In my last post I mentioned how we are fans of Frog’s leap vineyard – for a variety of reasons. The main reason is that we really like their wines, but also we like the fact that for years and years now, they have practiced organic and biodynamic farming, and they have a great sense of humor (their motto is “Time’s fun when your having flies”). We are members of the Frogs Leap wine club, and we periodically drive up to the source to pick up our shipments. This past weekend there was an event going on in the Rutherford Appelation region the ‘Rutherford Passport Weekend’. In this event, you purchase a passport, and many of the wineries in the area offer special tastings of their wines. The money raised by selling the passports benefits local Napa Valley charities. Many of the wineries are small, family operations that don’t normally keep a tasting room open, so we saw this as an opportunity to taste several wines which we wouldn’t normally get the opportunity to sample, along with some old favourites. We spent one day (Sunday) at this Rutherford sip fest, and samples wines from 10 different wineries. I won’t go into everything, but rather just mention a few of the highlights.
Our first stop was not even in the Rutherford region – I have been listening to podcasts that are produced by Goosecross cellars, in Yountville, just to the south of the Rutherford area where we were heading. Our cellar is loaded with many heavy red wines, and one of the things that we were looking to do was to expand into lighter fare which would be good to sip on our deck in the summer, or to enjoy with a barbeque. One of my favourite white varietals is Viognier, and Goosecross offers a nice rendition of this dry white wine. It doesn’t have the complexity of my favourite viognier (Joseph Phelps), but it is less expensive. The Goosecross Viognier is all fruit – it has the peach and pear flavours up front, which fade into something more citrusy for the finish.
Then on to the Rutherford wines – we had to pick up our Passports at a winery which was new to us – Honig. Honig is right next door to Frogs leap, and in many ways is very similar. Regina in the tasting room treated us to a 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon from their ‘Campbell’ vineyard. It started with ripe red fruit, moved into a smooth, velvety phase with nice tannins. Not only did we buy a couple of bottles, we joined their wine club. Honig, like Frog’s leap have a great sense of humor.
Another pleasant surprise for the day was at Sullivan Vineyards. Sullivan was new to us, and two of their wines really stood out for me – their 2006 Chardonnay and their ‘Red Ink’. I don’t drink a lot of Chardonnay but the Sullivan example was quite nice. The fruit had not been beaten into submission with oak and overlayed with butter – the wine had a flowery fruity taste with meyer lemon and was very smooth. Quite nice, although we resisted buying any (the trunk was getting full by this point in the day). The other wine was a shock – the 2006 Red Ink was very bright with lots of ripe fruit – strawberry, red current, then had a phase with more earthiness and a long leathery finish. This was a great wine for sipping on the deck on a summers day, and was very reasonably priced. The shock was looking at the composition of the wine – it is 81%Cab, and 19% Merlot – I never would have guessed that blend from the taste. We bought half a case of the red ink.
Our next two visits were to vinyards which boasted big reds – Alpha Omega and Rubicon. Both had decent wines, but in my opinion, ‘Ils peter plus haut que leur cul’ and were not worth the premium prices that they were asking. One of the vinyards however was hosting a small family run operation for the tasting – Martin Estate. Martin was pouring two classic cabernet wines – rich, velvety, and evoking all that I think of when I think of my favourite Rutherford reds. We bought two bottles of their 2003 vintage from Petra, who was a charming hostess. We would have joined their wine club, but they are new at this, and their only options involved more wine than we would like to get from a single vineyard – especially one which specializes in a single grape. We will definitely be seeking them out and buying more of their wines. One other surprise was their location – they grow across the street from Frogs Leap and Honig – to other wines that we really like.
Our last stop of the day was at the Rutherford Grange. The Grange is a gorgeous old building, which is in need of a bit of TLC. It is one of the recipients of the funds raised by the Rutherford weekend, and they were hosting three wineries who did not have tasting rooms of their own. Winemaker Amy Aiken was represented with two different labels – Meaner wines, and Conspire. The Conspire Pinot was a lovely, fruit forward Pinot which we needed to have a little of, and the other wine that we really enjoyed in the Grange was a Cabernet from Lieff – we wanted to buy two bottles of the Lieff Cabernet, but an embarrassed Gretchen came back to tell us that she only had one bottle left.
We stopped for a meal on the way back home, and thouroughly enjoyed our first Rutherford Passport weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment