#drinknapa

[trunkupwines]

Go Cal Fire!! #trunkupwines #drinknapa ・・・ One bad ass fire fighting plane! 747 and Cal Fire mean we can sleep easier in @healdsburgcalifornia @healdsburgchamber #sonomastrong #napastrong #sonomaproud #loveisthickerthansmoke

[tastingswithtom-blog]

The pouring starts at 2:30, come by @hobokencheesewine for some tasty fall wines from #Napa and #Sonoma wine producers that will change your perception of what California wine can do from a value perspective as all of these are super deals and priced special just for today!🍷 #drinknapa #drinksonoma @turleywine @thackreywines @witherswinery (at The Cheese Store)

[itswinebyme]

Tasting California From The Barrel

For 31 years … Wait a minute. Think about that. 31 YEARS. That’s not even a decade after the Judgment of Paris made California wine significant … MacArthur Beverages has been hosting a barrel tasting of California wines here in Washington, D.C. It’s an opportunity to try (and purchase) the most recent vintages before they’re ready to be sold – and as the name “Barrel Tasting” suggests, even before the wines are bottled. 

Classic wineries pouring included Chateau Boswell, Hourglass, Girard, Miner, Pahlmeyer, Ravenswood and Ridge, as well as newer labels such as LaRue (one of my IPOB favorites), Relic and Donelan Family. It was comforting to see Hope and Grace – the very first California wine I ever fell in love with – pouring their Cabs, too. (Here’s the full participant list.)

A fun surprise (for me, at least) was to see so many Pinot Noirs (and some Syrahs and other varieties) from throughout Northern California (and dipping down into Santa Rita Hills). My understanding was this event in the past focused mostly on Napa Cabernets (but maybe I was wrong? or maybe this is a sign of changing tastes?).

But what I really enjoyed about the event was the energy in the room. Unlike other big tastings, many of the wines here have never been poured for consumers before. That made the tasting all about discovery –  discovering new tastes and sensations in the new vintages, and for the winemakers, discovering how consumers are reacting for the very first time.

Looking forward to next year’s event! 

[itswinebyme]

Covering the ‘Judgment’ Coverage

(Napa Valley’s Chateau Montelena – along with Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars – beat out their French competition during the Judgment of Paris 40 years ago this month. / Photo by Flckr user Living In Monrovia)

With this month marking the 40th anniversary of the Judgment of Paris – the infamous blind tasting that put California (and the U.S.) on the international wine map – there will no doubt be many great stories commemorating this historic event. So instead of rewriting what everyone else is writing, here’s a compilation of pieces you should read. Since the actual anniversary isn’t until May 24, I’ll do my best to update this post as stories are published.

So let’s get started:

That Revolutionary May Day in 1976 When California Wines Bested France’s Finest by Owen Edwards at Smithsonian.com is a good overview piece and includes a few winery-produced videos giving perspective from those who were there that day.

Dave McIntyre’s The wine tasting that shocked the world – and forever changed what we drink in The Washington Post includes interviews with the Napa pioneers and brings the past into the present. 

The San Diego Union Tribune’s Michele Parente takes us inside a February invitation-only tasting at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars in her tribute: Napa marks Judgment of Paris that put it on wine map.

Judgment of Paris: 40 years after the tasting that changed wine world, is not just a history lesson. “Pour Man” columnist Michael Austin tastes through the 2013 vintage of the winning wines and shares his notes in The Chicago Tribune.

Although it’s not a news piece, napavalley.com has put together 40 Facts for the 40th Anniversary and a fun Fact Vs. Fiction piece about the movie Bottle Shock, which tells the Judgment of Paris story (and is one of my favorite movies).

Bloomberg’s Elin McCoy does a few things in her piece: Why One Seismic Event in the Wine World Still Matters 40 Years Later. She starts out by reporting on a new movie in the making, and then as the headline suggests, answers her question “Why is the world still obsessed with this tasting?” She ends with a do-it-yourself guide to creating your own tasting to celebrate.

Many of these stories include historical images, but WTOP – a Washington, D.C., news radio station – has compiled them into a single photo gallery that’s worth clicking through: 40 years later, Smithsonian celebrates pivotal moment in wine history.

Leave it to the Judgment’s hometown newspaper to find a fascinating character to write about: Joanne Depuy. As she tells Napa Valley Register’s Tim Carl: “I introduced both of the winning wines to Steven Spurrier, and I even transported the wines over to Paris for the tasting for him.” (Uhoh – that means one of my favorite scenes in the Bottle Shock movie may also be fiction!) Read more about her story in: The woman behind the Judgment of Paris.

Wine Enthusiast is marking the anniversary by telling you which wineries to go visit and telling you what’s new, but the more interesting bits are at the bottom under fun facts! Did you know that the winning Stag’s Leap Cabernet included one percent Pinot Noir? Read more in The Judgment of Paris Turns 40.

Esther Mobley of the San Francisco Chronicle takes the cynical position that someone sitting in the center of a news subject always does in Why the Judgment of Paris really matters (and why it doesn’t). But she provides an interesting perspective that makes this a good read and some balance to all the other pieces celebrating the anniversary.

So many anniversary stories on the actual day (I’m typing this on the 24th!), but I’ll end  this list by highlighting one that’s a little close to home. I encouraged NPR colleague Maria Godoy, who runs the NPR food blog, to introduce listeners and readers to the Judgement of Paris. She did a fabulous job -- including an interview with George Taber -- in The Blind Taste Test That Decanted The Wine World.

If you spot a good #judgmentofparis piece that’s not included here, tweet me: @itswinebyme. (Last updated  May 24, 2016)

[itswinebyme]

Crushing the Corison - Part 2

I had very high hopes to not only crush our Corison tasting, but come back to itswinebyme.com with brilliant notes about many of the vintages -- or at least some unifying themes that could tie certain years together.

We were set up for success: Each tasting place mat included designated lines for detailed note taking. And I was more than prepared to write down legible thoughts. But there were five place mats -- with four wines per mat.

Reading back nearly a week later, the notes are only understandable enough to give a glimpse at what I was thinking, and maybe jog a sensory memory of two. But not enough to tell a riveting story.

Fortunately, after 20 tastes of 19 different Cathy Corison-made wines, there were some key takeaways. Even more fortunate, I was surrounded by 10 knowledgeable and experienced friends.

In Part 1  of this 21-vintage salute to Corison Napa Valley Cabernet, I noted there wasn't a clear winner among the wines we sipped during our formal tasting. Yet when I sent an e-mail to the group asking for any "lessons learned," many were in agreement with what impressed us the most.

(Note: we used 18 vintages and one bottle of the final vintage Cathy spent at Chappellet for the tasting. There were three more recent vintages that were later popped during dinner. And yes that equals 22, but the Chappellet was thrown in as a ringer.)

The first takeaway was acknowledgment of our limitations, such as in this response:

“My insights are that I cannot taste 20 iterations of the same wine and expect to come out with a clear favorite. I measure the value of wine in interest, and similarly interesting wines all have similar value. Also, my palate is a blunt instrument and easily overwhelmed by sameness. The small differences become ever harder to discern.”

Pheww! This warmed my novice heart and I realized the value of this tasting was not about distinguishing differences in each individual year. Instead, it was a master class in understanding a particular winemaking style, and a tribute to how well-made wines evolve over time.

Our biggest OMG moment came in the form of a 1999 magnum. This may not be specific to a Corison wine – in fact, it's probably not – but it was truly the most jaw-dropping part of the night.

The top half of the magnum was poured into one decanter, while the bottom half of the bottle went into a second. The two decanters were poured in the first and fourth glasses during our third flight (we were blinded  with each flight – so while we could guess the general time frame because the flights were in order of oldest to youngest, we didn't know what years we were tasting in each glass).

Upon tasting, the wines presented themselves completely differently. The first glass was lighter with layered flavors and tannins. “Minty spice,” is what I jotted down. The fourth glass, however was much rounder and full-bodied. It tasted of dark inky fruit and had a green finish. Of our three hosts, the one who wasn't involved in the blinding or serving of the wines shocked her husband when she was able to detect a similar component and asked if the two wines were the same vintage. But the rest of us were dumbfounded when the two glasses were revealed as being poured from the same bottle.

My place mat notes depict a double arrow pointing at both glasses with the words "HOLY SHIT" written across the arrow. One taster e-mailed all the questions that started running through my head:

"The magnum was crazy. Who knew the top and bottom half could taste like two completely different wines? Does this happen in 750s too? If it does, I wonder if that has something to do with how people talk about a wine opening up over an evening (which I don't tend to notice much of myself) - maybe sometimes the variation is already there in the bottle?”

So now we have an entirely new topic to investigate for another day!

Other takeaways, more specific to Corison wines, included:

In the third flight there was a “consistent metallic, tar, bloody, iodine note ... It made me wonder whether there was something in the viticulture or winemaking during those years that brought that out."

Except for the 1987 Chappellet, which had a "grittier texture to the tannins," there was a "stylistic consistency. There was definitely a connecting thread through all the wines regardless of vintage variation. It was very easy to get a sense of what a Corison wine's character is."

There were no detectable traces of a bad vintage. Each wine in and of itself could have stood beautifully on its own.

A few tasters who were well-versed in Napa Cabernet offered a broader perspective:

“Corison clearly belongs on the short list of Napa producers whose wines not only age well, but actually get more interesting. Both secondary and tertiary development. I'm excited to try the more recent vintages in 10 to 20 years. This list is very small.”

In response to that comment, another wrote:

 “As someone that really doesn't ever recall having Corison before, oddly enough, that's the impression I came away with, too: I'd put Corison in the same category as Dunn. Made to age, older-world style of winemaking.”

For me, what continues to make this night so special is understanding the simple and gradual evolution of wine as it ages. It's not that the younger wines can't be enjoyed now. But all of a sudden, that 2006 bottle I fell in love with months ago no longer held a torch to some of the older vintages.

As one friend e-mailed:

“The tasting really solidified for me what it means for a young wine to be closed/locked down/not showing much. The really young ones ('09, '11, '13) were still delicious and still obviously Corison, but after tasting the older wines, I could really tell that they weren't revealing their full potential.”