We are member of a few California wine clubs that we visit once a year, but when one of our clubs visits us in New York, that’s special!
Etude Wines, together with their sister wineries Stags’ Leap, Beringer and Chateau St. Jean, was taking a road trip to New York in May. We were invited as club members of Etude, one of our favorite Pinot Noirs in the Napa Valley. The tasting was held in two private rooms of a steakhouse restaurant in Manhattan, giving us a wonderful opportunity to go to a wine tasting of Napa Valley wines in New York City, without taking a flight.
Each winery was offering the best of their current releases and of winery-exclusives as they call them, which means their top wines. Etude was serving our favorite Pinot Noir “Heirloom” and their 2012 Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon (Etude wines have won many awards). Beringer had their 2012 Steinhauer Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2012 Private Reserve Cabernet. Over the years, Beringer has had more placements on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 list than any other winery in the world, Stags’ Leap was pouring an amazing rosé “Amparo” and the wine they are best known for, their Ne Cede Malis Petite Sirah, Chateau St. Jean had their famous 2012 Cinq Cépages. And all of them were offering tastes, as many as you wanted!
Although all of them served a variety of wines, leaning more to red than white, each one had different leading wines: pure Cabernet Sauvignons, a Bordeaux blend, a Pinot Noir, a rosé and a Petite Sirah. This gave the attendees a chance to sample some outstanding examples of different wines, with some degree of overlap for comparison’s sake. Keeping in mind that all the wines offered were top-flight, this was a fascinating treat for the taste buds.
Now the food pairing…. oysters, shrimps, clams, sliced filet mignon on bread, etc. It was a fantastic idea to hold the wine tasting in a steakhouse and have the opportunity to have a food paring with those wonderful wines. Some of them are big wines, steak wines, and the Pinot Noir that pair so well with seafood.
Some wineries were represented by their Wine Club “Ambassador”, as they call the person in charge of the wine clubs, so it was an opportunity for them to reach to their sisters’ winery club members and get them into their clubs, but for us a chance to meet those representatives and have a chat about their wines and clubs.
What a memorable wine tasting experience! Another advantage of being member of wine clubs.