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by Maeson Amador

Samurai

 Geisha 

Koi Fish

One,

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Monroe

Jimi 

The King

Cheers,

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Mitch Rice Studios

www.mitchrice.com

Rock and Roll,

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Join us this Summer for a season you will never forget…

Our 2010 Summer Editorial Calendar:

a. Wine and Surf

- Seafood

- Surfing

b. Wine and Travel

- OC Beach Cities

- San Francisco

- Seattle

- Chicago

- Sydney

- The Maldives

c. Wine and Boats

- Yaughts

- Pontoon

- Houseboats

- Many more…

Safe Travels!

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Photo by Eric Stoner: San Gabriel Mission

Join us for a Southern California Wine Experience! 

Go online now and buy a single ticket for either day, and enter Brandon into the promo code and you will receive $10 off of your event ticket. http://arestravel.com/4138_attraction-tickets_a872.html

Please tell all of your friends!

Raleigh Studios, Hollywood, CA

5300 Melrose Avenue
Hollywood, CA 90038

2pm-6:30pm

LA Wine Fest 2010

Come Join the Fun! 

www.lawinefest.com

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Photography by Mitch Rice

White Wine is a Woman’s Best Friend…

Wine is Smooth.

Turn It Up!

Make sure to practice your instruments.

Cheers!

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Napa Vineyards

By Ken Friedenreich

Photography by Colin Michael

Napa Valley could occupy your time, your soul and your liver for more than a year at a rate of one winery a day.  That’s how much it’s growing.

Like other famous viticultural areas around the globe, Napa Valley is compact while still demonstrating considerable variations of climate, soil, topography and varietal — not to mention attitude and approach to making wine.

The first commercial vineyard opened 152 years ago.  Success did not always come easily. After Captain Gustaf Niebaum wowed the 1889 Paris Exposition with his Rutherford Bordeaux-inspired Inglenook wines, came the 1892 phylloxera plague that ate up much of the valley’s rootstock. About 140 wineries were affected.

Recovering in time for WWI, Napa growers greeted the end of a plague but faced a new obstacle. Her name: the fervent Prohibition activist, Carrie Nation. And, with her hatchet, she dispatched the nectars of the gods (paradoxically except for sacramental purposes) down the river of perdition. 

This is one example of what historian Paul Johnson calls the “law of unintended consequences.” In this case, Prohibition mixed mobsters and “swells,” people who imbibed their bootleg hooch into a heady cocktail of supply and demand. When the alcohol ban ended on December 5, 1933, the country stood in the grip of a worldwide economic Depression. It needed a drink.

Not until shortly before the Second World War did Napa’s wine trade recover, thanks to the efforts of imaginative, technically adept men like Georges De la Tour and André Tchelistcheff, who raised the standards for producing fine wines. Innovations that transformed grape juice into fine wine included cold fermentation and aging in oak casks.

In the postwar years, America still preferred spirits to wine and Napa Valley products were reputed relatively locally, some regionally. One exception was its jug-wine buzz bombs whose popularity on college campuses probably helped contribute to the implication behind the phrase, “If you can remember the 60s, you weren’t there.”

Taster Up!

But then there was Paris. The wines tasted at the 1976 Exposition put Napa Valley on the map for the rest of the wine-drinking world. The number of vineyards began to swell, and in the small society that comprises Napa’s cash crop, scions from established wine families branched out on their own.

Robert Mondavi left the family business (CK Mondavi) to start his eponymous winery, opening his celebrated Oakville landmark in 1966. Over the next 40 years, this dynamic man not only set a Napa gold standard, he helped many others launch wineries. His passion for wine parallels Julia Child’s influence on the output of American kitchens. Mondavi taught a generation to love wine as a food crafted from the handiwork of man and nature.

The Winding Road

Of all of California’s destinations, Napa Valley has become an adult Disneyland, and only the “happiest place on earth” surpasses its 3.6 million visitors a year. In all, there is around 400 brick-and-mortar wineries that make wine grown or sourced in their own facilities cover the valley.  90+ more small producers source their grapes from Valley growers and cooperatively use local contract crushing and bottling facilities.

“The most surprising statistic,” says Terry Hall, communications director of the Napa Valley Vintners Association, “is that Napa Valley produces only four percent of all California wines, about half as much as in neighboring Sonoma County.” With its high profile, one might expect Napa’s output to be greater.  Indeed, about 45,000 acres in all produce wine. The wine industry, says Hall, is committed to maintaining a high standard of quality as well as preventing the valley from becoming a victim of over-development.

Into the mix came people from other industries or big players in the spirits business. They drove through the valley, snatching up wineries like Wimpy at a fast-food drive-through.  Historically, dilettantes and conglomerate bean-counters rarely become great winemakers.

However, a thread of sanity and foresight preserved the essentials. The state university system encouraged enological study, producing qualified people to operate one of California’s greatest agricultural resources. A second phylloxera outbreak — sort of a hundred years’ plague — occurred in 1983. Ironically, it provided the chance to remove certain vines in favor of others that produced better fruit with more character.

Today, Napa’s wine business retains some remnant of its humble past, all rolled into a major viticulture industry. Properties have become so valuable and numerous that a once crazy-quilt of tin-roof tasting sheds has become as manicured as lawns in Beverly Hills.

Tasting and sales facilities have morphed from modest to substantial, if not palatial. A battle of blends may loom large in the near future or become a tempest in a Riedel. And nature’s backhand is never far away: the glassy-winged sharpshooter insect carries the vine-wasting Pierce Disease parasite.

In the Rhone Valley, locals have been producing wine since at least the 6^th Century B.C.  So Napa Valley has come quite far in a comparatively brief span. It’s a Horatio Alger’s success story built on innovation and inspiration plus plenty of improvisation, and, unlike Alger, lots of jack.

Napa has retained its low-key agricultural profile but sometimes the presumptuous do wander through.  One well-known winery evicted two gentlemen setting up linen-clothed tables for their family reunion as if in a public park.  Adding to the affront of trespass, they didn’t muster the etiquette to purchase wine from the site they commandeered. Another veteran wine docent recalled finding two young women, having fallen away from their tour group, happily skinny-dipping in a vineyard fountain. ”I explained I would not leave until they dressed to rejoin their tour,” he said with a wry smile.

Tasting Odyssey

In Napa Valley, one drinks appreciable to superior wine as if by divine right. Our notes highlight seven stops along the way that might inspire extending your visit.

10 a.m.: Hess Collection Winery, 4411 Redwood Road. The day starts with a 2006 Small Block Series Syrah Rose. Hess produces 14 different wines, many of them grown in small vineyards on Mount Veeder on the western side of the valley.

Hess Collection Tasting Room

The big-boy Cabernets have trademark minerality and proportion typical of the high, cool elevation.  Located on the former Christian Brothers property, the first vineyards were planted here by German immigrants after 1876.  The main building dates from 1903 and was finally leased by Donald Hess in 1986. The two-year renovation that followed put 13,000 square feet of gallery space into the old winery where some of Hess’ modern art collection is on permanent exhibit. The barrel chai (cask storage) is beautifully illuminated, the casks arranged like soldiers at review.

12 noon: Altamura Vineyards, 1400 Wooden Valley Road. Frank Altamura established his namesake winery in the Wooden Valley in 1985 nine miles northeast of Napa. The vegetation on the eastbound drive from Hess is reminiscent of a scrub-oak hillside in a Texas western — a telling demonstration of the variations nature plays in Napa Valley.

Of 400 ranch acres, 65 are planted with Cabernet, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese and Sauvignon Blanc. “I like it out here,” Altamura remarks while driving an open 1943 Dodge Hummer prototype to the vineyard’s tasting caves. “You really want to come here if you find us.” In the caves, we were glad to drink to that. Wine guru Robert Parker rated Altamura’s 2004 Cab impressively at 94; its $75 price tag makes it worth cellaring.

The ‘04 Sangiovese and ‘05 Sauvignon Blanc are singularly good ($45). The 2002 Nebbiolo is a knockout, available only online or on premises and worth its $70 tag. It retains the depth of its Italian counterpart, which is the only grape to produce Barolo. Altamura’s translation is supple and delicious. Don’t forget to pet Woody the Wine Dog.

2:15 p.m.: B Cellars; while its business office is located in San Juan Capistrano, B Cellars uses the custom crush facilities for artisan wineries at Silenus Vintners in the Oak Knoll district of Napa Valley at 5225 Solano Avenue (parallel to Route 29). Duffy Keys and Jim Borsack put their idea together while enjoying a Southern California barbecue. Partner Ken Westbrook, a serious wine collector, told Borsack, “Go to Napa; it has the best juice.” And so, Borsack, who is as intense as the blends he produces, did just that.

B Cellars numbers its blends, sourced from nine first-class vineyards.  “Most people who buy wine drink it within a week, so where the grapes come from rarely means much. To us, though, these growers are superstars,” says Borsack. The blending of varietals yields intense, spacious flavors with great fruit, fine balance and dazzling finishes.

Laird Family Estate

Borsack loves to cook; so the wines are meant for food. We sampled ‘04 and ‘05 blends 24 and 25, the latter blend of Cabernet and Syrah particularly rewarding. The Viognier, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay blend from 2006 possesses unique character, creating something “rich and strange” that offers a break from the typical California Chardonnay or Italian Pinot Grigio, but, alas, it is sold out. B Cellars’ price-points for current releases run under $50 and provide an object lesson in producing a superior product without farming one’s own grapes.  Don’t forget to pet Hannah.

4 p.m.: Laird Family Estate, 5055 Solano Ave.  Known as the “Pyramid” for its pointed roof, what started as an orphaned acre-plus vineyard in 1970 has become the place for contract crushing and production for about 46 winemakers. Laird wines are well-crafted, such as the ‘04 Diamond Mountain Cabernet ($60) and the ’02 Suscol Rand Merlot ($48). Whites include Cold Creek and Red Hen Chardonnay ($35 each), a suave Chardonnay from Carneros ($28) and a turn-on Pinot Grigio (also Cold Creek, $18). Laird’s beautiful tasting facility offers many small-lot wines to taste and take home.

9:45 a.m. the following day: Rubicon Estate, 1991 St. Helena Highway, Rutherford. This property looks to the past. It belonged to Captain Niebaum whose innovations included a gravity process for extracting the juice, bottle sterilization and the development of a rootstock that survived the first plague.

Francis Ford Coppola’s restoration here underscores his understanding that a place tells a story, too. Beneath the contemporary, says historian Simon Schama, is “the ghostly outline of an old landscape” that makes us “vividly aware of the endurance of core myths.” Coppola had to make two parts of The Godfather to acquire some of this property in 1975, and a vampire movie, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1995), to attain the rest, thus restoring all 1650 acres of the original Inglenook estate.

As narrated by Howard Frances, who may be the valley’s version of archetype greeter the dashing Grover Whelan, one realizes that Coppola, the great storyteller of film, also wants wine to tell its story. The estate produces Blancenaux ($45) and Cask (100 percent Cabernet at $100-plus a bottle). Also featured is Pennino, a Zinfandel that honors Coppola’s maternal grandfather (about $60) and the eponymous Rubicon, a Meritage that tips the cash register north of a C-note. For those unfamiliar with the species, a Meritage is made in the style of Bordeaux, but the name “Bordeaux” is a legally protected trademark jealously guarded by the folks of that famous appellation of Southern France. Currently, wineries from the U.S., Canada, and Australia are licensed by the Meritage Association to use the name “Meritage.”

Every detail of the villa pays homage to the history of Napa Valley with that vision fast-forwarded to Coppola’s other projects, including the makeover of the Chateau Souverain property in Sonoma County. As a wine tour, Rubicon is the mother lode.

Makers of excellent Chardonnay that represents the classic style of this varietal, ZD also makes its Cabernet from aggregated vineyards that are separately aged in oak before blending, returning the mix to oak to age more, before finally bottling. The Chardonnay grapes come from the cool Carneros district, aged in American oak, fermented slowly without malolactic help to retain varietal character and fine acidity. There are six current releases with the ‘06 Cab priced at $60 and the ‘05 Reserve Chardonnay offered at $53. A reserve Pinot Noir (Carneros, $65) is elegant with just enough fruit and a satisfying finish.

3:45 p.m.: Miner Family Winery, 7850 Silverado Trail, Oakville. The Miner family respects its Assyrian and Persian roots; its label features an Assyrian symbol.  The wine offered at tasting included a 2006 Napa Chardonnay and a 2006 Viognier from Simpson Ranch ($30 each). Their high-impact reds revolve around their Oracle, a Bordeaux-style blend sourced from the Stagecoach Vineyard.  The blend changes each year.  Several now are available retail at $70-75.  The tasting room resides on the eastern slopes of the valley offer a stunning vantage of the Oakville surrounds.

Miner Family Vineyards

Life is short but art is long, said Oscar Wilde. When you sample the wines in Napa Valley for yourself, you’ll ask yourself what took you so long?

We will be elegantly blending wine, art, music and entertainment from March 20 through June 20, 2010!

Stay tuned for our special guest contributors…

Cheers,

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