July 2008 Wine Club Selections

All-American Wines The month of July is obviously a very patriotic time for Americans. Many of us take the opportunity both before and after the Fourth to raise a new flag in our backyards, and to pay a little homage to the forefathers who risked life and limb to bring our country to the independent state we now enjoy. It's an appropriate month in which to reflect on how far we've come in a short amount of time as a young whippersnapper of a nation, a month to throw around phrases like, "American as baseball and apple pie." Or how about "American as Napa Cabernet?" Our winemaking forefathers blazed quite a trail for us as well. As we sit on our back porches sipping a Sonoma Pinot Noir or a Long Island Chardonnay in 2008, we often forget that only three decades ago, American wine was widely considered as inferior to the more well-established wines of the Old World. The now famous Paris tasting of 1976 shocked the wine-drinking world when Cabernet and Chardonnay from California, for the very first time, trumped those from France in a blind tasting and proved that American wines could indeed hold their own against the best of the best. And this after only a couple tumultuous centuries of winemaking in our new homeland! It's a feat to be admired, and indeed toasted. This month, we raise our glass to the All-American wines of all appellations. Enjoy!

2004 Wolffer Reserve Chardonnay Grape variety: Chardonnay Region: The Hamptons, Long Island, New York Food pairing: New England lobster roll Finally!! As a resident of the greater NYC area, you have no idea how badly I want to like local wines. We so often hear that there are great New York wines out there, and on occasion I find it to be true. But to be fully honest, more than a handful I've tasted under-deliver on quality to a point where I find myself saying, "well, it's not bad for East Coast wine." Not today! Upon tasting this Long Island Chardonnay, I was truly impressed to find a balance between acidity, structure and minerality that we look for in the best California and Burgundian Chardonnays... and at a terrific price. Finally, a New York wine that over-delivers...and from the luxurious Hamptons, no less! Wolffer's German-born winemaker crafts a mean white wine. Carrying flavors of toast, pears and almond, this is a lightly creamy Chardonnay is balanced with fresh acidity and a chalkiness reminiscent of Burgundy... but uniquely , refreshingly and proudly New York. 2004 Chatom Zinfandel Grape variety: Zinfandel Region: Calaveras County, California Food pairing: Grilled chicken with cherry BBQ sauce I have a bit of a tendency to liken a good number of the wines I come across to types of pie. Maybe it has something to do with my pie-loving upbringing, which I can only blame on my dad. But whatever it is, really good wines, particularly those with a certain 'summery' spirit, tend to remind me of jammy fruit enveloped in buttery pastry. Argentine Torrontes: key lime pie. Monastrell: blueberry pie. And this wine in particular, a warm-climate Zinfandel from the Sierra Foothills of Calaveras County, California, reminds me of one of my Fourth of July favorites: cherry pie. Why would I want a wine to remind me of cherry pie? Let's review ingredients and flavors. Ripe, red cherries: good. Vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg: good. Buttery crust flavors: good. Sticky, fruity mouthfeel: gooood. I love a wine that can feel like dessert without having any actual sweetness: a dry wine-lover's dessert wine. And that's just what we have here. Perhaps with a little black pepper and licorice on the finish, which makes it a rather odd slice of pie, but a delicious one just the same!

2007 Hendry Unoaked Chardonnay Grape variety: Chardonnay Region: Napa Valley, California Food pairing: Zucchini and basil quiche On a recent trip to Napa this February, a few members of our wine team, Gary and myself included, stopped in to Hendry Ranch for a lunch visit with George Hendry. George considers himself first and foremost a vintner; he grew up in his vineyards and has worked them for more than forty years, so he knows those individual blocks like the back of his hand. As a "second career", he also happens to be a world-class physicist, manufacturing particle accelerators that are used for cancer research. You know, on the side. To call him a genius would be an understatement, and yet he's as humble and straightforward about his wines as anyone could possibly be. In each bottling, he likes to show the fruit for what it is and where it came from, free of palate-cloying residual sugars. His unoaked Chardonnay is one of the best examples of this concept: produced from four benchland vineyard blocks, the grapes were whole-cluster pressed and fermented in stainless steel without malolactic fermentation, resulting in crisp, clean flavors of apple, peach and lime. 2006 Longboard Vineyards Pinot Noir Grape variety: Pinot Noir Region: Russian River Valley, California Food pairing: Grilled maple-glazed salmon Longboard vineyards started out as the pipedream of a surfer who stumbled into a winemaking career and wished to pay homage to his passion. Today, he shares the venture with two of his "bros", who help him strive for a company they can be proud of. As such, they try to keep their operation relatively small, seal their deals with handshakes, and opt for pride in their product over an extra dollar or two per bottle. The Pinot Noir grapes for this bottling came from two vineyards: O'Neel and Wholer Bridge. The O'Neel fruit was picked in the middle of the night, while the Wholer fruit was picked early in the morning, all to keep the delicate grapes cool on the way to the winery. Their laid-back philosophy is outlined on the back label: "Stay loose, trust your palate... and spend more time surfing and sharing life with friends and family and less time reading the back copy of wine bottles." Good point. We'll end it there and let you get to drinking. Mahalo.

2004 Lail Vineyards "Blueprint" Grape variety: Cabernet Sauvignon (50%), Merlot (34%) and Cabernet Franc (16%) Region: Napa Valley, California Food pairing: Grilled squab or quail stuffed with thyme sprigs The vintners from both of this month's Cellar Selections, Robin Lail included, are among the only citizens of the Napa Valley who can claim not just a few but five generations of winemaking in the area. Lail's great-great-grand-uncle, Gustav Niebaum founded Inglenook vineyards in 1879, making history in this still-young winemaking region. Today Robin carries on the torch with Lail Vineyards, which sources its fruit both from estate lots and some of the more well-reputed independent vineyards in multiple appellations throughout the valley. With the help of winemaker Philippe Melka (see also Roy Estate in our Premiere Selections), Lail produces a beautiful Bordeaux-style blend with flavors and aromas of blueberry, garden herbs and tobacco. The soft tannins make this an approachable wine now, but it also has the stuffing and integration to age for ten years to come. 2005 Old Ghost Old Vine Zinfandel Grape variety: Zinfandel Region: Lodi, California Food pairing: BBQ burgers with grilled Vidalia onion Steve and Lori Felton, owners of the Klinker Brick Winery which makes Old Ghost, are fifth generation grape growers in the Lodi region. Their family first settled in the region in the early 1900's and planted the very same Zinfandel vines that produce the grapes for this wine today. The grapes were originally packed in boxes and shipped to the East Coast and Canada for home winemaking (still legal through the Prohibition years), and thus, very luckily, survived the tumultuous century. The luck is all ours, because old vines like these, when handled with the kind of care the Feltons exercise, produce some of the deepest, most complex Zinfandels that can be found. It's not an easy battle for winemaker Barry Gnekow to wrestle with the cantankerous old soul of these vines; a lot of curveballs were thrown during production. But he likes to think that's just the "old ghost" making himself known, lending his ethereal quality to the wine. With such deep flavors of blackberry, plum and toasty vanilla, we don't mind the cranky old poltergeist's voice one bit. Keep talking, Old Ghost, keep talking.

2005 Rubicon Estate Cabernet Franc Grape variety: Cabernet Franc (78%), Cabernet Sauvignon (22%) Region: Napa Valley, California Food pairing: Grilled sausage and eggplant kebabs Some wines have one legendary character behind them, making the story behind the wine every bit as interesting as the wine itself. Rubicon has two. Gustav Niebaum founded the Inglenook Estate in the 1880's, pioneering winemaking in the Napa Valley and founding one of the first American wineries with international renown. After passing through family hands for several generations and waning during the Prohibition years, the estate finally came into the ownership of famous movie-maker Francis Ford Coppola in 1975. What started out as a "summer home where we could make a little wine in the basement" for the cinematic mogul evolved into what is now a mammoth endeavor that garners the accolades of oenophiles and film-fanatics alike. Rubicon has made a 100% Cabernet Franc bottling for a dozen vintages now, taking a proactive position on a varietal that some see as a blending grape, secondary in quality to its cousin Cabernet Sauvignon. But the folks at Rubicon are confident that their Cabernet Franc has the complexity and the unique spicy mineral quality to stand alone. Handled separately from the Cab Franc grapes that go into Rubicon's blends, these grapes are fermented at a lower temperature and macerated for a shorter time, creating fruitier, softer tannins. Notes of cherries, allspice, clove and tobacco come together in a deliciously plush and spicy wine worthy of its provenance. 2004 Roy Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Grape variety: Cabernet Sauvignon (90%), Petit Verdot (10%) Region: Napa Valley, California Food pairing: Chinese five-spice-rubbed duck breast Just ten years ago, Shirley and Charles Roy were two New Jersey residents: an accountant and a civil engineer with dreams of greener (grapier) pastures. Today, they're living the dream on a vineyard estate they purchased in 1999 from pro golfer Johnny Miller. Helen Turley helped them get their operation going and their vineyards planted, but it's globetrotting winemaker-extraordinaire Philippe Melka who has taken the helm to craft the current release of Roy Estate Cabernet. Philippe is a "let the terroir talk to me" kind of guy, who prides himself on finding the unique "voice" of each individual vineyard. Trained in Bordeaux, Italy and Australia and with stints at Chateau Haut-Brion, Chateau Petrus, Dominus, Chittering and Ridge under his belt (among others), he knows a thing or two about good dirt and attention to detail. His production notes on this particular wine outline everything from maceration time (14 days) to pH (3.82) and cooperage (100% new Taransaud French oak, of course.) But the real stats are in the character of the wine itself. Made of 90% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Petit Verdot from the Soda Canyon area of Napa Valley (100% estate-grown), this wine is, in Melka's words, "intense, with ripe flavors of black currant, Asian spices, earthy characters, mocha and ripe cherry...lush and rich on the attack...finishing with powerful soft tannins and aromas of white chocolate and licorice." Robert Parker enjoyed the wine as well, granting it 94 points.