Impressions of the Pass of the Oaks - El Paso de Robles, California

Back from Paso Robles.... there three days and three nights, took in 2 wineries, 3 restaurants, 1 run through town, and a wedding at a winery.

First, let's talk about the two wineries visited:

Tablas Creek

Located on the west side of Paso Robles, tucked in the hills, this not-so-large property has rolling vineyards many planted 15 to 20 years ago, so the vines are by Paso standards older than others. The winery sports a cute sign pointing to Domaine de Beaucastel in Chateauneuf du Pape in the Southern Rhone.

We had an extensive, guided tour of the Tablas Creek estate, which produces wines only from estate grown fruit. There are a great deal of varieties planted here, including all 13 varieties allowed in Chateauneuf du Pape, as well as some Northern Rhone varieties, such as Viognier, as well as some Spanish and Italian varieties.

After the extensive tour, an extensive tasting:

2007 Cotes de Tablas Blanc

Viognier, Marsanne, Roussanne, and Grenache Blanc

This is a blend of white wine grapes from the Rhone, though Viognier is from the Northern Rhone and the other three are from the Southern Rhone. The Viognier dominates here, with a rich aromatic nose, and a palate that is full-bodied, pleasant, 13.5% alcohol.

2007 Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc

Roussanne, Grenache Blanc, Picpoul Blanc

This is a blend of white grapes allowed in the Chateauneuf-du-Pape appellation, and this is where I learned that Viognier is not one of them! As for the Picpoul variety, I also didn't know this is from the Southern Rhone; I only know Picpoul de Pinet..... which the tour guide had not heard of (Pinet that is). This is an expressive, interesting white wine, with nuances of poached pear, creamy oak and malolactic fermentation, though not overly oaky.

2007 Roussanne

100% Roussanne

Rich wine with some neutral oak, savory peach/pear, but not fruity. Great roast chicken wine, in my mind.

2006 Grenache Blanc

100% Grenache Blanc

Lemon/citrus nose, reminiscent of Riesling, bright acidity on the palate, and doesn't taste anything like its 15.3% alcohol.

2008 Vermentino

100% Vermentino

An Italian white variety. Fresh aroma, floral. Fresh and zippy with good acidity, citrus, orange, and lower alcohol. Refreshing.

2008 Rose

Mourvedre, Grenache Noir, Counoise

A deep red colored Rose made from 48 hours on the skins - juicy, full of red berries and watermelon, a touch of pepper. Very ripe fruit flavors. A good wine for cured salmon

2006 Cotes de Tablas

Grenache Noir, Syrah, Mourvedre, Counoise

Fashioned after a Cotes du Rhone, this wine shows more tannin than I'm used to in Cotes du Rhone, more body and fruit and power, but a pleasant red wine nonetheless.

2005 Syrah

90% Syrah, 10% Grenache Noir

Nice depth, spice, a little tannin, dark berry fruit, and some complexity from aging. A solid Syrah.

2006 Grenache

90% Grenache, 10% Syrah

Fruity nose; on the palate, tea, berries, and some sweetness. 15.3% alcohol.

2006 Esprit de Beaucastel

Mourvedre, Grenache, Syrah, Counoise

Their signature wine, their version of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. This vintage is sweet, fruity, showing some alcohol, but mostly fresh red berries.

2005 Esprit de Beaucastel

This vintage is rustique, with animal/brettanomeyces/barnyard nose reminiscent of a French wine. Not so much that it is a negative, just an interesting point with this vintage.

2004 Esprit de Beaucastel

This vintage shows nice development in the wine, no barnyard flavors, very nice.

Halter Ranch

Halter Ranch is a neighboring estate that is much larger than Tablas Creek. The estate is younger, and most vines were planted around 2000. The wines made here are also all estate-grown, and in fact, the estate grows so many grapes, that it sells some to neighbors, such as Justin.

California sales manager Jim Witt gave us a private tour of the property in his truck, and we drove around the vast site which boasts 250 acres under vine, and a total property area of 1000 acres.

At certain points he had to get out of the truck to open and close gates which were part of the fence system that allowed the local deer to migrate through the area without having access to the vineyard.

At one point in the tour, we got out to visit what Jim told us was the largest oak tree in the world. This oak tree on the Halter Ranch property gives its Bordeaux-style blend Ancestor its name.

Of the wines we tasted at Paso, I most enjoyed their Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon.

My favorite restaurant in Paso turned out to be Villa Creek.

We had a nice meal with Villa Creek's 2006 Avenger:

The Sheppard's plate

Below, the Cassoulet:

And roast lamb:

Off to Paso we go, we go

I have been to Paso Robles once, long time ago, almost 10 years ago. I went with a friend, and we drove up to run a half marathon through wine country, and I remember we did some wine tasting also, and that was before the days I knew to spit when tasting..... I remember being somewhat inebriated after some tasting. I'm sure though, that I wasn't the only one...

I also remember Paso Robles being very small town, and we couldn't really find a restaurant to eat at except for one small Italian place, and because a whole lot of out-of-towners were there, the place was packed, and we had to wait a couple of hours to have a seat for dinner, and then when we did eat, the food was non-descript.

I have heard that since my last visit, things have changed. A plethora of new wineries have been established. Restaurants have opened. And of course, I have changed. I will be looking at the wineries and vineyards with different eyes, and I will be tasting the wines with different taste buds. For since that last visit, I will have had 4 years of being "in the business," plus have visited wine regions in France and Germany, not just California wine regions!

With three restaurant recommendations from friend and former coworker Bennett, hubby and I made reservations at all three establishments. We will be dining at Artisan, Bistro Laurent, and Villa Creek. And that's just in Paso Robles! On our way up, we'll be stopping in Santa Barbara to lunch at Hungry Cat and after a quick lunch, I'll actually be doing a presentation of some Rudi Wiest wines for them, since our wines do so well at seafood restaurants.

As for wineries, my plan is to visit Halter Ranch, Tablas Creek, and Justin. I look forward to reporting on these.

Finally, the original reason for our trip, we will be attending a wedding of a good friend on Sunday evening at a winery called Meridian.

I hope you all have a very lovely Memorial Day weekend!

Stefanie Hasselbach from Gunderloch Estate, Rheinhessen Germany

A great evening yesterday with winemaker Stefanie Hasselbach, 6th generation of family-owned winery Gunderloch Estate in the Rheinhessen. Her older sister just recently had a baby, making Stefanie's niece the 7th generation of this family to own Gunderloch. Amazing isn't it??

I met Stefanie at The Wine Country at 4:30 for a consumer tasting, which was off the charts in attendance and enthusiasm! Wow! I don't have the official count but it seemed like we had between 40 and 50 people attend the tasting, and they were an enthused group who asked all sorts of pertinent, wine-geek questions about the wines and the estate. The wines tasted included the 2006 Gunderloch Gewurztraminer, 2007 Gunderloch Dry Riesling, 2007 Gunderloch Jean-Baptiste Riesling Kabinett, 2007 Gunderloch Diva Riesling Spatlese, and 2007 Gunderloch Nackenheimer Rothenberg Riesling Spatlese. What a line-up! The tasters gushed over how great the wines were, starting with the Gewurztraminer, which blew a lot of people away because it normally isn't everyone's favorite variety. But the Gunderloch Gewurz has restraint and focus and some great minerality that a lot of people picked up on. And at about 8 or 9 grams of residual sugar, it was perfectly balanced and not too sweet, and everyone seemed to really enjoy it.

Of the Rieslings, people seemed to gravitate toward how perfectly balanced and likeable the Jean-Baptiste Kabinett was. And they marvelled at how divine and sublime the Nackenheimer Rothenberg Spatlese was - pretty much a perfect Spatlese if there ever could be one!

After the tasting, we had to dash off to visit Wine House, another wine store that is well known for being big supporters of German wine. A brief little tasting here had the wine buyer also falling for the Gewurztraminer and the Rothenberg Spatlese, this time, the 2005 Rothenberg Spatlese was shown in all its youthful glory, its superb long length, its complex body that wraps around your tongue. Yum.

Two restaurant visits followed, during which time we enjoyed some of the restaurant offerings as well: The Lobster and Gjelina. Both restaurants, on a Monday night in May, were packed to the gills, giving me all the evidence that I need that the recession is over. At The Lobster, we were treated to a beautiful table with a view overlooking the ocean and the Santa Monica Pier as we dined on delicious shellfish - Stefanie's seafood pasta heaped with colorful mussels, clams, lobster, and crab; my 5 plump and generous diver scallops perfectly seared and perched in a gorgous buttery sauce.....we drank Alsacian Riesling by the glass: 2007 Domaine Ostertag Dry Riesling. We talked with the wine director/manager, but unfortunately he was too busy to taste - he would re-visit the Gunderloch Rieslings another time.

After that, it was to Gjelina in Venice, a restaurant open for less than a year, but always packed, every night of the week, and selling tons of interesting wine. Here, we had some dessert and tasted the wine buyer on the Gunderloch wines - his favorite was the Gewurz! Though of course he also loved the Rothenberg Spatlese........

A successful evening with Stefanie, and most enjoyable! Winemakers rule!

Running, Eating, Drinking and Gambling in the "Biggest Little City in the World"

So guess where we were last weekend?

Circumstances brought us to this small Nevada city, which I had been to maybe 20 years ago on a family driving trip down from Vancouver to San Francisco and over to Reno. Johan had never been, and when we heard that friends would be there that same weekend we were thinking of going, AND that there would be a road race on, we got pretty excited!

Initially, we were going to run a humble 10-K, but when we went to the web to sign up, we saw that a half-marathon was available, for only another $10 to register, and we thought to ourselves, why not?

We flew into Reno on Southwest Airlines, checked into our hotel, and set out to find ourselves lunch before our friends were going to arrive. Since we had to pick up our race packets in downtown Reno's Harrah's casino, we headed that way - by foot. The air was clean and it wasn't too hot, so instead of taking the bus, we just found ourselves walking the 2.8 miles into town. It was a nice way to orient ourselves to the city.

After picking up our race numbers and new t-shirts, lunch was the plan. We found a pub called Brew Brothers in the El Dorado hotel in downtown Reno. The place had big screens showing the upcoming Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, which looked pretty exciting!

The brews weren't bad either!

After lunch, it was our mission to walk off the heavy meal (burgers and beer). We headed back to our hotel, relaxed a bit in the room, and managed to catch the replay of Mine that Bird beating all the other horses at the Derby by passing almost every one of them. Wow! What a horse and jockey team!!

Soon, it was time to meet our friends for dinner. An early dinner was planned by our friends, who would meet us at our hotel, the Peppermill, where a number of good restaurants were located. The plan was to dine Italian before our race. The restaurant was called Romanza.

The menu ended up having a whole lot of enticing dishes that lured me away from my original plan of having pasta. What was I thinking??? I ordered one of my favorite Italian dishes, veal ossobucco. I urged Johan to order one of his favorites, veal chop. Before a race? I have no idea why I didn't settle for a nice simple pasta dish - ah.... live and learn.

Our friends ordered a favorite wine of theirs, 1998 Merryvale, a meritage (Bordeaux-style) blend. It was a Cabernet Sauvignon-dominant wine that had good developed aromas, and on the palate, an interesting wine, definitely still fresh, tasty, though in my mind not the best aged Napa Cabernet that I had ever had - that would be one that I had at 555 with Randy Kemner, Robert Eymael, Allie Mitchell and Johan maybe a year ago.... something I blogged about, but the name now escapes me. That had been more of a mind-blowing experience, same with a 1994 Justin Isosceles I had at a wine dinner. The Merryvale was more of a pleasant wine than a mind-blower, for me.

Dinner was great - my veal ossobucco was fabulous, and after dinner we had a little nightcap at the VIP bar in the hotel... saw our friends off, then went to place a few little bets at the sports book (hockey - Anaheim to win, and Boston to win), then it was off to sleep so we could be up early to run!

The weather was a bit cold and rainy, but we got out there. I channelled Mine that Bird during the race and ended up passing a bunch of people, and did a very respectable time!

A shower, then clean clothes, then a seafood lunch in one of the hotel's other restaurants, Oceano, where we enjoyed raw oysters, then oysters Rockefeller, and some clam chowda.

Dinner was scheduled with some other friends - at a local Thai restaurant called Bangkok Cuisine. It was sort of a wine dinner, with folks bringing all sorts of wines, mostly of the Riesling variety. I tasted a bunch of wine but the most notable was a wine from a state I had never tasted a wine from before: Idaho!


A very sound Riesling from Idaho - 2005 Ste. Chapelle Winemaker's Series Riesling. To be honest, I didn't know Idaho made wine! But here it was, a pleasant, easy-drinking Riesling about a medium-dry, slightly fruity, not too high acid wine.

In all, my experience in Reno was a fun one. The town has fresh mountain air, is much greener than I thought it would be (I thought it was desert), and the people are nice, active, and fun. The neighborhoods are not bad either! We ran through some nice ones. The gambling was okay - didn't do a lot of winning, but the Ducks did win against the Red Wings, but the Bruins didn't win so that was a bit of a wash. But what can you do? At least the stock market is doing well these days! And I got to experience eating, drinking, running and gambling with some fun people in a new town. Life is good!

Check her out! Samantha Sans Dosage gets interviewed by Tom Wark!

Okay, this morning I have to give a shout-out to Tom Wark's blog Fermentation, that just posted a great interview on my friend Samantha Dugan, who writes the blog Samantha Sans Dosage. This is a fantastic blog that I read regularly for its unique voice and style, the personal touch to a story about life in and around wine.

Samantha is a long time wine professional who has personally taught me a great deal about wine and passion for wine, wine regions, wine makers, wine culture, and wine and food pairing. She is funny, she is a great writer, and I think you should check out her blog!

Here's the link to the interview:

http://fermentation.typepad.com/fermentation/

And here's the link to her blog:

http://sansdosage.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

A Successful German Wine Dinner at Da Vinci

Last night I helped to host a very successful wine dinner, if I say so myself!

Not sure why I felt so surprised - generally speaking, though they take of bit of dancing to plan with a restaurant and a store, they always seem to turn out just fine.

Last evening, the event was at Da Vinci restaurant, a place local to me and close to The Wine Country. The restaurant is beautifully laid out and situated next to the Long Beach airport, and has large floor to ceiling windows through which natural light shines through, and you can watch small planes land and take off. The decor in the restaurant is Italian in flavor, but very modern, with high ceilings, a circular layout, and a visually appealing wine cellar high above the bar. The setting is really impressive, and paves the way for a good evening. Last evening, it happend to be perfect in that at the start time of 6:30 pm, there was still so much daylight that made a primarily white wine dinner feel like a natural ode to spring.

The 40 or so participants were each greeted with a glass of sparkling Kir, the wine I didn't supply. It was a nice touch, though, something sparkling and pretty to greet people as they arrived, something to take their mood from the traffic and their jobs to something fun and relaxing. With this, people enjoyed a small amuse-bouche which was a blend of cheese and something else - I don't remember since at this point I was too busy saying hi to everyone and introducing myself as the importer representative.

The first course was a grilled shrimp salad with fennel, to be paired with 2007 Rhein River Riesling, a basic Riesling made from grapes grown in the Rheinhessen region. Everyone seemed to love this wine and love its very reasonable price, and I too was impressed at how crisp and refreshing it was. It was really a look at how great the 2007 vintage in Germany was, because even this humble little wine could be so clean and inviting. The wine paired well with the salad, and gave me the opportunity to talk about how versatile fruity Rieslings can be, especially in the summer when salads and shellfish grace the dinner table more often.

The second course was lobster raviolis. We were served three plump house-made raviolis filled to the brim with sweet lobster meat, and instead of sitting in a rich creamy sauce, they were in a clear liquid that might have been simple warm water, garnished with herbs. Though I had never before seen such a presentation, I enjoyed it very much, and the raviolis were light, fresh, and delicious. Paired with this course was the 2005 Rebholz Muller-Thurgau, which is a delightful bone dry white wine with freshness (in spite of its age!) and excellent minerality. This is a great wine with white fish or even seafood pasta like we had, and its bone dryness cut through through the richness of the dish quite well. I thoroughly enjoyed the pairing, and enjoyed the opportunity to talk about how Germany produces excellent dry wines, as well as sweet.

The third and main course was a delectably prepared braised pork belly. I have had pork belly in restaurants such as Lucques and Cut, but last evening's pork belly was surprisingly excellent and impressive. It was served perched above mushroom risotto which was rich and creamy and actually just the thing we needed since we were drinking wine. This course was served with two wines, an idea from The Wine Country's owner, Randy Kemner - first, a red: 2005 Kunstler Pinot Noir and then a white later harvest Riesling: 2006 Dr. F. Weins-Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese. This turned out to be a fun exercise in wine pairing with food, and everyone seemed to get a kick out of it - two very different wines - a dry red with a touch of age on it, compared to a rich, sweet white.

Diners were urged to try the red first, since it was drier, and people really liked it - the Pinot Noir showed gorgeous cherry fruit along with smokey bacon and a touch of earth. It went very well with the rich mushroom risotto and the pork. But there was a bit of a red berry sauce served with the pork, though thankfully not too much - when one took pork plus sauce together, the dish went much better with the Riesling Spatlese, and once one started with the Riesling, it was hard to drink anything else - this wine is rich and long in the mouth with just a certain something that tells you that Dr. F. Weins-Prum makes great wine out the Wehlener Sonnenuhr vineyard!! This was a wine that people could not get enough of, almost the wine of the night you might say, though many people also loved the other wines.

That ended the wine portion of the meal; we were served a palate cleansing pannicotta afterwards, which was nice, and some folks got extra pours of the Spatlese to enjoy with the dessert. Others ordered coffee. But everyone was happy and totally enjoying the evening it seemed. People began filling out their order forms to purchase the wines. All was good.

Can't wait for the next wine dinner!

Review of the movie Mondovino

It's been years since this movie has been out, and years since I have known about it, but I finally watched it. My friend Samantha is a fan of the movie, and so I already had heard good things. But I also read negative reviews of the movie, which suggested it was like a rough draft more than a good documentary, and that the camera work was shoddy. So, it was with treppidation that I went into viewing it.

The upshot is that I loved it! It was rough and tumble and quirky and decidedly un-smooth, but I think the director wanted it that way. He wanted it to be not all perfect and tight, like something that Steven Spielberg would make. This was not meant to be flawless. It was full of quirkiness, like him asking Hubert de Montille "What is this chair of mystery?" and Hubert answering, "This is not a chair of mystery, it's just a chair sitting out here, can you help me move it back into the living room where it belong? Thanks. Oh damn I forgot my keys, we have to go back down and get them." And him interviewing this guy who started Ornellaia and his housekeeper keeps walking into the shoot by accident, she claims, and director Jonathan Nossiter just keeping that part in instead of editing it out.

The film is great because he is just letting wine people talk, and letting their true personalities come out, be they vibrant, passionate so-called peasants that work the land in Sardinia or Languedoc, or be they vibrant, totalitarian, egotistical flying makers like Michel Rolland. The film lets you make your own decision, while clearly showing what the director thinks, not by narrating to you like you are a moron that can't tell what he thinks, but by showing you what the regular folk thinks, and then what the aristocracy thinks, what big business thinks, and how arrogant critics think (ie. James Suckling of the Wine Spectator). He's just getting what comes out of the mouth of babes - you be the judge.

I like how by the end of the movie, you really get how he ends up focusing on the winery dogs, because maybe he too is getting tired of hearing what everyone thinks of everything. This really resonates with me because after I visit like 30 estate, I start also focusing heavily on the winery dogs and stop listening as much to winemakers and estate owners. It gets to be more and more about the dogs.

But the absolute best part is the interaction between Hubert de Montille and his daughter Alix de Montille. Hubert has given his winery, his life's work, his estate and its 8 hectares to his son, Etienne de Montille. His daughter Alix works for a large company that makes wine in Burgundy. He goes to visit her and to taste wine. Alix asks him, "What would you like to taste?" He answers, "Something good. If there is anything here that is good." She gives him a pipette/thief's worth of wine. He comments, "Look, here they have so much money they buy a thief." Implying that at his small estate, they don't have such luxuries.

Alix says, "My wine style is similar to my dad's; our palates are similar. We like wines that have an edge to them, not wimpy wines. Just like we like people who have an edge. We don't like wimpy people. That makes it a bit difficult to like. For example, my father is acerbic. Hard to like." Hubert says, "Wines take time. 15 years in the bottle, the wines are excellent. But you can't rush them." Alix says, "Just like you dad, it takes time to like you." Hubert: "Yes, but after some time, you drink me."

Priceless.