The Silk Road of Wine

A private tasting with the Jacob's Creek winemakers

 I was recently invited to a tasting in San Francisco with Bernard Hickin and Philip Laffer, the winemakers for Australia's Jacob's Creek vineyards.  The tasting covered several of their recent releases and really demonstrated the breadth of  the Jacob's Creek line - all too often in the US, "Aussie" and "shiraz" are mashed together as one word, so it was a real joy to explore the diversity of their offerings beyond the usual selections.   

My notes from the tasting:

• 2006 Reserve Riesling - tart and full of lime.  Winemakers say it will develop honey and butter notes in the bottle.  This one seems like a winner with asian cuisine.
• 2006 Steingarten Riesling - made in limited quantities in good vintages, this one came off like a minerally, flinty, toasty Chablis, with a bit of lemon-citrus flavors as well.  Very lovely indeed, and its bone-dry character would pair well with delicate seafood dishes. 
• 2009 (not a typo) Steingarten Riesling - this wine is not yet commercially available and had only been bottled a couple of months ago; made for a great juxtaposition with the previous 2006 version.  The color was very light, almost like a vinho verde, and given its youth, intense lime and floral characteristics predominated.  Bernard and Philip noted that it would need another 4-6 months to develop the secondary bottle characteristics present in the '06. 
• 2007 Pinot Noir Reserve - slightly spicy and balanced, and at 13% alcohol it was not over-ripe or overblown like so many new-world pinots.  Would be a good pairing with duck or salmon.
• 2004 St. Hugo Cabernet Coonawara - concentrated cassis was the first note, followed by meaty, leafy flavors.  This was quite delicious; it was restrained, elegant and mouth-filling, and would pair well with grilled meats. 
• 2006 Reserve Shiraz - flavors of fresh dark plum fruit with a bit of spice and pepper.  Recommended to drink over the next 4-5 years as the tannins on the edge continue to soften.  This was a very easy-drinking wine - it's pity more Australian winemakers don't make more reasonably-priced shiraz like this.  
• 2005 Centenary Hill Shiraz - this wine had a vibrancy to it and pleasant plum-and-holiday-cake spice on the finish, without any overly jammy flavors.  The Barossa Valley vineyards that produce the grapes for this wine have a minimum of 40-year old vines, with the core vines in the 90-95 year-old range. 

Many thanks to Bernard and Philip for their time and great wines - looking forward to picking up a few of these to go with autumn game dishes!

Georis Winery (Carmel Valley) Review

Back to blogging now after being away for a while on business.  We had the pleasure of going down to Carmel Valley this past weekend for some good food and wine -- on the food front, we are big fans of both Casanova restaurant (in Carmel-by-the-sea) and their more casual sister bistro in Carmel Valley, the Corkscrew Cafe. 

As far as wine goes, we decided to stay within the "culinary family" and visit Georis Winery, which is owned by the same folks who own the two restaurants above and is well-known for its excellent merlot (as an added benefit, the tasting room is right next door -- literally -- to the Corkscrew Cafe).  Georis puts on an excellent tasting experience in their beautiful outdoor patio, and each tasting is accompanied by a plate of 3 cheeses and a helpful history of the wine from the friendly staff -- highly recommended if you are in the area.

We tried several wines, all of which were quite tasty but the stars were the 2000 and 2002 "Estate" Merlot bottlings.  Unlike some of the others, these were neither too thin (the 2002 Le Sanglier suffered a bit from this) nor too tannic at this age (the 2001 "Estate" Merlot was a bit tough relative to the other two) -- instead, the 2000 and 2002 were complex, well-balanced and showed a pleasant, lingering finish that paired quite well with both the hard and soft cheeses.  These would be great food wines, and the 2000 comes from a renowned vintage that local aficionados believe can be cellared until the 2020's -- since it is so delicious right now, I'm not sure any bottle I bought would last that long.

Bottom line: both the wine and the experience at Georis are highly recommended, along with the Corkscrew Cafe next door.          

CONRADO CELLARS BOTTLING PARTY

This past Saturday we were honored to be invited to the Conrado Cellars 2005 bottling party courtesy of our friends Russ (center) and Susan Perry.  Head winemaker Paul Conrado (right) also operates The Conrado Company, a homebuilder specializing in the construction and remodeling of luxury custom homes in the foothills of Silicon Valley -- as a service to his clients, he also (astutely) plants and helps with the operations of nearly a dozen vineyards on their properties, for which he receives half their fruit as payment in exchange for bottling their wine.  It works out nicely for all concerned.

Saturday morning, 9am: 145 eager friends and family assemble to begin the process of bottling 96 cases of wine (zinfandel and carignane). 

There was lots, and I mean lots, of work to go around.  The work was well organized, though, and at times seemed akin to a Civil War fire brigade with everyone pitching in wherever needed.  The highlights, working our way down the assembly line:

Washing and drying the bottles -- very important to the end product.

Bottling the juice -- have to watch fill levels for all 6 bottles at once, feels a bit like a video game ...

Topping off each bottle, like Michaelangelo putting the final brushstroke on the Sistene Chapel.  Perhaps I'm being generous; this was more like the "Goldilocks" job (not too full, not too low ... want the cork to fit juuuuuuuust right)

  Corking each bottle.  How long until Paul goes to screwtops?

Wait a minute ... I thought they only poured one glass for "quality control"?

A few mechanical difficulties with the pump, quickly repaired before the workers get antsy ...

Sealing each masterpiece with the distinctive foil wrapper.

 

Labeling each bottle -- steady hands required here, to be sure.  Note the extra-large font, designed to accomodate dinner parties where they need to read the label after sampling a little extra product ...

In the end, another award-winning effort for the Conrado team.  Great fun all around, we look forward to the next one!

L'OMBRETTA WINE BAR, SANTA BARBARA, CA

Visiting Santa Barbara for the weekend, we came across this gem: L'Ombretta, a Venetian-style wine bar at the corner of Chapala and Anapamu.  The website still has a ways to go, but Venetian native Andrea and his wife (co-owners) run a great operation -- 100-200 wines by the glass, with selections that change weekly, and a six-page menu that features regional Italian cuisine ranging from small plates, smoked meats and cheeses to larger plates, all highlighting the distinct food and wine pairing typical of Venice.  Two important caveats, though -- the wine list is heavily weighted to the Veneto region (so don't be embarassed if you don't recognize a lot of the names) and the food menu titles are all written in Venetian dialect (so the words are a bit closer to French and Spanish than to traditional Italian ... but the English translations are right underneath, albeit in small font).

We sampled a few small dishes such as the wild boar prosciutto, taleggio cheese and the mixed olives -- all were uniformly excellent.  We paired those with the following wines:

2001 Anselmi Capital Croce
2002 Villa Russiz Tocai Fruiliano
2002 Schiopetino F. Sgubin
1999 Viviani Valpolicella Superiore
2000 Corte Lenguin Amarone
1999 Tedeschi Montiolmi Amarone

For those of you that have never tried Amarone -- do so, without reservation.  Made from grapes that have been dried (rather than fresh), it shows succulent, extremely concentrated flavors that continue to evolve on the palate 2-3 minutes after you finish taking a sip.  Once hooked, you may never go back to another wine again ...

As if you needed another reason to stop by, check out their coming attraction for Eclectico: