Posts tagged with 'Napa Valley Wine'

Here’s To Good Friends-Part Three

  • Posted on March 31, 2011 at 9:40 pm

by Phil Anderson
Part One was all about the oldest vintage wine we tasted on this very special night with our group, including Shelley, Laureen, Katie, Diana and myself.  Part Two was all about the year 1984, tasting three wines from that vintage.  Part Three we bring in some pretty heavy hitters: 

Here is evidence of what is about to come--empty, but ready, glasses and decantors. The proverbial quiet before the storm.

1996 Chateau St. Jean Cinq Cepages, Sonoma County
1999 Robert Mondavi Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley
2002 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon, Carneros
*Bonus tasting-keep reading…

After tasting the first four wines while standing around the island in the kitchen we decided to adjourn to the dining room to finish the night tasting while seated.  The next wine up was the 1996 Chateau St. Jean Cinq Cepages from Sonoma County.  This wine was ranked #1 by Wine Spectator in 1999.  It sold for around $30 then but now fetches around $200 a bottle.  The first vintage of this wine was 1990 and the 1990-1995 vintages are no longer available meaning this was the oldest available vintage of this wine.  Although a blend, Cinq Cepages always has 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, and this vintage used Merlot as the predominent blending varietal.

This was the only wine that we did not decant during the evening.  We only had four decanters to work with, although, I DID find another one around the house AFTER the night was over.  I poured everyone a small glass and we did a swirl and smell.  Now THIS is what I’m looking for in a big red wine.  Although this wine was 15 years old (if you did the math by years, but probably a bit less in reality), it was VERY balanced and smooth.  I didn’t notice any color change and the taste held up wonderfully.  It is probably prudent to mention that, although I had PLANNED on spitting during the course of the evening (7 bottles of wine to taste with five people equals Phil drinking WAY TOO MUCH RED WINE IN ONE NIGHT and I had to wake up at 6:30 the next morning to play piano on our worship team at church), I didn’t spit more than 2-3 times during the course of the evening.     With that said, I was starting to feel the alcohol a bit and so my notes began to fade.  It’s just so hard to justify spitting such quality juice!

SOME of the wine made it to our vinegar pot but not much.

The next one to open was the 1999 Robert Mondavi Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon which was unfiltered.  I did decant this after I poured a beginning pour for everyone.  It was even better than the last one!  I will confess, this was my very favorite wine of the entire evening and I kept coming back to this one over and over again.  Suffice it to say, this wine and I became well acquainted with one another.  This wine had marvelous mouthfeel and was quite complex.  It had very good structure and was big and bold.  This wine originally sold for around $125.

Lastly, we tried the 2002 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon from Carneros.  Originally this wine sold for about $60 and it’s hard to say anything bad about this wine.  Also very big and more fruity than the ’99.  It was interesting that most of the people at the table enjoyed this more than the other two later vintage wines.  We did a “somewhat” blind tasting with Laureen as I poured both the ’99 and the ’02 and had her guess which was which to see if she really DID like the 2002 better.  She nailed it!

These two wines were very comparable, however.  It’s not as if I liked the ’99 a LOT more than the ’02 but I kept tasting all three over and over, with chocolate, with dip, with chocolate, with cheese and also with some chocolate….did I mention I tried these three with chocolate?  Ok, good.  They all three were really very, very good wines, in my opinion.  It was just hard for me to NOT put the 1999 on top.

We had started this night of wine tasting by opening the first bottle, a 1979 Beaulieu Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon, at 7:15 PM and the last bottle, the 2002 Robert Mondavi Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon at 9:45 PM.  It was near Midnight when people started to clear out.  We tasted through 23 years of California Cabernet Sauvignon in just under five hours.  Before anyone was allowed to leave each had to sign and date a cork from the evening and then toss it into the cork catcher.

It was a magical night, to be sure.

The aftermath of what was an epic night of wine tasting is evident by the debris on the table.

I told you about a bonus.  Well here it is.  While down in Walla Walla last year for the Wine Bloggers Conference I came back with a bottle of Sherry.  I had never been a Sherry fan but man-o-man I became a fan really quickly after tasting this particular Sherry.  I broke it out for Laureen and Katie after Diana had left, just so they could try it.  They got the last two sips of this bottle!  They absolutely loved it.  This Sherry is so nutty and smooth but the thing that amazes me time after time is that after the initial taste and swallow, you count to five and then there is a powerful flavor explosion in your mouth!  SO interesting!  Now I have to find a new bottle of that same, exact Sherry! 

I remember back in the day of my grandparents and, perhaps, even in my parents’ generation, neighbors would knock on one anothers door if they needed cream or sugar or salt or what-not, if they ran out.  I don’t think that happens nearly as often, anymore, if at all, which is sad.  I think we have just come up with a replacement to that old tradition, as Laureen completely outdid herself in sharing some of her wonderful wine with us.  I think we will just head over to her house the next time we need “some” wine!  The Mondavi family was very lucky to have employees the likes of Laureen and Katie working for them during the trailblazing days of Napa Valley wine.  “Mister” may not be around anymore but his spirit lives in his wines from yesterday and we became well acquainted with it.

“Whatever you do, pour yourself into it.”
-Robert Mondavi

Thank you, again, for reading.  Be sure to catch me on Twitter and Facebook.  Until next time, bottoms up!

Here’s To Good Friends-Part One

  • Posted on March 22, 2011 at 8:42 pm

by Phil Anderson
Remember that Budweiser commercial that stated, “Here’s to good friends, tonight is kinda special….”?  We had one of those nights recently that involved good friends, new and not so new (I try to avoid the word, “old” when talking about people and friendships as they MIGHT think I’m calling THEM old!).

Now before I get started on recounting the evening I will say there has been a lot of time that has passed since my last post.  Green Bay DID, in fact, win the Super Bowl, which I also predicted.  The score was 31-25 and I predicted 20-16.  Not too shabby.  Valentines Day has come and gone.  I made veal for Shelley and we paired a lovely Pinot Noir with it.  Also,  Open That Bottle Night came and went.  I was playing at an event called, “MarriedLife Live” at church that night so, not only did we not have any fun wine, I personally didn’t even have a GLASS that night!    I have no excuses why I haven’t written but this post will hopefully be worth the wait.  

So, back to good friends and that kinda special evening. 

A neighbor of ours, Laureen, used to work at Robert Mondavi Winery.  She knew Mr. Mondavi quite well and always called him, “Mister”.  A friend of hers that also worked there, Katie, was visiting Laureen here in North Idaho and they got to going through some of Laureen’s wine collection.  She has quite a collection!  They picked out seven wines to open and try but, much to our happiness, wanted to share these wines with a couple of other people she thought might appreciate them.  Twist our arms!  Now THIS is true March Madness!

There is so much to write about this night that I’ve broken it down into three parts.  Part One will really only be about one wine, although, throughout the evening we were treated to vintages in 1979,1984, 1996, 1999 and 2002, all from California and mostly from Napa.  I will tell about all but one of those in a later post.  This column is about one bottle of wine and one vintage.

Here the bottle of 1979 Beaulieu Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon sits in front of the the decantor that holds its juice.

I graduated from West Seattle High School in 1979 and it was during that summer of ’79 that the grapes from the first wine we tried were being baked by the Napa sun.  They were harvested later that year with some of those grapes making the juice that went into this first bottle of wine we tried, a 1979 Beaulieu Vineyard Estate Bottled Cabernet Sauvignon Private Reserve.  This was 100% Cabernet Sauvignon.  It was so old the label didn’t even have the website of the winery on it!  In fact, I had visited this vineyard only three years earlier with my family.  How interesting to try this particular wine on this night.

There were five of us tasting these wines and I carefully, but eagerly, opened this bottle.  I poured a small amount in everyone’s glass and immediately noticed the brown color of the wine, not the deep purple you might get from a new vintage of Cabernet Sauvignon.  This is natural in an older vintage. 

We all toasted to what the night was about to become.  As I raised the glass to my nose, after a fair bit of swirling, I noticed notes of raisins and nuts.  It certainly smelled like it had held up all of these years and the taste was not bad either!  You tend to worry about a vintage this old that it may have seen better days but this one was still delivering with a very long fig finish.

After we all had our initial giddy response to such an old jewel I carefully decanted the rest of the bottle to try a “little” bit later.  Well, that “little” bit later was actually about 65 minutes and, by then, it had fell off the cliff.  It was a mistake, on my part, that resulted in most of us being disappointed.

All in all, the 1979 BV Cabernet Sauvignon was a great way to start the evening and it produced the first of many ooooooze and aaaaaaaahs this night was to bring.  But this bottle found a soft spot in all of our hearts because of it’s age and how it really tried to show how it had attempted to hold together all these years.  For me, it brought me back to that summer of ’79 when I finally felt like I could do whatever I wanted after having just graduated from High School. 

I feel so blessed that Laureen asked if Shelley and I would participate in this casual tasting of these wines.  I looked forward to it for days and it was even more than I expected.  I’ll tell you even MORE about the evening in Part Two of, “Here’s To Good Friends”, as we visit the year, 1984.  Until then, thank you so much for reading and remember, bottoms up!

Celebrating A Loved Ones Life

  • Posted on July 19, 2010 at 7:42 pm

Lloyd celebrating his 86th birthday at The Cedars Floating restaurant in Coeur d'Alene, ID, September of 2008.

By Phil Anderson

This column started out, and has continued to be, about general wine thoughts.  After all, that is why I named this blog the way I did.  But this post will be a little more subdued.  Shelley and I have been together, off and on, for awhile now and I’ve had the privilege to get to know her family during that time, but nobody more than her father, Lloyd. 

He lived with Shelley for over four years and was instrumental, in various ways, in her leaving her nursing job at the hospital and starting an online support website for those taking care of their aging loved ones or parents.  She has rapidly become one of the foremost experts in the field of caregiving for seniors.  Her goal when her Dad came to live with her was to keep him OUT of an assisted living facility and now that goal has turned into a passion to help others that are in the position SHE was in to do the same if that is what they desire.

Last September he passed away at the age of 88.  Because he wanted his remains to be scattered over Christopher Lake, which is about a half hour North of Prince Albert in Saskatchewan, Canada, we had to wait until just recently because the lake had already froze last year.  The logistics of getting a boat out on a lake to spread ashes when the lake is actually ice was too much to manage.

For four years I played three hand Cribbage with Shelley and her father, Lloyd, nearly every night while sipping wine.  We had to dilute his wine about a third with water because he refused to quench his thirst with water so he usually finished his wine rather quickly (we learned this the hard way).  His famous saying was, “Water is to wash with not to drink!” 

Shelley and her father, Lloyd, bidding winter goodbye in April of 2009.

Lloyd had a knack for picking out the subtle nuances of a wines characteristics that amazed Shelley and I, even though he might have trouble remembering names of close family members or even what we did an hour before.  He DID enjoy his wine.

He also enjoyed Marilyn Monroe.  Certainly that is no surprise; many men of his generation had a special fondness for her.  He would have calenders, wall hangings and other things with the image of Marilyn Monroe.  He combined his love for wine and his “crush” for Marilyn Monroe by drinking, when the opportunity presented itself, a Napa Valley wine called, Marilyn Merlot.

Marilyn Merlot is produced and bottled by Nova Wines of Oakville, California.  What started out as just some fun with a group of friends in 1981 spiraled into a cult wine.  According to their website Marilyn Wines traces its origins to 1981, when a small group of friends started making wine at their home near St. Helena, in Napa Valley. One evening in 1983, over dinner and a bottle of homemade Merlot, the concept of “Marilyn Merlot” was born. The wine enjoyed a good deal of popularity around the valley and was often donated to charity auctions and given as Christmas gifts.  To learn more about the journey of Marilyn Wines just click here.

I had found, and purchased, a bottle of the 2003 Marilyn Merlot for Lloyd about five years ago.  Often I would ask Shelley if “this” night would be a good night to open that bottle with her Dad but the occasion never seemed to be right.  This is EXACTLY what Open That Bottle Night is all about, isn’t it! 

Well, his health continued to deteriorate and it seemed apparent that he would not be enjoying this bottle of Merlot with us.  After his death, the bottle sat motionless in the pantry.  When a date surfaced on when we would be making the trek up into Canada to honour (that’s the way Canadians spell honor) Lloyds life I suggested we bring the bottle of Marilyn Merlot up with us and enjoy it as we spread his ashes onto Christopher Lake.  Shelley agreed and that’s what we did yesterday morning.

Shelley and her family prepare to scatter Lloyds ashes into Christopher Lake just after toasting his life with a 2003 Marilyn Merlot.

The weather certainly wasn’t conducive for this event, nor did it cooperate!  Windy and frigid was the lake air as the pontoon boat waited for the arrival of our group.  There would be a total of 13 family members.  We had glasses for everybody.  As the Last Post played from my iPod through the boats’ stereo system we poured about 2 ounces of the 2003 Marilyn Merlot into each glass, passing them around.  Shelley’s son, Tyler, was chosen to gently pour Lloyds remains from a ceramic vase into the chilly waters of Christopher Lake, where Lloyd had spent so many summers of his life playing.

As Shelley put it, “It was the best event of the weekend.”  Although each function honored Lloyd well, the barbeque the day before at Jill and Gerald’s house and the actual memorial service following the boat ride on Sunday, this really was a special moment, for a special person, with a special wine.

It had been a long weekend, full of sadness yet fond memories.  Family members that hadn’t seen each other for many, many years were reunited because of Lloyd.  Two full days of emotions.  As we made our way into the hotel room last night, after it was all over, I looked over to Shelley, showing her what was left of the bottle of the 2003 Marilyn Merlot, and said, “Care to finish the rest of this with me?”  The answer was, of course, “Of course.”

I pried the cork (with a replica of Marilyn’s lips on two sides of the cork) out of the bottle and poured a decent glass for each of us.  We swirled and smelled and sipped.  Shelley noticed the beginnings of brown showing up on the edge of the wine as it started showing its age. 

The wine had some alcohol in the nose but it smelled and tasted delicious with hints of prunes, raisins and soft dark cherries.  It had structure and a lingering finish.  But, honestly, it could have tasted horrific and we both would have loved it anyway.  Thankfully, it was the perfect way to peacefully close the book on Lloyd, her father.

As I was doing research on this wine I found out what it sells for now.  I paid about $35 US dollars for the bottle in 2005 and now you can purchase it for a mere 100 bucks at Marilyn Wines.  To me, Shelley and her family, it was worth MUCH more than that.

Thank you for the years Lloyd, although too few, and may you Rest In Peace.

Remember, you can join the many people who like drinking wine by joining the drinking wine fan page on Facebook!  We’d love to have you…

As always, thank you for reading, and remember, bottoms up and enjoy each swallow to the fullest.  You never know when it will be your last glass.

Top