Tag Archives: wine blends

Bring Napa Home and Let the Bottles Do the Talking

February 12, 2017 Fran Comment

Bring stories home about the wine you love, #Napa #Winechat

I love wine from all over the world, but Napa is closest to my heart. Well, living in California is part of the reason, but back when I owned my restaurants, I visited there with friends and family as often as I could. I’ve collected so many wonderful memories from there.

You don’t have to go all the way to Napa to snag a beautiful bottle of cab. Go to your favorite store – I recommend one that specializes in wine like Wally’s Wine and Spirits in Beverly Hills, CA – and ask for a tour of the store’s favorite Napa selections. Listen to all of the great stories; every good vineyard has one. If only bottles could speak, right? But in a way, they do!

You wouldn’t believe how many great conversation starters there are in wine. I think that the stories make drinking wine so much more enjoyable. I’ll give you some examples.

Cabernet Sauvignon from winemaker Cathy Corison

What’s so cool about Corison. To begin with, Cathy Corison, owner and winemaker, was one of only a handful of women winemakers when she began in the late 1970’s and only about 10% still are women. Cathy Corison calls herself “the gypsy winemaker” because she worked at several wineries, including Long Meadow Ranch, prior to finding the perfect “dirt” for her cabernet. She likes to keep her total production small, generally under 3,500 cases, because she can “stay close” to her wines.

Long Meadow Ranch Sauvignon Blanc

Long Meadow Ranch has some very long roots in Napa. Back in the late 1800s, the property was used to make wine, and they also grew apples, olives, and operated a goat milk dairy. Then Prohibition came, and the previous owners abandoned the farm. The Hall family bought the property in 1989 and have been making wine there ever since. I actually keep their Sauvignon Blanc in my refrigerator as my “go to” white in the summer and I have several vintages of their Napa Valley Cabernet that I love to open when I’m looking for a big red.

Illumination Sauvignon Blanc from the Quintessa Vineyard

Agustin and Valeria Huneeus, both with long successful careers in the wine business, founded the Quintessa Estate in 1990. Their philosophy is that their wine should be known for the terroir (dirt) and not the grape varietal. Valeria has guided the estate from sustainable farming to organic farming and now to biodynamic farming. I have visited this winery several times and I have to say it’s one of my very favorite places in the area. Several years ago I was one of the lucky ones who tasted their Illumination (Sauignon Blanc) very early on and love this wine and personally – I LOVE their Quintessa Red.

Estate Proprietary Red, a Bordeaux blend from Continuum Estate

The winery was founded by Tim Mondavi, his father Robert Mondavi and sister Marcia Mondavi after the sale of Robert Mondavi Winery to Constellation Brands. It’s a real family-owned winery with family members sitting in key positions. Their focus for each vintage is on a single red blend premium wine based on Cabernet Sauvignon with a very limited production – typically around 1,300 cases per year. Tim, one of the founders and the winemaker for Continuum was involved in the winemaking for Opus One.

Cabernet Sauvignon from the Behrens Family Winery

Les Behrens (from New Jersey) and Lisa Drinkward (a California native) started making wine in 1993 with Bob and Lily Hitchcock as their business partners under the Behrens & Hitchcock label. Les, with absolutely no formal training has been the sole winemaker since its inception and Lisa, involved in every part of the winemaking, really takes over the vineyard management during harvest. The Hitchcocks retired in 2005 and Les and Lisa became the sole owners – and the name changed to Behrens Family Winery. The drawing on their distinctive gold label is of Les’ mother’s vintage KitchenAid. Owen Smith, a good friend of Les Behrens who shares his love of wine and art creates the beautiful labels on their bottles. They produce only small lots of 6-7 wines per year – unfined and unfiltered – each a very hands on labor of love.

See? You don’t have to be a wine encyclopedia to get a conversation started. It can be a whole lot of fun just having a little information in your back pocket. And this is one of the best ways I know to bring a little of the vineyard home to your guests.

Cheers!

Home Entertaining, Table Top, Lifestyle

Remember That Wine We Had?

August 20, 2016 Fran Comment

Love wine, hate remembering labels? What’s a Foodie to do?

I go out to dinner often and get to taste a lot of new wines with my friends in the process. The ‘always trying new wines’ used to be because I couldn’t remember “that wine we had last time that we all loved.” My memory just isn’t that good. I know the grape varietals and blends that I enjoy and the ones I don’t love so much (Merlot, anyone?) and why, the parts of the world that create the wines I do love. Sometimes if I’m lucky I even remember a favorite winemaker label!

But, I’m confessing here. I’m not that person who has a photographic memory for these things (even after all my years owning restaurants). I don’t necessarily know why enjoyed a particular bottle – just that I know for certain that I wished I could drink whatever “it” was again.

I used to tell people to just take a picture of the bottle label, especially if they were drinking was something they truly enjoyed. I admit that I have a pretty big album on my iPhone of wine bottle labels I’d like to drink again. That was way before all the apps that now allow you to keep track of bottles you like, tell you how much they should cost, and even let you add tasting notes.

I use Vivino which works best for me. I just have to take a picture of the label and up pops everything I want to know about what’s in the bottle. It then saves that info in the app if I want, it even allows me to rate the wine and leave my own tasting notes in the profile. That way I can just go back to the app and see if there’s anything in my list that is offered on the wine list wherever I am. You can even scan the wine list and it will tell you the rating and review of each wine. Pretty cool and it takes up a lot less space than all those photos on my phone!

Home Entertaining, Lifestyle, Friendships

Date Night Wine from Gruet Winery

January 12, 2016 Fran Comment

I love when I’m asked my wine recommendations because there are so many wonderful options to explore! Date night wines for a romantic dinner at home have been a popular discussion recently, so here are a few of my romantic dinner-in favorites as of late.

The old adage that the fastest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach is, I’ve found, absolutely true. They are always so impressed with the effort and we get to make something that we are comfortable with so the evening is stress free. One of my current favorites is actually a sparkling wine (you can’t call it Champagne unless it is actually from Champagne, France) from New Mexico! The winery, Gruet, is owned by the Gruet family which also owns Gruet et Fils-a Champagne house in France. They have non-vintage sparklings all under $20 or vintage sparkling wines with the most expensive under $45. Both are a very good value. I would simply order a few bottles straight from the winery and just keep them chilled. You never know when you will need one; bubbles make any meal a party. Enjoy!

Home Entertaining, Kitchen Hacks, Lifestyle

Wine Enthusiast’s Delight: The Coravin Wine Preserver

December 29, 2015 Fran Comment

I can’t say how many times I’ve made dinner and wanted to have just one glass of wine, but I knew that I wouldn’t finish the bottle so I didn’t open one. Seriously disappointing if your dinner would go perfectly with a glass from that great bottle sitting in your wine fridge… but I finally found something that solves the problem perfectly!

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a major department store doing what I love to do when I have a little extra time – wandering the housewares/kitchen electronics department when I came across the best thing ever. It’s called Coravin and it’s a wine enthusiast’s delight.

Greg Lambrecht, who grew up in California and went to MIT invented it and you can find his story on YouTube. In fact, there’s a two-part interview with Robert Parker done in 2013 (before the product was launched) in which Robert Parker is so effusive about this product, it’s crazy.

The way this works is that you can access the wine through a medical grade hollow needle (device and needle invented by Lambrecht). It is inserted straight through the collar of the bottle (that’s the metal cap over the cork). The device replaces the poured wine with Argon gas so that NO oxygen ever touches the wine. Parker went nuts over the whole thing. You need to watch it!

Fast forward to now and the device is all over the market, including Amazon where it has 4.5 stars out of 5 from 75 interviews. Per Lambrecht and several reviewers, each Argon capsule should last for about 20 glasses.

I bought one for myself, one for a housewarming gift for a girlfriend and one for a Christmas gift for another. It’s perfect for get-togethers small and large. Everyone gets to drink what they want with no worries about finishing the whole bottle.

The fact is, the Coravin isn’t just for wine enthusiasts; it’s for anyone who simply wants a good pour from the bottle without oxidization. Have a wine tasting party with no worries about waste. What an excellent idea!!

Home Entertaining, Food, Lifestyle

Recipe for Personal Dining: Wine Blends

October 17, 2015 Fran Comment

Back to Wine Basics with “Blends”

All of my friends know that my wine of choice always includes bubbles – pink ones if I’m to be completely honest about it. But, having said that, I just love a good bottle, white or red, just not sweet and chewy – ever! Something that not everyone knows, however, is that just because a bottle has a specific grape name on the label (Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon) that bottle may not and often is not the only grape in that bottle.

Wine makers often add in other grapes to create the flavor profile they want to create in that bottle. The law actually allows up to 25% other grapes in the bottle for blending. So, very often the grape name on the label is only 75% of what is actually in the bottle. Having said all of that, I think that the blending makes wines way more interesting. So, just because a wine isn’t 100% of a specific grape doesn’t mean it’s still not a great wine.

Silver Oak Winery

Silver Oak Winery makes an amazing Cabernet Sauvignon. In fact, it’s the only varietal that they do make! They also use small amounts of other varietals in their Napa blend- Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Petit Verdot. I don’t really care what they use, their Napa Valley Cabernet is always so velvety smooth and delicious! It’s a little pricey but I’m never sorry I spent the extra dollars on this one.

Long Meadow Ranch Winery Cab

Last Saturday, I got to do one of my favorite things – An impromptu casual dinner with a girlfriend. We just made some pasta and salad but I had a 2008 Long Meadow Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon that we shared. It was a real treat. I let it breathe for about 20-30 minutes and it was amazing! This cabernet is one of the “blends” that I mentioned that has more than 75% Cabernet Sauvignon grape, it’s 86% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Merlot and 3% Cabernet Franc (a common blending grape). Besides making wonderful Cabernets, the Winery is California Certified Organic! How cool is that?

Chateau Montelena

One of the perks of being a restaurant owner is that I get to visit some fabulous wineries and drink wine with some very interesting people. One of these is Chateau Montelena. This is the winery that produced the Chardonnay that beat out all of the French entries in the 1976 Paris competition, which was immortalized in the 2008 movie, Bottle Shock. But, the wine that they make that I really enjoy is their Cabernet Sauvignon, and fortunately, I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying several of their vintages. They have, in fact, several wine clubs specifically for their Cabernet Sauvignons. What a great way to make sure that you don’t miss a great vintage.