Good Drink, February 6, 2009, The New Brunswick Telegraph Journal*
by Craig Pinhey
This is Part II of my 2009 California wine exploration report. Although I could easily write five more articles on Sonoma, we can’t buy most of the wines at the ANBL, so this week I’ll focus on the Napa Valley, where wine is both a yummy drink and a status symbol. As a wine lover with a cool climate palate who drinks wine mostly with food, Napa is a bit hit and miss for me. The trend there has been to higher alcohol, lower acid (meaning pH’s of 3.8 or higher, and low total acid levels) and jammy sweet, raisined tasting wines (due to long hang times before picking) that don’t go all that well with food. This trend is blamed on wine writers like Robert Parker (The Wine Advocate) , who often gives high scores to decidedly non-Bordeaux-style reds. While it is ridiculous to load all the blame on Mr. Parker, it is safe to say that he and I would fight a lot over wine.
As someone who is always writing and talking about how we need to take the best wines back from the rich and give it to people who really appreciate wine from the ground up, Napa is one of my main targets. Why? Because many of the $100+ wines come from “vanity projects” of people who made their money elsewhere and decided they needed their name on a Napa label. Oh please.
I am happy to report though, after 3 days of intensive (and I do mean intensive) wine tasting, that there are many elegant, French influenced, food-friendly Cabernet Sauvignon-based wines in Napa, and some are even produced by family wineries with a long history in Napa. You just have to do your homework to find these top wines.
What a view at Viader
My first introduction to Napa wines on this trip was a “top flight” tasting of some serious beauties, held at Cliff Lede’s opulent winery in the famed Stag’s Leap District. Lede is a western Canadian who made his cash in the construction business with his company Ledcor, and is now producing big reds in the valley. We had fantastic efforts from: Viader on Howell Mountain, including their serious 2004 60% Cab Sauv 40% Can Franc ($90), and their “V”, a mostly Petit Verdot monster at $125 (all prices US) ; Shafer, including both their basic, toasty oak infused $70 Stag’s Leap Cab and a 2004 vintage of their iconic Hillside Select, a $200+, 100% Cabernet Sauvignon at 14.9% alcohol, that typically scores in the mid 90’s with the critics, but which I found a bit too fruity in its youth. It will no doubt develop into a great wine, as it has big tannins and some of that lead pencil character noted in fine Bordeaux. To get a feel about how these cats make wine, this one spent 32 months in new oak); and Bill Dyer, whose 2005 Meteor ($200+ ) is a dark brooding monster, while his 2005 Diamond Mountain ($75) Bordeaux-blend is a classic, elegant wine with herbal nuances, great fruit and food friendly structure. All of these wines were fantastic, but the 2004 Viader and the Bill Dyer Diamond Mountain were the only ones that I wanted to drink with a rack of lamb, because of their restrained personality.
At various tastings and dinners during the week I encountered a wide range in style within the Napa reds, but it was always the ones with good structure, moderate alcohol, and pleasing savoury notes in the nose and palate that made me want to drink them with dinner. At a dinner at Cakebread, a lovely and dependably good winery in Rutherford District, I was quite blown away by the well structured Cabs from tiny Martin Estates. Then a dinner at Mondavi Winery, an odd place to visit since there are no Mondavis involved anymore, revealed two excellent Bordeaux-style producers: the friendly, family-run Hendry Estates (I loved all their wines) and the new Blackbird, which is one of those wineres that don’t actually have a winery. They share space at a winery with several other labels, but the wine I tried, their 2006 Napa Valley Illustration ($90), showed that they are making wine to drink with food. It tastes like super high end Bordeaux, with minerality, structure and good acid. It tastes great now, but will age, too
The vine I pruned at Honig
My best value experience in Napa was at Honig, a “sustainable minded” winery in Rutherford. They make excellent quality Sauvignon Blanc ($16) and Cabernet Sauvignon ($40) at reasonable prices, and would make a lot of sense for New Brunswick Liquor to pursue. Thus, not all of the Napa wines I tried last week were super premium, although I have to admit the best one was. I attended a tasting and dinner at the impressive Groth Vineyards & Winery in Oakville District. Again, all of the wines tasted were great, including Groth, Merryvale, and Signorello, but the real eye opener was the 2004 Diamond Creek Volcanic Hill Vineyard (~$170) from Calistoga. This had it all: minerality, blackberry and black currant fruit (no raisins!), French oak complexity, and good acid and tannic structure on the palate. What a wine!
A fabulous, Bordeaux-style Cab made from 'mountain fruit'
It almost made me want to be rich…
Wine Of The Week:
Merryvale is one of the better Napa producers to hit our shelves in the last few years. They have great structure and elegance for a hot climate region. I tried a 1999 Merryvale Cab in California, and it was holding up very nicely. I hope they maintain this style, although the trend in Napa has been to move away from this to big jammy fruit. Try their 2004 Reserve Cabernet ($42.99); there are a couple dozen scattered around New Brunswick, or their more straightforward Starmont ($29.99). There are around 50 bottles of that in NB, as well as a few of their Pinot Noir, Profile (super premium meritage), and Merlot.
*not the final published copy
