N A PA VA L L E Y W I N E L I B R A RY R E PORT

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Thursday, February 4, 2010Annual MeetingGo Fish, St. Helena

Wednesday, May 19, 20103rd Annual Books on Wine FestivalSt. Helena Public Library, St. Helena

Saturday, May 22, 2010Napa Valley Houses of Cabernet Winery TourDetails to be announced

Saturday, August 14, 2010 - 20th Varietal Seminar“From DNA to Dinner, Everything You Wanted to Know about Cabernet”Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, St. Helena

Sunday, August 15, 2010 - 48th Annual Tasting“Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon Varieties and Blends”Silverado Resort, Napa

Also of interest:

February 16-19, 2010“Symposium for Professional Wine Writers”directed by Jim GordonMeadowood, St. Helenawww.winewriterssymposium.org

September 12-16, 2010Symposium for Professional Food Writers”directed by Toni AllegraThe Greenbrier, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginiawww.greenbrier.com/site/foodwriters.aspx

Calendar of Events

Dear Members,

This is my first year as president of theNapa Valley Wine Library Association, andI am looking forward to our two events, theAnnual Tasting and our Varietal Seminar, inAugust. Response from the wineries invitedto our 47th Annual Tasting, “The Romanceof PetiteZinNoir,” has been excellent andthe 19th Varietal Seminar, “On the OtherHand: Discovering Other Reds,” chaired byCarolyn Martini and assisted by Allen Balik,is almost sold out. Please refer to page 19 of this issue of the REPORT for more information about both these events.

Our semi-annual REPORT, compiled andedited by Diana Stockton, is a major part of Napa Valley Wine Library’s mission tochronicle the stories and histories of thosewho grow the grapes and make the wines ofNapa Valley. Diana’s excellent work assuresthat this history is preserved. Special thanksgo to Priscilla Upton whose photographsbeautifully illustrate the interviewees in eachREPORT.

Kevin Alfaro, our president for the past threeyears, deserves thanks and credit for a jobwell done. Fortunately, he continues to serveon the board of directors and give much

President’s Letter

President’s Letter 1

Editor’s Letter 1

On Wine Barrels 1Will Jamieson Demptos NapaRoger Boulton UC DavisRosemary Cakebread GallicaMel Knox Mel Knox Barrel BrokersJeff Jaeger Jaeger Vineyards and Barrel Associates, International

19th Varietal Seminar, August 15, 2009 1On the Other Hand: Discovering Other Reds

47th Annual Tasting, August 16, 2009 1The Romance of ZinPetiteNoir

Organization and Membership Information 1

Table of Contents

COVER PHOTOGRAPH: PRISCILLA UPTON

needed guidance. In addition, we welcomenew board member Barbara Insel, and thankoutgoing board member Morgan Morgan for her work on our website. A very specialmention goes to Julie Dickson, guiding lightof the Wine Library’s memory. Julie devel-oped and manages our relationship with St.Helena Public Library, the repository of thecollections of the Wine Library. In addition,she has supervised the Barney’s Backyard Petite Sirah vineyard on the grounds of thepublic library that produces the wine thathonors the memory of Belle and BarneyRhodes—truly the patron saints of the NapaValley wine culture. Please do not hesitate tovisit the library in St. Helena and meet its dynamic director, Jennifer Baker.

On Wednesday, May 20, 2009 four authorstook part in the 2nd Annual Books on WineFestival we co-sponsored with St. Helena Public Library. Paranormal investigator JeffDwyer, Ghost Hunter’s Guide to California’s WineCountry’; UC Davis professor Charlie Banforth,Grape vs. Grain; historian Charles Sullivan, 2nd

edition of Napa Wine; and photographer BillTucker, Napa Behind the Bottle held the rapt attention of a large audience with their presentations. Accompanying wines for theevent were provided by Appellation St. Helenamembers as well as NVWLA.

Today, many of us are concerned that withthe hundreds of new wineries and vineyardsin the Valley, the histories of the men andwomen and their contributions to our winecommunity may be lost. We have now begunthe process to create a comprehensive listingof all of Napa Valley’s wineries, wines andvineyards online. Such an undertaking willrequire the participation of a vast number of individuals and institutions. Our recentboard members were invited to serve withthis project in mind. I am hopeful that wecan present a plan for this project by the endof the year and, most importantly, on howyou can participate!

Thank you for your enthusiastic support. Ilook forward to seeing you in the Grove ofSilverado at the Annual Tasting in August.

Bob LongPresident

Napa Valley Wine Library REPORTEditor-in-Chief Diana H. StocktonPhotography Priscilla UptonDesign Marianne AgnewPrinting MSI Litho

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Currently, the United States produces abouteight and a half percent of the world’s wine.Nearly ninety percent of this comes from California, but only six or seven percent fromNapa Valley. Although most of the more than360 wineries in Napa Valley use small, hand-made oak barrels in producing their wine, onlysix or seven percent of all wine made in the worldhas ever been inside one. While the use ofwine barrels in making wine may be a smallstory globally, it is a large story locally. A winery with a case production of 2,000 needs90 barrels to produce 4,740 gallons of wine.Many barrels are used only once, and mostwine barrels only last five years. New barrelsare bought each year at a cost of between $300and $1,000 apiece, depending on origin. Today,oak products like chips, powders and chunksof staves are also being offered for flavoringwine, but flavor is only part of the story.

Wooden casks have been used to store andtransport liquid and dry goods for centuries.Romans adopted casks for wine as theyconquered the Celts in Gaul and abandonedtheir clay amphorae. Louis XIV had the remaining great oak forests of France mappedand organized into royal sources of supplycritical to shipbuilding. During the Napoleonicwars, when a barricade prevented Prussian oakfrom reaching France, she relied exclusively onher managed forests, especially for barrels. The

government still manages four fifths of theforests of France and its Allier, Bourgogne,Limousin, Nevers, Tronçais and Vosges forestsproduce most of the barrel stave wood (as wellas wood for veneer and paneling, furniture andconstruction). Hungary and Poland, whichshare the same species of oak with France, areonly now once again becoming an importantsource of stave wood and a few cooperageshave been established locally. Yugoslavia andeven Eastern Mongolia have also begun to

supply stave wood, but most barrels are madein France or with French oak. Cooperages inAustralia, Chile, and Spain and the UnitedStates all use French oak, although here, ofcourse, in American cooperages, Americanwhite oak predominates. Because of limitedsources of supply and rates of exchange, aFrench barrel costs nearly twice as much asany other to buy.

After World War II, very large straight-sidedtanks of redwood that had been used to ageand store wine in California were replaced bystainless steel and even cement. Until abouttwenty-five years ago most small American oakbarrels were made to age Bourbon whiskeyrather than wine. The interiors were charred in order to give whiskey its characteristicallysmokey taste. These barrels had to be variouslyadapted for wine. Now new coopering tech-niques have allowed American cooperages tocompete with the French and created a globalmarket for wine barrels of American oak in addition to those for whiskey.

Our native stave wood is sawn from quarter-sawn logs of American white oak, Quercusalba, (and a variety, Quercus gallyana, inOregon), whereas in France staves are splitby hand from quarter- or sixth-split logs. Ifthe French staves are not split they leak attheir ends because French oak (native to

On Wine Barrels

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Dear Members,

Inspiration for the article on barrels wastwo-fold. This coming August our AnnualTasting will feature Napa Valley CabernetSauvignon and Cabernet varietals. The roleof the wine barrel in making wine in general,Cabernet in particular, and Cabernet at theParis Tasting of 1976 especially, called forexploration. And last September, on a visitto Benessere, we observed its then winemakerand general manager, Chris Deardon, readingthe head of a barrel with the same focus ofattention and interest one gives a wine labelor title page of a book. We wanted to beable to read a barrel that way, too.

Barrel is understood to mean a wine barrelin Napa Valley. No one says, “wine barrel,”just “barrel.” Empty, one weighs about onehundred pounds, holds sixty gallons, andcan be rolled on its edge, or chime, quite easily from place to place. At rest on its side,the curve of a wine barrel allows collectionof clean wine through the bunghole with athief, leaving lees and leesy wine undisturbed.Traditional French chestnut hoops (chestnuttrees are constantly pollarded in order toprovide a crop of wands) fastened with willow are thicker than modern galvanized

Editor’s Letter

steel hoops and protect tender barrel ends as barrels are rolled and positioned. Thesehoops also protect chateaux winery floorsfrom scuffing and scarring.

The wine barrel is in no way interchangeablewith other kinds of barrels. It is uniquelyfashioned by hand for the express purpose ofholding wine, which it does with remarkableand altogether satisfactory consequences. We hope you enjoy a glimpse into its assemblyand use in Napa Valley that a handful of interviews provide in the following pages.The kinds of barrels for going over NiagaraFalls or clowning around bucking broncs, or to fill with laughs or the body of a late granduncle are for another article. (We do, however,touch upon whiskey barrels, which we thinkcontained the aforementioned daredevils,comics, and cadaver.) As important as winebarrels are to winemaking in Napa Valley,their widespread use is a recent phenomenonwith a history barely twenty-five years old.

Diana H. StocktonEditor

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most of Europe) has a different cellularstructure from American white oak and itsstaves must follow the grain. Our white oakdevelops numerous fluffy stops or tylosesthroughout its vertical columns of cells(think holding your finger over the end of asoda straw) as sapwood becomes supportiveheartwood, so these staves can be sawn. Ourred oak and the European oaks form few tyloses. The two main types of oak used forbarrels in France are Sessile Oak, Quercussessilis (or petraea) and Quercus pedunculata(or robur). All the timber cut from designatedstands of these trees, which are at least 120years old and 50 cm (20”) in diameter, issold at auction. Only heartwood is used, andtwo thirds may be lost in preparation andsplitting. Sawn staves, however, produceabout half as much waste. These are sawnfrom timber cut from trees grown on privatelands in stands (or hollows) and average 90to 95 years old. Most of this wood comesfrom our Mid-West, with a little from Oregon. The trees generally yield enoughwood for two barrels; the larger French oaksgive two to four barrels. Both French andAmerican stave wood is dried outdoors fortwo to three years. How long stave wood isair-dried—the slower the better—contributesmightily to the quality of the barrel. Stavesare then made up into barrels nearby andshipped whole, or staves are shipped to adistant cooperage.

The grain of the wood, which is determined

by the age, species and height of the tree, itslocation in the stand, and the climate of thestand has become more important than aparticular forest, but country of origin foroak continues paramount because of differencesin grain and tannins. American oak is denserthan French and its tannins more robust.Two hundred years ago the tradition ofusing American oak in making barrels to ageTempranillo in Spain was one result of theSpanish occupation of New Orleans. Fortyyears ago in California, Paul Draper at Ridgeinsisted on American oak to age Cabernet asJustin Meyer at Silver Oak would ten yearslater; Smith-Madrone and ZD currently useonly American oak for their Cabernet andVince Arroyo for his Petite Sirah. Countless

other Napa Valley wineries use barrels frommore than one source and cooperage to agetheir wines.

In the 1960’s, French cooperages began tosell small barrels in the United States. Acompany principal would come over eachyear to meet with established customers andreach new ones. The practice continuestoday, although barrel brokers may representa cooperage rather than an owner. In the1970’s an expanding California market forwine barrels prompted Nadalié, a Frenchcooperage founded in 1902, to open thefirst French cooperage in Napa Valley in1980. Demptos of France, founded in1825, swiftly followed suit, opening itsNapa doors in 1982.

Most wine barrels are made in one of twosizes, the barrique which originated in Bordeaux and the piece from Burgundy. The Burgundian piece is slightly shorter andfatter than the Bordeaux and holds a dashmore wine. Both are called 60 gallon or 220liter barrels and make about 24 cases ofwine; a barrique holds 59.4 gallons (225liters), a piece 60.2 (228 liters). Both comein a thin-staved chateau-style (with staves20-22mm wide) and a thicker-stavedtransport or export style (25-27mm wide).Rather than six galvanized steel hoops fastened with rivets to hold the staves together,traditionalists can insist on hoops of chestnut (fastened with strips of willow) at

the barrel ends and even at the bilge (the fatmid-section of a barrel), and may even requestthe bilges of their barriques be stained redto disguise any drippage at a bung hole. RicForman is credited with the innovation withNadalié of metal hoops to bind traditionalchateau barrels, since chestnut does not lastlonger than the usual 18 months barrels areused in France, and does not stand up to re-use.

In the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s MaynardAmerine was teaching winegrowing and wine-making at UC Davis, André Tchelistcheffwas in charge of winemaking at BeaulieuVineyard with a wine consulting business on the side, and Lee Stewart was at Souverain,which he had founded in 1943. All threewere collegial (André had consulted for Lee

early on) and all advocated using small barrelsfor aging red wine. In 1953, when JimZellerbach decided to plant vineyard andbuild a winery in Sonoma where he and hiswife Hanna had their summer place,“Hanzell,” Jim invited Maynard, André, Lee,and every other wine great he could think ofto advise him on what vines to plant andwhich winery equipment to buy. For agingthe Pinot Noir and Chardonnay he intendedto farm, Jim was advised to buy 60 gallonbarrels of French oak, the standard unit forwine storage and transport in France sincethe Age of Napoleon. Hanzell’s winemaker,Brad Webb, secured barrels from Sirugue inBurgundy.

Although interest in small barrels and a limiteduse for their aging wine was then widespread inCalifornia, Hanzell was the first winery to useFrench oak exclusively in winemaking and in1963 Charles Krug became the first largewinery to use small barrels of French oak inaging some of its wines. These barrels camefrom Demptos in Bordeaux. Both Peter andBob Mondavi are credited with the innovationat Krug, and when Bob founded RobertMondavi Winery in 1966, small Frenchcooperage was very much in evidence as wereBob’s innovative questions about wood grain,stave thickness, air drying, and toast level.Before Bob, few had inquired how and why a barrel was made the way it was in France.Dick Graff of Chalone Vineyard and Wineryand Ric Forman of Forman Vineyards, then

winemaker at Sterling, were among these few.Dick, with support from Peter Newton,began importing French barrels from Siruguealong with other winery equipment in the1960’s. Initially, the barrels came inunassembled. Dick and Ric were able to persuade Nadalié to ship barrels in theround, and other cooperages followed suit.The two also taught how and when to usethe barrels—to fill, rack, and ferment. By1976, at Stephen Spurrier’s Paris Tasting, all the California Cabernet at that tasting,from Clos du Val, Freemark Abbey, Heitz,Mayacamas, Ridge, and Stag’s Leap WineCellars, was aged in small oak barrels.

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Will JamiesonMaster Cooper and Managing PartnerDemptos Napa, Napa

Will Jamieson started with Demptos Napa 27years ago as one of its four original coopers,however, he has been a barrel maker for 41years. He is from Keith, Scotland where ChivasRegal is the main employer. Will was 15 whenhe tried out for a year at a cooperage and wasthen accepted for a five-year indentureship.Today he is a managing partner not only of

Demptos Napa but also of the cooperagewhere he began, Isla, which was recently acquired by François Frères. At Demptos, Will oversees 30 coopers who produce 128barrels a day from finished staves trucked intothe cooperage for 900 clients, 200 of whommake Cabernet in Napa and Sonoma County.About 65 percent of the staves are Americanoak and 35 percent French. At the moment,ten million staves are drying in the lumberyardof McGinnis Wood Products of Cuba, Missouri. As they are deemed dry they arebundled into sets, loaded onto pallets andshipped by container to Demptos Napa.

There are 30 to 32 staves in a barrel: each is40 inches (95 cm) long. A 100-pound set orshook of staves is carefully set into a circularform and two guiding truss hoops slipped overits upper ends. The nascent barrel is sprayedwith water and set over a fire, its free ends heldby an iron form in the floor. As the woodwarms, the form tightens, bending the staves.Additional truss hoops are slipped down asthe bend is made. Now the barrel is ready totoast over another fire that reaches halfway upthe barrel’s interior. A heat gun measures itsinside and outside temperature as the barreltoasts; a barrel master flips the barrel over atthe critical moment. After toasting, tocaramelize sugars in the oak, a bunghole isdrilled and cauterized, and then the barrel isready for finishing. Will resignedly observesthat this requires taking off and putting hoopsback on many times. Stave ends are preciselytrimmed and a groove or croze is cut inside

both barrel ends, paste piped into the grooves,and the heads, which may also have beentoasted at a customer’s request, fitted into thegrooves (head trimmings feed the fires forbending and toasting barrels). Cattail leavesfrom upper New York State caulk the seamsof the head (heads are 27% of a barrel’s interior surface, notes Will), and six to eightriveted hoops cut from miles of galvanizedSwedish steel fasten the barrel. The exterior iscarefully sanded and the interior tested andcorrected for flaws (leaks). All barrels aremade to order; this may include burning alogo by laser onto the head or bilge as well asmarking its specifications. A travel bung is inserted; each barrel is shrink-wrapped andready to ship. The cooperage also maintains an inventory of stave wood for repairs, since abarrel may fall or get hit in the course of itsuseful life (usually between one and five years)in a winery. ■

Roger BoultonStephen Sinclair Scott Professor of Enology andChemical Engineering

Department of Viticulture and Enology UC Davis

Barrels not only facilitate storage and transportof wine, but Roger Boulton, whom we inter-viewed by telephone, assures us that oak barrelscontribute significantly to the character of thewine inside. The finish of a wine, that sensationat the back of one’s tongue after a swallow orspit, comes from wood: the oak, and its flavors

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• Warren Winiarski worked two harvests withLee Stewart at Souverain before going to workat the brand-spanking new Robert MondaviWinery for its 1966 and 1967 harvests. Warrenthen established Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. Hechose French oak barrels from Nevers for cellar-ing his wines, including the 1973 Stag’s LeapWine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon.

• Joe Heitz assisted André Tchelistcheff atBeaulieu from 1951 to 1958. He then workedto establish Heitz Wine Cellars in 1961. In1963, after Jim Zellerbach’s sudden death, Joebought some of Hanzell’s new wine and anumber of its small barrels. Besides assisting inaging, small barrels simplify the keeping ofsmall lots of wine separate. In 1965 Heitzblended a new source of fruit with its own andin 1966 bottled that lot separately, a practice itcontinues today. The lot is Martha’s Vineyard,aged in Limousin oak as it first was in 1966.

• Paul Draper had worked for Lee Stewart atSouverain in 1967, and traveled and worked inChile and Bordeaux, when he came to Ridge in1969 (Ridge was founded in 1962). Paulprefers American oak in which to age theMonte Bello. In 1972 about 10 percent of thebarrels were new. Paul has not been the only advocate for American oak for CaliforniaCabernet. André used American oak at Beaulieu for its reserve Cabernet.

• While Paul Draper was at Souverain, BobTravers was working for Joe Heitz. Bob had

taken classes at UC Davis and Berkeley while hedid investment research for new technology inSan Francisco and came to realize winemakingwas his true destiny. Bob worked the 1967 harvest at Heitz and then in 1968 bought Mayacamas Vineyards, which he continues torun. He ages his wines in large oak tanks andthen small oak barrels, all of French oak, andthen in the bottle. His 1971 Cabernet was agedin this manner, but in exactly which French oakBob couldn’t say.

• Clos du Val got underway in 1971 under theguidance of Bernard Portet. Bernard was bornin Cognac and educated at institutes of winein Toulouse and Montpellier, and is descendedfrom many generations of Bordeaux winemakers,vineyardists, and wine brokers. Bernard aged his1972 Cabernet in French oak from Demptosand the forests of either Nevers or Allier (he’sforgotten which).

• In 1967 Freemark Abbey was acquired byChuck Carpy, Bill Jaeger, Laurie Wood, andBrad Webb. Brad had been winemaker atHanzell, and insisted Freemark Abbey usesmall French oak barrels for aging. Bill and hiswife, Lila, went to France with an introductionfrom Brad to Philippe Demptos of Demptos.After visiting several cooperages, the Jaegerspronounced Demptos the best cooperage forFreemark Abbey. Its 1969 Cabernet was agedin Demptos barrels, probably of wood fromLimousin.

California Cabernet at the 1976 Paris TastingBrief descriptions of the aging practices follow below:

of caramel, coconut, vanilla, clove or cinnamon,toast, and almond. After twelve months in barrel, oak has affected the aroma, flavor andtexture of the wine as well as its color and clarity, yet compounds producing these qualitiesare but one to five percent of wine. 85 to 90percent of wine is water and 10 to 14 percentalcohol, with a remainder of tannins, salts andacids.

Changes in wine are brought about by oxidation,and Roger says it is at the bunghole that themost opportunity for oxidation occurs. Muchmore oxygen enters there when filling, empty-ing or sampling the barrel than creeps inthrough the porous staves. True, there is constant evaporation of water and alcohol out through the wood (its rate dependent on temperature and humidity), leaving an ullageor emptiness in the barrel that requires a periodic addition of topping wine, yet for thefirst three months wine is pretty much thesame as when it went into the barrel. Then thephenolics in the oak and wine—large organicmolecules of carbon and hydrogen—that contribute to the color, taste, and feel of thewine begin to dissolve off the barrel walls as well as change within the wine inside. Extractionsof changing tannins and other compoundsdiffuse slowly, so the character of the volumeof wine along the walls is quite different fromthat in the middle. As a wine’s tannins breakdown by forming longer chains or sheets andeven dropping out of suspension, sediment ofthe chains (polymers) of compounds and microscopic dead yeast cells settles down into

the curved bilge of the barrel. Racking wine bypumping or siphoning it off this sediment, orlees, and stirring the wine makes it uniform.Any splashing provides an opportunity foroxygen pick-up. After wine goes back into barrel the process repeats until the next rack-ing. Laboratory analysis can provide percent-ages of the various compounds contributed bybarrel aging and a flavor portrait of the wine:Roger says the rate of extraction depends on

compounds. (Wine barrels are thought to bevirtually inert, with respect to extraction, afterfive years of use.) After twelve months in barrel, wines are said to have softened and become less astringent. Although every harvest,every vintage is different, Roger points out thatthrough constant sampling and assessment thewinemaker gets to say “when” for each stepthat is taken to create a finished wine. Thewinemaker is in control; how a wine is remem-bered is a balance of oak, terroir and varietalcharacter. [And, if you have the chance to inhale a freshly toasted barrel, as we did atDemptos Napa, you will immediately under-stand the excellent, intimate pairing of winewith oak.] ■

Rosemary CakebreadWinemaker and OwnerGallica, St. Helena

Rosemary Cakebread says barrel-aging affectsnot just taste but also evolution of that wine inthat barrel. One’s palate can definitely discernbarrel differences in a wine, the effects of amaster coopers’ magic, the mastery of hiscraft. Rosemary calls a barrel an agriculturalproduct. The source of its wood is from treesin microclimates of unique soil and rain. Abarrel made by Seguin Moreau she calls sweet,Sylvain refined, a Pinot Noir in FrançoisFrères elegant. Finesse is required in the choiceand use of barrels in making wine to achieveconsistency through artisanship. Fortunately,barrel sellers have a lot of knowledge and arewilling to work with clients, to taste, to suggest,

‘Let’s try this.’ Rosemary thinks there are fewindustries today where you can have a real exchange once a year with an owner or sharein the world history of a craft with mastercraftsmen.

Her own career in wine began on the bottlingline of Sebastiani where a friend found her ajob. Rosemary had been anxious for somethingto do when she found herself a freshman inhigh school in rural Petaluma after growing upin Tokyo. Her dad, a commercial pilot, had relocated and suddenly there were no side-walks, no rapid transit. While at Sebastiani,Rosemary was introduced to their neighborBob Sessions who had succeeded Brad Webbat Hanzell as winemaker. Rosemary thoughtthe scale of Hanzell was “adorable” and seeingher captivation Bob told her about the wineprogram at UC Davis, that she could actuallygo to college and study wine. Rosemary went

to Davis where Randall Grahm, Doug Shafer,and Heidi Barrett were some of her classmates.

After college, Rosemary spent two years at Inglenook where she was introduced to Cabernet and to cement and stainless steel fermenters and some use of small barrels. Sheworked in the lab, at the sugar shack, in tanks,bottling and tasting, tasting, tasting. On oneof her more notable trips to France she joinedup with Eileen Crane and Roberta MantellMontero in 1983 to taste wines and visitcooperages—Nadalié, Damy, Billon amongthem. Sylvain is a cooperage she continues tohold in high regard. She also got to visit Canton Cooperage in Kentucky with its thengeneral manager, Henry Work. Dick Maherthen invited Rosemary to help with the startup of Mumm Napa with Guy Devaux. Shespent seven years at Mumm where all theblending and tasting that sparkling wine requires was a really great experience.

While Tony Soter (whom she had met at UCDavis) and Mia Klein were consulting wine-makers for Spottswoode, Tony suggestedRosemary come talk with Mary and BethNovak as plans for their own winery were getting underway. Rosemary loves designingthings: the Spottswoode project proved irresistible. She calls architect Howard Backenthe genius behind winery integration at thesite, and really enjoyed working with him whilemaking the 1997 and 1998 Spottswoode vintages at Napa Wine Company. 1999 wasthe first vintage at the new Spottswoode

winery. Transition complete, Tony retiredfrom Spottswoode. Rosemary was its wine-maker until 2005 and still continues to consult on the winery’s 3,500 case production.Rosemary credits Tony with Spottswoode’smove to organic farming (consistent with thefamily’s own philosophy and the vineyard’s location within the town) and really launchingthe brand.

Spottswoode fostered opportunities for blend-ing, trying different toast levels, and differentcooperages. Rosemary took advantage of everyopportunity to speak with coopers, make barrel trials and invite coopers for tastings atthe winery and in tasting groups. Spottswoodehas a unique vineyard and elegant wines, expressive of the vineyard. Rosemary soughtoak to compliment that style and to marryvineyard blocks’ characteristics with barrels.The Sauvignon Blanc is fermented in both oakand stainless steel, Cabernet in oak. In a perfect world malolactic fermentation goesthrough in barrel, but it sometimes takes offin tank. Lees help build body and refine tannins,so Rosemary counsels you rack when you haveto rack. Each year is different.

Since 2007 Rosemary has been making Gallica, a Cabernet Sauvignon blend, at Faillawhere she is one of nine vintners. Her Gallicais a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot,and Cabernet Franc, and she is having a lot offun making it in the company of other wine-makers. A little more fruit goes into the production each year, from St Helena, Oakville,

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ON WINE BARRELS ON WINE BARRELS

the structure of the wood grain—its potentialfor pore intrusion (wine entering the wood)and capillary action in the barrel (wickingwater and alcohol to the outside), althoughwhole wine penetrates only about one quarterof an inch into the staves. The rate of extractionis greatest at the beginning, and then slowswith the accumulation and aggregation of

and now Coombsville. As a winemaker, Rosemary’s whole quest has been to improve,to make discoveries so she is doing small lotand barrel fermenting with Gallica and enjoy-ing how hands-on it is, how tactile, how muchmore oxygen there is in 58 gallons of activelyfermenting wine. As oxygen is taken up itbuilds the wines as it lengthens tannin chains.Malolactic fermentation may not go throughbefore March so you have to judge whether torack off or let the wine sit on its lees. Aging inbarrel is a significant, essential part of raising awine. For barrels Rosemary is a tight grain fan.Its refinement grabs her. For toast level sheprefers medium to medium plus. In her heartof hearts Rosemary is not a fan of heavy toastalthough there is a place for it in a blend, insmall amounts. Gallica is not in all new oak,more like 60 percent new and 40 percent inone and two year-old barrels. It spends 20months in barrel before it is bottled.

To order barrels before harvest is a challenge.You need to estimate tons of fruit, how muchwine, reflect on what you know from previousvintages, assess and refine what you projectabout the next one, and place an order. Rosemary was in Bordeaux for its 2006 harvest. She says you could just call the fellowwho would come in a van and deliver ONEbarrel. It is so different in France; here, onemust plan way ahead. Fortunately, everyonehelps each other. Rosemary is relieved to saythere is lateral movement of barrels amongwinemakers during harvest, when barrel countsmay need some adjustment. ■

Mel KnoxBarrel Broker and OwnerMel Knox Barrel Brokers, San Francisco

Mel Knox has been a barrel broker for almostthirty years and says that in that time barrelshave gone from a small thing, cooperages witha small staff to real serious business. Nadalié,Demptos and Sirugue have sold barrels in theU.S. since before Mel can remember. Siruguewas once part of a confederation of cooperagescalled Tonnelleries de Bourgogne that includedMeyer (now defunct), Damy, Billon (nowowned by Damy), and Remond, which likeSirugue is no longer part of the group. WhenDick Graff and others imported barrels fromthese cooperages, they found they liked Siruguebest and talked it into going independent.Sirugue came to dominate the aging of California Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and wasespecially strong south of San Francisco with

wineries like Chalone, David Bruce, Edna Valley, Mount Eden, and Sanford & Benedict.François Frères started selling in the Bay Areaaround 1975, Taransaud about 1978; SeguinMoreau jumped in around 1981 along with areorganized Tonnelleries de Bourgogne; Vicardand Dargaud et Jaeglé about 1983. Radoux,now in the same group as Seguin Moreau,followed. In 1985 Philippe Demptos askedwhy everyone in California was using stavewood from Limousin rather than Nevers (inFrance Limousin is preferred for Cognac andBrandy). Après that, recounts Mel, came ledéluge: “Sylvain, Saury, Treuil, Boutes, Mercurey, Berthomieu (now Ermitage),Sansaud, Mercier, Berger, Darnajeu, and many,many others,” about 70 today. When Melbegan, François Frères had ten coopers and adaily production of 20 barrels. It grew to 50coopers producing 100 barrels daily. In 1989François Frères bought all of Demptos Franceand half of Demptos Napa. In 1993 itbought the other half and now has barrelworks in Australia, Hungary, Spain and Scotland as well and sells worldwide. Knownprimarily for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay,François Frères has a legendary list of clients inBurgundy from its founding in 1910. It wentpublic in 1999.

Mel got into the barrel business quite bychance. He says barrel demand rises and fallswith the grape crop. Low yields in Burgundyof 1973, ‘74 and ‘75 encouraged JeanFrançois of François Frères to send his American neighbor, Becky Wasserman, to theUS for additional custom. Jean François also

introduced Becky to his friend Jean Taransaudas a source for barrels from Bordeaux. Beckycame in the winter of 1979-1980 and stayedwith the Knoxes. She no sooner arrived thanshe came down with flu. Mel offered to help,and in one week had three shipping containers’worth of orders. Mel and Becky promptly be-came partners. A few years later Mel boughther out. Becky is a wine broker, selling wineworld-wide from Burgundy and Mel, as MelKnox Barrel Brokers, represents all the US forFrançois Frères and the Western US, Baja California and Canada for Taransaud.

Mel got to know California wines and wineriesduring a summer job at a wine and liquor storein Redwood City while at Stanford. This led toworking at the Wine and Cheese Center in SanFrancisco where Mel found being invited totastings a lot more fun than going to law schoolas his mother had hoped. He sold wine foreight years, but says it can drive you bats (it gavehim migraines) trying to come up with newways to build excitement. He met lots of people, however, not only Becky but also principals from wineries like Clos du Val, Long,Joseph Phelps, and Stags Leap Wine Cellars.

When Mel began in the business, UC Daviswas advising that barrel fermentation wasrisky, even though Ric Forman and DickGraff had been long-time advocates of fermenting Chardonnay only in barrel andCabernet right after primary fermentation.Back then, red wine usually went into barrelafter Christmas, even as late as May. Now, ofcourse, it is quite normal for red wine to go

into barrel for malolactic fermentation, aNorthern California innovation gaining acceptance in France. Wines also used to befiltered before going into barrel. Mel says wehave learned this makes really oaky wines sotoday some white wines do ferment in barrel.Mel also recalls that empty barrels were storedfull of water when they should be stored emptyto stay clean and mold-free. Barrels also used tobe treated with soda ash but this simply removestheir toast and does not purify them. Minimalbarrel preparation practices are now the norm.

The most important qualities in selecting abarrel, according to Mel, are species of oakand air-drying. Period. Mel calls stave wooddried in a kiln, like whiskey barrel staves,pretty ghastly for wine because the oak still has lots of astringency. Air-drying for threewinters is optimum, with staves spending twoand a half years outside “where you cut it.”France and the American Mid-West are muchmore humid than Napa Valley, so enzymesand bacteria have a chance to release phenolicsand liberate polysaccharides in the wood dry-ing slowly on racks outdoors. Barrel selectionshould be based on what the winemaker is trying to achieve. Mel counsels that readier-to-drink wines merit a lower percentage ofnew oak, air-dried for two years and withprominent grain for flashiness. Wines that canbe aged ten to fifteen years, the kind he jokesare made “from one grape per acre,” need barrels of three-year wood with a tighter grain and spend eighteen months in barrel. It behooves the barrel broker to work veryclosely with each client at every vintage. ■

Jeff JaegerManaging MemberJaeger Vineyards, LLC, Napa

Managing PartnerBarrel Associates, Intl, Fresno and Napa

Jeff and his wife, Kristen, live on the Jaegerfamily property on Big Ranch Road in Napa,formerly the Hartley Ranch (where the stillwidely-planted Hartley walnut variety was de-veloped). Jeff’s parents, Bill and Lila, began tospend summers in Napa Valley from the BayArea when Jeff was eight. In 1963, after a tripto Mexico, Bill came down with a wallopingcase of hepatitis and was advised to switchfrom whiskey to wine upon recovery. He did,and Jeff says wine was always on the table afterthat. The Jaegers bought a place on InglewoodAvenue in St. Helena in 1965 and the familyspent 5 or 6 hours every Saturday putting the

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ON WINE BARRELS ON WINE BARRELS

property in shape. When Bill and Lila ac-quired additional acreage in Napa, all the fam-ily worked staking and planting vineyard there,too. In 1980 Doug Hill became the vineyardmanager.

When Bill became a partner in FreemarkAbbey in 1967, the group persuaded BradWebb, the former winemaker at Hanzell, toget involved. Brad insisted that cooperage bepart of the equation. According to Jeff,“Staves are to wine as fruit is to vine. Grapesare from the land as the stave mill relies ontrees.” Bill and Lila set out to find the bestcooper in France. Their search led to PhilippeDemptos, a sixth generation at Demptos inSaint-Caprais-de-Bordeaux, and to declareDemptos the best cooperage. Jeff says, “Youare what your staves are.” When Philippestarted coming to the United States in the1970’s to sell barrels, the Jaegers invited himto stay at their house rather than a hotel. Jeffsays Philippe was fascinating—just back fromMorocco or Spain selling barrels. From NapaPhilippe sold six or seven thousand barrels inone month each year. At the end of 1980Philippe invited Bill Jaeger to be a partner in anew company, Demptos Napa. Jeff joined thiscompany in 1982, after college. ChristianRadoux had been involved in its start-up (Jeffcalls him a compagnon of the wood business),as well as master cooper Will Jamieson, andtwo coopers from Portugal.

Christian set the flow of the new cooperage.Since Demptos didn’t want to pay to ship

waste, preliminary work was and is done inFrance on raw staves coming from the mill.Hand-split stave wood is stacked outside for18-24-26 months to leach and bleach its tan-nins and vanillins, then planed and jointed andedges beveled. Staves are bundled into sets and200 to 250 sets each put into shipping con-tainers. The same is true for the sawn stavewood of American white oak that comes toDemptos from McGinnis in Cuba, Missouri.

Jeff left Demptos in 1992 to involve himselfin a number of wood- and barrel-related proj-ects. He built a stave mill in Salem, Indianawhich he later sold to Independent StaveCompany, a family-owned cooperage thatmakes thousands of barrels a day for wine andwhiskey, the latter for bourbons such as JimBeam and Maker’s Mark. [Brown-FormanCooperage (formerly Blue Grass Cooperage)also has several stave mills and makes twothousand barrels a day, most of which it shipsto Lynchburg, Tennessee for the aging of JackDaniels, Woodford Reserve and other Brown-Forman spirits.] Today, Jeff is a managingmember of Jaeger Vineyards and a managingpartner of Barrel Associates, International(BAI), a cooperage known for its unique“Deep Toast” barrel with staves of water-bentAmerican oak. BAI makes 100 barrels a day inFresno. These are offered through Dargaud etJaeglé, a Burgundian cooperage with offices inNapa. Jeff also has a small log link business anhour north of Louisville, Kentucky and dealsin white oak, although sassafras, white and redoak, and walnut are also represented. Jeff says

wood for veneer gives the greatest dollar bene-fit. The first six to eight percent of sawn tim-ber goes to veneer mills, THEN to barrels.The rest goes for furniture, flooring, railroadties, and even wood chips.

Jeff sees a higher emphasis on quality fromevery producer of wine today. A winemaker’sinvolvement reaches across agricultural andproductive lines. The winemaker is in the vine-yard more. Barrel suppliers, in turn, have be-come knowledgeable about the trees that createstaves, the firing process, bending and barrelfinishing. Because a winemaker’s style takes awhile to develop and the wood formula for anew wine determined, suppliers work withwinemakers throughout the life of the wine tohelp achieve a particular style. Their consulta-tions keep winemakers informed as winemak-ers perform barrel trials and hold tastingsamong their peers and a discerning public. Jeffcalls the matrix of shared knowledge substan-tial and counsels, “Ordinary doesn’t sell; ex-traordinary does.” ■

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19th Varietal Seminar

On the Other Hand:Discovering Other RedsCulinary Institute of America at GreystoneSt. HelenaSaturday, August 15

After coffee and registration, the morningschedule of this nineteenth Varietal Seminarwas filled with tasting eight Napa Valley redwines contributed by their wineries and pairedwith canapés from The French Laundry. Fourmore wines were tasted at lunch. The wineswere from nine varieties outside the CabernetSauvignon family. The eight that had beenpaired with small bites were presented in fourflights lead by Dr Allen Balik during two sessions. Two white wines were then offeredinformally before lunch, and two more redwines with lunch.

Allen Balik is a wine enthusiast, well versed inorganizing seminars, wine auctions and winetours. He is also an appraiser of vineyards anda wine shipper. The exquisite small bitesaccompanying each wine were carefully andthoughtfully selected by The French LaundryHead Sommelier, Dennis Kelly, working withDevin Knell, Executive Sous Chef, and Brandon Rodgers, Chef de Partie. Dennis hasspent twenty years working in restaurants andwas with Martini House in St. Helena beforecoming to The French Laundry in Yountville.Although this was his first presentation at aseminar, and he admitted to being nervous,both Dennis and Allen found the Eco-Labclassroom to be a very workable space inwhich to interpret and share their respect andenthusiasm for what they described as “theconstant triangle of food, wine and friends,”and seemed to enjoy the seminar as much asthe membership.

At The French Laundry, Dennis picks winesthat please his customers and fit the food. Although he enjoys wines from friends all overthe Valley, from Calistoga to Carneros, he saysThe French Laundry likes to serve “mature”wines. Dennis says there is a fruit factor toconsider, as well as structure. Elegant food requires elegant wines. He might choose a wineto mimic a food’s structure, its flavors, or off-set them with a different approach. Earthy beetsmight call for something sweet; what grows together goes together. During a meal, there isa progression of flavors and textures that thesommelier mirrors. First, sake or Champagneand caviar: light, refreshing, with acidity(higher acidity, less alcohol); then salad andbigger wines with an herbaceous quality. Sea-food may call for a barrel-fermented Chardonnayor Sauvignon Blanc; meat pairs with wine withsofter tannins and higher acid. Allen definedhis seminar choices of Napa Valley red winesother than Cabernet for each flight as the samevariety from two different areas or twodifferent wines from the same area.

ON WINE BARRELS

pistachios, to match richness with richness,Dennis said, with an emphasis on the driedfruit component of Zinfandel. The wines’acid, alcohol and structure, their tannin, itsstrength and mouth feel all contributed to thepairing. Allen noted that Zinfandel is made inso many different styles, that there is great variety among these wines.

After a glass of 2004 Long VineyardsChardonnay or 2008 Robert Pecota SauvignonBlanc, lunch was served in the teaching kitchenof CIA Greystone. Lamb loin in a QuixotePetite Syrah reduction followed stuffed heir-loom tomatoes, with mignardises for dessert.Just before the lamb, Allen introduced CarlDoumani, founder of Quixote as well as Stags’Leap Winery.

Carl reflected upon Petite Sirah and his manyyears in Napa Valley. He moved here from LosAngeles in 1971 and said going from the cityto live in the country was quite an education.Carl first worked for Souverain (now Burgess).According to its owner, Lee Stewart, wine hadto be balanced; acid was important. Stewart setthe style with his Souverain vintages of 1972,1973, and 1974 that Carl said he is still work-ing toward.

He called his Quixote Petite Syrah, whichhad been enjoyed with the stuffed tomatoes,

in the Barbera, moderated its acidity. Dennisnoted the importance of compatible versuscontradictory character with food and wine.

Allen said Italian varietals in Napa Valley arebeginning to catch up with the sophisticationof Cabernet and Pinot Noir. There are OldWorld-New World differences such as percentalcohol and current philosophies of wine-making. He feels the grapes do need to beriper for phenolic maturity—when their seedsare brown and their flavors are no longergrassy or herbal.

The northern Rhone is known for Syrah fromHermitage, the south for its Grenache fromChâteau Neuf-du-Pape. In Australia, whereSyrah is known as Shiraz, the variety is bold andbig. Allen said it is brighter in cooler climates.In Napa Valley, Syrah from the warmer east-side is riper and bolder, more like AustralianShiraz. The United States in general is morenorthern Rhone—that bacon fat of Mourvèdre(also known as Mataro). Allen called Syrahmore site-specific than Grenache, but less sothan Pinot Noir or Sangiovese. The ideal sitefor Grenache is cool but sunny. Allen notedthat the state of Washington is good forRhone varietals.

Grenache is browner in color than other reds.Allen called it animally, gamey in flavor, and

Pinot Noir is the most important “other red”at The French Laundry. It grows best oncooler, poorer, chalkier soils and is the mostsite-specific of the wines tasted in the seminar.Dennis called it meat friendly, elegant and refined. The two Pinot Noirs were paired witha duck foie gras with crème fraiche and a spongecake with Morello cherry. Allen cautioned thatwe must rely on our own memory banks forassociations. If we read words or hear them,they can influence what we taste. He looks for structure and balance, fruit and acidity. For this flight, he was alert to red fruit flavor,brightness, freshness, and alcohol that was notoverpowering. Riper fruit creates darker color;black or plum colors can mean over-ripening.

Allen said the Pinot Noir grape is fragile, thin-skinned, prone to sunburn and rot, andoxidation during fermentation, and that a littlebit of new oak goes a long way. He found theTalisman to have more oak, new, and a richer,rounder flavor with the sweetness of cherry.Dennis called it a New World flavor of sweetcore fruit. Pinot Noir goes well with duck,squab, veal, lamb, quail, and poularde (salt is a flavor intensifier; a sweet core of fruit willcounter-balance saltiness). At the finish, the El Molino was more earth-driven. It had silkytannins and was soft, vibrant, cleansing—OldWorld. The Talisman finish was deeper, ElMolino’s brighter. Both had balance and good

acidity.

Although Sangiovese has been and is widelygrown in Italy, Allen said Barbera was originallya blending wine. With these two wines there isboth a varietal difference and a site difference.For this flight, Barbera comes from a warmerarea with more sunshine than the Sangiovese.

The Benessere Sangiovese was paired with aVol-au-vent of sweetbreads, the Robert BialeBarbera paired with tiny tomatoes, olives,thyme and parsley. Allen commented that inTuscany, where there is lots of tomato in thecuisine, wine and food grow up together.Piemonte wines have a more earthy quality, theSangiovese an herb-dried quality and a classicalrhubarb component, one that is sweet-tart.The oak in both wines supported the food and

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said it is a phenomenally good blending wine.Syrah tastes of black pepper, lavender, and issmoky. It tends to build in the mid- and backpalates. Grenache has more elegance. Its fruit isthinner-skinned, and its wine is much morered fruit-driven: soft, raspberries and cherries.In Southern Rhone it tastes of spice. Syrahgrapes are bigger, thicker-skinned, with morecyanin. The wine tastes of black fruit: black-berry, currant, and cassis. The French Laundryhad paired the wines with a pork belly sandwichbite and a purée of truffle with arugula.

Allen said that with such marked contrasts between the wines, very small amounts makesignificant differences in a blend of the two:elegant versus big. The class then blended thetwo wines in a third glass, perhaps succeedingin finding a new balance between the two intheir blends.

Dennis said it was a challenge to include localdomestic wines among the international selection at The French Laundry. The stafftends to recommend a blend of local andglobal favorites—Pinot Noir with duck, foiegras. Roasted or braised meats call for OldWorld wines in the colder seasons; truffles and tomatoes are very good with Italian wines.The Zinfandels were paired with braised lambshank and spiced prune compote with

incarnate from 35 years ago, with its woodtaken from the Stags’ Leap Winery vineyardsplanted in 1939 and 1978. The wine has rich-ness, density, and length of finish. Carl findsPetite Sirah better for pairing with food thanothers—a marriage that you can’t best, especially if it is marinated lamb. The wine is also good with game and berries in a berrymarinade, big Italian fare like lamb shanks oreven short ribs. He said Petite Sirah is site specific; other varietals are not needed forblending. The wine enters the mouth softly,then blankets it with a smooth richness in themiddle palate, and lasts well beyond expectations.

For Carl, making wine is a personal journey,not a destination. It is about taking chances,learning and working, farming not just a singlevineyard selfishly, but making a contributionto what should be thought of as everyone’svineyard. When Carl first came to Napa Valley,the flow of information was unrestricted. He said it stopped flowing with lawsuits, with wineries acquired by publicly traded companies, although during the month of harvest it didn’t matter. Now, however, information flows again on a rising tide ofNapa Valley winemaking. After the maincourse and mignardises, the seminar concludedwith an optional tour of CIA at Greystone. ■

Benessere2006 SangioveseSt. Helena 100% estate Sangiovese25% new French oak1,348 cases; 14.4% alcohol

Robert Biale2007 BarberaCarli/Somerston Vineyards 100% Barbera;

old vine (1920) and new15% new French oak247 cases; 15.8% alcohol

SECOND FLIGHT

Truchard Vineyards2005 SyrahLos Carneros 100% estate Syrah90% French oak10% American oak2,629 cases; 14.3% alcohol

Outpost2007 GrenacheHowell Mountain 100% estate Grenache100% used French oak325 cases; 16.0% alcohol

THIRD FLIGHT

El Molino2006 Pinot NoirRutherford 100% estate Pinot Noir70% new French oak903 cases; 14.5% alcohol

Talisman2006 Pinot NoirAdastra Vineyard, Los Carneros 100% estate Pinot Noir60% new French oak321 cases; 14.1% alcohol

FIRST FLIGHT

Chase Cellars2006 ZinfandelHayne Vineyard, St. Helena 100% estate Zinfandel80% old vine (1903)

15% new French and American oak

1,150 cases; 14.7% alcohol

T-Vine Cellars2006 ZinfandelNapa Valley 54% Frediani Zinfandel31% Primitivo15% Petite Sirah35% new American oak645 cases; 14.8% alcohol

FOURTH FLIGHT

Stags’ Leap Winery1993 Petite SyrahStags Leap95% estate Petite Syrah5% estate SyrahOld vine (1939) and newer (1970s)100% American oak6,739 cases; 13.6% alcohol

Quixote2004 Petite SyrahStags’ Leap Ranch, Stags Leap 100% Petite Syrah100% American oak950 cases; 14.57% alcohol

AT LUNCH

OfficersBob Long, PresidentCarolyn Martini,

Vice PresidentAllen H. Price, SecretaryBret Blyth, Treasurer

Board of DirectorsKevin AlfaroJulie DicksonBob DyeBarbara InselGary JaffeFulton MatherBob PecotaCraig RootDale Brown, EmeritusRichards Lyon, Emeritus

Library DirectorJennifer Baker

Executive SecretaryJane Burger

Events AdministratorDiana Stockton

Collections SupervisorBobbie Vierra

ArchivistChris Kreiden

Napa Valley Wine Library Association

NAME (S )

CITY

STATE ZIP CODE

EMAIL

MAILING ADDRESS

MembershipWe invite you to join the Napa Valley Wine LibraryAssociation. Your membership dues support thecollections at the St. Helena Public Library. You willalso receive the Wine Library Report, informationabout our courses and seminars, and admission toour ever-popular Annual Tasting, for members only.Individual membership is $60.00 per year; lifetimemembership is $1,000.00.

To join, please complete this form and mail it witha check payable to:

Napa Valley Wine Library AssociationPO Box 328St. Helena, CA 94574

Kristof Anderson

Jim Barrett

Bob Biale

L. Pierce Carson

James Chery

John Clews

Chris Corley

Bill Dyer

David Graves

Otty Hayne

Doug Hill

Chris Howell

Genevieve Janssens

Randle Johnson

James Laughlin

Bob Levy

Mia Klein

Mike Martini

Peter McCrea

Angelina Mondavi

Morgan Morgan

Damian Parker

Holly Peterson

Chris Phelps

Michael Richmond

John Ruel

Bill Seavey

Scott Snowden

Sam Spencer

Pam Starr

Sloan Upton

Nils Venge

Greg Walter

Mike Wolf

Seminar FacultyThe Faculty consists primarily of local wine-makers, winery principals, restaurateurs andcaterers. Instructors in recent years are listedbelow, with new individuals are added each year.

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47th Annual Tasting

The Romance ofPetiteZinNoirSilverado Resort, NapaSaturday, August 15, 2009

Very warm weather, well above 100°, waspredicted the day of the Annual Tasting, butthe temperature stayed in the low nineties,which felt cool in comparison. The naturaloaks of The Grove and many strategicallyplaced umbrellas afforded plenty of shadefor the 75 wineries that poured ten varietalred wines other than Cabernet, fairly evenlydistributed among four, with the rest in onesand two’s: 26 Syrah, 25 Pinot Noir, 21 Zin-fandel, 20 Petite Syrah, two Sangiovese, andone each of Charbono, Dolcetto, Grigno-lino, Primitivo, and Tempranillo, as well aseight proprietary blends, two rosés, twoports from Prager Winery and Port Works,and one sparkling wine, a Brut Rosé, fromSchramsberg that did need lots and lots ofice. We noted that Vin Roc decanted its pro-prietary blend; otherwise pours were directly

from the bottle. The Schramsberg and aZinfandel from Green & Red were amongthe most popular wines poured for the 700to 800 members who attended the Tasting.A banner above Whitehall Lane, a big signat Biale, fresh flowers on the tables of Cuvai-son, Guffy Farm and Prager, and dried flow-ers on the table of Clos du Val added to theafternoon’s ambiance. Chiarello Family fea-tured a recent cookbook of Michael’s; Rom-bauer also offered a cookbook in celebrationof Koerner’s great aunt’s The Joy of Cooking(published just over 75 years ago). Silveradonimbly provided plates of assorted cheesesand crackers at one station as well as carafesof still water throughout The Grove.

A number of wine clubs come to the tastingeach year, as they have for more than adecade. Wine Tasters II drives up from SanMateo; another club’s members are fromBurlingame and Hillsborough. ManyNVWLA members have also joined thewine clubs of their favorite wineries in theValley—one couple belongs to seven. Afterthe Varietal Seminar or before the AnnualTasting, our members visit “their wineries,”

as they have for years during the weekend ofthe Tasting. This year our board membersalso recommended five restaurants in thearea that they have found to be particularlyknowledgeable about and supportive ofNapa Valley wines and wineries. We hopeyou took advantage of the recommendationsand found the restaurants helpful in pairingthe kinds of wines you enjoyed during theweekend with their superlative dishes.

Bob Long President and Chair 47th Annual Tasting