A month of wine weekends

John On Wine: a month of wine weekends

Originally published in the Ukiah Daily Journal newspaper on Thursday, February 26, 2015

One of the genuine perquisites of writing a wine column is receiving invitations to organized wine tasting events. Today, I’m going to recap my last four weekends of wine tastings.

Barrel Tasting 101 in Hopland coincided with the last weekend of the Mendocino County Crab, Wine & Beer Fest and featured winery tasting rooms along Highway 101 from Hopland to Calpella and Ukiah to Redwood Valley pouring barrel samples of wines not yet bottled, providing an opportunity to taste the future, and purchase futures of these wines, while offering up delicious food pairing treats created around Dungeness crab.

Barrel Tasting 101, BARRA of Mendocino (Photo by John Cesano)

This was a joyful weekend for me, as I was able to visit all of my neighbors, and taste many delicious crab treats, as well as get a glimpse of what is coming wine-wise in the future.

Best food spread goes to the team at Testa, with terrific tastes at Barra, Simaine, Seebass, Milano, Cesar Toxqui, and Terra Savia, as well.

This was the second annual Barrel Tasting 101, a great addition to the two Passport events put on by Destination Hopland each year, and saw attendance triple over the previous inaugural event. There will certainly be a third annual Barrel Tasting 101 event in January next year.

Zinfandel Advocates & Producers, ZAP, made San Francisco the epicenter of Zinfandel love, with their multi-day Zinfandel Experience. On Wednesday, I attended Epicuria, a food and wine pairing tasting, featuring over 30 top Zinfandel producers, each sharing a table with chefs from bay area kitchens.

On Thursday, I attended Flights, a seated tasting of three flights of five wines each, moderated by Joel Peterson, featuring winemakers from three distinctly different growing areas in California, Contra Costa County, Amador County, and the Dry Creek Valley of Sonoma County.

On Saturday, I attended The Tasting, with over 100 producers pouring their Zinfandel, and the folks from the SOMM Journal leading panel workshops exploring lesser known Zinfandel growing areas of California. These workshops included a look at Lake and Mendocino County by Sommelier Chris Sawyer and featuring Lake County’s Jelly Jar Wine Zinfandel and Mendocino County’s Rich Parducci pouring two McNab Ridge Winery Zinfandels. I wrote a piece, running over 4,400 words, with pictures, that you can find archived on johnonwine.com about my three days in Zin-bliss.

Zinfandel Experience, Rich Parducci and Chris Sawyer (Photo by John Cesano)

The 10th annual International Alsace Varietals Festival in Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley was held right in the middle of the deluge that saw 3-11” of rain fall, depending on where you were in the county, in just a week. Bacchus, the God of wine, smiled and provided a window of warm weather and sun for the festival.

The main grape varieties of Alsace include Riesling, Pinot Blanc, Gewurztraminer, and Pinot Gris, with (unoaked) Pinot Noir, Sylvaner, and Muscat also represented.

At 8:30 a.m., the Alsace Fest kicked off with educational sessions, with Glenn McGourty moderating the sessions, including panel tastings of white wines featuring different periods of skin contact and examples of winemaking protocols at Campovida by winemaker Sebastian Donoso; an exploration of single vineyard Pinot Blanc by sommelier Chris Sawyer (this guy is everywhere!) with Randy Schock of Handley Cellars, Jason McConnell of Rivino, and James Wasson of Rein each pouring wine made from Shrader Ranch Pinot Blanc grapes; Christie Dufault leading a food and wine pairing featuring food prepared by her Culinary Institute of America at Greystone team and four very different, but delicious Gewurztraminer from Brooks, Navarro Vineyards, Pierre Sparr, and Husch; Thomas Schlumberger’s tasting of eight Grand Cru wines from his Domaines Schlumberger estate in Alsace, France; and a steelhead trout on cauliflower puree cooking demonstration by Francois de Melogue.

After the educational sessions came the big public tasting, with Alsace variety wines from around the world, but concentrated heavily on the Anderson Valley and Alsace, France.

Thomas Schlumberger poured three additional Grand Cru wines from his Alsace estate, originally planted in 1810; the 11 wines Schlumberger poured that day were the best 11 wines I tasted that day, were revelatory for me, and set a new high bar for tasting of Alsace varietal wines that I will measure all other tastes against.

Another huge treat for me was talking with Master Sommelier Ian Cauble, who I recognized from the movie SOMM — find it on Netflix and watch it — who was pouring at the Wines of Alsace USA table.

I did taste our local Alsace variety wines too, and enjoyed offerings from Handley, Graziano, Navarro, and Lichen very much.

Too many associate these Alsace variety wines with sickly, cloyingly sweet, wines; but the wines I tasted on this Saturday were uniformly drier and more concentrated in depth and character, multi-noted, layered wines, that I will reach for again and again this summer.

Lastly, on Valentine’s Day Saturday, I attended the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition’s public tasting of Gold, Double Gold, and Best of Show awarded wines from January’s competition.

Rather than treat the day, and the tasting, like a press opportunity, I decided to just relax and have fun. Juanita Plaza works with me at McFadden’s tasting room in Hopland, and neither of us had a Valentine, so we decided to go together for a San Francisco getaway, built around the wine tasting and an Italian dinner in North Beach.

The weather was unbeatable, blue sky and warm sun, and the tasting was a treat. We tasted several terrific wines, and even a beer and a cidre (really, that’s how they spell it) from Stella Artois. It was nice to see our friends from Campovida, Rivino, Handley, and Simaine pouring.

Dinner didn’t work out. My brother Tom, by fortuitous coincidence, pulled into town across the bay and arranged great tickets and working passes for the Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull concert that evening at Oracle Arena in Oakland, and we had a blast, up and dancing for most of the show. Thanks Tom, we really appreciated you hooking us up, sorry you were working and we didn’t get to see you. Thanks Juanita for joining me for a fun weekend getaway.

That’s it, four weekends of wine tastings. I have to give thanks to Destination Hopland, Zinfandel Advocates & Producers, Anderson Valley Winegrowers Association, and the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition for comp tickets. I write about events, encourage you to get out there and attend some, and I’ll continue to do so. I attend as many events as I can, because I consider it continuing education, it helps to taste broadly and refine or renew perceptions about wines and wineries, and sometimes it can just be a great getaway.

I hope to see you at future wine events…like the Celebration of Mendocino County Sparkling Wines at Terra Savia in Hopland on April 11, the Passport to Dry Creek Valley on April 25 and 26, or Hopland Passport on May 2 and 3.

 

My favorite Crush Chef’s Wine Dinner yet

John On Wine – My favorite Crush Chef’s Wine Dinner yet

This piece originally ran in the Ukiah Daily Journal newspaper on Thursday, February, 5, 2015

The recent Chefs’ Wine Dinner at Crush Italian Steakhouse in Ukiah featuring McFadden Farm in Wednesday, January 21^st 2015 was special for me. You have read six previous posts where I spread my love for these dinners all over the page, and we were finally going to be doing one for McFadden. What a treat.

First dose of love goes to Gracia Brown from Visit Mendocino County; Gracia brokered the deal between Kevin Kostoff at Crush and me at McFadden, bringing us together in joyful partnership, so McFadden’s top awarded and highly rated wines could be paired with Chef Jesse Elhardt’s unrivaled cuisine to offer inland Mendocino a premier event during the Mendocino County Crab, Wine & Beer Fest.

The dinner would also be special, because it would mark Guinness McFadden’s first major public outing after heart surgery at the end of November.

Tickets for the dinner sold faster than any previous Chef’s Wine Dinner at Crush, without Crush getting to send an email invitation to their previous dinner attendees, thanks to you, the readers of John On Wine in the Ukiah Daily Journal and the Wine Club Members and other McFadden newsletter subscribers. Kudos also to Nick Karavas, the exemplary bar manager at Crush, who talked up the dinner in house, and sold quite a few tickets as well.

The evening started with a reception appetizer of Dungeness Arancini with panko, saffron-sherry aioli, fried dill sprig. These rice balls, topped with crab were wonderfully delicious, and paired perfectly with the 2013 McFadden Chardonnay (90 Points – Wine Enthusiast Magazine); a perfect way to kick off the evening.

After the meet and greet reception in the dining room bar area, Kevin invited the full house to move to the private glass-walled dining room and find a seat for the rest of the night’s dinner, served family style, which I love as it makes for a much more social evening.

Once seated, owner Doug Guillon welcomed everybody to Crush and promised a wonderful evening for all, a promise kept. Chef Jesse described the appetizer course previously enjoyed, and the various dishes we would all soon enjoy. Guinness McFadden talked about his McFadden Farm and how his land influences the grapes that make the wines that would be served. Guinness introduced me and challenged me to be as brief in my remarks. I described our appetizer wine, and the two wines chosen for the first course.

The first course dishes included Nueske Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Jumbo Prawns with dungeness mix, bistro sauce, buerre monte, and chive; 1914 Crab Louie Salad with butter lettuce, endive, marinated tomato, avocado, orange, and haystack; and Crab “toast” with garlic, reggiano, basil, lemon aioli, chili, and olive oil.

Many said that the first course was so rich, that by itself, the meal was complete, and every other dish was a bonus. The bacon wrapped prawn with crab was a meal highlight, although the crab salad showing notes of bright sweet citrus and the crab toast (think garlic toast but with crab, so a million times better) made the plate a celebration of delicious taste experiences.

The first course featured two wines: NV McFadden Cuvee Rose (Gold Medal – 2014 Mendocino Wine Competition, Gold Medal – 2014 Grand Harvest Awards, and Double Gold Medal – 2015 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition); and the 2013 McFadden Pinot Gris (90 Points and Editor’s Choice – Wine Enthusiast Magazine) – Guinness’ favorite wine. The Brut Rose showed lovely ripe red fruit notes of strawberry, cherry and watermelon, and the Pinot Gris is a lighter wine with pear and apple flavors richer than ordinary for the variety. The two wines, each in their turn, brought out the subtle, and not subtle, flavors of Jesse’s dishes.

Plates cleared, Jesse introduced his second course: Garlic Roasted Whole Crab with lemon, olive oil, and fresh herb; Zinfandel Braised Short Ribs with 4 hour natural jus, baked carrot purée, crispy shallot, and micro intensity; Roasted Jumbo Delta Asparagus with shallot sea salt, balsamic reduction, and chive; and Potato Gnocchi Gratin with fresh herb, cream, caprino, and house made bread crumb. I introduced the 2012 McFadden Old Vine Zinfandel (95 Points – Just Wine Points/Wine X), possibly the only Zinfandel light enough not to overpower crab, yet flavorful enough to stand up to Zinfandel braised short ribs. Every bite of food was a delight, but gnocchi speaks to my Italian heart, and I loved Jesse’s version…and his dedication, having handmade 1,500 individual gnocchi for the dinner.

For dessert, by request, Chef Jesse recreated a much loved pairing from his December 2013 wine dinner that featured Coro Mendocino wines, a Butterscotch Budino with dual chocolate and butterscotch layers, chocolate pearls, salted butter crunch, toasted crab & coconut crumble (okay, the toasted crab and coconut crumble were a new crab-centric addition for tonight’s meal), paired again with the 2011 McFadden Late Harvest Riesling (Best of Class – 2013 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, 4 Star Gold Medal – 2014 Orange County Fair Wine Competition, Double Gold Medal – 2014 Mendocino County Fair Wine Competition).

The dinner was so good, the service so excellent, that although the ticket price for a crab dinner with wine was higher than any previous dinner (still a bargain at just $75), and included tax and tip, attendees spontaneously passed a collection basket for the servers to increase the tip, with the basket filling with $20 bills.

The evening was great, and I want to thank everyone at Crush, from the folks who ordered our wines (thanks!), to those that cooked the dinner, and from those who served us all, to Doug and Debbie Guillon, our fantastic hosts for the evening. All night, and again all the next day, person after person told me how enjoyable everything about the evening was.

If you missed out, and many did – we could easily have sold out two nights – don’t fret, there are more Chef’s Wine Dinners planned for this year, and the next will feature the 2011 vintage of Coro Mendocino, the county’s flagship wine, a Zinfandel dominant red wine blend. The Coro dinner at Crush is going to be on Wednesday, March 18, 2015, and will likely feature the winemakers of Barra, Brutocao, Clod du Bois, Fetzer, Golden, McFadden, Parducci, and Testa, with wines big enough to allow Jesse to showcase the depth of his ragu and other hearty Italian fare. To reserve your seat early for the March 18 Coro dinner at Crush, call (707) 463-0700.
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This weekend, on Saturday, February 7, join me at the 10th annual International Alsace Varietals Festival for a full day of events in the Anderson Valley, with many Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer, and Riesling wines, starting with an educational session in the morning, the big grand tasting in the afternoon, and a winemakers’ dinner in the evening. For more information, visit www.avwines.com/alsace-festival.

 

 

Medals and Magazines

Retired statistics professor Robert Hodgson has owned Fieldbrook Winery in northern California for 35 years. He collected data on scores wine competition judges gave the same wine tasted at different times at competitions and on scores wines received at different competitions.

“The second paper I wrote had to do with tracking wine through U.S. competitions. About 99 percent of the wines that get gold medals one place, get no award someplace else.

Several gold medal-winning wines were entered in five competitions. None of them got five golds. None of them got four golds. It’s amazing, the lack of consistency. I put together a study that showed these are the results you would get if this were a completely random process,” Hodgson told interviewer W. Blake Gray for a piece archived online at Wine-Searcher.

The gist of the reported analysis is that wine competition gold medals are nearly random and virtually unrepeatable.

Then there is this:

• NV McFadden Sparkling Brut – BEST OF SHOW – 2014 California State Fair Wine Competition

• 2009 McFadden Reserve Brut – GOLD MEDAL – 2014 Press Democrat North of the Coast Wine Competition

• NV McFadden Sparkling Brut – DOUBLE GOLD – 2014 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition

• 2009 McFadden Reserve Brut – DOUBLE GOLD – 2014 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition

• 2009 McFadden Reserve Brut – DOUBLE GOLD – 2013 Mendocino County Fair Wine Competition

• NV McFadden Sparkling Brut – DOUBLE GOLD – 2012 Mendocino County Fair Wine Competition

The June 15, 2014 issue of Wine Spectator magazine featured a list of 150 top sparkling wines for summer.

23 of the 150 sparkling wines were entered at the largest judging of American wines in the world, the 2014 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, where McFadden was the only bubbly producer to take two Double Gold (unanimous) medals for sparkling wines. Two of the 23 tied for Best of Show in Sparkling, and one of the 23 matched the two McFadden sparkling wines with a Double Gold, but fully 20 of 23 wines from Wine Spectator’s list of top sparkling wines failed to match the medal result of either of McFadden’s two Brut wines.

This only matters because the folks who defy the odds, the one verifiably repeatable Gold (or better) winning wine is McFadden’s Sparkling wine (and there are two to choose from) but Wine Spectator missed including the bubblies from this inland Mendocino producer for their list.

Recent invitations extended to Wine Spectator’s writer for our area to tasting events have received no reply, and the only previous reply from Wine Spectator to an event invite came a week after an event was over and was addressed to the wrong name. I do not think that inland Mendocino wineries, for the most part, receive much respect from much of the wine media.

By contrast, Wine Enthusiast magazine’s Virginie Boone has visited the farm, and included McFadden as an Editors’ Pick for Top Year End Bubblies and a Recommended Producer of Zinfandel. I had a chance to speak with the magazine’s Jim Gordon (who has tasted and rated three McFadden white wines 90 points and listed two as Editors’ Choice wines) and he told me he looks forward to visits to inland Mendocino County as part of his wine coverage.

I agree that repeated Gold Medals are rare, incredibly rare, but I have worked at two places where it happened regularly; first with Carol Shelton when she was the winemaker at Windsor Vineyards and now at McFadden with our bubblies. While I would love to have hosted, as our guest, the Wine Spectator writer at our farm for a recent dinner and wine tasting with the owner Guinness McFadden, we have a tasting room open daily – I’m in on weekdays – from 10-5 in the heart of downtown Hopland and offer complimentary tasting, and even if I can’t get wine writers to visit a place with such great wine, everyone is invited to come and taste excellence (Wine Spectator writers included).

 

Campovida kicks ass and takes names.

In today’s wine column in the Ukiah Daily Journal, I recapped the results of the 2014 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition (see my previous blog post).

The only thing substantially different from the piece I posted here earlier was a thought on who Mendocino County’s big wine winner was:

“While a case could be made for Husch, Handley, Navarro, or McFadden as the big winner, based on number of big medals or percentage of Gold medals to wines entered, for me the big story is the success of Campovida. The Best of Class, Double Gold, and three Gold Medals for Campovida amply validates the wine program expansion and winemaker’s direction. Kudos to Campovida’s owners Gary Breen and Anna Beuselinck, and winemaker Sebastian Donoso on your successes!”

Campovida’s success doesn’t take away from any other winery’s success. Everyone who got a medal, even a single Bronze, is deserving of congratulations. That said, what Campovida accomplished, with essentially a brand new wine program, was, to me anyway, very worthy of notice.

Here’s the results for Campovida at this year’s 2014 San Francisco Chronicle wine Competition:

BEST OF CLASS – 2012 Campovida Grenache, Dark Horse, Mendocino County $36.00
DOUBLE GOLD – 2012 Campovida Roussanne, Bonofiglio, Mendocino County $32.00 
GOLD – 2012 Campovida Arneis,Spirit Canyon, Mendocino County $36.00               
GOLD – 2012 Campovida Riserva Rose di Grenache, Mendocino County $34.00     
GOLD – 2012 Campovida Negroamaro, Chiarito,  Mendocino County $36.00            
SILVER – 2012 Campovida  Chardonnay, Oppenlander, Mendocino County $36.00  
SILVER – 2012 Campovida Riserva Campo di Rossa (Rhone Blend), Mendocino County $38.00       

Impressive.

 

84 points? Bronze medal? Who loves this wine? Consumers, not judges.

I tasted the 2009 McFadden Old Vine Zinfandel in my own tasting room, made with organically-grown 40-year-old old-vine grapes, for the first time on Thursday, October 20, 2011.

No medals, no ratings, not yet released; Guinness brought me 6 cases, I tasted this unknown wine, and instantly fell in love.

2009 McFadden Old Vine Zinfandel $24

In a world of overblown Zins, where winemakers purposely make painfully undrinkable over-oaked, over-tannic, over sweet, too high alcohol Zinfandels in a blatant attempt to win gold medals and 90+ ratings from judges who have palates blown from a series of monster-dense, enormously thick wine bombs and who can only taste a wine if it is as horribly over-made while rendered unable to taste a subtle, well crafted, drinkable wine of restraint and balance, here was a throwback wine to love.

Once upon a time, long ago, Zinfandel wines were made simply, inexpensively, and while flavorful, they paired well with many foods – most notably Italian cuisine.

Over the years, someone noticed that a wine with a little higher alcohol gets the attention of a judge suffering palate fatigue and scores a little higher rating or medal in competition. A little more oak worked similarly, and so did heavier tannin, and high sugar Zins also fared well.

Where once Zinfandel was an enjoyable food wine, today there are Zinfandels that are 16.5-17% alcohol, thick as a brick with dry briar and raspberry, hits you like a fencepost in the forehead with monster tannins, and has black pepper spice so massive that foods quail in fear of being paired with these freakishly overblown wines. Today’s Zins make a great steak their bitch, forcing the meat into perverse submission, making steak taste like overblown Zinfandel and not at all like steak.

There I was in October last year with my first taste of a perfectly beautiful Zinfandel, all the right flavors, briar, brambly raspberry, and black pepper spice, but without being overblown. Under 15% alcohol, smooth soft tannin, and lightly kissed by oak, this was a Zinfandel that didn’t hurt to drink. A Zinfandel like Italian-American winemakers in the Dry Creek Valley used to make 35-40 years ago. A Zinfandel that when paired with a steak lets the steak taste like steak while the Zin tastes like Zin, but together they each taste better.

I was holding in my hand an incredibly rare wine, the perfect throwback Zinfandel.

On October 20 last year, there were 160 cases of this 2009 McFadden Old Vine Zinfandel. Four days later, with the two day Fall Hopland Passport ended, there were fewer than 90 cases left. I do not know of any other wine from any other Hopland winery that moved as fast as this wine.

Over the holidays, I continued to pour the Zinfandel for visitors to our tasting room, and everyone loved it. We sold it by the bottle to more tasters than any of our other wines.

At the end of December, I found out that Wine Enthusiast magazine had rated this amazingly delicious Zinfandel a mere 84 points. Seriously, I was like “WTF?!”. I know that our wines, more drinkable than other wines. sell more easily than overblown wines when tasted one on one, and bronze medal more often than gold, but seriously…I knew the wine was great, real people tasting wines and making the ultimate judgement – buying the wine – backed my palate up and pointed out the questionable impact of a low score – especially when the score is for a well-made, instead of fashionably overblown, Zinfandel.

Two days ago, I saw the results of the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, and found our 2009 McFadden Old Vine Zinfandel had been awarded a [insert drumroll] bronze medal.

Again, I was prepared to question the rhyme or reason behind competition results when I received my first inventory update since October 24 last year. We get busy in the Fall and I went two and a half months without a real count on my wines.

Anyway, this 84 point wine, worthy of only a bronze medal, is down to fewer than 30 cases. Makes you wonder about the worth of these professional’s palates.

I think I will blow through this wine by the end of next month, and I’ve already been told that there are only 150 cases of 2010 Old Vine Zinfandel coming later this year, then just 70 cases of 2011 Old Vine Zinfandel the year after.

This piece isn’t meant to tell you what a great and rare wine I have. It isn’t really about slamming judges because I welcome their Gold medals and 90+ scores. I think I just wanted to say that a lot of highly rated, big medal winning Zins suck, they hurt to drink; and maybe someone should pay attention to what consumers really like in a Zinfandel: drinkability, approachability, balance, flavor, a little restraint, ease of food pairability.

Reporting from the trenches,

John