Arnold and Alma Tudal planted vines on 10 acres of former walnut orchard north of St. Helena in the Napa Valley in 1974 and released their first wines in 1979. Big Tree Road is still pretty rustic compared to the circus that Hwy. 29 has become, a circumstance reflected in Tudal’s refusal to follow new-fangledness and fleeting fame or even, over the course of 30 years, to alter their winery’s logo or the labels on their products. This refreshing stance implies a becoming modesty of purpose but not of accomplishment; the pair of Tudal cabernet sauvignon wines from 2007 that I tried recently are among the greatest cabernets I have tasted this year. The wines are 100 percent cabernet sauvignon. Winemaker was Ron Vuylsteke, though he departed and has been replaced, as of the 2009 vintage, by Kirk Venge. These wines were samples for review.
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The Tudal Family Winery Clift Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, Oak Knoll District, Napa Valley, offers everything that devotees of old-fashioned Napa cabernet look for: classic notes of cedar, tobacco and lead pencil; a solid structure based on abundant and vibrant acidity, dust-laden tannins (both polished oak tannins and a hint of slightly more astringent grape tannins) with the bass tone of granite-like minerality; and dark, rich, spicy black currant and black cherry flavors slightly tinged with black olive, briers and brambles. What makes the wine so exciting — LL said, “This is the best red wine I’ve tasted all year” — is that it’s packed with character and a sense of slumbering, brooding dignity as well as being beautifully balanced, clean, fresh and appealing. It feels like a supreme example of an impeccably-made country wine, so perhaps “exciting” is not correct, for this is, above all, a wine that resists trends of nervy raciness or sleek sophistication or blatant ripeness or heavy-handed extraction for the simple yet profound virtues of being natural and effortless and complete. 14.1 percent alcohol. Production was 490 cases. Best from 2011 or ’12 through 2018 to ’21. Exceptional. About $40.
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The Tudal Estate Bottled Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, Napa Valley, displays an entrancing dark ruby color with a magenta/blue rim. Blue, too, metaphorically, is its quality of blue fruit drenched with black; its piercing, bluey slate-like minerality; its cool yet smoldering blue flame of smoky potpourri, cassis and lavender. The concession to modern practice is the alcohol content of 14.7 percent; 30 years ago for this wine, 12.5 percent alcohol was considered just fine. (Cherchez le global warming?) Other than that factor, this is a solid, robust, uncompromising Napa Valley cabernet that shows more density and more concentration than its stablemate mentioned above. The finish adds to that austerity with loads of underbrush and forest elements and dusty, dry-leaf and leather tannins. One has to applaud this relentless and totally satisfying unstylishness. Production was 390 cases. Try from 2012 or ’13 through 2018 to ’22. Excellent. About $45.
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As faithful readers of this blog know — bless yer little pointy heads! — every feasible Saturday night it’s Pizza-and-Movie Night in the FK/LL household. This has been a steady occurrence for 15 years or so, and for most of that time I adhered to pretty much the same routine in making the pizza. Recently, though, I radically changed the way I make pizza, in terms of basic ingredients and technique.

The first inspiration was an article that ran in the food section of The New York Times on May 18 (and available online), called “The Slow Route to Homemade Pizza,” by Oliver Strand. Following the advice of a number of professional pizza-makers, the story advocates making the pizza dough and letting it rise at room temperature for 24 hours or at least overnight. Now I’ve always indulged in what I thought of as a slow rising of the dough at about eight hours, but overnight was new to me. I tried the technique soon after I read the article, making the dough on Friday night and leaving the bowl on the counter until the next morning. About 11 o’clock, I punched the dough down, kneaded it a few times, put it back in the bowl and set it out on the back porch. By the time I was ready to make the pizza at 6 p.m., the dough has been working for about 20 hours.

What happened next was remarkable. Usually, when you roll out the dough, you have to have do it a couple of times because the gluten is still elastic, so it has to rest for a couple of minutes and then be rolled again. With the new technique, I rolled the dough out and it immediately spread across the edges of the wooden paddle and onto the counter. Whoa! I actually had to trim the circumference because the pizza would have been too big for the stone. (Sorry I don’t have images of the process.) When we ate the finished pizza, the crust was thinner than I have ever achieved before, yet still chewy, not cracker-like, with a texture that had a little give and a rim that was slightly puffy. Fabulous, yes, but for me anyway, this technique is a little tricky, and over the past two months or so, I have had — it seems to me; LL is more generous –about a 25 percent failure rate, by which I mean that the crust was not up to a fine standard. I think I just have to keep trying to tune the method until I get it right.

The other change is that I began buying, at the Memphis Farmers Market, the hard white whole grain wheat flour from Funderfarm, a milling operation run by a young couple in Coldwater, Miss. The flour is not cheap — $8.50 for four pounds — but it’s ground the day before I purchase it, and it contributes wonderful texture and flavor to pizza. Now I can’t make a pizza with only the Funderfarm flour (the result is rather heavy), so I worked out a formula of about 40 percent Funderfarm hard white whole grain flour, about 50 percent King Arthur Bread Flour and about 10 percent rye flour from Whole Foods. All of these flours are organic.

We have also benefited from a bumper crop of local aubergines, including little globular eggplant; slim, tender baby eggplant; and pale lavender eggplant with faint white stripes. I slice these thin, marinate the slices in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, thyme and oregano, salt and pepper and then grill them briefly over hardwood charcoal. This is great on pizzas, especially in conjunction with pepper-cured bacon (as in the image above), and what’s interesting is that usually I can’t stand eggplant, it sort of
hurts my stomach. Ratatouille, yuck! I also like combining fresh tomatoes and marinated dried tomatoes on the same pizza, dribbling on a bit of the marinade as the final touch. (This image is of a small vegetarian pizza I made one Saturday when LL was traveling.) And recently I’ve been using four cheeses: mozzarella, feta, parmesan and pecorino.

Anyway, that’s what’s happening in My Pizzaworld. As far as wine is concerned, here are notes on the variety of wines we’ve had with pizza over the past few months. These were all samples for review.

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When Easton says “old vine,” they’re not kidding. The grapes for the Easton Old Vine Zinfandel 2006, Fiddletown, derive from the Rinaldi-Eschen Vineyard, some of whose vines date to the original planting of 1865, up there in Amador County’s Shenandoah Valley. Can there be an older vineyard still producing grapes in California? This is a beautifully balanced and integrated zinfandel, with loads of poise and character. The color is rich dark ruby with an opaque center and just a nod to cherry-garnet at the rim. Scents of macerated and meaty plums and red and black currants are permeated with smoke and cloves with a touch of leather and briers. In the mouth, the wine is rich and warm, displaying an intriguing combination of the savoriness of ripe, fleshy black fruit flavors with a sweet core of spicy oak and a touch of the grape’s brambly, black pepper nature. It’s quite dry, though, gaining a bit of dignified austerity and mineral presence on the finish. Nothing jammy, nothing overdone, and surprisingly elegant for an “old vine” zinfandel. Drink now through 2014 or ’15. Winemaker was Bill Easton, who also makes Rhone-style wines under the Terre Rouge label. Alcohol is 14.5. percent. Excellent. About $28 and definitely Worth a Search.
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The Grgich Hills Estate Merlot 2006, Napa Valley, asserts an individual character, unlike so many merlot-based wines that just taste “red” or like an imitation cabernet. From the winery’s Demeter-certified biodynamic vineyards, this intense and concentrated merlot delivers a bouquet of ripe black currants and black cherries etched with smoke and bitter chocolate and hints of lavender and Damson plum. A few minutes in the glass bring on a slightly roasted element, with flavors of black currants and blackberries permeated by cedar and dried thyme, all of these sensations cushioned by gritty, velvety tannins and fairly militant dusty, gravel-like minerality. The wine aged 18 months in a combination of French barriques and casks (that is, small and large barrels), some 30 percent of which were new. Such a regimen lends the wine shape, tone and seriousness without the frippery of toast or overt spiciness. Try from 2011 or ’12 through 2016 to ’18. Winemaker is Ivo Jeramaz, nephew of the winery’s co-founder and winemaker emeritus, Miljenko “Mike” Grgich. Alcohol is 14.5 percent. Excellent. About $42.
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The winery was founded in Australia’s Barossa Valley as Karlsburg Wines in 1973 by Czech winemaker Karl Cimicky; his son Charles changed the winery’s name to Charles Cimicky Wines when he took the reins. The blend in the Cimicky Trumps Grenache Shiraz 2007 is 55 percent of the first, 45 percent of the second. The wine spends 15 months in two-year-old French oak barrels that lend subtle spice and suppleness. This is a big, dark, rich and, yes, jammy red wine that bursts with aromas of ripe black currants, blackberries and plums swathed with licorice and lavender and crushed gravel. Despite the intense black fruit nectar-like ripeness, the wine is completely dry, even austere toward the finish, but it also just rolls across the taste-buds like liquid velvet couched in furry, chewy tannins. A little swirling unfurls notes of clean earth, new leather and smoke. This was terrific with the night’s pizza, but Lord have mercy, would it ever be great with a medium-rare, pepper-crusted rib-eye steak. Alcohol content is 14 percent. Drink through 2012 or ’13. Very Good+. About $15 to $18.
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La Mozza is jointed owned by Lidia Bastianich, her son Joe Bastianich and his partner is the restaurant business, Mario Batali. None of these celebrities — especially Batali — needs an introduction. (Mother and son also own a winery, launched in 1997, in Friuli Venezia Giulia, in the Colli Orientali Giulia D.O.C. region.) La Mozza was founded in 2000 and is located in Tuscany’s southwestern Maremma area. La Mozza Aragone 2006, Maremma Toscana I.G.T., could be called a combination of Italy and France; on the Italian side we have 40 percent sangiovese and 25 percent alicante grapes, and on the French side, specifically the southern Rhone Valley, we have 25 percent syrah and 10 percent carignane. The wine aged 22 months in 500-liter French casks; the standard French barrel is 225 liters, so theoretically, because of the greater mass of wine in proportion to wood, the oak influence with a cask is less, or at least more subtle. Not that the point matters tremendously for this dark, robust and vigorous red wine. Scents of red and black currants (and a touch of mulberry) are permeated by elements of graphite and potpourri, moss, briers and brambles and a bass note of mushroomy earthiness. Yes, there are intriguing, seductive layers in the bouquet, and if the wine is a bit more brooding in the mouth, that’s nothing that a little bottle aging won’t ease. The wine is well-balanced, but the emphasis is on dense but smooth, almost sleek tannins and rich, smoky black fruit flavors that need a year or two to develop. Try from 2011 or ’12 through 2016 to ’18. Alcohol content is a comfortable 13 percent. Excellent. A few months ago, the price range for this wine was about $38 to $42; today it’s about $28 to $35.

Dark Star Imports, New York.
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Yangarra Estate Vineyard, located in Australia’s McLaren Vale appellation, is part of the Jackson Family Wines empire. While the Yangarra wines are promoted as “100% estate grown,” the federally required designation on the back label mysteriously does not say “Produced and Bottled by …” but “Vinted and Bottled by …”; the implication is that the Yangarra wines (at least the ones shipped to the U.S.) are not made at the estate. Whatever the case, the Yangarra Mourvèdre 2008, McLaren Vale, is a wonderful, I’ll say it again, a wonderful expression of the mourvèdre grape. While a traditional component of the blended red wines of the Rhone Valley, Provence and Languedoc in southern France, mourvèdre is seldom bottled on its own except for a few instances in California and Australia. At first, this is all black: Blackberry, black currant, black plum, black pepper, black olive. Then a touch of dried red current enters the picture, along with sweet cherry and sour cherry, red plum, new leather. Give the wine a few more minutes and it turns into a glassful of smoldering violets and lavender, with overtones of bitter chocolate, espresso and dried thyme. The mineral element expands into layers of dusty granite and graphite that permeate the bastions of polished, chewy tannins. The wine aged 18 months in French oak barrels, only 15 percent of which were new, so the wood influence is sustained yet mild and supple and slightly spicy. This could mature for a year or two, so drink from 2011 or ’12 through 2016 to ’18. Production was 500 six-bottle cases; winemaker was Peter Fraser. Alcohol content is the now standard 14.5 percent. Excellent. About $29.

Sovereign Wine Imports, Santa Rosa, Cal.
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Just as the Yangarra Estate Mourvedre 2008 mentioned above represents a Platonic embodiment of the mourvedre grape, the Nickel & Nickel Darien Vineyard Syrah 2007, Russian River Valley, performs a similar service for syrah. Syrah was planted in Darien in 2000 and 2001, so the vines have reached a point of development that should lend rich character to the wine and continue on a plateau of quality for 50 or 60 years. There’s a whole truckload of crushed thyme, marjoram and Oolong tea in this wine, as well as baskets of blackberries and blueberries imbued with hints of prunes, plums, lanolin and leather and an all-over sense of ripe fleshiness. The color is inky with a faint violet/purple rim; the granite and shale-like mineral element feels/seems inky too. So add the caprice of lavender, licorice, bitter chocolate and potpourri crushed by mortar and pestle and scattered on a smoldering field of wild flowers and herbs. Yes, I’m saying that this is a syrah that reaches a level of delirious detail, depth and dimension, and the deeper it goes, the darker and denser it gets, until you reach the Circle of Austerity and the Chamber of Tannins and the Rotunda of Oak. (The wine aged 14 months in French barrels, 42 percent new.) Despite those fathoms, the wine is surprisingly smooth and drinkable, huge in scope yet polished and inviting. Production was 974 cases. Alcohol content is 14.9 percent. Drink from 2011 or ’12 through 2018 to ’20 (well-stored). Winemaker was Darice Spinelli. Exceptional. About $48.
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Desiring something probably less complicated and certainly cheaper on a subsequent Pizza-and-Movie Night, I opened the Estancia Zinfandel 2007, Keyes Canyon Ranches, Paso Robles. Estancia was founded in 1986 on the old Paul Masson vineyards in Soledad, in Monterey County. The winery is now owned by Constellation. Keyes Canyon is in Paso Robles, down south in San Luis Obispo. The wine is touted on its label as “Handcrafted” and “Artisan-Grown,” whatever those nebulous terms mean. As is the case with many of the products from wineries purchased by Constellation, this wine says on the label “Vinted and Bottled … “; check your bottles of Mt. Veeder and Franciscan, also owned by Constellation. Actually what the complete line on this label says is “Vinted and Bottled by Estancia Estates, Sonoma Co.” So the question is: Where the hell was the wine made?

Anyway, I didn’t like it. I tried manfully for 15 or 20 minutes to coax something out of the glass that might resemble anything to do with the zinfandel grape, but all I got was a generic sense of smoky, toasty red wine that could have been cabernet or merlot. Alcohol content is 13.5 percent. Winemaker was Scott Kelley. Avoid. About $15.

Finally, LL said, “Oh, just open something else. Something better.” So I went looking and found the next wine.
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Yes, as you know, I’m the kind of guy who will open a Jordan Cabernet to go with pizza, but, damnit, the movie was going and we were chowing down and I had to grab something. And of course I’m not implying that a wine that costs $52 is necessarily better than a wine that costs $15; the case is simply that every wine should perform up to or better than its price range, and the Estancia certainly didn’t do that.

Anyway, the Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Alexander Valley, offers lovely balance, integration and harmony. The blend is 75 percent cabernet sauvigon, 19.5 percent merlot, 4.5 percent petit verdot and 1 percent malbec. Aging was 12 months in French (67%) and American (33%) oak barrels, of which 33 percent were new. The bouquet is first a tangle of briers and brambles, cedar, thyme and black olive with a background of iron and dusty walnut shell; a few minutes bring in the notes of black currants, black cherries and cassis. The wine is intense and concentrated, dense and chewy, with finely-milled tannins and polished oak enfolding flavors of spicy black currants and plums and a streak of vibrant acidity contributing a sense of purpose. A model of the marriage of power and elegance and a delight to drink. Try now through 2015 or ’16. The alcohol content is 13.5 percent. Winemaker was Rob Davis. Excellent. About $52.

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Yes, Oveja Negra means “black sheep” — the outcast, the shunned — but this quartet of blended wines from Chile should be insiders on your table this summer. The wines are thoughtfully made from sustainable vineyards by Rafael Tirado, they’re primarily tasty and approachable, and the price, as you’ll see, can’t be beat. They’re from Chile’s Maule Valley, which lies within the country’s vast and productive Central Valley, which also include the vineyard regions of Maipo, Rapel and Curicó. No new oak is used with these Reserva wines. The bottles are topped with screw-caps for easy opening.

The Oveja Negra Reserva Sauvignon Blanc Carmenère 2009 is absolutely delightful. The blend is 85 percent sauvignon blanc and 15 percent carmenère, which, the sharp-eyed among you will assert, is a red grape, so it’s picked early, slightly under-ripe for the acidity, treated as if it were being made into a rosé wine, with no skin contact, and then blended back. The wine is made completely in stainless steel. This is clean, fresh and delicate, with penetrating scents of grapefruit, crushed jasmine, talc, lime peel and lemon balm; that’s right, you could dab it behind your ears on a soft summer night. Vivid acidity keeps the wine crisp and lively, buoying light flavors of slightly leafy lemon with hints of cloves and new-mown grass. The wine is quite dry and a little chalky, and the finish brings in a note of damp limestone. One of the prettiest wines around. Alcohol content is 13.2 percent. Very Good+. About $12 and a Great Bargain.

I was not quite as enamored of the Oveja Negra Reserva Chardonnay Viognier 2008, a blend of 82 percent chardonnay and 18 percent viognier. It’s simply a stylistic matter; this is rather too boldly and brightly spicy and tropical for my taste, but it’s certainly well-made. Ten percent of the wine is aged eight months in used French oak; in fact, these Oveja Negra Reserva wines see no new oak at all. Roasted grapefruit, baked pineapple, lemon-lime and lemon balm, a hint of spiced mango (and in the bouquet a beguiling touch of honeysuckle from the viognier): juicy but very dry, quite drinkable but more florid than I like, even in an inexpensive white wine. If it’s to your taste, go for it. Alcohol is 13.7 percent. Very Good. About $12.

The aromas of black and red currants that waft from a glass of the Oveja Negra Reserva Cabernet Franc Carmenère 2008 — the blend is 70/30 — are not only ripe and seductive but intense and concentrated and permeated by elements of cocoa powder and cloves, briers and brambles; the wine is deeply spicy and peppery, earthy and minerally in a crushed gravel sort of way, and its luscious, almost velvety black and red fruit flavors (with a whisk of cedary blueberry) lead to a finish with a touch of leathery austerity. The oak regimen is this: 40 percent of the wine aged eight to 10 months in a combination of 60 percent French and 40 percent American used oak barrels; the majority of the wine remained in stainless steel. A lot of personality for the price here, and a natural mate with grilled steaks and hamburgers or hearty pizzas and pasta dishes. 14.1 percent alcohol. Very Good+, and a Great Bargain at about $12.

Fourth in this roster is the Oveja Negra Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon Syrah 2008, a 68/32 percent blend with the same oak treatment as the Cabernet Franc Carmenère 08 mentioned above. This is a sizable wine, dense, concentrated, chewy, smoky and very spicy; it’s packed with earth- and mineral-infused black currant, blackberry and plum flavors, and the finish is stalwart with grainy tannins and polished oak. A little closed-in now and showing not quite the immediate pleasure of the previous wine. Perhaps a year in the bottle will soften it. 14 percent alcohol. Very Good. About $12.

Imported by Vici Wine & Spirits, Coral Springs, Fla. Tasted at a trade luncheon.

I invited wine-blogging colleague Benito to come over and taste six pairs of mainly limited-edition red wines with me a couple of weeks ago. The wines within each pair were related in some way, mainly in the sense that they were made by the same producer but from different vineyards or appellations. My intention was to see what sort of characteristics the wines possessed and how they expressed the variations in location, if they did so, and to what degree. There were four pairs of cabernet sauvignon-based wines and two pairs of merlot; one pair was from Washington state and the others from California, two from Sonoma County and three from Napa Valley.

Benito knew none of these details; all I revealed to him was that the wines were red, in related pairs and that we would taste them blind. I had a potential advantage, of course, but after I bagged and marked the wines (and removed the capsules), I moved the pairs around the table, and when Benito arrived, I asked him to do the same thing. When we sat down to begin, I realized by looking at the groups of bottles in brown paper sacks that I actually didn’t have a clue what the order was.

Here’s the deal: I found these wines, whose prices range from $35 to $85, generally solid and well-made but unexciting, uninvolving and uncompelling. Many of them shared so many similar qualities that they felt as if they had been engineered by committees. Nor did I discover much of the individuality and personality I was hoping for, either in the single examples or comparatively within the pairs. In fact, they seemed remarkably alike, reflecting a sense of prevalent style. After Benito and I tried the wines on a Thursday afternoon, I set the wines aside, let them rest over night and tried them the next day, and the next and even on Sunday; there was little sense of development or diminishing of oak and tannin. It’s difficult to understand, then, what these wines represent except their own status as iconic products to be featured on high-end wine lists and in the cellars of collectors. The order in which the wines are reviewed follows the order in which Benito and I tasted them.

These wines were received as samples for review.
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1. Matanzas Creek Merlot 2006, Bennett Valley, Sonoma County. 88.5% merlot, 7.5% syrah, 4% cabernet sauvignon. 14.1% alcohol. $35. and 2. Matanzas Creek Jackson Park Vineyard Merlot 2006, Bennett Valley, Sonoma County. 100% merlot. 14.1% alcohol. $49. Winemaker is François Cordesse. Matanzas Creek is part of the Jackson Family Wines of Kendall-Jackson.

The “regular” Bennett Valley Merlot 06 offers a dark ruby-purple color and a seductive bouquet of smoke, lilac and lavender, iodine and graphite, cassis and crushed raspberries, with a final fillip of violets and toasty charcoal. (The oak regimen is 14 months in French barrels, 31 percent new, 69 percent used.) So, this aromatic nature is attractive and pretty standard in the California vein, with emphasis on the character that comes from oak aging, all that sort of smoky, crunchy, roasted stuff. The wine is rich, ripe and juicy with black fruit flavors, deeply spicy, solid with dense chewy tannins that grow more austere as the minutes (and days) pass, and altogether very cabernet-like in its sleek, powerful structure.

How does the Jackson Park version compare? Immediately one feels more power and darkness in the glass, more structure and more of the wheatmeal-graham-walnut shell nature, the dusty minerals that indicate the presence of formidable oak and tannin and presage time in the cellar. This wine also spends 14 months in French oak, 50 percent new barrels, 25 percent one-year-old, 25 percent two-year-old. At first the wine feels pungent, spicy and provocative, but it quickly succumbs to its structural elements, turning very dry and austere from mid-palate through the finish, leading one to wonder if the only way to produce impressive merlot-based wines is to make them like cabernet sauvignon. Try this perhaps from 2012 or ’13 through 2016 or ’17.

I rate both of these merlots Very Good+.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1. Emblem Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Napa Valley. 100% cabernet. 14.3% alcohol. $50. and 2. Emblem Oso Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Napa Valley. 100% cabernet. 13.7% alcohol. $50. Winemakers are Michael Mondavi and his son Robert Michael Mondavi Jr. of Folio Fine Wine Partners.

The Rutherford district, progenitor of the famed (or infamous) “Rutherford dust” character, marks the heart of the Napa Valley. Named for the small, unincorporated community on Hwy 29, the district stretches in a broad band across the valley from the foot of the Mayacamas mountains in the west to the smaller Vaca Range on the east. The grapes for the Emblem Rutherford Cabernet 06 derive from a single, unnamed vineyard on the eastern side of the Napa River. This feels, indeed, like classic Napa/Rutherford cabernet, with a nose of cedar and black olives, mint and cloves and very intense and ripe cassis and black cherry scents wrapped in spicy oak and (yes) a dusty, leafy graphite quality. The oak treatment is 22 months in French barrels, of which 66 percent were new. At first, Emblem Rutherford 06 is pretty luscious and juicy, but strapping tannins expand rapidly and take up all the available space, turning the wine austere to the point of astringency. It is, in a word, huge in oak, huge in tannin, huge in that dusty, granite-like mineral element. It’s the old iron-fist in the iron-glove thing. Try from 2012 or ’14 through 2018 or ’20. For now, Very Good+.

Cousinage between these two Emblem wines consists of the factor of 100 percent cabernet sauvignon grapes and some resemblance in the oak regime, which for the Oso Vineyard 06 is also 22 months in French barrels, but 45 percent of the barrels are new. No matter. The Oso is another substantial, oak-bound, formidably tannic and granite-like wine that’s even more closed, more brooding and more austere than the Rutherford 06. The grapes come from the Mondavi family’s Oso Vineyard in the northern part of Napa Valley, near Calistoga. Considerable time will elapse before it softens and unfolds a bit, though I’ll grant that the wine’s supple texture — the tannins are more velvety than grainy and gritty — is very attractive. Another Very Good+ and hoping for the best after 2013 or ’14.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1. Northstar Merlot 2006, Walla Walla Valley, Washington. 78% merlot, 17% cabernet sauvignon, 5% cabernet franc. 14.4% alcohol. 1,200 cases. $50. and 2. Northstar Merlot 2006, Columbia Valley. 76% merlot, 19% cabernet sauvignon, 3% petit verdot, 2% cabernet franc. 14.7% alcohol. 10,00 cases. $41. Winemaker is David Merfeld. Northstar is a sister winery to Chateau Ste. Michelle.

The point here is that since Walla Walla is a smaller appellation within Columbia Valley theoretically a Walla Walla merlot will be (or could be) better than a merlot from the larger, more diversified region; how else justify the difference in price and packaging? As it happens, in this blind tasting, Benito and I tried the Walla Walla version before the Columbia Valley rendition, and while I’ll give the Northstar Walla Walla 06 a slight edge over the Northstar Columbia 06, these were both very well-made wines with a pleasing sense of detail and dimension. Walla Walla is, as many devotees of merlot know, a potentially superb area for the grape. Do these Northstar merlots, especially the Walla Walla, evince a definite regional character, points that one would pick out as “Walla Walla”? I would say not. While immensely enjoyable, there’s not much to distinguish these merlots from dozens, if not hundreds, of other examples.

To follow the tasting order, the Northstar Merlot 06, Walla Walla, ages 17 months in French oak barrels, 56 percent new. The grapes for the wine derive from nine blocks within four vineyards. The color is dark ruby-purple with a slightly paler purple rim; the bouquet is intense and concentrated, a tightly furled amalgam of iodine and iron, licorice and lavender, and very ripe and penetrating scents of black currant and black cherry. The wine is deeply rooted in baking spice and macerated black fruit flavors permeated by polished oak, graphite and dense, supple tannins, all ensconced in a sumptuous, velvety texture. Drink now through 2015 to ’16. Very Good+.

Surprisingly, my first notes on the Northstar Merlot 2006, Columbia Valley, are “color is even darker; more intense — more concentrated.” This is actually an incredibly dense, fervently eloquent expression of the merlot grape that, for once, doesn’t seem like just another cabernet in disguise. The wine sees a little more oak than its stablemate — 18 months in 70 percent French and 30 percent American oak barrels, 65 percent new — but it does not come off as besotted or imperiled by wood; in contrast, it feels as if you’re drinking tapestry loaded with cassis, Damson plums, potpourri, mocha and bitter chocolate with a slightly piquant spicy edge and a lacy etching of iron filings. Nothing over-ripe or exaggerated here, and, in fact, this may be the most elegant and balanced wine of the tasting. Drink now through 2015 or ’16. Excellent.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1. Rodney Strong Rockaway Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Alexander Valley, Sonoma County. 97% cabernet sauvignon, 2% malbec, 1% petit verdot. 15.4% alcohol. $75. and 2. Rodney Strong Brothers Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Alexander Valley, Sonoma County. 100% cabernet sauvignon. 15.4% alcohol. $75. Winemakers are Rick Sayre and Gary Patzwald, with David Ramey as consultant.

Alexander Valley is a narrow, 12-mile long region that stretches southeast to northwest into the upper reaches of Sonoma County. At its lower end, Alexander Valley is buttressed by Knights Valley on the east, Chalk Hill and Russian River Valley to the south and southwest and Dry Creek Valley to the west, but it rises above this crowd and reaches in isolation up to the border with Mendocino County. The Russian River runs right down through the center of Alexander Valley, providing a moderating influence to temperatures that are generally warmer than the rest of the county.

The Brothers Ridge Vineyard, in what we’ll call the northern quadrant of Alexander Valley, lies east of the town of Cloverdale — pop. 6,831; motto “Genuinely Cloverdale” — in hills that reach nearly 1,000 feet elevation. The soil is loam over layers of sandstone, shale and “ancient” greenstone, that is, basaltic rock that was once deep-sea lava. The vineyard faces mainly west. In contrast, the Rockaway Vineyard, which slopes primarily northeast and southwest, lies over a gravelly clay subsoil atop fractured sandstone. A few miles southeast of Brothers Ridge and slightly lower — 750 feet at the highest elevation — Rockaway is a bit cooler. Do these factors of climate and geography produce different wines? Don’t forget the element of oak aging; 22 months in French barrels, 42 percent new, for Brothers Ridge, 22 months, in French barrels, 47 percent new, for Rockaway.

Rockaway 2006 starts with toasty, sweet oak and sweet, ripe black and blue fruit scents straight out of the gate; this bouquet is deliriously seductive, broadly and deeply spicy, with violets, crushed lavender, licorice and an exotic touch of mocha and smoky, incense-like sandalwood. Soon, however, one reaches an impasse; yes, there are the generous spicy nature and glimmers of cassis and blue plums with a hint of fruit cake, but mainly the wine at this point is tightly, massively structured, and three days in the bottle did not do a lot to help it unfurl. On Sunday morning, Rockaway 06 still offered an intensely spicy character that permeated black cherry and red currant flavors, but the tale was told in chewy, grainy tannins and formidably austere oak. Try from 2012 or ’13 through 2018 to ’20. Very Good+ for now.

Brothers Ridge 2006 felt a little looser, a little more open and approachable than its cousin. Here we perceive leather, plums with hints of espresso and prunes — the summer of 2006 was historically hot — the depth and range of the spice cabinet, touches of menthol and cedar. After three days of sweet-talking and coaxing, though, however much the attractive points of macerated and roasted berries became evident, Brothers Ridge 06 remained all about oak, which coated the mouth with austerity and astringency. It’s difficult to imagine that the wine will ever achieve the equilibrium it requires to become palatable. Try, with hope in your hearts, from 2013 or ’14 through 2018 to ’20. Very Good+ for now.
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1. Piña Cellars Buckeye Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, Howell Mountain, Napa Valley. 100% cabernet. 15.1% alcohol. 840 cases. $85. and 2. Piña Cellars D’Adamo Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, Napa Valley. 100% cabernet. 15.4% alcohol. 1,085 cases. $75. Winemaker is Anna Monticelli.

The Buckeye Vineyard, high atop Howell Mountain — vineyard elevation up to about 2,200 feet — is a far cry from the D’Adamo Vineyard, nestled in the foothills between the Silverado Trail and Atlas Peak. One feels that difference immediately in this pair of wines from the Piña family, who have been tending vineyards in Napa Valley since the late 19th Century. The Buckeye Howell Mt. 07 displays bastions of resonant tannins for framing and foundation, like the deepest bass notes of a grand pipe organ, yet the bouquet draws you in with bacon fat, lavender and licorice, smoky charcoal, roasted meat (lamb, I would say) and very intense and concentrated elements of black currants, black cherries and plums. By the third day after being opened, this Buckeye Howell Mt. 07 had evolved into a real classic of mountain-grown cabernet, with high notes of cedar, tobacco and mint leading into spiced and macerated black currants and plums; the wine was still inky and granite-like, still awesome with oak and tannin, yet its innate elegance and balance were clearly evident. Of the 12 wines under consideration in this post, this was my favorite. Try from 2013 or ’14 through 2020 to ’22. Excellent.

Not to stint, however, on the virtues of the D’Amado 07, which opened seeming a little sleeker, a little smoother and more supple than its stablemate; in fact, you could swim in this ripe, rich, spicy and floral bouquet, though seemingly fathomless tannins come into play fairly quickly and dominate the wine after 15 or 20 minutes in the glass. Three days later, that bouquet still simmers with spice, cloves and mocha and macerated black fruit, but the bitingly austere tannins, the oak, the mineral qualities had not abated an inch. Give this considerable time, and call it Very Good+ for now with the potential for an Excellent rating.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1. Markham “The Altruist” Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Calistoga, Napa Valley. 100% cabernet. 14.8% alcohol. 507 cases. $53. and 2. Markham “The Philanthropist” Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Yountville, Napa Valley. 100% cabernet. 14.8% alcohol. 506 cases. $53. Winemaker is Kimberlee Nicholls. These wines are dedicated to Markham’s 2008 “Mark of Distinction” award winners, Table to Table in Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J., and the Bartlett Arboretum in Bell Plaine, Kansas.

These wines aged in French oak barrels 28 months and 27.5 months respectively, longer than any of the other wines tasted for this post, and the extra time shows in the intractability and impenetrability of their textures and structures. These are two freakin’ big tannic, oaken, dusty-iron-and-granite-girt wines! Will they ever come around? Making two 100 percent cabernet sauvignon wines from distinct areas in Napa Valley — Calistoga, north of St. Helena, and Yountville, in the central south –and treating them much the same in the winery would seem to point to the notion of emphasizing the wines’ origins in different micro-climates and soils, but the imposition of long oak aging and of deeply extracting tannins rendered that potentially interesting point moot, null and void. These cabernets are about their making, not about their vineyards or locations. As much as I played with them from Thursday afternoon until Sunday morning, I could elicit from them only the stringent rigor of their fabrication. Try, if you will, from 2014 or ’15 to 2020 or so, and let me know what happens. You know where to find me.
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It’s ironic that the logo for August Briggs Winery features a delicate dandelion puff-ball with a few of its gossamer filaments a-drift on a gentle zephyr, because these six red wines are anything but gossamer-like. They are, instead, in a few words, solid, substantial, robust. The winery is on the Silverado Trail in Calistoga, in the north part of Napa Valley, but August Briggs draws on vineyards not only in Napa but in Sonoma and Lake counties, making small quantities of 16 wines. Under review here are two cabernet sauvignons, two pinot noirs, a petite sirah and an old vine zinfandel.

Samples for review.
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The August Briggs Pinot Noir 2008 derives from three vineyards in Russian River Valley. The color is medium ruby with a radiant darker shade within. Aromas of black cherry, plums, cloves and cola unfold to hints of moss, autumn leaves and smoke. The oak regimen was eight months in 30 percent new French barrels, 70 percent two- and three-year-old barrels. There’s nice balance here initially between delicacy and something more dynamic, but the wine is also quite dry, and it reveals more spice and wood, in the form of brown sugar and allspice, that turns a little astringent on the finish. More time in the glass intensifies the cherry fruit. Production was 503 cases. Alcohol content is 14.2 percent. Very Good+. About $38.
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More detail and dimension surface in the August Briggs “Dijon Clones” Pinot Noir 2008, Napa Valley. This is slightly darker than the Russian River Valley pinot noir, and its bouquet is more pure, intense and entrancing. Subtly expansive black cherry, cranberry and mulberry aromas are gently infused with sweet baking spices and a touch of the exotic, a hint of smoke and sandalwood. The oak treatment is the same for this wine as for its Russian River Valley stablemate, but you feel its slightly woody presence a bit more on the finish, but before that moment, your palate is engulfed in a lush swathing of satiny succulence and earthy, rooty black and red fruit flavors. Still, 20 or 30 minutes bring in the same austerity that defines the August Briggs’ Russian River Valley pinot noir, so what we see here is a stylistic choice. Perhaps a year or two of aging will soften the wine. Production was 805 cases. Alcohol is 14.5 percent. Very Good+. About $40.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Let’s do these two 100 percent cabernet sauvignon wines, one from Napa Valley, one from Sonoma Valley, together.

The August Briggs Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Napa Valley, is all about structure. You smell it in the aromas of dust, briers and brambles, granite and lead pencil, cedar and walnut shell; you taste it in a mouthful of dusty minerals, dusty tannins and dusty oak from 20 months in half-and-half French and American barrels. Yet you also feel a richness, a smoothness and sense of dimension that speak of this wine’s potential for development over the next six to eight years; try from 2012 or ’13 through 2016 or ’18. Two vineyards were involved, the Stagecoach Vineyard in Atlas Peak and the Corbett Vineyard on Spring Mountain. 498 cases. 14.5 percent alcohol. Very Good+ now with the possibility of Excellent. About $52.

Let’s remember that the Napa Valley designation on the previous wine implies a large growing region with smaller appellations, like Atlas Peak and Spring Mountain, within it. Sonoma Valley, on the other hand, is a vineyard appellation (or American Viticultural Area) within the larger Sonoma County region. In the case of the August Briggs Monte Rosso Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Sonoma Valley, it’s also vineyard-specific, and a venerable vineyard it is, first planted in 1880, purchased in 1938 by Louis M. Martini and replanted, and owned since 2002 by Gallo.

The color of the August Briggs Monte Rosso Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 is dark ruby/purple; the bouquet is rich and warm, fleshy, floral and spicy, and dense, if aromas can be dense, with macerated black and red currants, plums and cherries; a few minutes in the glass bring in elements of iodine, sea-salt, cedar and graphite. As you can tell, the wine, in its bouquet, is a testimony to defining (indeed, provocative) detail. In the mouth, the wine takes a harder edge, with sumptuous, chewy tannins and lavish oak — 20 months French and American, 50/50 — leavened by a feast of granite-like minerality and foresty qualities. Fine now with a piping hot rib-eye steak, but otherwise try from 2012 or ’13 through 2017 to ’20. Production was 598 cases. 14.9 percent alcohol. Excellent. About $55.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ I’ll admit that the one of these six wines that I liked unabashedly was the exuberant August Briggs Old Vines Zinfandel 2008, Napa Valley, a clean, bright, pure and authoritative zinfandel whose grapes derived from two vineyards, one planted in 1908, the other in the 1940s and ’50s. Black cherry, black currant and blackberry scents and flavors are infused with smoky lavender and licorice and interesting hints of caraway and wheatmeal, the flavors ensconced in rip-roaring, lip-smacking tannins that are gritty and chewy yet plush, too, almost velvety. Tons of fruit here and tons of structure in great balance. You can’t get away from the fact that the alcohol level is 15.2 percent, but, hell, we get top-flight iconic cabernets now with that factor, so, you can live with it. Wrap this around game meats like venison and boar. 420 cases. Excellent. About $35.
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And, the one of these wines that I disliked absolutely was the August Briggs Petite Sirah 2007, Napa Valley, which in its very evident 15.5 percent alcohol, its massive oaken influence and its overwhelming tannins makes a detrimental fetish of muscle-bound bigness. 296 cases. Not for this boy. About $38.
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Geography counts, in war and in wine. The locations, the microclimates or terroirs where the cabernet sauvignon grape achieves greatness are few, through the grape is grown around the world. The Left Bank communes of Bordeaux qualify, of course, though there cabernet sauvignon is blended with merlot, cabernet franc and petit verdot. Small pockets of Tuscany; parts of the Yarra Valley and Coonawarra in Australia; Maipo and Aconcagua in Chile (potentially); and California, where the modern wine industry was defined by the success of wines based on the cabernet sauvignon grape, and not only based but in many cases made completely from cabernet. California’s wine regions are incredibly diverse and varied, and cabernet sauvignon is grown, for good or ill, throughout the state. The most appropriate areas, however, remain the Alexander Valley and Sonoma Valley in Sonoma County; Oakville, Rutherford and Stags Leap and the mountain vineyards of Napa Valley; Paso Robles and Santa Cruz.

This brief survey serves as prelude to examinations of two wonderful wines, one 98 percent cabernet sauvignon, the other 100 percent varietal, and both second release wines for their labels. The first is fashioned from a vineyard in a rather obscure area of Napa Valley, the second from high elevation vineyards on the western side of the Mayacamas range.
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Sometimes you take a sip of wine into your mouth and think, “Oh, yes. This is real. This is it.” Such was my reaction to the first release of the Phifer Pavitt “Date Night” Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2005, and such also was my impression of the second release, the 2006. The grapes derive from the all-organic Temple Family Vineyards in Pope Valley, a small and lightly populated appellation north of Howell Mountain in the extreme northeast of the Napa Valley. Though shoe-horned into its famous neighbor, as far as the federal viticultural boundaries are concerned, geographically, Pope Valley faces the opposite direction, draining away to the east and Lake Berryessa. Pope Valley is home to the Dollarhide Ranch, which supplies St. Supery with cabernet sauvignon and sauvignon blanc grapes, and, coincidentally, to the must-see folk-art environment, Litto’s Hubcab Ranch. The Phifer Pavitt winery itself, owned by Shane Pavitt and Suzanne Phifer Pavitt, is on the Silverado Trail near Calistoga. Winemaker is Ted Osborne.

Date Night 2006 is not merely profound but profoundly huge, and I don’t mean in an overwhelming sense — the alcohol content is 14.7 percent — but huge in vibrancy and resonance, tremendous in its presence and immediacy. Though the wine on the surface is placid and approachable, one feels in the depth a sense of implicit turbulence, that “tiger burning bright, in the forests of the night,” though a more appropriate feline, considering the wine’s opacity, would be a black panther. Macerated black currants, black raspberries and plum distinguish a bouquet that rests lightly on notes of briers and brambles and that gradually unfurls hints of ancho chile, bitter chocolate and potpourri. What feels like an infinite mesh of finely-grained tannins envelopes every principle here while sharing the power, triumvirate-wise, with slightly spicy, slightly toasty oak – these are nuances — and vivacious acidity. (The wine spends 17 months in French oak barrels, 65 percent new; the wine contains two percent petit verdot.) A few minutes in the glass allow a dark tide of graphite-like minerally its encompassing influence. Obviously there’s terrific emphasis on structure here, but that composition does not bury the effect of luscious black and blue fruit flavors. Not surprisingly for a wine of such dimension, the finish brings in earthiness and an element of austerity that do not diminish the wine’s innate suppleness and elegance. Drink now through 2016 to ’18. Production was 275 cases. Exceptional. About $75.
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Most winemakers under the age of 40 in California need to take lessons from Dick Arrowood, who, since he started in the wine industry in 1965, probably will not object to personifying the “old-timer” of this post’s respectful title. That initial job was at Korbel Wine Cellars, while Arrowood was in college. From Korbel, he went to the old United Vintners and then to the old Sonoma Vineyards (which did not acquire the name Rodney Strong until 1984, when Strong sold the company he had founded). Arrowood was hired as the first winemaker for the fledgling Chateau St. Jean in 1974, and over the course of 26 years he produced a glorious roster of cabernet sauvignon wines, memorable single-vineyard chardonnays and sumptuous hate-harvest rieslings and gewurztraminers. In the meanwhile, Arrowood and his wife Alis started Arrowood Vineyards and Winery in 1985. Now the situation becomes complicated, as it often does in the 21st Century world of bankruptcies and acquisitions. Arrowood sold his winery to Robert Mondavi in 2000. When Constellation acquired Mondavi in 2004, Arrowood was part of the deal, but the conglomerate sold Arrowood in 2005 to the Legacy Estate Group, which owned Byron and Freemark Abbey. Shortly thereafter, Legacy filed for Chapter 11 and was snapped up, in 2006, by Jess Jackson, which is how Freemark Abbey, Byron and Arrowood are part of Jackson Family Wines. Dick Arrowood remains as winemaster at the winery that still bears his name, while also running his pet project Amapola Creek, owned solely by him and his wife.

The point is that Dick Arrowood has spent a lifetime making excellent wine in Sonoma County; there can be few people who know the intricacy and the potential of its microclimates better than he. Amapola Creek, consisting of 20 acres of certified organic vineyards, is located on the western slopes of the Mayacamas mountains, which separate Napa and Sonoma counties, where the terminating foothills add heft to the Sonoma Valley appellation.

The Amapola Creek Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Sonoma Valley, is the second release of this wine. The first impression is of beautiful balance and integration, of a sort of vast poise that casts a veil of expectancy over the experience. The intoxicating bouquet weaves cassis and black plums with smoky licorice, caraway and black olive and then deepens with briers and brambles and dried porcini. This is, frankly, a stupendous wine, confident and purposeful and packed with grainy, velvety tannins and spicy, burnished oak from 26 months in new and used French and American barrels. Yep, readers, that’s a lot of wood, yet there’s no trace of toastiness, no hint of stridency about it; all is calibrated for a character of monumental equilibrium that reaches down to the wine’s very roots and origin. On the other hand, whatever the wine’s present seductive qualities — and let’s just call it gorgeous — in terms of structure it could use a year or two to ease its buttons a bit, let’s say 2012 or ’13 to drink through 2020 or ’22. The alcohol content is 14.7 percent. Production was 996 cases. Exceptional. About $80.
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Samples for review.
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I received some wine samples from Freemark Abbey not long ago, and I thought, “Gosh, how nice to hear from this venerable Napa Valley winery,” and then I remembered that Freemark Abbey is owned by Kendall-Jackson. Same thing happened with Matanzas Creek and Murphy-Goode. Other labels owned by the Jackson Family Wines division include La Crema, Stonestreet, Byron, Lakoya, Verite, La Jota, Edmeades and Cambria. Kendall-Jackson itself, which started producing the well-known Vintner’s Reserve line with chardonnay in 1982, has several tiers of labels to accommodate many price points. Though at 5.5 million cases a year in 2009 (according to San Francisco Business Times), K-J doesn’t compete with Diageo, Gallo, The Wine Group or Constellation, the company makes and sells a hell of a lot of wine.

So why does billionaire owner Jess Jackson — or to be realistic, his marketing honchos — need more labels?

Just released are two wines in the new Jackson Hills label, intended to fit between the K-J Grand Reserve and Highland Estates tiers. The basic label, the ubiquitous Vintner’s Reserve line, consists of 11 wines priced between $14 and $18. The Grand Reserve roster includes 14 wines that cost from $15 to $25. The limited edition Highland Estates label offers 16 wines priced from $30 to $75. Obviously there was a crying need for a niche right there between the $15 to $25 range and the $30 to $75 sequence, and the Jackson Hills label is it.

Another new label from Jackson Family Wines is Acre, a line that focuses on grapes from the Central Coast, a vast “appellation” — it covers seven counties south of San Francisco — about as useful as two left arms on an infielder. Since the Acre Chardonnay 2008, for example, derives completely from Los Alamos Valley in Santa Barbara County, why not label it Santa Barbara instead of Central Coast? The narrower the appellation, the more impressive it is (though not necessarily a better wine). In terms of price — $16 — the Acre wines seem redundant; they fall smack in the middle of the Vintner’s Reserve line-up. All right, so I’m skeptical about American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) — or AOCs in France — that encompass extensive geographical realms, though the Central Coast is distinguished by proximity to the Pacific and its morning fogs and by its inland mountain ranges, but saying that chardonnays from Monterey and San Luis Obispo share a “Central Coast character” is disingenuous. As far as usefulness is concerned, of course the Central Coast designation serves a purpose when grapes from more than one county go into a wine.

So, how are these new wines in the Jackson empire?

With the exception of the Jackson Hills Chardonnay 2008, Santa Barbara County, they’re not particularly compelling, or, to put the case another way, I don’t recommend them with much confidence.

The Jackson Hills Chardonnay 2008, Santa Barbara County, is a clean and bright chardonnay fashioned in an expansively fruity style that’s neither tropical nor too oaky. Typical pineapple and grapefruit flavors are set into a fairly opulent texture deftly balanced by bracing acidity and keen limestone-like minerality. The wine is quite dry, moderately spicy and a little austere on the finish. Does it sound familiar? Yes, this is an exemplar of a specific style of California chardonnay, tasty, sleek, sensually satisfying and undemanding. Very Good+. About $25.

A bigger deal is the Jackson Hills Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, from Knights Valley, the northern section of Sonoma County noted for cabernet production. How big a deal is it? So big that it feels as if woody tannins and dusty oak are sifting through your teeth. This wine is very intense, very concentrated, and if there’s fruit in there somewhere — and there must be, right? isn’t that the point? — I couldn’t find it. I whomped the cork back in the bottle and left this wine to try the next morning; rising fresh from my guileless repose, I was greeted by a mouthful of austere and astringent tannins. Perhaps I simply disagree totally with the way this wine was made, but it gets no nod from me. About $40.

Nothing quite so drastic mars the three Acre wines that I tried; their flaw is to be merely ordinary and free of varietal quality. (Well, the chardonnay is pretty darned flawed.) The Acre label was launched in May 2009 by White Rocket Wine Co., a division that Kendall-Jackson created in Oct. 2006 to create and market “fun” brands aimed at a younger generation of wine consumers; several existing labels, such as Tin Roof, Camelot and Pepi, were shifted to White Rocket, which was based in Napa. I say was because White Rocket was absorbed by Jackson Family Wines in August 2009 and some staff members were laid-off. Other “fun” labels developed by White Rocket included AutoMoto, Dog House, French Maid, Geode, Horse Play and so on.

Anyway, the Acre Chardonnay 2008 is fermented half in oak and half in stainless steel, goes through full malolactic, ages four month in French oak sur lie with frequent stirring of the lees, and boy does it show. This is a very bright, boldly oaky and spicy chardonnay made in a style that does not marry its extremes; on the one hand, its vivid baked pineapple and grapefruit flavors grab your palate with succulent lusciousness, while on the other hand the excessive dryness and woody austerity sear your taste-buds. Unworkable; unbalanced; a Big No. About $16.

The Acre Merlot 2007 and Acre Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 are not unbalanced or unwieldy; they merely feel interchangeable. These truly are cross-county wines: The Merlot ’07 derives 72 percent from the small Hames Valley AVA in Monterey, 20 percent from San Benito County and 8 percent from San Luis Obispo; the blend is 80 percent merlot, 15 percent cabernet sauvignon, 5 percent petit sirah. The Cabernet Sauvignon ’07 originates from Raso Robles in San Luis Obispo (68%), San Benito (20%) and Monterey (12%). These geeky details may be tedious to peruse, but they indicate the level of thoughtfulness that went into assembling these two wines, though perhaps “assembled” isn’t the method we most seek in the wines we admire.

The problem is that these two reds feel more generic than individual. Each is quite brambly and berryish, bursting with spicy oak and etched with mocha; each is earthy and minerally, in the graphite-tinged area; each has a circumference of dusty, slightly charcoal-like tannins. The cabernet does offer a hint of black olive and cedar to differentiate it minutely from the merlot, but I don’t call that enough. I’ll give these Good+ and say that wines costing $16 should deliver more personality and dimension.

Now, not to be a complete curmudgeon, I’ll say that I was delighted with the Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Summation 2009, California. Introduced to the line-up last year for the 2008 vintage, this wine is perfect for sipping throughout the summer into the fall. It contains a smorgasbord of grapes — sauvignon blanc (33%), viognier (27%), chardonnay (15%), semillon (9%), roussanne (6%), pinot blanc (6%), riesling (2%) and muscat canelli (2%) — from five counties dominated by Lake (63%) with major contributions from Mendocino (23%) and Santa Barbara (21%). The result is a winning and very pretty wine that offers a seductive bouquet of jasmine and honeysuckle, pear and lychee, with hints of almond and just-mown hay. The wine is quite crisp and refreshing, with cheeky acidity to tantalize the palate and lovely flavors of roasted lemon, melon and pear imbued with quince and cloves and an energizing element of chalky limestone. The finish is dry and limestony and brings in a bracing touch of grapefruit bitterness. This would drink nicely with grilled fish and seafood or summery salads and pastas. Very Good+. About $17.

In fact, it seems to me that the most reliable wines for the regular consumer in the extensive Kendall-Jackson line-up are the Vintner’s Reserve wines, that ones that started the whole dance back in 1982. They may not always be exciting, but they are true to their originator’s philosophy and their grape varieties and they generally taste real.

Now in its 32nd vintage, Insignia sails through the seas of California’s Bordeaux-blend competitors with the aplomb and dignity of an admiral’s flagship reviewing the fleet. Launched in 1974, the Joseph Phelps Insignia remains among the best of the Golden State’s Old School cabernet sauvignon-based wines, along with Ridge Monte Bello, Caymus Special Selection, Diamond Creek Gravelly Meadow, Beringer Private Reserve, Shafer Hillside Select — Shafer was founded in 1979, so just qualifies in this series as “old-school” — and Silver Oak Alexander Valley.

A contractor from Colorado, Joseph Phelps came to California in the early 1970s and was involved in the construction of several wineries, including Chateau Souverain and Rutherford Hill. At the same time, he invested in the Sangiacomo Vineyard in Carneros and purchased land east of the Silverado Trail in Napa Valley. That purchase, about 600 acres, became the site of Joseph Phelps Vineyards.

While JPV is renowned for its series of late-harvest dessert wines and its portfolio of Rhone-style wines, cabernet sauvignon has been the heart of its production. In addition to Insignia, the winery produced highly regarded cabernets from the Bacchus Vineyard (which JPV eventually purchased) and the Eislele Vineyard, now owned by Araujo Estate. The first winemaker for Phelps was Walter Schug, who was followed by Craig Williams in 1976; Schug founded his own winery, Schug Carneros Estate, in 1980.

In an episode that cast a sordid light on corporate practices, even in the supposedly rarefied world of wine country, Williams resigned in May 2008, along with Phelps CEO/president Tom Shelton, in a dispute with the Phelps family about compensation from their 40 percent shares in the winery. Shelton died of a brain tumor in July 2008. In Oct. 2008, Judge William Bettinelli in San Francisco ruled that the Phelpses had to pay Williams and Shelton’s family $24 million plus attorney costs.

Unlike the Bacchus and former Eisele bottlings, Insignia is designed to express a general sense of “Napaness” rather than the eloquence of a single vineyard. In recent vintages grapes for Insignia have come from the winery’s estate vineyards in South Napa, Stags Leap District, Rutherford, St. Helena and Oak Knoll. The percentage of cabernet sauvignon grapes in the blend has increased drastically over the years, from under 60 percent early on to close to 100 percent today. In fact, for 2006, Insignia consists of 95 percent cabernet sauvignon and 5 percent petit verdot. The wines age two years in 100 percent new French barriques.

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Over the decades, the Joseph Phelps Insignia acquired the reputation as being the most refined of California’s great cabernet wines, but Insignia 2006, Napa Valley, fills the mouth as if it were taking over a country. The wine is packed with slate-like minerals and briery tannins, yet the succulence of its intense and concentrated black currant and black cherry flavors, tinged with cocoa powder and tar, is unassailable. Well, I say “unassailable,” yet this fruit comes behind high-toned austerity of impeccable and hard-earned pedigree; one feels the depth and geography of the Napa Valley in every sip. There’s a gentle unfurling of cedar and tobacco, a touch of lavender, an iota of walnut-shell. Mainly, Insignia 2006 is about impeccable tone and presence and elegant structure, with a great earthy, foresty undercurrent; try from 2011 or ’12 through 2016 through ’20. Excellent. About $200.

Notice the package. This must be what happens to all my old Tanqueray bottles.

A sample for review.
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Yes, friends there’s the eternal battle between Good and Evil, and then there’s the martini, dispensing its chilly balm with the chaste aplomb of a wordless nun. Here’s the end of the workweek and the end of a day on which nothing bad or embarrassing happened (not speaking of the world at large), and obviously it was the perfect time for a dose of the purest, most radiant of cocktails. The formula is five parts Tanqueray gin to one part Noilly-Prat vermouth. What you see floating in the drink is neither twist of orange rind nor goldfish but a sliver of kumquat skin.

We have been enamored of the kumquat, smallest of citrus fruit, for several days. Thursday night, LL made a sauce for seared tuna with sliced kumquats and jalapeno peppers, and I tell you, that made the taste-buds jump and jive. And last night, in addition to the kumquat twist in the martinis, I squeezed about 10 of the little suckers to get enough juice for a vinaigrette, by-passing the usual lemon.

I had taken a grass-fed, organic ribeye from the freezer, thawed it and then marinated it in soy sauce, Worcester, red wine, salt and pepper for a few hours. I cooked it in the simplest manner possible, in olive oil and butter is an ungodly hot cast-iron skillet, about four minutes per side, so it came out a rosy-colored medium rare. I had also sliced fingerling potatoes fairly thinly, doused them with olive oil, salt, pepper and minced rosemary and put them under the broiler, and guess what I discovered, guess what revelation was granted unto my grateful spirit? If you use parchment paper under a broiler, it will catch on fire! No harm done, though these tiny moments of drama do spark up a life, so to speak.

I opened a bottle of the Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, Oakville District. This is available at retail for a range of about $30 to $48; I paid $60 at a silent auction to benefit a dog rescue group. (A different silent auction than the one I’ve been writing about recently.)

Many wine consumers know the story of the Robert Mondavi Winery, how Robert Mondavi quarreled with his brother Peter about the operation and goals of the family’s Charles Krug winery, and Robert split away from the family and started his own winery in 1966; how he achieved remarkable success, building Robert Mondavi into one of the Napa Valley’s great wineries and brands; how he collaborated with Baron Philippe de Rothschild, owner of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, in the creation of Opus One; how lofty ambitions and lavish spending began to chip away at the family’s wine empire, forcing the family to take the private company public; of conflicts among the father and his sons, Tim and Michael; how the winery, at the end of 2004, was sold to Constellation (which still uses the image and words of the late Robert Mondavi himself in advertising and on the website). This chronicle is related in sometimes brutal detail in Julia Flynn Siler’s highly readable and cautionary The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty.

While the winery produces often excellent wines in a variety of genres — the Fume Blanc 1 Block is one of the best in sauvignon blancs in California — the reputation mainly rests on its Bordeaux-style cabernet sauvignon blends, especially the reserve bottlings. This “regular” Oakville cabernet is a blend of 89 percent cabernet sauvignon grapes, 6 percent cabernet franc, 3 percent petit verdot and 1 percent each malbec and merlot. The wine aged 18 months in French oak barrels.

At a bit over four years old, the Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, Oakville, rests in a state of perfect equilibrium among all qualities and functions. This is a sleek, polished wine, smooth and savory and packed with spice, black currant and black cherry flavors, graphite-like minerals and the dry, slightly briery character of dense, chewy tannins. A few minutes in the glass bring up classic notes of cedar and tobacco, black olive, potpourri and bitter dark chocolate, finishing with a beguiling hint of mint and iodine. The wine embodies a gratifying sense of unassailable vitality and unshakable purpose. Drink now through 2014 or ’15. It was wonderful with the steak. Excellent. About $30 to $48.

Jordan cabernet sauvignons are habitually dismissed by critics and reviewers as “food wines” and “restaurant wines,” as if the primary reason for the existence of wine were not to drink with food and often at restaurants. While it’s true that Jordan cabernets don’t benefit from extended aging, beyond, say, five to six years, the way that “real” cabernets might, the wines have generally been very well-made and exhibit plenty of structure with the fruit to stand up to it. No, Jordan’s cabernets don’t rank with the best of California; they’re not in the league with Ridge Monte Bello, Caymus Special Selection or Joseph Phelps Insignia. That level of achievement was never, I think, the goal; for Jordan, elegance and accessibility trump power and longevity.

The winery was founded by Tom Jordan, a geologist who made a fortune in oil exploration, in Sonoma County’s Alexander Valley, close to the Russian River. As a signal of his intentions, he constructed a showplace facility to rival many a chateau in Bordeaux and brought on legendary winemaker Andre Tchelistcheff, who essentially invented the concept of cabernet sauvignon as a varietal wine in California, as consultant. The first vintage released was 1976. From that vintage to today, the winemaker has been Rob Davis. The winery is now operated by Tom Jordan’s son, John.
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My first impression on sniffing the Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, Alexander Valley, was “classic Leoville-Barton,” because the wine expresses that cedar, tobacco, lead pencil, black currant bouquet typical of the chateau that is one of the stars of Bordeaux’s commune of St.-Julien. In fact, not having tried a cabernet from Jordan in a vintage of the 21st Century, I was surprised at how much structure the wine showed. It’s a blend of 76 percent cabernet sauvignon, 19 percent merlot and 5 percent petit verdot, aged 12 months in a combination of French (64 percent) and American (36 percent) oak barrels. While the nose picks up beguiling notes of bell pepper, black olive and plum, one also detects a background of walnut shell and wheatmeal and shale-like minerality, qualities that persist on the palate and through the finish. This is, in other words, a wine that is not shy about wood and tannins, though the wood feels polished and burnished, and the tannins are sleek and fine-tuned. The wine unfurls slightly macerated and fleshy black fruit flavors that avoid the spicy aspect in favor of purity and intensity — there’s a careful balance between coolness and warmth — though as the moments pass the wine’s earthy and minerally character expands, with a final touch of foresty briers and brambles. Elegant and seamless, but with unexpected dimension. Drink now through 2014 or ’15, at home or at a restaurant; great with rosemary-crusted lamb chops. Excellent. About $52.

The 2006 version of this wine will be released in May.

A sample for review.
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