (at little or no cost). Steve had met the founder, Louis M. Martini, but by the time of the father-son visit, the elder Martini had passed away. His son, though, was very much in evidence.

So, on a slow, midweek morning, Mr. Martini saw Steve trying to educate Ted and must have enjoyed the sight. After the two visitors had tried the wines on offer that day, Mr. Martini sidled over behind the bar and asked, “What kind of wine do you like?” Steve answered, “Well, you’re famous for your Cabernets, and I like big, powerful wines. That’s why I wanted my son to taste here.” At that, Mr. Martini went off and returned with six bottles, each a single vineyard estate Cabernet, three from their Napa properties and three from Sonoma, on the other side of the Mayacamas Mountains. (They still grow on those properties.) He opened all six and then asked us to try each one and tell him how we liked them. “How about playing winemaker” he offered, and so we poured a little from this bottle, a little from that until we each had something in our glasses that, well, wasn’t of course nearly as good as a professional winemaker would have created, but it was fun. Lesson learned.

There are still opportunities to meet the owners and winemakers in Wine Country and some wineries offer “mix-it-yourself” classes. You can find them at Joseph Phelps (with the constituent wines of Insignia, no less) and at Conn Creek. Appointments are necessary at both places.

Hidden – and we do mean hidden – on a back road in Carneros is the Saintsbury Winery (www.saintsbury.com), a barn-style building reminding us of the old-time Napa. Be sure to call in advance as they have a “by appointment only” policy, although we have found it possible just to drop by. But when you come ignore the address, ignore your GPS and phone them to get the instructions for the last few hundred yards. We’ve gotten lost both times we visited there.

The trip is definitely worth making, for Saintsbury offers some pretty fine Pinot Noirs and the Chardonnay isn’t shabby either. (Their web site indicates that they also make Syrahs, but we’ve never tasted them.) What makes Saintsbury unique is that there is no tasting room. In good weather they will seat you in a pleasant garden, under the trees. The first time we were there it was in September and we had our tasting watching the employees bringing the grapes in their trucks and doing the crushing in front of us. We were also there on a rainy day and we sat on a sofa just inside the blending room, facing the vineyards. While the staff were having their weekly communal lunch – a rather telling statement about the winery by itself – a staff member explained each wine, poured them in succession and let us enjoy our wine and relax, then came back later with the next wine to taste. On both occasions, the staff members were quite pleasant and seemed knowledgeable about Saintsbury’s production.

Their wines are mostly sourced and produced on a single vineyard basis. They are best known for their Pinot Noirs, of which the Brown Ranch is the most expensive. It was the favorite of both of us, but Lucie also loved the Stanly Ranch for its hard candy taste.

An added attraction is the presence of two vineyard dogs. They have a well-worn ball and they want to play with you. The black one is the more eager of the two. He’ll bring the ball and drop it at your feet, or at least somewhere near your feet. If you toss it where he can grab it in his teeth without running, he’ll always get it. But the brown and white dog, while more shy, is much faster. She’ll tear into the vineyards on a longer throw and always bring it back…for the black one to return to you. We (and the dogs) thought it was great fun.

All put together, the experience is very much like visiting someone’s home and relaxing in the garden or the patio while fine wines are served. It’s a lot more like the way you’ll actually enjoy them than bellying up to a bar.