A Trip to a Napa Winery on the Silverado Trail

Earlier in the year I got the opportunity to drag the wife to be on a short trip around Napa, would have liked it to be a longer trip, but we did have lot of things planned that we wanted to do, so as you do, I bought several bottles home with me. The first winery we visited was the Black Stallion winery, which is situated on the Silverado Trail, in the Oak Knoll district which is the southern growing region in the Napa valley.

The 32 acres site originally housed an equestrian centre, the Silverado Horseman's Centre, hence the name Black Stallion, after several years of construction they opened there doors in 2007, the original indoor track now houses the wine making production, but if you look around closely you can still see remnants of the original horse stalls. At present they only produce in very small case lots, and unfortunately only available through the tasting room and there online store, which they are only able to ship within the US, however, I thought they are definitely worth mentioning in case you get to go to Napa and get the opportunity to visit them.

The two wines that we brought back with us were their 2008 Shiraz which we purchased; they only produce 510 cases of this wine, just to show you how limited there production is, and the 2009 Pinot Grigio from Monterey, which we’d been given.

On pouring the ‘08 Shiraz, it had a deep almost opaque ruby colour, with very pronounced aromas of dark fruit and spice, which was just amazing. On the palate you instantly got the flavours of dark cherries and black currants, then came through the sweet spices of clove cinnamon and a touch of black pepper, after that in the background you could also find the flavours of cocoa and violets coming through. This Shiraz was, if you hadn’t guessed absolutely stunning, it had great complexity and length of flavours that just came at you wave after wave, combined with a touch of acidity to make your mouth water and juicy tannins, the wine maker really had crafted a well balanced and beautifully drinking wine.

For the ‘09 Pinot Grigio, they only produced 610 cases of this particular wine, in the glass it had a pale apple white colour, with delicate aromas of peach, grapefruit and slightly florally characteristics. On the palate it was much more pear and grapefruit, with a hint of honey thrown in, than the peach aromas you got on the nose, with a good amount of acidity it was a well balanced and enjoyable wine, which would be great chilled on a really hot day.

As I’ve already said, these wines are not available in the UK, but if you are heading out to California then I would highly recommend a stop off at the winery, it was beautiful place, with a great winery and some fantastic wines for you to try!

A New Australian Wine Brand from DeBortoli Wines

Earlier in the year I had the pleasure of meeting many winemakers from Australia’s great wine making families at the Australia’s First Families of Wine bloggers lunch at Vinoteca, one of which was Leanne DeBortoli, obviously, from DeBortoli wines. Then a couple of weeks ago I received a message from her inviting me to join them for an online tasting for their new BellaRiva range of wines, I have to admit it sound a bit odd doing a tasting online, but thought I could be very interesting. A couple of days before the tasting I received the wine, a bottle of Vermentino/Pinot Grigio, and a bottle of Sangiovese/Merlot accompanied by the obligatory press release.

On the morning of the tasting, as usual I was keeping an eye on Twitter to see what was being said; when I noticed that a few people were talking about the wines already, which got me panicking, had I missed the tasting! So I rushed home, switched the laptop on and signed into ustream, which is the live video streaming site they were using, to find a blank screen saying please wait for the video to begin. Which I thought was a little odd, till I realised that they were doing them at several different times due to the number of people they were hoping to get joining in, then if by magic the screen started to buffer, and up came Leanne and her husband/wine maker Steve Webber.

They went through the idea behind the new brand, BellaRiva and the site they had used to grow the fruit, in the King Valley. The name BellaRiva in Italian means beautiful river bank, which it quite apt as the site sits along 3.5km of King river frontage, after watching a promotional video and listening to the ideas behind the wines, we moved on to tasting them.

We started with the Vermentino/Pinot Grigio blend, in the glass you got a bright straw colour, with nice aromas of pears and apples, you these coming through on the palate as well, with a slight nutty characteristic coming through from the background. There was just enough acidity to go with the fruit, but not too much that it spoilt your enjoyment of the wine. The Vermentino really gave the wine quite a full mouth feel and help to give the Pinot Grigio some real structure, which is something it’s usually lacking, I must say that I actually quite enjoyed this wine; it wasn’t what I had been expecting.

The Sangiovese/Merlot had a deep ruby colour, with plenty of red fruit aromas; these came through in abundance on the palate with a touch of spice thrown in for good measure. There was a small amount of fine tannin and a good level of acidity all combining to make a very enjoyable and easy drinking wine, which is what Steve had said was the aim for this wine.

Both of these wines were very enjoyable, and with the price point of £9.99 are good value, definitely worth giving serious consideration too if your looking for a good drinking wine that everyone would enjoy.

A Supermarket Tries Something New

I was sent a press release and two samples from Sainsbury’s the other week, telling me that they had introduced 5 new wines to their Taste the Difference (TTD) range, and that they were the first major supermarket to sell the indigenous grapes, Marzemino and Brachetto. Having read the press release I got quite excited and had a look at the samples I’d been sent, I was surprised (and a little disappointed) to find that I’d been sent the TTD Verdicchio Classico dei Castelli di Jesi and TTD Barbaresco, not the Marzemino or the Brachetto, but never mind, I still had some interesting wines to taste.

As you do, I went for the white first, which had been billed as an alternative to Pinot Grigio, which for me at this price point, is a great place to start, as there are far too many one dimensional and uninteresting Pinot Grios on the market. Produced in the Marche region of Italy on its Adriatic coast, it’s vinified in stainless steel to help keep its freshness.

On pouring you got a pale straw colour, with the fresh aromas of apples and cut grass, on the palate these all came through, with a good level of acidity making a really refreshing wine. It was an uncomplicated, but very pleasant wine which I have to agree is a good alternative to Pinot Grigio.

Moving onto the Barbaresco, this comes from the Langhe hills in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, produced from the indigenous grape Nebbiolo, which is also used in one of the great wines of Italy, Barolo. For its DOGC status it must be aged for a minimum of two years, with a minimum of 12 months must be in oak.

In the glass it had a deep red colour, not quite as dark as I’d have expected being Barolo’s “baby brother”, it did have quite pronounced aged aromas of red fruit, cherries and currants, after the fruit you got the sweet spice of liquorice. On the palate you got the fruit and spice coming at your taste buds in waves, combined with fine, silky tannins and a reasonable amount of acidity, this was all combined perfectly.

These were two interesting wines, the Verdicchio; fresh, fruity and a great alternative to Pinot Grigio all for £5.99, while the Barbaresco was rich and starting to show real signs of complexity for the princely sum of £9.99.

A Great Range of Wines From Turning Leaf

If you’re looking for a range of wines that has something to cater for everyone’s taste, then you should look no further than those produced by the Turning Leaf vineyard. They’re priced at around the £7.50 mark and are available from the major supermarkets and most good off licenses.

I had the pleasure of spending the evening with Stephanie Edge their winemaker, just before Christmas, going through their current range and pairing them with food. Stephanie’s philosophy for the wine is that when it goes into the bottle it’s ready to drink, which to me, sounds like a good place to start!

The first wine we tasted was their Pinot Grigio, I’m not the biggest fan of these as they tend to be very non-descript and uninteresting. This one though, showed good fruit flavours of Pears and Apples, with a good level of acidity and a reasonable length of flavours on the palate. They produced a well balanced and enjoyable drink, which I thought was an excellent example of what can be done with Pinot Grigio, given a little care and attention.

We then moved on to their Chardonnay, this wine is fermented in French Oak and racked off Lees for a further nine months, it is also allowed to go through Malolactic fermentation. All of this creates a rich wine with a buttery texture, giving you flavours of tropical fruit, butterscotch, cedar and a touch of spice coming through in the background. The most surprising part of this wine for me was that despite it going through Malolactic, it still had a reasonable level of acidity, which shouldn’t have been there. On discussing with Stephanie it became apparent that this had been quite deliberate, and the Malolactic fermentation had been arrested before completion. With all this going on in the glass, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was never going to work, but strangely it did. Actually it was a very enjoyable drink, that wasn’t over oaked, was refreshing and provided good flavours with a good length on these.

The first red of the evening was their Pinot Noir, which is a grape that tends to prefer cooler climates than that of California, but if you look hard enough, apparently you can find some cool, shaded areas. This wine spends nine months in French, American and Hungarian oak, which all add there own interesting characteristic to the wine. You had a light red colour with good aromas of Red Cherries, Red Currants and a touch of sweet spice in the background. Combine these with low acidity and low levels of tannin; you got a well balanced, easy drinking wine that on a hot day you could chill slightly and enjoy!

Next we moved on to their Zinfandel, which is one of my favourite grapes, again as with the Pinot, this wine see’s some oak ageing before bottling. In the glass this wine had a wonderful deep, almost opaque ruby/purple colour and pronounced aromas of Blueberries, Violets and spice. You got these aromas on the taste but in a more concentrated, jammy way that come at you wave after wave, first the fruit, followed by the floral violet notes, then the spice and finally cocoa. Combining these with a good level of acidity and tannin, and a long length on those fantastic flavours you got a very good wine, with some complexity and for the price you’d struggle to find one as good.

The final wine of the night was the Cabernet Sauvignon, as before this see’s some oak ageing with their eclectic blend of oak. You got a deep ruby/purple colour again with pronounced aromas of Blackcurrant leaves, Cassis and Dark Cherries. You got a good level of acidity and tannin, which produced a well balanced and enjoyable wine, very typical of what you get from warm climate Cabernet’s.

It was a great evening, with some very enjoyable wine and company! The wine of the evening for me had to be the Zinfandel, which showed some fantastic flavours and complexity resulting in a great drinking and thoroughly enjoyable wine.

Picture Courtesy of WCommunications