Do you search out South American wines for your cellar?  Well, quite frankly I don’t.  However, that may be about to change!  Maybe my opinion of the majority of those wines is quite outdated and just plain wrong!  Want to take a journey with me and explore South American wine together?

My husband and I have been seriously drinking, buying and collecting wines for almost 25 years now.  We learned about wines from Argentina and Chile several times along the way.  There were wine classes, wine dinners and wine tastings.  I was right there trying to get a taste of the 2005 Casa Lapostolle Clos Apalta from the Colchagua Valley in Chile when Wine Spectator magazine proclaimed it as their #1 wine of 2008.  And I did get a taste.  And it was magnificent.  But that is a story for another day.  That opportunity never came again and we certainly have never gotten excited about South American wine like we have for many many wines from Napa, Sonoma, France and Italy. So many I couldn’t even begin to count them. Then why am I spending hours and hours researching and relearning about wine from South America? 

First of all, it began as a challenge from my husband to put together a “South of the Border” wine and food event for some of our foodie winelover friends. You know what that probably means – put together a taco bar and some red wines and its done! OK – I’m up for any challenge involving a wine region and food pairing to go with it. You can read any of my forkandcorkdivine.com articles and verify that!  But all of our wine friends know that anything that simple is not my style.  So off I went on my journey.   Thanks to my usual go-to and trusted sources like Karen MacNeil’s “The Wine Bible” and Madeline Puckette’s “Wine Folly” plus my newest and greatest find of all resources for South America – “The South America Wine Guide” by Amanda Barnes .  Plus thanks to a host of others that anyone can find by a few internet searches, I now have a whole new outlook on wines from South of the Border.  Since that mainly includes the major players of Argentina and Chile, I have expanded my wine horizon to Peru, Brazil, Uruguay and………Mexico.  And yes there are others, but actually I just don’t have the fortitude for so much research anymore.  That is just waaay too much knowledge to absorb. 

Will we actually be tasting wines from South America in our “South of the Border” event(s)?  You can bet on that!  And will we have awesome food pairings to go with them?  Yes, right again.  And there WILL be a taco bar, but there will also be other foods representative of those South American countries.  In fact I now have so many wines to taste that I have expanded off into two wine and food events!  You will have to read all about the food, the wines we taste, and our new found opinions on South American wine in my next several articles.   Now as promised is a current although not terribly deep dive into the grapes and the wine.

How did those grapes get there in the first place? 

The Criollas

It is important to get us started on our journey with a little bit of history, and it begins a very long time ago.

Grapes were first brought to South America in the form of seeds or cuttings by the Spanish in the mid-16^th century.  They came either directly to South America or by way of Mexico, and they belong to a group of grapes called “Criollas”.  The word Criollas is Spanish for Creoles, and this group of grapes is also called the “mother grape of the Americas”.  The most common grapes of the Criolla family are Criolla Grande and Criolla Chica.  Criolla vines are the oldest on the continent. 

Listán Prieto: the original Criolla

Listán Prieto, aka Criolla, is a red grape brought from Spain as a cutting.  Just like Don Quixote, it originated in the Castilla-La Mancha region in Spain.  It is no longer on the Spanish mainland, but there are a few hectares on the Canary Islands.  It is now classified as the Mission grape in the Americas but remains as Listán Prieto in the Canary Islands.  Today it has many names due to the grape being naturally crossed with so many others.  For example there is Criolla Chica in Argentina and Pais in Chile; it’s commonly called Negra Criolla in Peru and Missionera in Bolivia.  Listán Prieto was called Misión in Mexico, but spelled Mission in California, New Mexico and Texas.  Some 150 Criolla varieties have been identified in South America so far, so I’m not even going to try to keep them all straight!

It’s Pais in Chile

Listán Prieto is now known as Pais in Chile where it was the most planted grape variety until overtaken by Cabernet Sauvignon.  By the mid-19^th century wealthy Chileans were importing vines from France, and many Bordeaux winemakers moved to Chile thanks in part to the phylloxerra epidemic in Europe.  They brought with them typically French varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Syrah and Carmenère. 

In Argentina there’s Cereza  and Criolla Grande

Cereza grapes originated in Argentina as a cross between Listán Prieto and Muscat of Alexandria.  Argentina is also home to three Torrontés Criolla varieties: Torrontés Riojana, Torrontés Sanjuanino and Torrontés Mendocino.  Criolla Grande or “Big Creole” was also born here, but nobody knows who its parents were! 

In Bolivia it’s Moscatel de Alejandría….

……. and is the most planted Criolla variety in Bolivia.

And now? 

When you have been making wine since the 1500s, we can imagine that early wine was not that great!  It was primarily for religious purposes, and no one knew wine would eventually become something to be enjoyed and appreciated like we modern age winelovers do!  Then came European winemakers with their vines trying to escape the scourge of phylloxerra, and the wine industry started to look up.  They discovered that South America had a lot of reasons why good wine can be made here: climate, soil, etc.  You just had to find the right location.  Grape growing and wine making eventually became an industry and along with it large scale production and inexpensive wine. 

Once again the South American wine industry has undergone a revolution.  Foreign investors have made it easier to produce quality wines for both domestic consumption and export.  Since the 1980s the focus has shifted to quality or boutique production.  Lucky for us!

Now Argentina leads the charge in South American wine production, but Chile is coming up from behind.  Not to be left out, Peru, Uruguay and Bolivia produce some fine wines as well.  Here are the latest percentages of South American wine production as presented by Amanda Barnes, author of South American Wine Guide, in February, 2023:

 Country                         % of Overall Production                    

Argentina                                            45%

Chile                                                    36%

Brazil                                                   13%

Uruguay                                               4%

Peru                                                      2%

Bolivia                                                   0%

We know that grape and wine production is often influenced by climate-driven conditions, and the year 2020 was unfavorable resulting in a drop in production.  Then along came 2021 with quite favorable conditions and wine production grew positively overall – up 19% overall from 2020.  Chile for example documented a 30% higher volume than 2020, and it was the largest production ever recorded in the country!  Argentina had an increase of 16%.  And then there is Brazil with the largest volume recorded since 2008.  (Note: Numbers reported in the “International Organisation of Vine and Wine” or OIV.)  With that increase in production, there is plenty of well-priced very quaffable value-driven wine (both red and white) available from Argentina and Chile. But there are also exceptional wines worthy of any winelover’s cellar, too. 

Nowadays there are top vintners “going back to their roots” making single-vineyard artisan wines that rival the best from Napa or Bordeaux.   You may be  familiar with Montes and their “Purple Angel” wine, Clos Apalta and the wines of the Lapostolles, Alma Viva and Don Melchor all from Chile just to name a few. Then there are the famous Pinot Noirs from Chacra in Patagonia, the Malbecs of Susana Balbo and the many wines of Catena Zapata.  Producers are not only looking for new styles, but also making wines in higher altitudes and cooler climates.  They are making good use of the Andes Mountain and Pacific Ocean vineyards.  For example, Malbec is still the leading grape of Argentina but Cabernet Franc is really showing up well.  Even the Malbecs are now a little fresher and more elegant.  Many of these wine growers have moved toward earlier harvesting and making wines with lower alcohol around 12.5%.  Some are fermenting in cement as well as longer aging in the bottles.

In Chile, there are many exciting wines made from Carignan, Pinot Noir and Pais.  Pais ranges from rustic earthy wine to elegant floral fruity wines more similar to Beaujolais.  Just like other old grapes that have fallen from grace, Pais is once again appreciated by a small group of winemakers who are making wonderful wines from wild Pais.  Bouchon Family Wines from California make a wine called Pais Salvaje from vines that grow in trees in Chile, and Roberto Henriquez, a Chilean winemaker, is making 94 RP point Pais wine from 200 year old vineyards at the southern end of the Bio Bio River bank. 

ZUCCARDI: A Wine Star Award Winner

To further affirm this positive change in direction towards world class wines, the Wine Enthusiast Magazine recently bestowed one of their annual “Wine Star Awards” on Familia Zuccardi.  Zuccardi Valle de Uco was selected as the “2022 New World Winery of the Year”.  The winery has positioned itself as one of the most iconic wine producers of the Uco Valley while continuing to elevate the regions.  They have taken a Burgundian approach to their mountain wines which are classified according to where the grapes are grown across four tiers: Vinos de Region (regional wines), Vinos de Pueblo (village wines), Vinos de Paraje (lieux-dits or small geographical areas) and Vinos de Finca (single vineyard).   The Zuccardi Family has been in Uco Valley since the early 2000s and continues to show that Malbec is not the only star in the region.  But their stars do shine brightly – Zuccardi Finca Infinita Gravascal 2018 received a 100 point rating from Robert Parker and they have had wines with 100 RP points for 3 years in a row. 

The Zuccardi family began in the wine business three generations ago in 1963 when Alberto planted a few acres of vines in Maipu.  The Zuccardi Valle de Uco came to be when Sebastian and his father, Jose, put their last name on a wine made in their Santa Julia winery, Zuccardi Q.  While Sebastian was an agronomy student in college, he insisted that the family invest in Uco Valley.  Evidently the family believed in him and planted about 700 acres of vines all organically managed eventually opening a state-of-the-art winery, Piedra Infinita, in 2016.   He is now one of the most forward thinking winemakers in Argentina and their winery focuses on premium wine from Uco Valle.  Alberto Zuccardi has even been named Argentina’s brand ambassador by the Argentina government.  He is one of three wine industry professionals who promote the country internationally through its culture, products, services and national talent.

Zuccardi vineyards:

Piedra Infinita is in the heart of the alluvial plain of the Tunuyán River.  It expresses the diversity of chalky soils of Paraje Altamira.  Grape varieties include Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Bonarda and Tempranillo.

Piedra Infinita is also the name of the home estate plus their restaurant overlooking the vines.

Canal Uco is in the northern part of Paraje Altamira and has Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Ancellotta and Caladoc.  It’s irrigated with waters from the Uco Channel.

Los Membrillos, at the east end of Paraje Altamira, grows Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Semillon.

Las Cuchillas is a true mountain vineyard on the alluvial fan of the Las Tunas River and just 600 meters from the first ridges of the Andes.  It grows Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Bonarda, Chardonnay, Verdejo, Albarino, Semillon and Riesling. 

Las Cerrilladas grows Malbec, Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay in alluvial soils of the Las Tunas River. 

Agua De Las Jarilladas is named for the stream that flows from the Jaboncillo hills toward the Peral Hills. It grows Malbec, Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay. 

Zuccardi wines:

Zuccardi Serie A and Serie Q are considered regional wines and are an accessible introduction.

Serie A offers Malbec, Bonarda, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Torrontés and Chardonnay-Viognier.

Serie Q offers Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.

Poligonos reflects on the regions where the wines come from: Paraje Altamira, San Pablo, Gualtallary and Tupungato.  The focus is on single varietals including Malbec and Cabernet Franc.

Zuccardi Concreto is a Malbec which has been vinified in concrete with no oak.  It was a landmark wine in Argentina and reflects the growing tendency of Zuccardi to focus on the pure fruit expression.  Zuccardi has about 200 concrete amphorae for the single blocks of wine.

Jose Zuccardi – Emma Zuccardi – Tito Zuccardi are family wines made in ode to different members of the family.  Emma is a Bonarda, Jose is Malbec-dominated and Tito is a Malbec blend. 

Zuccardi Fosil is their top level Chardonnay and shows a very fresh focused style from San Pablo.

Zuccardi Aluvional is a range of red wines reflecting on individual vineyards or soil types.  They are very expressive, each with a different character.

Zuccardi Finca Piedra Infinita – Finca Canal Uco – Finca Los Membrillos all focus on the identity and personality of a specific vineyard or parcel within a vineyard.  These are the most iconic Zuccardi wines and will age well for a long time. 

THE COUNTRIES

ARGENTINA

The Argentinian fine wine industry came to being with the end of the 20^th century due to both Argentine and foreign-owned wine estates.  Prior to that wine was dirt cheap and very ordinary.  In the 1990s Argentina watched Chile reinvent itself and decided to give it a try thanks to wineries like Bodega Weinert and Catena Zapata. 

Argentina is the second largest country in South America with more than 1 million square miles just after Brazil with 3.3 million square miles.   It ranges from hot jungles in the north to the icy cold tip just a few hundred miles from Antarctica.  Most of the wine regions are located along the western edge of the country, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains. The foothills make it possible for the vineyards to thrive in the desert.  They are made up of alluvial soils that help to make a natural irrigation system. 

Winemaking began here in the latter part of the 16^th century when the Spanish brought grape seeds and cuttings with them just as in Chile.  Listán Prieto came here, too.  In the 1820s many immigrants came from Italy, France and Spain bringing their grapevines with them from their homeland.

There are over 1000 wineries in Argentina; however they are not all currently operating – 850 is probably a much better number (according to the Instituto Nacional de Vitivinicultura) – plus another 300 or so that sell very inexpensive bulk wine.   Depending upon which article you read, Argentina is either the 5^th, 6^th or 7^th largest producer of wine in the world.  Either way, that’s a lot of wine! Some of the top wineries are Argentine-owned such as Catena Zapata and Susana Balbo, but others are joint-venture or foreign owned such as Caro (Catena/Rothschild) and Cheval des Andes (Cheval Blanc/Terrazas de los Andes) and Chacra (Incisa Della Rocchetta family).

In 2010, wine legally became the national beverage of Argentina.  Prior to the 1990s, Argentinian wine consumption per person averaged around 18.5 gal a year.  Now they are drinking much better but less – about 5 gal per person per year.

The grapes

Whites:

Cereza, or cherry in Spanish, is a Criolla variety used primarily for jug whites.  It’s a cross between Moscatel de Alejandra and Listán Prieto.  

Criolla Grande is a deep colored white or light pink.  It’s rarely exported except in a blend. 

Chardonnay ranges from simple oaky to more complex wine.

Torrontés is an Argentine specialty making dry, spicy, aromatic wines. Torrontés has been referred to as the “Queen of Argentina”.  It’s a cross between Criolla (Pais) and Muscat de Alejandra.  Riojano is the highest quality of the three varieties which include San Juanino and Mendocino.  Seek out some Torrontés from Cafayate near Salta for the best high altitude expressions.  It is locally known as “the liar” because its floral, fruity, tropical notes make you think you are about to taste a sweet wine.  And then surprise – its bone dry and sometimes a little bitter.  You can find some of the very best Torrontés in Salta, La Rioja and the Uco Valley.

Reds:

Bonarda is the second most cultivated grape after Malbec, and it makes tasty bold wines. It is the same grape as French Douce Noir and California’s Charbono. Bonarda received the same treatment as Pais which you will read about a little later on in Chile.  It was downgraded and relegated to table wine after Malbec made its big splash.  But Bonarda is back!  You can drink traditional Bonarda which is jammy and fruit-forward or the fresher Bonarda which is lighter and fruitier and on the rise in sparkling pink wines.  And then there is serious Bonarda!  You will find it – you guessed it! – in the Uco Valley where so many exciting things are happening in the wine world.  Zuccardi makes some great Bonarda. 

Cabernet Franc shows promise but has not yet been planted much. Check out wines from Lujan de Cuyo and the Uco Valley in particular and some old vine Cabernet Franc in Maule in Chile for some excellent quality.

Cabernet Sauvignon is an important red mainly intended for export.

Malbec is the country’s most important red grape and it’s most famous (especially in Mendoza). It makes easy drinking as well as impressive expensive wine.  

Malbec  is the signature grape of Argentina.  Nowhere else in the world has it risen to such quality as in Argentina.  Not only is Malbec the Argentinian signature grape, but it is also the most famous variety in South America!  About twenty years ago, nobody was drinking Malbec………until the big boom!  For a good ten years it was over-marketed and everybody was drinking it.  Now it is all grown up and deserves plenty of our attention. You should look for old vine Malbecs and everyday Malbecs but especially check out the top dollar top Malbecs from the Uco Valley.  A few of the best Argentinian Malbec producers that you may be familiar with are: Achaval-Ferrar, Bodegas Caro, Casarena, Catena Zapata, Susana Balbo, Trivento and Zuccardi. 

Malbec was brought here from Bordeaux, but the grape is actually indigenous to the area around Cahors, southeast of Bordeaux.  In that part of the world it is called Côt, and you would hardly guess that they are the same variety.  Wines from Cahors are lean and quite tannic where good Argentinian Malbec is usually full-bodied and full of flavor.  Wines from Cahors are known as “the black wine” and in the 19^th century “Malbec” was a slang term for someone who spoke badly about others or French mal or “bad” and bec or “mouth”.  It is definitely worth doing a side-by-side tasting of a good Argentinian Malbec and a Malbec from Cahors especially if you are not familiar with one or the other. 

Pinot Noir is grown in the cool southern region like Patagonia.

Syrah is the fourth most important grape after Malbec, Bonarda and Cabernet Sauvignon.

The wine provinces

The wine provinces of Argentina’s 521,000 acres of vineyards are grouped north to south in 3 main regions:

The Northern Regions are Salta, Catamarca, Tucumán and Jujuy; all are at very high elevations (from 2500 to 10,900 feet) scattered across the foothills of the Andes. 

Jujuy is at the northernmost tip of Argentina and has both jungle and desert salt flats, but is largely dominated by the high plateau with altitudes of over 5000 meters (16,000+ feet). There is a narrow valley and a few canyons with about 42 hectares (103 acres) of vineyards; Jujuy claims some of the highest altitude vineyards in the world.

Calchaqui Valleys has been making wine for hundreds of years.  This string of mountain valleys runs through three of the provinces: Salta, Tucumán and Catamarca. 

Salta is a two day drive north of Mendoza and while they make good Malbec there, Torrontés is the grape to know.  There are several varieties of Torrontés, but the Torrontés Riojana (an Argentine cross between Listán Prieto and Muscat of Alexandria) is the highest in quality.  The top Torrontés Riojana wines are usually labeled just “Torrontés”, and they come from the area around Salta’s wine capital, the town of Cafayate.  You can recognize Torrontés wine by its lychee, lime and peach aromas.   

Valleys of Catamarca is a major producer of juice and jug wine. 

Cuyo Regions  include  Mendoza, San Juan, San Rafael and  La Rioja.  This is the most important area for wine with more than 90% of Argentina’s wine made here.

La Rioja has about 50 hectares (123 acres) of Tempranillo while the white grape Torrontés is more widely planted.

San Juan is second only to Mendoza in terms of wine production and home to a fifth of Argentina’s vineyards.  Mainly red wines that deliver good value are made here. 

Mendoza is the most notable wine region and is located on the high-altitude plains of the Andes Mountains.  It is also the name of the provinces’ capital city, founded in 1561.  The Mendoza province is bigger than New York State and accounts for 85% of all Malbec planted in Argentina.  Seventy-five per cent of all Malbec in the world grows in Argentina.  This is a semi-arid desert with an average of 300 days sunshine per year and less than 9 inches average rainfall per year. 

White wines are also becoming well known here.  Besides Torrontés and Pedro Ximenez grapes, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Fiano should not be ignored.  The region is west of Buenos Aires about 1,000 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean.  The three sub-regions in Mendoza are: Maipú, Luján de Cuyo and the Uco Valley.

Maipú is one of the oldest and most traditional of the three.  It is most famous for reds and is best known for Cabernet Sauvignon, Bordeaux and Carmenere varieties. Maipu and Lujan de Cuyo sit side by side to the south of Mendoza city, separated by just a road.       

Luján de Cuyo was the first wine production appellation recognized by the OIV in Argentina in 1989.  The vineyards here are around 3280 feet high with most sitting on alluvial soil. 

The Uco Valley is nearly 6,000 feet high and west of Mendoza in the Andean foothills. It has average temperatures similar to Chablis and has become one of the top wine regions in Latin America. Uco Valley also has three more sub-regions: Tupungato, Tunuyán and San Carlos..

Patagonia and the Atlantic Region

Patagonia is located in the South — 1000 miles south of Salta and is made up of 4 provinces: La Pampa, Neuquén, Rio Negro, and Chubut. It’s renowned for fly-fishing and skiing, but more recently also for Malbec and Pinot Noir thanks to wineries like Chacra and Bodega Noemia.  Bodega Noemia was founded by an Italian Countess, Noemi Marone Cinzano (Cinzano vermouth) who has since sold to her winemaker partner Hans Vinding-Diers. Chacra is owned by some other very famous people – Italy’s Incisa Della Rocchetta family who just happen to make Sassicaia!

Rio Negro produces some excellent old vine Malbecs as well as old-vine Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.

Neuquen is better known for its rich red wines: Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc and a richer style of Pinot Noir than that from Rio Negro.  This is a newer wine region that is still evolving in wine identity.

Chubut is the new frontier for Argentine wine.  It is the southernmost wine region in the country where it was once considered to be far too cold to produce grapes.  Since the early 2000s there has been a steady increase in plantings.  Otronia Vineyard is the southernmost vineyard and winery in the world! 

La Pampa is a wine region in northern Patagonia,  named for the grasslands that predominate here between the Atlantic coast and the Andes mountain range. There are just a few producers here with Bodega del Desierto probably the biggest name.  La Pampa’s vineyard area covers just under 280 hectares (690 acres), and they have yet to establish a varietal identity for the region. 

The Atlantic Region   Buenos Aires is near the Atlantic Coast and is the furthest south, coolest and lowest in altitude.  Vineyards are located at the southern part of the province especially around Médanos where the Pampa region and Patagonia converge.  The Médanos appellation wines include Malbec, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Tannat, Chardonnay, Petit Verdot and Tempranillo.  The terroir here is sandy soil over limestone with long sunny hours.  It’s the only Argentinian wine region dedicated to production of premium wines with oceanic influence. 

The wine provinces all have a bone-dry desert-like climate with lots of intense sunlight with the only exception being parts of Patagonia and the Atlantic Region.  Winemakers in general here don’t worry about rain, but there are legendary hailstorms that can wipe out entire vineyards.  Soil in the main wine districts is gravelly and rocky with very low fertility.  There is also sand, clay and limestone to be found. 

We can’t leave our discussion on Argentine wines without mentioning one of the most unique wineries in the country……….. or at least this part of the world!  In 2019 the Patagonia-based winery Wapisa started storing some of their wines underwater just off the coast of Videma, Rio Negro.  This practice has become all the rage in the Adriatic, and has now found its way to Argentina.  Patricia Ortiz, owner of Wapisa, decided to incorporate the ocean into the aging process of her wine.   Wapisa is 25 miles from the Atlantic Ocean where you can see whales swimming off the nearby coast of the vineyard.  In fact “Wapisa” is the indigenous Patagonian word for “whale”, and local legend talks about a whale that used to live on the land. 

According to a Decanter magazine article, 1500 magnums of Wapisa 2017 Malbec blend were submerged in crates between 20 and 50 feet underwater (6 to 15 meters offshore) in the Atlantic for nine months, then brought to shore and tasted side by side with identical bottles that had been stored per routine in their cellar.  The tasting results supposedly revealed a wine that was rounder, more elegant and with fresher fruits.  So maybe one day our grapes will be grown in outer space and our wine aged in the ocean! 

CHILE

Chile has the distinction of being the narrowest country in the world.  It’s about 2600 miles long and 110 miles wide.  It has plenty of diversity to offer – the Pacific Ocean on the west; Andes Mountains on the east; the Atacama Desert to the north; and the Antarctic is about 400 miles south across the water.  Weather is similar to the Mediterranean which means that grapes and other crops grow well.  They also grow well because there are few vine diseases and pests.  In fact Chile is the only major wine producing country where no phylloxerra exists.  All this makes it very conducive to organic farming.  And they make wine everywhere – from a few dozen feet above sea level to almost 7,000 feet ASL; in the far north desert of Atacama to a cold island of Chiloé on the way to Antarctica.  In fact growers are now focusing on regions closer to the cold Pacific Ocean.  But the most notable wine area is the Central Valley.  Carmenere may be the countries signature grape, but Cabernet Sauvignon is the most widely planted.  There are approximately  519,000 acres of vineyards and nearly 500 wineries making not only plenty of bargain priced wines but also fine wines.  Luckily many of them are available to us.

Investment in the wine business both domestic and foreign came about in the late 1980s and 1990s which changed the whole wine image. France has had the greatest influence on Chilean wines even though Spain has so much history there.  Wine estates were modeled after those in Bordeaux.  French grapes were planted and they hired French winemakers. Leading families making fine wines including the Mondavis and the Rothschilds came on the Chilean scene.  Frenchwoman Alexandra Marnier Lapostolle bought property in the Colchaqua Valley, hired consultant winemaker Michel Rolland, and history was born.  Their Casa Lapostolle Clos Apalta Colchagua Valley 2005 was the number one wine of the year for Wine Spectator in 2008.

Some other great Chilean wineries and wines to know are: Montes “Purple Angel”, Clos Apalta, Neyen “Espiritu de Apalta”, Almaviva and Don Melchor.  

The major grapes in order by prominence are:

1. Cabernet Sauvignon:  Twice as much is produced as Sauvignon Blanc.  It ranges from easy to drink moderately priced to complex more expensive wines.
2. Sauvignon Blanc: It’s usually simple and fresh.
3.  Merlot: Is often used in blends.
4. Chardonnay: Was planted extensively in the 90s when Chardonnay exploded on the scene.
5. Carménère:  A natural cross between Cabernet Franc and an old Bordeaux variety, Gros Cabernet. It thrives in Chile’s long warm growing season.  Carménère has found its second home in Chile.  Ninety-eight per cent of the world’s Carménère is made here.  It ranges from plummy and opulent to fresh with wild herbs and bell peppers, and it goes with many different dishes.  Lapostolle, for one, makes great Carménère. 
6. Syrah:  Is becoming more significant.  It makes good medium-quality wine on its own, but is often blended with Carménère.

Minor grapes:

Carignan and Cinsault: Are minor in terms of production but used in artisanal wines.

Pais:  It was once mass produced and is still widely planted but used mainly for jug wine. Pais, aka Criolla and Mission, is one of the first grapes planted in the Americas, as we have already mentioned. The rustic old Pais vines are now having a revival which the hip winemakers refer to as “natural winemaking”.  We must we really hip as we have enjoyed many natural wines through the last few years.  The modern Pais wines are more similar to a Beaujolais Nouveau-style.  They are made with carbonic maceration and have a light crisp finish.  You can also look for some sparkling pink Pais made in the traditional champenoise method. 

Pinot Noir:  Plantings are on the rise especially near the coast and in southern cool climate regions such as Bio-Bio. 

The five major Denominaciones de Origen (DOs):  

From north to south:

Atacama DO

The Atacama DO is in the northernmost part in a landscape known for desolate beauty and extreme arid conditions. The Atacama is the dries desert on earth but thanks to modern irrigation techniques of local grape growers, vineyards survive and even thrive. The Copiapó Valley is an oasis in the middle of this desert landscape. It is known for growing table grapes, but recently has seen an increase in Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc. Just to the west of the Atacama is Huasco Valley which is primarily known for Pisco production.

Coquimbo DO

Coquimbo DO and sub-regions Elqui Valley, Limarí Valley and Choapa:

Elqui Valley has only been making wine since around 1990.  It is close to the desert with about 3 inches of rain a year and rocky soil.  Much of Chile’s Pisco is made right here but with increasing amounts of Syrah grapes and a bit of Sauvignon Blanc.

Limarí Valley grows Chardonnay with some Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon as well.  Fog comes in from the Pacific every morning and covers the vines with sun showing up mid-morning.  Rainfall is minimal here as well. 

Choapa Valley is small but up and coming, and mostly dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.  Vines grow here, but there are currently no wine-producing facilities.

Aconcagua DO

Aconcagua DO  and sub-regions of Aconcagua, Casablanca, San Antonio and zones of Leyda and Lo Barca.  Aconcagua and the Central Valley are part of the traditional DOs and make up the historic wine center.  These two are where you will find most of Chile’s top wine districts. 

Aconcagua gets a bit more rainfall each year than the arid regions further north.  It also receives plenty of freshwater coming down from Mount Aconcagua. Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir grow well here especially towards the center of the valley. 

Aconcagua Costa,  a smaller sub-region, gets the benefit of cool maritime influences plus steady freshwater. Some exceptional Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay is made here.  Further inland is Pinot Noir and Syrah.

Casablanca Valley has been growing grapes since the 1980s.  Some beautiful Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc plus Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris are produced here thanks to a cooler climate, more frequent rainfall, soft clay and sandy soils.

San Antonio Valley is a coastal sub-region best known for refined Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay plus some great quality Pinot Noir. 

Leyda Valley is a sub-region within the San Antonio Valley particularly known for Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir but also gaining praises for its Chardonnay and Syrah. 

Lo Barca DO is a fairly new appellation with just 44.5 hectares or 108 acres.  Key varieties are Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Gris, Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Grenache.  It’s in the San Antonio Valley in the region of Aconcagua.  Lo Barca is one of Chile’s coolest coastal wine regions just 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Pacific Ocean.    Yields are very low here with concentration of flavors and acidity.  Winemaker María Luz Marín of Casa Marin pioneered it in 2000; they are currently the only producer. 

Central Valley DO

Central Valley DO,  and its sub-regions of Maipo, Rapel, Curicó and Maule are southwest of Santiago.  It consists of five very important and distinct valleys: Maipo, Cachapoal, Colchagua, Curicó and Maule. 

Maipo Valley is close to the city of Santiago, Chile’s capital, and is divided further into three sub-regions:

Alto Maipo  is high in the Andean foothills and produces premium wines.  The vineyards are 400-800 meters (1300 – 2600 feet) above sea level and get a long slow ripening season.  The most iconic grape is Cabernet Sauvignon.  The wines are all products of the region’s stony alluvial soils. 

Central Maipo is where the country’s viticultural journey began.  Some of the country’s most distinguished wines are made here.  The warm climate and alluvial soil are excellent for producing Bordeaux blends especially Cabernet Sauvignon.  Merlot and Carmenere also produce wines with great depth and complexity. 

Pacific Maipo is where the Maipo River meets the sea.  It’s a cool maritime climate capable of making wines with high acidity and pronounced freshness.

Rapel Valley offers two different micro climates:

Northern Rapel is also known as Cachapoal Alto and produces beautiful Cabernet Sauvignon. 

Cachapoal Valley is just 60 miles south of Santiago and its Mediterranean climate and mineral rich soil are helping to make it a winelover’s dream. Wines here are similar to those found in the Bordeaux, Alsace and Loire regions in France.  Cachapoal is renowned for its red wines particularly its Merlot and Carmenere. The higher altitudes are also successfully growing elegant Syrah.  You will also find some of the best white wines in the world here. 

The southern Colchagua Valley is in the heart of Chile’s wine country, and leans more towards Carmenere, one of Chile’s most sought-after varietals.  It is known worldwide for its Carmenere, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.  The valley has hot sunny days and cool night just perfect for ripening red grapes. There is plenty of breathtaking landscape, numerous wineries to visit, and exquisite meals to dine upon. 

Apalta DO is the largest (1007 hectares/2500 acres) and probably best known of the new DOs.  It’s been making excellent and probably the most expensive reds since the 1990s.  The main varieties are Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere, Syrah, Malbec, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Mourvedre and Grenache.  You can find it in Colchagua, which is part of the Rapel region of the Central Valley.  This is where you will find Lapostolle, Montes, Neyen, Santa Rita and some other great producers.  Apalta Valley is horseshoe shaped sheltered by hillsides vineyards on the valley floor.  Rhône varieties are being increasingly planted here. 

Los Lingues DO is 492 hectares/1200 acres in Colchagua, in the Rapel region of the Central Valley.  Its key varieties are Carmenere, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Mourvedre, Grenache, Syrah and Tempranillo.  Soil here is usually associated with volcanic origin with a mix of clay, basalt and colluvial rocks.  Cristóbal Undurraga, is the winemaker to notice here. 

Curicó Valley is one of the most important regions in regards to Chile’s expansion into growing grapes.  Cabernet Sauvignon has the most acreage closely followed by Sauvignon Blanc.  It is also home to the San Pedro Winery. 

The Lontue Valley  is a sub-region within the Curicó Valley and known for its diversity in grapes both red and white

Teno Valley  lies within the Curicó Valley with a microclimate ideal for many grapes, but red wines are the star.  Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Carménère really flourish here.  There are beautiful landscapes with vineyards across rolling hills and along the Teno River. 

Licantén DO  also has just one producer – La Ronciere.  There are only 124 hectares (306 acres), and the key varieties are Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere, Merlot, Syrah, Malbec, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Carignan.  Licantén is in the Teno Valley in Curicó, a part of the Central Valley.  Its vineyard was planted in 2012 just 24 kilometers (15 miles) from the sea.

Maule Valley is one of the larger sub-regions and has extensive plantings of Cabernet Sauvignon.  It’s also one of the few regions actively producing small quantities of Carignan.  Malbec from the Maule is worth a try. 

Claro Valley grows Carménère, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah extensively in a tranquil landscape, each benefiting from the valley’s fertile soils.  The riverbanks of the Claro River, warm daytime temperatures and cooler nights all help to produce wines with ripe fruit, lively acidity and earthy hints. 

Southern Regions and Austral Regions

The  Southern Regions  and Austral Regions represent different geographical and climatic zones each with unique challenges and opportunities.

The South extends from Maule to the Bio-Bio and is more traditional and established as far as wine production goes.  It’s popular for a wide range of grapes from old vine Pais, Carignan and Moscatel to international varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. 

Itata Valley is a sub-region producing extensive amounts of the ancient Muscat of Alexandria grapes.  This grape is also used for making raisins.

Bio-Bio Valley is a sub-region with excessive rainfall when compared to the other regions making it somewhat difficult for wine growers here.  For those who do well, Pinot Noir can be surprisingly refreshing with bright red fruit and crisp acidity.

Malleco Valley sub-region gets the most rainfall of any located within Chile.  Plantings are minimal, but vinegrowers are beginning to experiment with Gewurztraminer.  

The Austral, comprised of Cautin and Osnorno, is a Chilean winemaking frontier.  It’s at the southernmost tip of Chile’s wine territory where it is much cooler and more humid with lots of rainfall.  This area has been gaining attention for production of cool-climate varieties such as Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc which thrive in these conditions. You will also find Gewurztraminer and Riesling here.

Cautin Valley, in the Araucania Region, is among the rainiest and coolest of the regions, but winemakers here have been making exceptional Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc known for bright acidity, aromatic intensity and elegant minerality.  They are also gaining recognition for their sparkling wines.

Osnorno Valley, in the Los Lagos Region, is known for its volcanic soils, heavy rainfall and cool climate all of which help to make it extremely challenging for making wine.  But Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Sauvignon Blanc are showing great potential when made by Chilean dedicated winemakers.  

The four newest appellations were officially announced in May 2018 in the Official Journal of the Republic of Chile, a periodical that formalizes the country’s new laws.  The names of Lo Barca, Licantén, Apalta and Los Lingues can be displayed on the labels of wines produced with a minimum of 85% grapes from their region.

SOUTH AMERICAN COUNTRIES ARRIVING ON THE SCENE

PERU

Peru has many of the same positive attributes for wine making as does Argentina and northern Chile.  In addition to that, it is the most culinary forward country in South America.  So why aren’t they making a big splash in the wine world like Argentina and Chile?  After all, vineyards actually began here in the 1500s –– it may even be considered the oldest winemaking country in South America.  They can blame it all on an enormous earthquake, religious suppression, a rising star called “pisco” and the demand for cotton.  All of this led to vineyards being destroyed and the decline of wine. 

But all is not lost!  In the 2000s, the wine industry has started a comeback.  The Ica Valley is 4 hours south of Lima and with about 85 producers is considered to be the heart of Peruvian wine country. It’s on the edge of the Atacama Desert, is quite hot and dry, but cooling winds blowing in from the Pacific Ocean and a 1500 foot altitude help to lower the temperature at night.  The soils are made up of limestone, clay and sand which help to produce high quality wine grapes with ripe flavors and fresh acidity.  Red and white wines are being made primarily from Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Grenache, Tannat, Syrah, Muscat, Sauvignon Blanc and Torrontés.  The top 3 wine producers (according to Euromonitor International) are Intipalka brand, Viña Tacama and Bodegas y Viñedos Tabernero. 

Correct or not, Peru is not generally considered by locals as a very good winemaker.  Peruvian nationals tend to select wines from Chile, Argentina or Spain.  And they drink PISCO.  And plenty of it!!! Pisco is a type of brandy made from wine grapes and has an alcohol content of 38-48% ABV.  It’s extremely popular for cocktail drinks at every Peruvian bar and restaurant.  Peruvians don’t drink coffee either –  although they make that in Peru, too.  So what DO they drink in addition to Pisco?……….Chicha beer or coca tea along with some Inka-Cola.

Chicha  is a traditional ethnic corn-based fermented beverage at 3% ABV, or it can be non-fermented without alcohol.  It’s especially relevant in Peru where it has been part of religious ceremonies for many years. 

Coca tea  is a beverage made from the leaves of the coca plant which just also happens to be the source of cocaine.  It’s popular as a stimulant, (no surprise there) digestive, and to ward off altitude sickness.  Coca tea can be “decocainized”^] similar to the decaffeination process for coffee. It has to be “decocainized” to be legal here in the US. 

Inka-Kola is a popular non-alcoholic drink created in Peru also known as “The Golden Kola”.  Its florescent yellow, very sweet, carbonated and made with lemon verbena. 

2023 – “The Year of Pisco”?  Welcome to the “Pisco Phenomenon”! 

Pisco is a type of brandy made by distilling fermented grape juice into a colorless or yellowish-to-amber high-proof spirit, and made only in the winemaking regions of Peru and Chile.  It has an alcohol content between 38 – 48% which makes it 70 – 80 proof.   Watch out!!!!  It can really sneak up on you.  High alcohol or not, Pisco has established itself as a very popular spirit on the cocktail scene.  The years of Covid-19 and global pandemic may have slowed its growth (along with everything else!), but as the situation has gradually gotten under control and a “new normal” sets in, consumers have been looking for new and exotic beverages.  This is where Pisco comes into the picture.  According to Diego Lo Prete, senior VP of marketing and global brands at Winebow Imports, Pisco went “from a low base at 3-3.5% annually (US)……and jumped by 33% during the peak of Covid-19”.  It later slowed but is still at a new “Pisco high” in the US.  Pisco manufacturers devised new cocktails such as the Pisco Sour, El Capitan, and The Chilcano.  Various countries now hold drinking festivals to promote them: Delhi and Mumbai hosted “The Piscois Perus Festival” in December 2017.  PromPerú (“The Commission for the Promotion of Peru”) opened several Pisco training schools in Europe. Chile held the major market share with a production of around 35 million liters per year and delivery to more than 20 countries around the globe; however in 2021 PromPerú reported an increase of 47.5% in Peruvian Pisco exports.  And guess their leading destination?  That’s right!  It’s here on our doorsteps with millions of dollars’ worth of Pisco.  And that is how I got my bottle of Pisco – a local big box vendor was happy to send it right to my front door!  A few brands to consider are: Macchu, Capurro Moscatel, Barsol and Caravedo from Peru and Kappa, Waqar, Capel and El Gobernador from Chile.

Pisco was first made by 16^th century Spanish settlers as an alternative to orujo, a *pomace brandy imported from Spain.  It may have gotten its name from the Peruvian town of Pisco, on the coast of Peru in the valley of Pisco by the Pisco River.  Other theories claim that “pisco” was originally a word for a mud container.  There is also a dispute over whether Pisco originated in Chile or Peru.  Both countries have the right to call Pisco their own, but there cannot be a specific geographical designation on the branding of pisco.  One thing they all agree on is that Pisco cannot be aged in wood unlike aged whiskeys, brandies and rums.  They want the quality of the spirit and the grapiness to come through.  It can be made from eight grape varietals – Quebranta, Negra Criolla, Uvina and Mollar and the aromatic grapes Moscatel, Torontel, Italia and Albilla; however a major part of Pisco on the market is made solely from or includes Quebranta.  Since it must be distilled from wine and not the *pomace leftover from wine production, it is in a similar category as only three other brandies made from wine – Cognac, Armagnac and Brandy de Jerez. 

(*Pomace is the solid remains of grapes, olives, or other fruit after pressing for juice or oil. It contains the skins, pulp, seeds, and stems of the fruit. The pomace from grapes has also been used to make grappa).

Peruvian Pisco must be made in one of five official D.O.s – Lima, Ica, Arequipa, Moquegua and Tacna (and only in certain valleys!) as established in 1991 by the Peruvian government.  It’s made in copper pot stills.  It is never diluted after distillation and goes into the bottle just as it was distilled.  Since so many types of grapes may be used, Pisco ends up with a wide variation in flavor, aroma, viscosity and appearance. 

Four types of pisco have been designated in Peru:

1. Puro (pure) – Made from a single variety of grape, mostly Quebranta.  There must be no blending.
2. Aromáticas (aromatic) – Made from Muscat or Muscat varieties, and also from Albilla, Italia and Torontel varieties.  There must be only one variety in any production lot.
3. Mosto Verde (green must) – Distilled from partially fermented must; must be distilled before the fermentation process has transformed sugars into alcohol.
4. Acholado (multivarietal) – Are blended from the must of several grape varieties.

Peruvian Pisco must be aged for a minimum or 3 months in glass, stainless steel or other material that doesn’t alter the pisco properties. There can be no additives that could alter the flavor, odor, appearance of alcoholic proof.

Chilean Pisco must be made in either Atacama or Coquimbo, the country’s two official D.O. regions.  Muscat is aromatic and the most widespread grape used; however some vineyards prefer Torontel and Pedro Jiménez.  Some versions of Chilean Pisco can be aged, often in American or French oak barrels.  Chilean Piscos use a discontinuous distillation system, meaning that pomace is removed and replaced with a fresh pomace at the end of each batch. Water may be added to lower the ABV.  Pisco from Chile is generally a fruitier and more floral spirit, and it pairs really well with seafood.  These are Chilean designations:

1. Pisco Corriente a Tradicional – 30 to 35% (60 to 70 proof)
2. Pisco Especial – 35 to 40% (70 to 80 proof)
3. Pisco Reservado – 40% (80 proof)
4. Gran Pisco – 43% or more (86 or more proof)

Peru – A culinary destination and a very big year of celebration!

You may have noticed a major increase in Peruvian cuisine options even right here in Southwest Florida.  There are numerous Peruvian restaurants available for your exploration which means you are probably already experiencing their Pisco Sours!  At least a half dozen popped up when I did an internet search for “Peruvian restaurants near me”.    Tried either of El Patio’s two destinations?  You can get real authentic food and Pisco at all of these restaurants.    

There are many talented chefs in South America, but Peru has won awards as South America’s best culinary destinations for nine years in a row.  According to Restaurant Magazine, two of the top 10 restaurants in the world in 2021 were in Peru:  “Central” and “Maido”  –  both located in Lima.  Then in 2022, Central moved up the charts to be the #2 restaurant in the world while Maido slipped down to #11.  This was the case when I first started writing this article, and I thought it was really impressive.  Here’s some info from Central’s website:

Want to have a life-changing dining experience at “Central”?  The 12 course tasting menu “Territori en Desnivel” is based on an ecosystem in Peru and costs about $239.  For $267, you can move on up to the “Mundo Mater” 14 course tasting menu and experience ecosystems of the world.   According to their website, Chef Virgilio Martínez Véliz and his wife Pia Léon prepare dishes that “celebrate the unique landscapes, history and traditions of their homeland by using an abundance of locally sourced produce, ………… and the finest food that land and sea have to offer: scallops, squid and clams come fresh from the coast and the Amazon, while the Sacred Valley offers up pork belly and goat’s neck.” Just to walk to the front door of their restaurant, guests pass through a garden with over 100 plant species. 

Now here we are in 2023 for a REALLY historic day for Peruvian gastronomy:  “Central” is The World’s Best Restaurant 2023!  On June 20, 2023, Central became the first venue in South American to be named the World’s Best Restaurant.  They were voted by a panel of 1,080 global “gastronomic experts” as the world’s best.  They are also the first co-run by a female chef.  This really marks an important moment for winning this culinary crown, not by a traditional fine dining institution, but by a family-owned, independent restaurant located in a small, underrated nation somewhere between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. 

I can’t neglect some other South American cuisine available to us without leaving our home area.  Argentinian restaurants including steak houses, bistros, empanadas and ceviches are easy to find.  The provoleta and wood fired grilled meats at Martin Fierro Argentinian Restaurant in Naples were a favorite of mine.  Peru and Argentina not your favorites?  Brazil offers several local dining options as well.  But you can be sure I will be helping Peru to celebrate their moment in culinary history this year!!!!

BRAZIL

It may be the largest country in South America, but it’s the third most important South American wine producer after Argentina and Chile.  They have been growing grapes here since about 1532 but the vines didn’t do well in this mainly hot humid climate.  It wasn’t until the late 19^th century when Italian immigrants began planting hardy grapes like Tannat that a solid wine industry finally took hold.  Today Brazil’s most important grapes are the reds Syrah, Tannat, Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Tempranillo as well as widely planted Chardonnay.  Sparkling wines have been the best known type of wines from Brazil for several decades now, especially inexpensive ones made in the Charmat method in large pressurized tanks.  Moët & Chandon can take credit for this with their launch of Chandon Brasil back in 1973. The Campanha region offers spectacular countryside and a wide variety of wineries and varietals to try. Campanha’s primary wine crops are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Tannat, and Cab Franc.

URUGUAY

Basque immigrants brought grapevines here in the 1870s, but the wine industry has only been taken seriously since the 1980s and the 1990s.  Today there are 14,800 acres of vineyards in Uruguay and about 200 mainly family owned wineries most of which sell their wine locally.  There are fewer foreign investors in Uruguay than Argentina, but a few very well-known international wine consultants are seeking to change the wine scene.  They include Paul Hobbs (Familia Deicas), Alberto Antonini (Bodega Garzon) and Michel Rolland (Finca Narbona). 

Uruguay is located on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean providing it with a maritime climate.  The signature grape is Tannat and today more Tannat is grown in Uruguay than in the entire rest of the world.  Other grapes that are successfully grown here are Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Albarino, and Chardonnay.  Some of their well-known producers are Bodega Garzon, Bodega De Luca, Bouza, Pizzorno, Pisano and Juanico.

BOLIVIA

Winemaking may also date back to the 1600s in Bolivia, but I doubt that you will be able to find any today – unless of course you are in Bolivia!  Bolivian wine is pretty special.  All the vineyards there are situated at altitudes of 1600 to 3000 meters (approx. 1 – 2 miles) above ground level, and no other nation has this characteristic.  The other factor is that geographically Bolivia is closer to the equator and is dominated by the Amazon jungle and the Andes Mountains.  That leaves very little space for vineyards, and many of them are more than a mile high.  The Central Valley of Tarija accounts for most of the vineyards and is the largest wine region in the country.  The key grapes of Bolivia are: Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot, Malbec and Tannat.  There are a few whites: Muscat of Alexandria, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.  Tannat has been doing fairly well here and if you come across any Tannat made by Bodega Aranjuez, give it a try.  They bottle a 100% Tannat as well as Bodega Aranjuez “Duo Tinto”, a blend of Tannat/Merlot. 

MEXICO

No, it isn’t in South America, but it is south of our United States border……. and they have been making wine in Mexico since the mid-1500s.  Europeans brought cuttings and seeds with them on every trip to the West Indies and the American continent.  While key crops other than sugar cane might not have fared well on the islands, grape vines and olive trees are a different story – especially in the hot dry sunny interior of Mexico.  That famous grape Listán Prieto started it all in Mexico until a change in monarchs put a stop to growing grape vines and olive trees.  Only wineries in the remote northern part of the country were left alone to prosper. 

Two of those wineries still exist: Bodegas del Marqués de Aguayo and Casa Madero. Founded in 1597, Casa Madero is considered to be the oldest winery in the Americas.  It is these grapevines that were later exported to the Napa Valley in California and to South America.  After a few revolutions and wars, winemaking began to experience a comeback in the 1980s.  Most wineries here, especially in Baja California, are young and established only since the 1980s and 1990s.  Although Mexico isn’t traditionally a wine-drinking country anyway – this is the land of beer, tequila and mescal – there has been an interest in Mexican wine especially in the tourist areas such as Cancun and Cabo San Lucas and major cities such as Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara.   Yes you can get cheap and nearly undrinkable wine in Mexico, but luckily there is also a small growing industry of quality winemaking.  Some enthusiasts are calling the Valley of Guadalupe the “next Napa Valley”. Many Mexican companies have actually won international awards for their wine. A 2020 Don Leo Gran Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon even won gold in the Concours International des Cabernet competition (CIDC) and a trophy for the world’s best Cabernet.  Not familiar with that one?  Me either, but an article on 6.9.20 in Newsweek magazine claimed that the Don Leo beat out wines from 24 other countries.  The wine was produced in Parras, Coahuila in the Northwestern region and is not available outside of Mexico.  The Parras Valley region, which is just west of Monterey in Central Mexico, is a small region, but already attracting attention for the grapes it produces.  Chardonnay is the primary crop, but you’ll also find Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, and Tempranillo grown here

By the summer of 2022, Mexico had 88,700 acres of vineyards with over 21,000 used for wine production.  The number of wineries reached 400+.  This information was gathered by Sergio Gonzales, a Mexican wine writer and sommelier, who used the Mexican Wine Council and the OIV as his sources.   Wine is produced in 3 main areas:

The state of Baja California is in the northwest part of Mexico, just south of the US State of California.  Baja is the 1,000 mile long Baja Peninsula.  All of the vineyards are in arid valleys to the west of the Sierra de Baja California Mountains where they take advantage of a Mediterranean-like climate and cold air from the Pacific Ocean.  The main valleys are near the port city of Ensenada. Ninety per-cent of Mexican wine is produced in Baja California. 

Guadalupe Valley is the main valley and is closest to being Mexico’s “Napa Valley”.  You will find more than 100 wineries here along the Ruta Del Vino (Wine Route).  With the help of irrigation, you will see green vineyards in the Guadalupe landscape.  The main grapes used in the top wines are Cabernet Sauvignon, Tempranillo and Nebbiolo (different than the Italian).  Some of the other red varieties grown are Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Pinot Noir.  Whites are Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Viognier and Chenin Blanc. 

Coahuila and Chihuahua are the north central states located just south of the US States of Texas and New Mexico.

The states of Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Querétaro, and San Luis Potosi are all in the center of Mexico.

A FEW FINAL THOUGHTS……..

Care to update your opinion on South American wines? If I’m just basing my current opinion on everything I have learned during my last several months of researching, you bet I will. I can’t wait to dive into Sauvignon Blanc and Carmenere wines by Lapostolle in Rapel Valley and Roberto Henriquez Pais made from 200 year old vines in the Bio Bio Valley. Then there will be Brazilian sparkling wines and Cabernet Franc by Salton. I’ve had Brazilian sparkling before, but I bet it has gotten even better. How about some Tannat Reserva from Bodega Garzon in Uruquay? Moving on to Argentina, I’m ready to celebrate Zuccardis’ Wine Star Award with numerous Zuccardi wines but betting on “Concreto” and “Aluvional” Malbecs to give me some lasting wonderful memories! And I just can’t neglect that extra special bottle of Nicolas Bordeaux Red by Catena Zapata. Wines rated 96 and 97 points can’t be all that bad! Also I’ll have my empanadas and chimichurri ready for any of Susana Balbo’s wines. I hear she makes some mighty fine Torrontes and Cabernet. But what about Pinot Noir, you say?  A Pinot from Bodega Chacra in Rio Negro will do quite nicely, I am almost certain.  And last but not at all least, there are other countries “South of the Border” and I hope that bottle of Bichi “La Flama” makes it here from Mexico, because I really am anxious to taste some.  I did go a bit overboard on my wine selections as there were just too darn many that needed to be tasted.  Well, that situation has been remedied…… there will be TWO South American wine events going on at Conover Court in the next few months.  After all, we like to share with as many of our foodie wine loving friends as possible.

I cannot forget about that top notch culinary expertise going on in South America plus so many great food flavors either.  Pairing appropriate food with the right wines just makes good sense to me!  So along with the assistance of a few of our foodie friends, we will be making several quick journeys through some South of the Border menus and there will be many pictures taken along the journey. 

As I mentioned when I first began this “article”, my goal is always to convey information as correctly and currently as possible; however, that is just a bit more difficult than it may sound.  If anyone has any more up-to-date information on any of the topics mentioned, please let me know and I will be happy to update the article.  I have previously mentioned several books and authors that I rely upon for information.  I know they are excellent sources.  Plus many many internet articles that anyone can find on a “search”; hopefully I have used the most reliable ones. One acknowledgment I must always make is to Chuck, the other half of forkandcorkdivine.com for tolerating my “travel time” during the past few months and what is yet to come in the next couple months.

My journey to South America has been truly amazing!  Be on the lookout for upcoming articles on our wine dinner events.  Whether you took the time to read through this article or just scan a few pages, I am happy that you did so, and am hopeful that you got some helpful information from it.  Even more importantly, that you too are ready to drink some South American wines! 

And who knows where our next forkandcorkdivine.com journey will take us? 

Linda Rakos

forkandcorkdivine.com

lfrakos@gmail.com

7.8.2023

When the Wine Enthusiast Magazine announced their “Wine Star Award” winners for the year 2021, I was especially pleased. Santa Barbara County, California was chosen as the “Wine Region of the Year”! Not only was I extremely proud that a wine region from the USA won this distinction, but even more importantly that Chuck and I had visited there and got to see some of those great wineries first hand and taste their wines. We decided to follow up on the movie “Sideways” that became a surprise hit back in 2004 by taking our own Sideways tour through the area in 2006. Chuck and I met up with Betsy, my best friend from high school who has lived in the Los Angeles area for many years, and the three of us headed north towards Santa Barbara on our adventure. And what a was!

Santa Barbara County may be a relatively small wine region, but it produces some very impressive Chardonnays, Pinot Noirs and Syrahs. The geography here is different than other wine regions in that the mountain ranges run from east to west rather than north to south like most other regions. This means that the valleys open right up to the Pacific Ocean allowing for cool temperatures with fog in the morning and steady breezes in the afternoon. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes absolutely love this! Then just a little further inland, the temperatures get warm enough to be just right for some amazing Rhone varietals like Syrah and Grenache.

All of those wonderful wines get to pair up beautifully with some of the greatest food you could ask for. There is a lively culinary scene featuring food from farm-to-table plus the ocean both in the “big city” of Santa Barbara, also known as the American Riviera and in a number of little towns throughout the wine growing region like Los Olivos, Solvang, Buellton and Los Alamos. You will find some culinary gems here that are not so well “hidden” anymore. In fact one of them, Bell’s in Los Alamos, has even earned a Michelin star.

There are seven different AVAs to explore starting with the two largest: 1) Santa Maria Valley AVA, the first to be designated in Central Coast, and 2) Santa Ynez Valley AVA. Just don’t get too confused about the fact that there are four other AVAs identified within the Santa Ynez Valley – 1) Sta. Rita Hills AVA (famous for premium Chardonnay and Pinot Noir) and yes “Sta.” is the proper spelling, 2) Happy Canyon AVA (home of fantastic Bordeaux grapes and Rhone varietals and the Lone Ranger and his horse Silver), 3) Ballard Canyon (where Syrah is king!) and the 4) Los Olivos District (best of both worlds of Bordeaux and Syrah). Then there is the newest AVA just designated in 2020 – the Alisos Canyon AVA – the “Goldilocks Rhone Zone” which is JUST RIGHT for both Syrah and Grenache……… not too hot and not too cold!

With all of these award winning quality wines and cuisine going on, it became quickly evident to me that Santa Barbara County is most definitely worthy of a “forkandcorkdivine” wine dinner with all of the stops pulled out! After all we have previously paid homage to several other Wine Region of the Year winners: Sonoma County, Champagne and Southwest France. And so it was that our celebration of the Wine Region Award became known as the “2006 Rakos Sideways Tour Revisited”. (Note: you can also read about Santa Barbara County in a lot more detail if you like by visiting my previous article 2021 Wine Star “Wine Region of the Year”: SANTA BARBARA COUNTY………or SIDEWAYS revisited on the forkandcorkdivine.com website.)

2021 “Wine Region of the Year”

But first, a little wine dinner party background

Just ask anyone who has ever planned a formal wine dinner party no matter how small or large “how do you do that?”, and they will tell you that you must have a detailed plan. Such an event does not just magically happen! My usual process for making a huge event come to reality is to start with my research info. I often spend weeks to months researching a particular wine region and/or country to put an article together. Then I attempt to decide on what wines I want to feature. This is really difficult because I want them all!!! And since we don’t run a hotel or bed and breakfast here, we are obligated to get our guests out the door safely on their way home. Therefore I try my best to highlight some very representative wineries and their wines plus put the spotlight on a few extra extra superstars or really intriguing wines. For example, how many of your friends have shared a number of Turkish or Armenian wines with you lately? A really big question here is “Where do I source the wines”? Most of the wines we serve have been purchased online either direct from the winery or an online company such as wine.com or from a small boutique wine shop that works with wine reps who have probably served those wines to us at a wine dinner. If all else fails and I absolutely cannot live without a particular wine, I scour the internet for a source. I do occasionally find what I’m looking for at our local big box store (Total Wine).

With sourcing hopefully complete, I try my best to pair up those wines with a menu that highlights them. I confess to having served up some fairly strange sounding pairings (i.e. steamed clams in foie gras sauce?), but amazingly enough in the end it usually works well together. It is also really helpful if the menu consists of food that my husband and I can prepare, or ask a friend to do it! Lucky for me we have a number of winelover foodie friends who can really cook some delicious food that also looks beautiful! Then the search is on – ingredients that can be successfully sourced has become quite a bit more challenging in the past couple of years! It is not unusual for me to have groceries coming from several large supermarkets, plus specialty stores and don’t even remind me of how many Amazon Prime delivery trucks show up at our door. So good news – you have your food and wine. Now what? Well, you had better have a detailed production plan for getting it cooked and to the table, but that is a whole chapter unto itself that I’ll save for another time. Let’s just fast forward assuming it will all happen and be absolutely wonderful …….. just like a Michelin star restaurant.

Read on and see a few pictures of how this particular Award Winning dinner actually looked at the point of service. You will just have to believe me when I say that it tasted delicious!

My tablescape was an attempt to look like a Central California field full of wild flowers especially poppies. Yes, you will have to use your imagination. And no, please forgive me for not having the real thing. But believe me every one of those glasses was real. You can help me verify when it comes time to wash and polish them!

“Sideways” Revisited Wine Dinner Menu

Welcome Sparkling and Hors D’Oeuvre

I usually start off a dinner party with a sparkling wine. It’s festive and helps get everyone in party mode. It is really special if the sparkling comes from that particular region. In this case, I found Flying Goat Cellars, a small winery in the Lompoc Wine Ghetto specializing in sparkling wines made from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Maria Valley vineyards and by the traditional methode champenoise. (Note: I paid $45 for this particular sparkling direct from the winery and was happy, happy happy that I did!!!)

2015 Flying Goat Cellars “Goat Bubbles” Blanc de Noir Bien Nacido Vineyard, Lompoc Wine Ghetto

This Pinot Noir sparkler was the first vintage of Goat Bubbles made from Bien Nacido vineyards. Only 115 cases were produced. ‘Wine Enthusiast’ scored it at 93 points and we all agreed it was a winner. The “scent of honeydew with taste of almonds, peaches, apricots, pomelo and creaminess” paired beautifully with a baked brie appetizer listed on the menu at Los Olivos Wine Merchant and Cafe. We had lunch there on the second day of our Sideways tour. It was made very famous by Miles and Jack having dinner there in the Sideways movie. Miles made his famous phone calls from the payphone in the back of the restaurant, but even more famous was his line about “******* Merlot” that he delivered right outside the restaurant to Jack. Nothing quite so memorable happened to us except for having a good meal!

Since I did not have any actual recipes from the restaurant menus that I selected, I searched the internet for recipes that came as close as possible, made modifications where necessary and went from there. I found a recipe to make my own port wine syrup, bought some Sandeman Ruby Port and was that port syrup ever delicious when drizzled over the Brie. Let the Santa Barbara County Sideways adventure begin!

Baked Brie with Hazelnuts in Cinnamon Puff Pastry & Port Wine Syrup Drizzle

(from the menu of the “Los Olivos Wine Merchant and Café”, Los Olivos, Rakos lunch on Day 2)

Course #1 –  Day 1 of the 2006 Rakos “Sideways” Tour

The first stop of our 2006 Sideways tour was at the Rusack tasting room on Ballard Canyon Road about halfway between Solvang and Los Olivos in the Ballard Canyon AVA, and they make outstanding Syrahs! They are a small 48-acre boutique estate with twenty-one acres of grapes. Their Estate Syrahs usually score in the low 90s. The 2015 that we drank for our wine dinner was a bolder style of Syrah with lots of blueberries, cinnamon, anise, vanilla and dark chocolate going on in our glasses. It’s a blend of 88% Syrah and 12% Petite Syrah. (Note: I paid $45 for this bottle online from the “Wine Chateau” located in NJ. )

Stop #1:  2015 Rusack Syrah Ballad Canyon Estate, Solvang

Our next stop on day 1 of that 2006 tour was in the Sta. Rita Hills AVA at the home of Lincourt Vineyards located just outside of Solvang. Bill and Carol Foley own this property. We didn’t know who they were in 2006, but we sure do know all about Bill Foley now. Lincourt focuses on those Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes from Sta. Rita Hills that we have come to know and love.

The 2017 Chardonnay from Rancho Santa Rosa was awarded 91 points by Wine Enthusiast and their winemaker, Lorna Kreutz, told us to expect honeysuckle and toasted graham with some pineapple and lemon curd. OK – I can agree with that! The 2016 Pinot Noir, also from Rancho Santa Rosa, was fruit forward with raspberries and cherry cola to dark blackberry, pomegranate and black pepper. (Note: This was a great Pinot for the $30 I paid for it from “Wine Chateau” while the Chardonnay was just over $20 from wine.com.)

Stop #2:  2017 Lincourt Chardonnay Rancho Santa Rosa, Sta. Rita Hills, Solvang

2016 Lincourt Pinot Noir Rancho Santa Rosa, Sta. Rita Hills, Solvang

Roasted Beets and Strawberries, Whipped Goat Cheese & Toasted Cashews

Crispy Brussels Sprouts with Medjool Dates, Fish Sauce, Lime and Sesame

Both of these items were listed on the menu at “The Lark” which you can find in the Santa Barbara “Funk Zone” district of the city. As I’m sure you know this part of the world has been known for farm-to-table dining for many years, and these two dishes just screamed “California farm” to me. Not to mention that they both paired up so well with those first three wines that we poured, an ode to the region’s big three grapes: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Syrah, and a sign of what was to come at our dinner.

(from the menu at “The Lark”, Santa Barbara – From the Farm – in the “Funk Zone”)

Course #2 – Day 2 of the 2006 Rakos ”Sideways” Tour

Day 2 of our Rakos Sideways Tour found us at two wineries visited by Miles and Jack during the movie Sideways tour. You may recall Miles attempting to give Jack a how-to lesson on wine tasting at Sanford Winery in the movie. Richard Sanford is well known as a pioneer in this region when he found this cool climate location that he thought would make wine rivaling the best of the best in Europe. The Sanford & Benedict Vineyard was the first vineyard in what became the Sta. Rita Hills AVA. Sanford Winery is now owned by the Terlato Family, and the Sanfords have moved on to the nearby Alma Rosa Winery & Vineyards. Our bottle of 2017 Sanford Chardonnay from Sta. Rita Hills was worthy of the 92 points awarded by Wine Enthusiast and 90 from Robert Parker. (Note: I sourced mine from wine.com for $38.)

Our second stop that day was at Fess Parker Winery located on their Foxen Canyon Ranch. You probably remember Fess Parker from his TV days as Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone, but I prefer to remember him for his family wine business. Their estate vineyard is known for Rhone varietals and they purchase other grapes from some of Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Maria AVA’s finest vineyards. Their Syrah, Riesling and Viognier varietals are grown right there on the 110 acre estate. Since then Fess’s son Eli has founded Epiphany which features Rhone-based wines mainly sourced from the home ranch. They also have “The Bubble Shack” in Los Olivos where you can taste their Festivity sparkling wines first released in 2015.

It was called “Frass Canyon” in the Sideways movie, but we sure recognized that tasting room and saw a number of spit buckets which we doubt that Miles got to use in the movie during one of his famous scenes. We did actually get to drink a bottle of 2020 Fess Parker Chardonnay made from Santa Barbara County grapes at our wine dinner and found it quite enjoyable. (Note: I sourced it for $38 from wine.com.)

Stop #1:   2017 Sanford Chardonnay, Sta. Rita Hills, Buellton

Stop #2:   2020 Fess Parker Chardonnay, Santa Barbara County

Steamed Mussels in a Green Chartreuse Sauce with Roasted Carrots, Frenched Green Beans, Pickled Fennel, Cara Cara Oranges, Nasturtiums & Garlic Bread

(from the menu at “The  Lark”, Santa Barbara – From the Ocean)

What to pair for a seafood course? I fell in love with this item on the “Ocean” side of the menu at “The Lark” in Santa Barbara. The outcome was superb but the journey to get there was a bit traumatic. First of all I had to piece together about half a dozen recipes to come up with something that I could prepare. Then I learned that Green Chartreuse is not only challenging to come up with, but very very expensive! This is especially aggravating when I only needed a few tablespoons. Guess I had better start making Green Chartreuse cocktails! I was well experienced with roasting carrots and used some beautiful organic rainbow carrots from our local 12 Seasons Farm. I even sourced those beautiful nasturtiums from their garden! The menu item called for sea beans but I eventually decided not to spend money to bring sea beans from California to Florida and went with green beans that I “Frenched” myself. I happily made pickled fennel which was quite tasty. And then came the challenge of sourcing those cara cara oranges, but success at last. Yes, they are tasty. Luckily for me our local Publix supermarket can usually provide me with fresh mussels. I had some very much needed assistance from our friend and French Chef Christian, and between the two of us this beautiful dish was served. A perfect pairing with two Santa Barbara Chardonnays!

Course #3 – Two Very Special Wineries for a Michelin Star Restaurant

The third course was designed to highlight two wineries that are very special to me; however we have not visited either one of them. Brewer-Clifton Winery began back in 1996 when Greg Brewer and Steve Clifton put $12,000 aside, secured some fruit contracts and produced their first 240 cases of wine. Those wines have now gone on to be wines that are uniquely Californian “Brewer-Clifton” world class Burgundian-style Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Greg has become such an iconic winemaker that he was named “Winemaker of the Year” by Wine Enthusiast Magazine‘s 2020 Wine Star Awards. Steve produces his own wine under his Palmina label focusing exclusively on Italian varietals.

The 2019 Brewer-Clifton Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay was rated between 93-96 points as it is most vintages. That is what we would expect from the “Winemaker of the Year”. Both the Chardonnay and the 2020 Brewer-Clifton Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir were extremely worthy of our olive oil poached salmon that is on the menu of Bell’s, a Michelin Star restaurant. Their Pinots have received between 90-95 points for the last ten vintages. (Note: These wines cost between $42-45 a bottle from wine.com).

The third wine highlighted to pair up with the poached salmon was a Foxen Syrah from their Williamson-Dore Vineyard in the Los Olivos District. Foxen made their first vintage in 1985 in an old blacksmith shop on the ranch, 2000 acre Rancho Tinaquaic, the family land of Dick Dore who partnered up with his friend Bill Wathen to make Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Maria Valley Vineyards plus Rhone style/Syrah wines in the Los Olivos District AVA and Happy Canyon AVA. It was this wonderful 2018 95% Syrah/5% Viognier from Los Olivos District that we shared! I am always eager to taste a Foxen wine as it was high on my list to visit and taste back on our 2006 Sideways tour. Sadly we never could find their mailbox to turn in at, and missed the whole experience. Thank goodness Miles and Jack did not miss it, and their visit to the winery made a brief appearance in the movie. (Note: I paid $60 for this bottle from wine.com and loved every sip that I got of it!)

2019 Brewer-Clifton Chardonnay, Sta. Rita Hills

2020 Brewer-Clifton Pinot Noir, Sta. Rita Hills

2018 Foxen Syrah Williamson-Dore Vineyard, Los Olivos District

Olive Oil Poached Salmon, Melted Leeks & Pickled Mustard Seed Hollandaise

(from the menu at “Bell’s” French Restaurant, Los Alamos – a Michelin Star restaurant)

I read an article about this tiny little restaurant that had received a Michelin star! It’s in the little town of Los Alamos (population about 1900) and is a family-run French-inspired bistro from a Food & Wine “Best New Chef” Daisy Ryan and her husband and co-owner Greg. Their menu changes daily “based on local availability and the chef’s whims”. They don’t even have a telephone! You must make your reservation whenever they post on social media that reservations are now available. I just fell in love with this menu item that I was lucky enough to find on one of their instagram posts. No, I did not have an exact recipe for this one either but pieced the “menu parts” together. The final product was a real winner, in fact it was my favorite of the night, and hope that Daisy and Greg would not have hated it! This was my first experience with poaching salmon in olive oil and Chuck, my partner in life and the kitchen, agreed to take it on. Being up for a good challenge, his salmon was poached to perfection! I pickled mustard seeds. I made melted leeks – oh my were they tasty! And I made last minute Hollandaise sauce to top it all off that was really delicious. My French chef foodie friend assisted with the plating – a bed of melted leeks, a beautiful piece of poached salmon, Hollandaise sauce and topped off with pickled mustard seeds. Oh my, I can still taste it! And the wines? Each and every one deserved to be at the table with this dish.

Course #4 – Two of My Personal Favorites from Sta. Rita Hills

Course #4 was planned to feature two of my personal favorites from the Sta. Rita Hills AVA – Sea Smoke and SAMsARA. Both of their wines have been in our wine inventory for a number of years and if I’m looking for a really great Pinot Noir to serve our guests, I will quite often pour Sea Smoke. The SAMsARA came along to the party a bit later, but I love it no less! And here is why…………

Sea Smoke has been called “one of the appellation’s first superstar wineries” by Wine Enthusiast. They produce about 13,000 cases a year on their land in the western end of the Sta. Rita Hills purchased back in 1999 by Bob Davids. One of their primary Pinot Noirs is “Ten”, derived from the ten top-quality Pinot Noir clones planted there, and the other is “Southing”. They strive for low crop yields and small grape clusters of intense flavor from 80 acres of rich clay soils farmed biodynamically. Don’t even think about going to Sea Smoke for a tasting. They don’t have a tasting room. They don’t need one! Their wines are pre-allocated to their “List Members” and sold out upon release. If you get on “The List”, there is no purchase commitment or cost to join. I’m happy to report that we have been on that list for a number of years. The 2015 Sea Smoke “Ten” Pinot Noir from Sta. Rita Hills that we served had notes of cola, black cherry, blueberry, Asian spices and chocolate and received 94 points from Wine Enthusiast. It was excellent; however I must say that I have never had a Sea Smoke wine that was not – either the Ten or the Southing.

SAMsARA came on the scene a bit later than Sea Smoke when David and Joan Szkutak bought it in 2017 from Chad Melville (Melville Winery) in Lompoc and moved to the warehouse zone in Goleta in 2018. They also started serving glasses of wine in Goleta’s first-ever tasting room. SAMsARA focuses on limited releases of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Syrah and Grenache from some of Sta. Rita Hills most distinctive vineyards. Their goal is to show off the grapes from each location in the best possible way, and they practice minimal intervention. Their wines are not only hand made, but made by foot! They foot stomp the grapes because the foot is a lot gentler on those precious grapes than a machine. Matt Brady is the winemaker at SAMsARA, and we got hooked on his wines when he was the winemaker at Jaffurs. Matt is originally from our little area right here in South West Florida, so we claim him!! But Matt can also make outstanding wines. This bottle of 2013 SAMsARA Pinot Noir Rancho La Vina Vineyard, Sta. Rita Hills, was our very last one and we shared it with our wine friends. Just 220 cases were produced from one of the coldest Pinot Noir vineyards in California. The wine was awarded 93 points by Antonio Galloni and was a perfect example of vineyard-specific row-specific wines.

2013 SAMsARA Pinot Noir Rancho la Viña Vineyard, Sta. Rita Hills

2015 Sea Smoke Pinot Noir “Ten”, Sta. Rita Hills 

Smoked Mushrooms Sautéed in a Red Wine Shallot Sauce on Garlic Crostinis

Corn Quesadillas with Jack and Cheddar Cheeses and a Chipotle Sour Cream

(from the menu at “The Hitching Post II”, Buellton  (Rakos dinner on Day 1)

What can possibly be the perfect pairing with two outstanding examples of Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir? Well I don’t know if it was perfect, but these two items are on the menu at “The Hitching Post II” in Buellton, the eastern gateway to the Sta. Rita Hills. Another one of our dinner guests who is an extraordinary home-chef offered his expertise to prepare the smoked mushrooms AND the corn quesadillas. I figured if the Hitching Post offered them to pair up with the “local” wines, they certainly know what they are talking about! And so they did. Both great flavor profiles with our Sta. Rita Hills superstar Pinots.

We had dinner here on Day 1 of our Rakos Sideways Tour in 2006, but you may also remember the Hitching Post II from the movie. Miles and Jack stayed in a motel right down the street, went to the Hitching Post and met Maya, who just happened to work there. The Ostini family opened this restaurant in 1986 hoping to bring the famous (and delicious!) Santa Maria-style barbecue to Buellton. There are plenty of BBQ-type items on the menu and I am sad to say that I don’t remember what we ate there back in 2006. It seems I was not yet into taking a picture of absolutely everything that I ate! But we tried our best to see Miles and Jack and failed!!!! We did see those famous ostriches down the road. though.

Course #5 – The Grand Finale

On to the grand finale…………….wine by Jonata! Jonata (pronounced “Ho-notta”) is one of the most high-profile wine producers in Santa Barbara County, maybe even the highest. Jonata and The Hilt are owned by Stanley Kroenke who just happens to own Screaming Eagle plus the Los Angeles Rams and the Denver Nuggets and many other things! When I asked my wine friend Matthew Horkey from “Exotic Wine Travel” for some suggested wines to serve, he said that if I really wanted to give our guests an experience, check out Jonata! Since Matthew even wrote a book called “Sipping Santa Barbara” I did check it out, choked at the prices, then decided that I too wanted that experience. Very soon thereafter a bottle of 2009 “La Sangre de Jonata” Ballard Canyon Santa Ynez Valley wine made it’s way to my doorstep from wine.com for $150.

Matt Dees is the winemaker for both Jonata and The Hilt. Jonata is located in the Ballard Canyon AVA, the only Santa Barbara County AVA dedicated to Syrah, although they do grow other varieties too, making it the county’s most prestigious AVA. This estate has 84 acres of vines planted with 11 different grape varieties including some experimental Greek plantings like Xinomavro and Assyrtiko. The “La Sangre de Jonata” was definitely a dinner party favorite. With 99% Syrah and 1 % Viognier and just 900 cases made, it has received scores between 94 and 99 points, and I can certainly see why. There was blackberry, charcoal, lavender and violets with some massive tannins and did it ever pair well with the roasted rack of lamb. Thank you Matthew for the suggestion.

I really do like to pour side-by-side comparisons whenever possible for our guests. So here were two “cousins” of Screaming Eagle. Not at all shabby was The Hilt! It’s another great hit from the Sta. Rita Hills – located just miles from the ocean in the far south-west corner on the historic 3600 acre Rancho Salsipuedes. They have three vineyards and a state of the art 50,000 square foot gravity fed winemaking facility where Matt produces The Hilt wines and Jonata. Our bottle of 2017 The Hilt Estate Pinot Noir, Sta. Rita Hills was made from estate vineyards plus some of another favorite, Sanford and Benedict. Matt said to expect notes of rose petals, black cherry, dried tobacco, blood orange, sage, pomegranate and cracked wine pepper. Not sure if we got all of that, but we absolutely loved this 91-95 point wine. I am so happy to have more in the cellar. (Note: I got this one for $40 from Sokolin.com located on Long Island. I’ve purchased many bottles of great wine from Sokolin through the years.)

2017 The Hilt Estate Pinot Noir, Sta. Rita Hills, Lompoc     

2009 Jonata Syrah “La Sangre de Jonata”, Ballard Canyon    

(Stanley Kroenke owns Screaming Eagle, The Hilt and Jonata wineries plus the

Los Angelos Rams, the Denver Nuggets and many other sports teams)

Roasted Rack of Lamb with a Parmesan Fresh Herb Risotto and

Kale and Caramelized Wild Mushroom Salad

(From the menu at “Bouchon”, Santa Barbara)

The food paired up with these two wines had to match the “wow” factor that I was hoping for, so I called upon my French chef-friend and my Sanibel home-chef friend to help me out. And did they ever deliver! I searched the menus from some of Santa Barbara’s top restaurants and settled on a dish from “Bouchon” in downtown Santa Barbara. It has no connection to Thomas Keller’s Yountville “Bouchon” and doesn’t need one. It’s a first class “splurge” type of restaurant featuring their “as-fresh-and-as-local-as-possible” approach. Thanks Christian and Jeff. You really brought your A-game as always. The lamb was perfectly cooked, and served on a bed of Parmesan and fresh herb risotto. The side vegetable of kale and caramelized wild mushroom salad was a major bonus! As full as we were at this point, I didn’t see too many untouched plates returning to the kitchen! I also noticed that I had two empty bottles from this Syrah and Pinot Noir pairing. Good job everyone. It was indeed a grand finale.

A Sweet “Happy” Ending – From Happy Canyon

There must always be a dessert course on the menu at our table. It seems that no matter how many courses have come before, there is nothing like a sweet dessert ending paired up with an appropriate dessert wine. I did my research and found that Foxen, one of my favorite wine “children”, makes dessert wine from grapes in the Happy Canyon. Perfect!!!!

Rhone Valley grapes are exceptional in Happy Canyon. Some people would rather that you not even know where it is because they want to keep tourism and traffic to a minimum in this canyon. You won’t find tasting rooms here – you will have to find them in other locations like downtown Santa Barbara or Solvang. But if you happen to get your hands on a bottle that says Happy Canyon, I advise you to grab it! Lucky for me and our dinner guests Foxen makes several dessert wines, and our 2014 Foxen “Sweet Endings” came from Vogelzang Vineyard grapes in Happy Canyon. It’s 47% Viognier and 53% Sauvignon Blanc grapes were foot stomped, skin macerated for 24 hours and then pressed on gentle cycle. Just 250 cases were made and it was absolutely a perfect pairing for our fabulous desserts. We also served a 2017 Foxen “Mission” port-style red dessert wine made from 100% mission grapes grown in the Barbarena Vineyard, Santa Maria Valley AVA. It was whole-berry destemmed and spent 4 days with 69 proof un-aged grape brandy followed by 22 months in oak and stainless steel. Just 99 cases of this beauty were made, and I purchased it direct from the winery. Mission grapes came to California from Spain and were often referred to as Sonoma grapes or Los Angeles grapes. In addition to California, you will find plenty of it in South America (particularly Chile and Peru) where it is known as Criolla and Pais. There is very little of it left in California, so we were happy to get to taste “Mission” by Foxen.

2013 Foxen “Sweet Ending” Dessert Wine, Vogelzang Vineyard

Happy Canyon

2017 Foxen “Mission” Dessert Wine, Barbarena Vineyard (100% Mission)

Happy Canyon

It is rather hard to compete with those previous courses that were all such super stars, but we are lucky to have a home-chef super star baker among us. Our friend Carol volunteered to make not only one but two desserts that are featured on menus from two Santa Barbara restaurants. She served the “warm blackberry lemon upside down cake” with lemon ice cream and berry garnish just like they do at Bouchon. It was so delicious! And then there was “goat cheese cheesecake” from the Goat Tree Cafe at the Hotel Californian. We had the opportunity to enjoy both of them, and oh my oh my, were they superstars. Thank you Carol for sharing your baking skills with all of us. I’m not sure which wine pairing I most enjoyed with my desserts – the white Rhone-style or the red port-style. Let’s just say they were both superb. This was a perfect ending for our magical evening of wining and dining our way through Santa Barbara County, the Wine Region of the Year!

Warm Blackberry Lemon Upside Down Cake

(from the menu at “Bouchon”, Santa Barbara)

Goat Cheese Cheesecake

(from the menu at “Goat Tree” Cafe, Hotel Californian, Santa Barbara)

I feel safe in saying that we paid homage to Santa Barbara County wines and foods as they should be celebrated for being chosen the Wine Region of the Year. This part of California and the USA will always have a special place in my heart as will every wine that I’ve enjoyed from there. As usual this event would not have been elevated to the star status it deserved without the assistance of our winelover foodie friends. We are very lucky to have a number of them in our circle of friendship, but in this case the special thanks goes to Jeff and Rene, Christian and Mari and Carol. Last but not at all least is the biggest thank you of all which goes to Chuck, who has learned to tolerate my craziness for the two or three months that I devote to one of these events, be my sous chef, cook extraordinaire, and just pick up all of the pieces that I need during those last few days and hours. We are definitely the forkandcorkdivine.com dream team! I am already anxious to learn what wine region will be selected as next year’s Wine Region of the Year. Guess we will all just have to wait and see……………

www.forkandcorkdivine.com

5.7.2022

Santa Barbara County has a lot going for it.  Movie stars have been making their Hollywood getaway to Santa Barbara for years.  It’s an easy trip – just about 100 miles and around 1 1/2 hours to get there, probably if it’s a very good day for traffic!  Movies and TV shows have been filmed there for decades.  Remember “The Lone Ranger”?  It used to be filmed there – in Happy Canyon to be exact – which was also a VERY happy place during the Prohibition!  And yes, his horse Silver lived in Happy Canyon. One of the greatest movies of all times for winelovers was filmed in Santa Barbara County way back in 2004 – who of us could forget “SIDEWAYS”?  At least it sure rates up there at the top of my list!

2021 Wine Region of the Year

Even more important to us wine lovers is the fact that Santa Barbara County makes REALLY good wine!  So much so that Santa Barbara County was selected by Wine Enthusiast Magazine as the 2021 Wine Star Award “Wine Region of the Year”. 

There are many reasons why it was selected.  For example, this region has a great diversity of microclimates.  Conditions are perfect here for over-the-top Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs, but you can also get excellent Syrahs and other Rhone varietals.  Many award winning wines are made here by some of the best winemakers around.  There is a great mix of the old guard pioneered by winemakers like Richard Sanford and Jim Clendenen, and newer ones like Brewer and Clifton.  They may not be far away from glitzy LA and Hollywood, but a number of great wines started out on a shoestring and are still being made in the “Wine Ghetto”, an industrial park in the town of Lompoc.  And there are some really big spenders. For example there are JONATA and The Hilt wineries, both in the extremely good company of Screaming Eagle all three of which are owned by Stan Kroenke and his wife, Ann (the daughter of Walmart co-founder James Walton) along with the L.A. Rams and Denver Nuggets just to name a few businesses in their empire.    

Along with award winning wines, you have a lively culinary scene and lots of culture in the very cosmopolitan city of Santa Barbara which is located right on the beautiful Pacific Ocean.  There are some fabulous award-winning restaurants throughout the county both large and small.  Most of them feature farm to table menu items plus plenty of food from the ocean. Bouchon (no relation to Thomas Keller’s same name) is known for its intimate fine dining and The Lark, which is located in the “Funk Zone” and known for farm-to-fork dining.  Then there are gems like the tiny little Bell’s, a French-inspired family run bistro in a bank building in Los Alamos that doesn’t even have a phone, but they do have Daisy Bell, a Food and Wine  magazine “Best New Chef” …………and a Michelin star!

In addition to all of its great food and wine offerings, Santa Barbara County is a leader in sustainability.  You will find some of the country’s first organic, biodynamic and regenerative vineyards here. 

Looking for female winemakers?  Let’s hear it for the ladies! You will find a higher percentage of female winemakers in this region than anywhere else in California.  At least twenty wineries are run by women. Here are just a few examples.  Kathy Joseph is the owner and winemaker at Fiddlehead Cellars.   She purchased and planted her vineyard in 1996 when she saw the region’s potential and has helped to make it what it is today.  Denise Shurtleff is the winemaker at Cambria. Denise didn’t go to school for winemaking, but once she got into the business she couldn’t leave! After 16 years at another winery, she joined Cambria in 1999 as assistant winemaker and became head winemaker in 2003.   Erika Maldonado is the winemaker at Runway Vineyards, right next door to the famous Bien Nacido Vineyard in Santa Maria Valley. At 16 she told her father they should plant vines.  While she was away at college her family planted 16 acres of vineyards.  Now they make wine.  Laura Roach has been making wine since 2008 when she started as a lab intern at Schramsberg.  After graduating from UC Davis she won an award to work in Burgundy.  Later she returned to California, where she is the assistant winemaker at Sanford Winery and Vineyards and launched their sparkling wines.  Tara Gomez, is winemaker at Kita Wines, and a member of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. She worked in San Luis Obispo County and Spain but came back home in 2010 to make wine with the Chumash tribe. Now she is practicing sustainable farming and giving back to her tribe.   Recognition is not just at the top. Vineyard and farm workers are also recognized with opportunities through scholarships and special bottlings. 

Santa Barbara County is a relatively small wine region with 27,000 acres planted to grapes.  It is home to over 200 wineries which, on average, produce fewer than 5,000 cases each. (Note: According to Santa Barbara Vintners Association 2020 “Facts and Figures”  there are 275 wineries.)  Santa Barbara Winery was the first commercial winery in the county since Prohibition, and Firestone was the first estate winery to make wine using its own locally grown grapes, with their first vintage being 1975.  In the early 1980s, 13 wineries existed and by the end of the decade, there were 29 with over 9,600 acres of wine grapes in the county. In 1981 Santa Maria Valley and in 1983 Santa Ynez Valley were established as federally approved AVAs.  Since then five more AVAs have been added to the county. 

While the amount of vineyards planted may not be the largest, grape varieties in Santa Barbara County are very diverse.  Most of it is planted with Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Syrah – yet, the Cabernets, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, and Pinot Gris have a foothold, with Rhône, Italian and Spanish varietals making headway. The Santa Barbara wine industry grew from virtually nothing in 1970 to creating an annual economic impact of $1,700,000,000.   Almost 15,000 acres of wine grapes are harvested annually with an economic value of over $106,000,000. 

These are just some of the reasons why Santa Barbara County has been honored as the “Wine Region of the Year”……….and I have been looking forward to celebrating it for several years; in fact ever since my husband and I did our own “Sideways” tour there in 2006.

The “Sideways” Phenomenon

Just in case there is anyone in the wine world who never heard of Sideways, I should probably give a little explanation about the movie and how my husband and I plus my best friend since high school came to embrace it.  Sideways is a 2004 movie about Miles and Jack, two best friends from Southern California, who take a week long road trip to Santa Barbara wine country to celebrate Jack’s upcoming wedding.  Miles (Paul Giamatti) is a wine aficionado but Jack (Thomas Haden Church) is not.  Miles is very fond of Pinot Noir but has no love for Merlot and lets you know it throughout the entire movie.  After the film’s release in 2004, Pinot Noir sales increased 16% in the western US.  The main effect of Sideways was a rise in sales volume and price of Pinot Noir and in overall wine consumption with a slower growth of Merlot.  There was also a negative effect:  some growers started planting more Pinot Noir, lowering the production standards, and putting lower quality Pinot Noir on the market.  Lucky for us there are plenty of excellent winemakers there to save us from that effect! 

Since Santa Barbara County is famous for its excellent Pinot Noir, Miles has a lot of wine to taste and to extol the virtues of!  I was so taken by this movie that when the opportunity arose in 2006 to visit my friend in Los Angelos, I planned a road trip for the three of us to…… you guessed it –  Santa Barbara County!  We went off on Highway 101 and headed north out of LA to our first stop in beautiful Santa Barbara.  We sipped on Sanford Chardonnay while enjoying lunch at Stearn’s Wharf while we strategized our trip through wine country and hoping to make Miles proud!  Then we spent two days tasting at some of Miles and Jack’s stops made very famous in the movie, plus several of our own.  We tasted at Sanford, where Miles tried to teach Jack the basics of wine tasting.  We tasted at Fess Parker, made very famous in Mile’s crazy spit bucket scene. We dined at the Hitching Post II where we were almost certain that we saw Miles and Maya, and the Los Olivos Café also made famous by Miles and Jack.  We even watched the ostriches!  And yes, we loved the Pinot Noir!  Amazingly enough we also love Merlot, and you probably know how that ended for Miles. 

                    

A Quick Trip around Santa Barbara County

Santa Barbara County has a total area of 3,789 square miles of which 2,735 is land and 1,054 is water.  For thousands of years this area was home to the Chumash tribe of Native Americans.  The Spanish arrived here around AD 1542, but it was many years later in the 1780s that they established the Presidio of Santa Barbara and the Mission Santa Barbara.  This is the 21^st largest county (out of 58) in the State of California, and was one of the original 27 counties of California at the time of statehood in 1850. As of the 2020 census, a little under 450,000 people live here. Most of the county is part of the California Central Coast with 110 miles of pristine coast being in Santa Barbara County. There are also four Channel Islands in the county: Santa Barbara Island, San Miguel Island, Santa Rosa Island and the large Santa Cruz Island. Agriculture is king here with strawberries and wine grapes making up the county’s top two crops. It is really beautiful here with rolling hills, ancient oak trees, cattle ranches and lots of natural areas.  The county seat is the city of Santa Barbara and the largest city is Santa Maria.  What this county lacks in size, it makes up for in uniqueness.  Santa Barbara County is different from any other wine growing region in the world.  The mountains here run from east to west, rather than north to south as they do everywhere else.  This means that the valleys open right onto the Pacific Ocean instead of being protected by mountain peaks which allows for cool temperatures with fog in the morning and steady breezes in the afternoon.  Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes absolutely love these conditions.  Then a little further inland the temperatures rise a bit and are more ideal for Syrah and other Rhone grapes in Ballard Canyon; Sauvignon Blanc and a number of reds do well in the Los Olivos District and Happy Canyon.   

Santa Barbara County is home to between 200 – 283 wineries (depending on your source!) growing over 70 different wine grape varieties in 7 approved AVAs (American Viticultural Areas).   We can all agree on 7 AVAs!  Wine making and wine grape growing here dates back more than 200 years to before California was a State.  You will find the latest innovations in grape growing and wine making here along with the traditional, hand-made techniques of the old days. 

Santa Barbara: The “American Riviera”

The actual wine region of Santa Barbara County is north of the city of Santa Barbara and includes Santa Maria Valley and Santa Ynez Valley.  But before you leave the city, there are many sights to see, much wine to taste, and many world-class restaurants to visit. 

There are dozens of tasting rooms throughout downtown Santa Barbara.  Whether your style is young and “funky” or a little more subdued, do visit the Funk Zone.  It’s about 10 blocks that run between the ocean and Highway 101 and adjacent to the Amtrak station.  Graffiti murals on converted warehouses and contemporary art pieces set the tone here.  After you spend a day tasting, check out “The Lark” restaurant for a five-star dinner. You can walk most of the Urban Wine Trail and find out very quickly why Santa Barbara County wine is first class.  There are over 20 tasting rooms for you to stop at if you are so inclined!  Melville, Pali Wine Company, Santa Barbara Winery, and J. Wilkes are a few of the wineries with tasting rooms here.  Check out the Hotel Californian, not to be confused with the Eagles “Hotel California”, where you will also find a Margerum tasting room. 

For a different vibe, visit the Presidio Neighborhood located in the middle of downtown Santa Barbara.  This is where Santa Barbara officially got its start and you can see and learn about some of the city’s unique and rich history.  You can taste at Au Bon Climat, Grassini Family Vineyards and Happy Canyon Vineyard.  

For a first class splurge dining experience featuring their “as-fresh-and-as-local-as-possible” approach with fish from the Santa Barbara Channel and produce from the surrounding countryside, you may consider dining at Bouchon in downtown Santa Barbara.  No connection to the Thomas Keller’s Yountville restaurant but it indeed represents wine country cuisine at its finest. 

Ready to get out of town?  Start off in the Lompoc Wine Ghetto.  It’s a collection of wineries, tasting rooms and production facilities just off the Pacific Coast Highway 1 and 12^th Street. There are several boutique tasting rooms in the Ghetto plus several more just a few miles away.  There are about 40 different vineyards and tasting rooms in the Lompoc area (known as “The City of Arts and Flowers”).  Fiddlehead Cellars, Flying Goat Cellars, Montemar Wines, Melville Winery, Foley Estates, Longoria Wines and Tyler Winery are in The Ghetto or very close by.  The famous Brewer-Clifton now has their tasting room in Los Olivos but still make their wine in Lompoc. 

Flying Goat Cellars would be a great way to start off any wine tour, but then sparkling wine is always special to me.  Flying Goat is owned by Norm Yost and his wife Kate Griffith.  They specialize in vineyard designated Pinot Noir and sparkling wine from Sta. Rita Hills AVA and Santa Maria Valley AVA vineyards that include Ampelos, Bien Nacido, Solomon Hills and Sierra Madre. They produce about 2500 cases a year and include three labels: Flying Goat, Goat Bubbles and YNOT. YNOT offers both a Pinot Noir and a Chardonnay.

Norm had two pygmy goats, named Never and Epernay, for pets and lawnmowers.  They were quite acrobatic performing loops, leaps and turns, so of course he would name his winery Flying Goat Cellars!   Goat Bubbles, the vineyard designated sparkling wines, are made in the traditional méthode champenoise at a Flying Goat Cellar facility.Every bottle is hand riddled, disgorged, waxed and labeled. You can enjoy them in their tasting room at the Lompoc Wine Ghetto or order from their website.

2015 Goat Bubbles Blanc de Noirs Bien Nacido Vineyard, Santa Maria Valley AVA   This Pinot Noir sparkler was the first vintage of Goat Bubbles made from Bien Nacido Vineyards.  Only 115 cases were produced, and I can’t wait to taste those tiny bubbles!  Wine Enthusiast scored it at 93 points.  Norm Yost says it has the scent of ripe honeydew with a taste of almonds, yellow peaches, apricots, pomelo and a creaminess not unlike orange sherbet.  Sounds good to me!  I’m going to pair it with brie baked in a cinnamon puff pastry with hazelnuts and port syrup just like they do on the Los Olivos Wine Merchant and Café menu. 

Once you head out of the city and taste your way through Lompoc, there is an entirely different world for you to explore.  Several more small towns in wine country are really worth knowing about and best of all to visit.  Do stop and taste the wine on all of the local wine trails along the way to Buellton, Solvang, Los Olivos, and Los Alamos. They are so worth visiting to learn about their own history and enjoy the scene!  We had a great time visiting them. 

The AVAs

There are 7 AVAs making up the Santa Barbara County wine region and 9 wine tasting trails. The two largest AVAs are Santa Maria Valley AVA and Santa Ynez Valley AVA.  Heading into the Santa Ynez Valley you will find 4 additional smaller and separately identified AVAs: Sta. Rita Hills AVA, Ballard Canyon AVA, Happy Canyon AVA and more recently the Los Olivos AVA in Santa Ynez.  Then last but not at all least and the very newest is the Alisos Canyon AVA.  It’s a standalone AVA sandwiched between Santa Maria and Santa Ynez Valleys.   

Santa Maria Valley AVA

Located on the northern perimeter of Santa Barbara County, Santa Maria Valley was the first wine producing region to be designated as an AVA in the Central Coast back in 1981. Vines have been growing here since the 1830s and there are about 7,500 acres (3,000 hectares) of vines on 16,000 plus acres (40,500 total hectares) of land.  The San Rafael Mountains are on the north side of the valley and the Solomon Hills to the south all of which makes a funnel that brings that cooling effect in from the Pacific Ocean, keeping in mind that the mountains go east and west here resulting in a Mediterranean climate with one of California’s longest growing seasons.  The weather is often foggy and windy, the soil makeup is quite complex and there is a great diversity of microclimates.  The flagship wines of Santa Maria Valley are Chardonnay and Pinot Noir but the Syrah is also quite exceptional. 

There are two distinct wine growing areas here – either ON the Santa Maria Bench or OFF the Santa Maria Bench.  The Santa Maria Bench is in the Tepusquet Foothills and produces earthier and rounder texture wines because of the alluvial soils and foggier weather.  OFF the Bench is closer to sea level and makes for fruitier and spicier flavors because they get more sun. 

Santa Maria Chardonnay:  Chardonnay is the most planted white wine-producing grape in the world, but it has a very special place here in the Mediterranean climate of this valley.  The flavor profile is still dependent on how it is aged: in oak barrels giving strong notes of wood and vanilla or in steel barrels resulting in crisper, fruitier flavors. 

Santa Maria Pinot Noir: Pinot Noir thrives here while still be notoriously hard to grow.  The grapes cluster so close together that fungi loves them!  Pinots grown here are known for their fruity, spicy and warm vanilla undertones.  Aging in oak barrels can also make the vanilla more prominent, while steel brings out the fruity notes.

Santa Maria Syrah: Syrah grapes make some of the darkest and most full-bodied red wines, and are much darker than Pinot Noir.  They have berry undertones, but can surprise you with notes of mint, pepper, rosemary and even meat.  You get the berries and pepper for sure in the Santa Maria Syrahs.  Its most often aged in oak barrels.  

You can easily explore the Santa Maria Valley AVA with its 34 tasting rooms within a 30-minute drive.  Dedicated winelovers (like me) can also taste through some 14 tasting rooms on the Foxen Canyon Wine Trail.  It’s a 30 mile stretch of road between Santa Maria and Los Olivos.  While you are in the area, be sure to dine on some famous Santa Maria style barbecue.  It’s perfect for that award-winning Pinot Noir! 

Some wineries with a big focus on Santa Maria Valley grapes are: Au Bon Climat, Bien Nacido & Solomon Hills, Cambria, Dierberg, Foxen, Qupé and Tensley.  This is by no means all of them!

The Great “Bien Nacido Vineyards”

One of the most famous vineyards in California can be found here in Santa Maria Valley.  You have probably had many wines made from grapes grown in the Bien Nacido Vineyards.  The name itself means “well born” which makes sense that many of the greatest wines from Santa Barbara County have this vineyard designate on their labels.  The vineyard roots go back to 1837. In 1969 the Miller Family bought the original property plus an additional parcel and named the vineyard operation ”Bien Nacido Vineyards of Rancho Tepusquet”  which now totals over 2,000 acres.  The vineyards have over 800 acres of certified Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Merlot and a number of other varieties.  Many California Chardonnay cuttings planted in the last twenty years started out here.  There is an estate winery at Bien Nacido, but there are two independent winemakers making wine here that are quite well known: Bob Lindquist of Qupé Winery and Jim Clendenen of Au Bon Climat. (Note: Jim Clendenen passed away in May 2021.) Some Bien Nacido customers buy the same rows of grapes every year and even designate their block on the bottle.  The individual blocks have small microclimates, and are farmed according to the client’s specifications.  For example Block Z is famous for being the first block Sine Qua Non ever purchased grapes from.  They make such exclusive “Cult” wines the likes of I will most likely never have in my lifetime! “The Captain” is the highest portion of the vineyard and considered a monopole block.  The entire portion of Block 40 is used for “The Captain”, one of The Pillars or their smallest production wines.  The 2014 vintage received the second highest score for any wine in Santa Barbara (97 points) Bien Nacido Chardonnays are known for their bright fruit flavors that are almost tropical but with a fresh balanced acidity.  Bien Nacido Pinot Noirs are rich in fruit with an herbal spice profile. 

Santa Ynez Valley AVA

Santa Ynez Valley AVA was established in 1983 and has the largest concentration of wineries of the Santa Barbara County AVAs with more than 70 in about 43,000 acres of the total 76,000 acres of land.  This valley lies southeast of the Santa Maria Valley, is quite windy and contains a variety of microclimates.  It is formed by the San Rafael Mountains in the north and the Santa Ynez Mountains in the south.  Most vineyards here are planted on hillsides allowing the grapes to get optimal sunlight and have favorable levels of sugar and ripeness.

Santa Ynez Valley AVA is also home to four distinct AVAs within its borders: Sta. Rita Hills on the western boundary, Happy Canyon on the east, Ballard Canyon and the Los Olivos District AVAs.  This ensures a variety of different grapes that make exceptional wine.  The Santa Ynez Valley, overall, doesn’t get the attention it deserves, but if you know any of the wines from its four sub-AVAs, you probably know the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir coming out of the Sta. Rita Hills AVA, in the western part of the valley, where cool Pacific breezes help create an ideal microclimate for those grapes.  Sta. Rita Hills is known for top quality Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  Happy Canyon grows some of the best Cabernet Sauvignon in the region.  The warmer climates of Los Olivos and Ballard Canyon located in the center of the valley can grow a wider range of grapes especially Rhone and Bordeaux varietals. 

Sta. Rita Hills AVA is a large area of 30,000 acres dedicated to just about 2,000 acres of vineyards.  This is the premium cool-climate AVA within the larger Santa Ynez Valley.  It became designated in 2001, but didn’t get a name until 2006 after resolving a long legal battle with a similarly named Chilean wine growing region.  It was ended only after everybody agreed that the official abbreviated written name of “Sta. Rita Hills” would be enough of a distinction between the two. 

You will find Sta. Rita Hills 12 miles from the Pacific between the towns of Lompoc and Buellton.  It gets cool breezes and warm afternoon sun which helps make grapes with intense flavors.  The soil is a composition of minerals, limestone, diatomaceous earth and marine sediment all contributing to the terroir forwardness of wines made from grapes in this AVA.

These are just a few of the wineries to know from this AVA that we will be tasting: Brewer-Clifton, Fess Parker, Lincourt, SAMsARA, Sanford, Sea Smoke and The Hilt.  And we can’t omit Babcock, Melville, Pence, Dierberg & Star Lane.

Lincourt Vineyards

The second stop on Day 1 of the 2006 Rakos Sideways tour was at a tasting room in an old farmhouse – an original 1926 Sears Craftsman kit home – and a wonderful place to taste the wines of Lincourt Vineyards.  You can find it on Alamo Pintado Road, overlooking the Alamo Pintado Vineyard, just outside of Solvang.  The property that was once a dairy farm was founded in 1996 by Bill and Carol Foley.  We knew the wine was excellent, but we really didn’t yet know who Bill Foley was. Bill saw the potential of this area (specifically the Sta. Rita Hills) and knew it was about to become one of California’s premier cool-climate winegrowing regions.  He named Lincourt after his daughters, Lindsay and Courtney, and the winery now produces wines from two estate vineyards in Sta. Rita Hills plus Santa Ynez Valley which is a rarity because he can produce world-class wine from both Burgundian and Bordeaux varieties.  Sustainable farming is practiced in the vineyard.  Wines are kept in small lot fermentation and French barrels are the norm.  Lorna Kreutz, the winemaker,  got her start in the Sta. Rita Hills and knows the terroir well.  The wines are usually awarded 90-plus scores.  Lincourt is rich in family heritage and many of the wines are named after Bill’s wife, mother, grandmother and aunt – women who have influenced and shaped his life.

Yes, we certainly do know who Bill Foley is today.  In 2010 Bill bought Chalk Hill Estates and never stopped after that.  Today he has a huge portfolio from Washington and Oregon to Napa and Sonoma, four in Central Coast CA, plus New Zealand, France and Argentina……..and with much acclaim!

2017 Lincourt Chardonnay Rancho Santa Rosa, Sta. Rita Hills was awarded 91 points by Wine Enthusiast. It’s 100 % Chardonnay and was aged 17 months in French and American oak, 20% new.  5,472 cases were made by  Lorna Kreutz, the winemaker, who tells us it to expect faint honeysuckle and toasted graham with accents of ripe pineapple; flavors of lemon curd, toasted marshmallows and hints of honeycomb on the finish – everything you should expect from barrel fermented Chardonnay in a cool growing region.  Rancho Santa Rosa is one of Santa Barbara’s most historic properties on a hillside climbing from 500 – 1,000 feet above sea level. 

2016 Lincourt Rancho Santa Rosa Pinot Noir, Sta. Rita Hills also comes from Rancho Santa Rosa.  It should be fruit forward with ripe raspberries and cherry cola notes transitioning to dark blackberry, pomegranate and black pepper.  It is a top pinot from this area for the price.  

Sanford Winery

The Sanford & Benedict Vineyard was the first vineyard in what became the acclaimed Sta. Rita Hills AVA.  Richard Sanford and his friend Michael Benedict researched the area looking for the perfect cool climate location to grow grapes and make wine that would rival the best of the best in Europe.  They planted their first grapevines here in 1971 and their resulting Pinot Noir got a lot of attention…… so much so that this particular vineyard became the backbone of the Sta. Rita Hills AVA and has created cuttings for other surrounding vineyards.

The La Rinconada Vineyard was planted next to it in 1997 which became home to the winery building and tasting room.  In 1998, a group of Sta. Rita Hills winemakers and growers petitioned the U.S. Government to recognize the Sta. Rita Hills as an AVA, and in 2001, the Sta. Rita Hills received its official certification as an AVA. The Terlato Family became partners with Sanford Winery in 2002, then managing partners, and in 2007 followed by purchasing the Sanford & Benedict Vineyard.  The Sanford Estate has all been reunited by the Terlatos totaling nearly 1200 acres in the two ranches.  Sustainability is their commitment to the land and the vision of multi-generational family ownership and leadership.  The Sanfords now own the nearby Alma Rosa Winery and Vineyards.   

Richard Sanford still owned the winery on Santa Rosa Road heading out of Lompoc towards Buellton and Solvang when the Sideways movie was made.  Chris Burroughs was the wine server in the tasting room at the time and played himself in the movie.  This was the first visit Miles and Jack made on their famous trip, and it was here that Miles gave a “how to taste wine” lesson to Jack.  And don’t forget that should never include chewing gum!   Sanford wasn’t the first stop on our 2006 Rakos Sideways Tour, but it was our first stop of Day 2.  The tasting room is in an old dairy barn, and we enjoyed it just as much as Miles did! 

2017 Sanford Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay  is worthy of 92 points from Wine Enthusiast and 90 points Robert Parker.  And we will be drinking it soon!  The winemaker’s notes tell us to expect aromas of grilled peach, Meyer lemon, toasted hazelnuts and bright fruit and honey comb on the palette with a crisp long clean finish.  Maybe a little Asian pear, melon, and spice plus some chalky sea salt flavors as well?  The wine was barrel fermented and aged 8 months in about 20% new oak and comes from both Sanford & Benedict and La Rinconada Vineyards.

Brewer-Clifton

Brewer-Clifton Winery was born in 1996 when Greg Brewer, the winemaker, and his original partner Steve Clifton joined together to make world-class Burgundian style wines from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes of the Sta. Rita Hills. They put $12,000 aside, secured some fruit contracts and produced their first 240 cases of wine within Santa Barbara Winery where Greg was the Assistant Winemaker at the time.  After brief periods being housed within other wineries of employ, Brewer-Clifton created their first stand- alone facility in Lompoc in 2000.Those initial wines have now gone on to be wines uniquely Californian with power and richness that has become the trademark style of Brewer-Clifton wines.  Greg has become such an iconic winemaker over the span of his 30-some years in the industry that he was named “Winemaker of the Year” by Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s 2020 Wine Star Awards.  His Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays made from the Sta. Rita Hills have been consistently among those with highest acclaim.

Greg was the winemaker at Melville for many years and also produces wine under the diatom and Ex Post Facto labels.  He has dedicated his career not only to Sta. Rita Hills but to the entire Santa Barbara County wine community.  2012 marked the first vintage where all the grapes produced came from estate vineyards within the Sta. Rita Hills AVA. That year Wine Spectator awarded the 2012 Brewer-Clifton Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir as the #8 Wine of the Year.

Steve Clifton also produces wine under his Palmina label, which focuses exclusively on Italian varietals. 

Brewer-Clifton, diatom, and Ex Post Facto have been part of Jackson Family Wines since 2017. Founded in 1982 by another wine pioneer, entrepreneur and philanthropist  Jess Jackson. Today Jackson Family Wines and its wineries are led by Chairman Barbara Banke and the Jackson family. The Jackson family’s portfolio includes more than 40 wineries worldwide in California, Oregon, France, Italy, Chile, South Africa and Australia.  The Brewer-Clifton winery is still located in Lompoc where you can taste by appointment only.  Whenever you are in the Los Olivos area, stop in to their tasting room on Alamo Pintado Avenue.

At Brewer-Clifton the focus is on 100% estate wines all farmed sustainably. They initially farmed Mount Carmel vineyard from 2005 through 2011.  Then they planted four strategically located vineyards along the Highway 246 corridor of the Sta. Rita Hills. Each site has proven to complement the others of the quartet. With their Chardonnay, they focus on citrus notes and saline quality that is the uniqueness of a wine region bordered on two of its four sides by the Pacific Ocean.  They strive to make Pinot Noir expressing the terroir of the vineyard.  Minimal intervention and whole cluster fermentation is the method of choice. 

2019 Brewer-Clifton Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay  is a blend of the 3D, Machado, Acin and Hapgood Vineyards, all in Sta. Rita Hills.  Each lot was handled separately but uniformily in the winery.  We are expecting a medium gold hue plus classic SRH notes of salted citrus, lemon confit, tangerine oil, mint, toasted nuts, and brioche.  There should also be a chalky minerality with a well-balanced finish that is the same as the single vineyards.  This wine was rated between 93 and 96 points as it is most vintages.  We would expect nothing less from the “Winemaker of the Year”.

2020 Brewer-Clifton Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir should give us some cranberry, red cherry, licorice, woodsmoke, perfumed earth, black cherries, dried flowers and hints of Amaro …….according to Robert Parker WA.  It was produced primarily from the Machado and Hapgood Vineyards and bound to be another winner for the “Winemaker of the Year”. The last 10 vintages all received scores between 90 and 95 points.  We are happy to be featuring two of Greg’s wines in our Santa Barbara tasting line-up. 

SAMsARA Wine Co. 

Samsara focuses on making limited releases of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Syrah and Grenache from some of Sta. Rita Hills most distinctive vineyards. 

SAMsARA Wine’s namesake comes from Sanskrit, and means “the whole process of rebirth, called samsara, with no clear beginning or end”.  The circle of “passion, oneness and harmony” are the core values in SAMsARA’s winemaking. They prefer to show off the best each location has to offer with little handling or manipulation of the fruit after it gets to the winery – minimal intervention.   They select special sections in each vineyard and purchase grapes by the acre, not by quantity.  They believe that vineyard work should be done by hand .  Pinot Noir grapes are usually destemmed about 50 percent and the other 50 percent fermented as whole-clusters.  SAMsARA is known for producing wines that have a lot of whole cluster fermentation.   Their wines are not only hand made, but made by foot!  They foot stomp the grapes instead of using a machine because the foot is a lot gentler to those precious grapes!  They also use native indigenous yeast and are extremely conservative with the use of new oak.  About 30% of the Pinot Noir wine is aged in new French 500- liter oak barrels (more than twice the size of typical barrels). All other wines are aged in neutral French oak. 

SAMsARA was based for more than a decade in Lompoc until David and Joan Szkutak purchased it in 2017 from Chad Melville (Melville Winery) and moved to the warehouse zone at Los Carneros (Goleta) in 2018.  They also started serving glasses of wine in Goleta’s first-ever tasting room.          

Matt Brady, Samsara’s winemaker, will always have a special connection for me.  Originally from SW Florida, he got hooked on Santa Barbara wine country while attending UCSB.  After college he went to work for Jaffurs Winery eventually becoming Head Winemaker in 2015.  That was his job when we met him right here in SW Florida as he presented Jaffurs Wines to us at a wine dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants.  In 2016 Matt took over winemaker duties at SAMsARA.  He made their 2017 vintage wines at a shared facility in Santa Maria, and then searched for a permanent location which ended up being in Goleta.  Now SAMsARA has a winery and a tasting room in Goleta and a tasting room in Los Olivos. 

2013 SAMsARA Pinot Noir Rancho La Viña Vineyard, Sta. Rita Hills was handpicked and hand made from the same 7 rows, clay soil, clones 777 and Pommard with just 220 cases produced.  This vineyard was planted in 2005 at the far southwestern edge of the SRH.  It’s several hundred feet above the valley floor with full exposure to the cool winds from the Ocean making it one of the coldest Pinot Noir vineyards in California.  The sandy loam soil produces very small berries giving the wine deep, dark color and intense flavors.  Antonio Galloni says the wine is “elegant, polished, highly perfumed and wonderfully textured” and gave it 93 points.  If it is anything like the other SAMsARA wines I have been lucky enough to taste, it will be all that and more!  This is a perfect example not only of vineyard-specific wine, but even confined to a few specific rows. 

Sea Smoke

In 1999 Bob Davids fulfilled his dream to buy a stretch of land in the western end of the Sta. Rita Hills AVA that was long coveted as perfect for growing world-class Pinot Noir.  It became Sea Smoke Vineyard which is recognized as one of the world’s greatest with wines that are consistently acclaimed.  Wine Enthusiast called it “one of the appellation’s first superstar wineries”.  They produce about 13,000 cases a year, and there is NO tasting room.  They don’t need one!  Sea Smoke wines are pre-allocated to their “List Members”  and are sold out upon release. Get on “The List”? There is no purchase commitment or cost to join. Oh yes, I’ve been on that list for quite a few  years and am happy to say there is still some excellent “Ten” and “Southing” in our cellar.  By the way, in case you are wondering what is sea smoke?  “Fog above the water” occurs when wind mixes the cool air with warm air just above the water causing fog, or “sea smoke”. 

Their estate vineyard is on south-facing hillside bluffs with excellent sun exposure.  They strive for low crop yields and small grape clusters of intense flavor.  The rich clay soils are planted with ten top-quality Pinot Noir clones and each vine gets personal handling from the vineyard crew seven to eight times each year.  This Pinot Noir is aptly called “Ten”. “Southing” is the other Pinot produced and is darker and more reticent initially.  There is a third label (Botella) which is fruit forward with mild tannins. Sea Smoke has been farmed sustainably since 2003, and there are 80 acres farmed biodynamically.  Grapes are hand harvested, and each block and clone combination is kept separate throughout the winemaking process. 

2015 Sea Smoke “Ten” Pinot Noir, Sta. Rita Hills is produced from those Ten Clones that gives the wine its name.  It was manually punched down two times per day with 16 to 28 days of maceration time.  There was no fining or filtration.  Aging took place for 16 months in exclusively French Oak, 60% new barrels.  The result?  An intense wine from dark fruit with notes of cola, black cherry, blueberry, Asian spice, chocolate and a hint of rose petals.  The tannins are firm and mature and it ages well.  I expect our 2015 to be good for another 3-4 years.  Wine Enthusiast gave it 94 points. 

The Hilt

Travel up Highway 1 to the intersection of Santa Rosa Road near the Lompoc area and have a major tasting experience at “The Barn at The Hilt Estate”.  It’s on the historic Rancho Salsipuedes 3600-acre property just miles from the Ocean in the far south-west corner of the Sta. Rita Hills AVA.  The Estate is made up of three vineyards, Bentrock and Radian (on the original Rancho) and Puerta del Mar which surrounds the winery. This is a state of the art 50,000 square-foot gravity fed winemaking facility where winemaker Matt Dees and his team produce not only The Hilt wines but the famous JONATA as well.  You can also taste it at The Hilt. 

The Hilt’s favorite vineyards are the windswept northern-facing closest to the ocean, which are excellent for a winemaker but quite challenging for a grape grower.  Rancho Salsipuedes has vineyards planted on land almost 13 unobstructed miles from the ocean.  It also has poor soil.  That and the whipping winds and cool maritime climate make this location special.  Bentrock and Radian are the main source of all wines at The Hilt.  Radian is mostly planted to Pinot Noir (95 acres) with 6 acres of Chardonnay.  Bentrock is nearly 92 acres with 80 of Pinot Noir and the rest Chardonnay.  They also make the single vineyard wines – The Old Guard and The Vanguard. 

2017 The Hilt Estate Pinot Noir, Sta. Rita Hills was made from estate Radian and Bentrock Vineyards grapes plus some Sanford and Benedict.  A little over 3200 cases were made using 30% new French oak and 70% neutral French oak.  It scored between 91-95 points. Matt Dees, the winemaker, says to expect savory, dark and perfumed Pinot Noir with notes of rose petals, black cheery, dried tobacco, blood orange, sage, pomegranate and cracked white pepper.  We should get dark overtones of earth and dust on the palate.  Sounds like my kind of Pinot and I’m most anxious to taste it! 

Fess Parker Winery & Vineyard

Fess Parker was a pioneer in Santa Barbara Wine Country.  We probably first knew him as Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone on TV,  but as a winelover I want to remember him for starting a family wine business that began with purchasing the 714-acre Foxen Canyon Ranch in 1988.  Fess left this world in 2010, but second and third generation family members keep the business moving forward.  They own an estate vineyard known for Rhone varietals and purchase grapes from some of Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Maria AVAs finest vineyards.  The winery is known for making small-lot, vineyard-designated Rhone and Burgundian varietals such as Syrah, Riesling and Viognier grown on the 110 acre estate plus Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Maria Valley AVAs. 

Epiphany was founded in 2000 by son Eli Parker to feature a selection of Rhone-based wines primarily sourced from Rodney’s Vineyard on the home ranch.  Epiphany is a premier producer of Syrah, Petite Sirah, Grenache and Rhone-style blends.  I must mention that I was not familiar with Epiphany wines until quite recently when we enjoyed several bottles of Epiphany Grenache Blanc at a local seafood restaurant and fell in love with it! 

And then there’s “The Bubble Shack” in Los Olivos where you can taste Festivity sparkling wines from the Parker family which were first released in 2015.   The Blanc de Blancs, Brut Rosé and Blanc de Noirs are produced from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes grown at the Parker West Vineyard in the Sta. Rita Hills AVA. 

It may be called “Frass Canyon” in the Sideways movie, but we sure recognized the tasting room at Fess Parker.  And we absolutely refused to drink out of the spit bucket like Miles did after he was refused a full glass pour.  We wanted to savor every sip of those awesome wines we tasted there.  We did see spit buckets, and who knows if one was used by Miles?  Aw yes, sooo many fond memories for us on our Rakos Sideways tour! 

2020 Fess Parker Santa Barbara County Chardonnay  is 96% Chardonnay with just a 4% touch of Viognier grapes all grown in Santa Barbara County, but primarily from Rodney’s and Los Alamos vineyards.  The wine was 100% barrel fermented and aged in French and Hungarian oak (28% new).  It has been rated between 90-92 points and I’m anxious to look for the citrus, lemon cream, green apple, pear, pineapple, honey, vanilla, almond, graham cracker, biscotti,  toasty oak and minerality mentioned by the winemaker. 

Happy Canyon AVA

“Take a trip up Happy Canyon”.  That is how Happy Canyon got its name. It was the place to sneak off to find an alcoholic beverage during Prohibition.  It helped people to “get Happy”, and the name was never changed.

Although grape vines were first planted here in the early 90s with the first vintage produced in 2001, Happy Canyon did not officially become an AVA until 2009.    The AVA has grown to about 24,000 acres of which only about 500 are currently dedicated to grape growing.  It is farther inland on the easternmost portion of the Santa Ynez Valley but still gets some of the cooling temperatures from the Ocean which means it has warmer days than its western neighbors.  Happy Canyon has the warmest microclimate in the Santa Ynez Valley.  It can get up to 90 degrees in the summer after the morning fog is gone.  The soil is nutrient-poor but makes up for it with minerals from the sandy, clay loams, serpentine and cherts cobbles. (Don’t know about you, but I had to look up definition of a “chert”:  a hard, dark, opaque rock composed of silica (chalcedony) with an amorphous or microscopically fine-grained texture. It occurs as nodules (flint) or, less often, in massive beds.) 

All of this adds up to an AVA incredibly suited for Bordeaux grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Malbec.  Rhone Valley grapes like Syrah are exceptional here.  Happy Canyon wines can be lush and fruit forward.  Exceptionally talented winemakers look forward to the potential of Happy Canyon!  Many people would rather not have you know about the beauty of this area with its horse pastures and rolling hills covered in grapevines.  They also prefer to limit exposure to their wineries in order to keep tourism and traffic to a minimum.  If everybody knew about these outstanding wines, people would be pouring into the area to taste them!  It is home to six major vineyards and a couple of active wineries: Crown Point Vineyards, Dierberg Vineyard, Grassini Family Vineyards, Grimm’s Bluff, Happy Canyon Vineyard, Jack McGinley and Vogelzang Vineyard; but you will not find any tasting rooms here. Never fear! Many of these wineries have tasting rooms conveniently located in downtown Santa Barbara, Solvang or Sta. Rita Hills. Star Lane has 780 acres of vineyards here right next to the Vogelzang Vineyards, 145 of which are surrounded by wild sage and rosemary, but their tasting room is on their Sta. Rita Hills property on Drum Canyon Road. Happy Canyon Vineyards is located on Piocho Ranch home to the Piocho polo team.  The winery started releasing its own primarily Bordeaux-style red and white blends in 2010 under the Piocho label and Barrack Family Estate label.  Another big player here is Grassini Family Vineyards on land that was converted to vineyards in 2002 now producing 5,000 cases annually from 35 acres of grapes, primarily Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc. Since visibility is limited, distribution of many of Happy Canyon’s wines tends to stay in Central Coast or Southern California.  Happy Canyon is still so off the radar that discovering wines from there feels like an adventure!

2014 Foxen “Sweet Ending” Vogelzang Vineyard, Happy Canyon AVA  is a sweet dessert wine made of 47% Viognier and 53% Sauvignon Blanc all grapes grown in Happy Canyon on the Vogelzang Vineyard.  The grapes were foot stomped, had 24 hour skin maceration, and then pressed on gentle cycle.  It’s 16.8% alcohol and just 250 cases were made. 

2017 Foxen “Mission” Barbarena Vineyard, Santa Maria Valley AVA is a port-style red dessert wine made from 100% mission grapes.  It was whole-berry destemmed and spent 4 days with 69 proof un-aged grape brandy, lastly 22 months in neutral oak and stainless steel.  It’s 17% alcohol and just 99 cases were made.  (See Los Olivos District AVA for more info about Foxen.)

Ballard Canyon AVA

Ballard Canyon has around 7,800 acres which accounts for only 10% of the Santa Ynez Valley AVA.  It is a north-south oriented canyon bordered by many smaller canyons against the dry rugged hills of the area. Ballard Canyon is located between the warmer Happy Canyon and the cooler Sta. Rita Hills which protect it from the ocean-generated winds of the north-south locales. It was officially recognized as an AVA in 2013.  After experimenting with different varietals, it was decided that Syrah is the best-suited varietal throughout the canyon.  The soil here is dry, made up of sand, clay loam and limestone in certain areas, all of which make for good drainage.  There are also high levels of calcium in the soil which contribute to the concentrated tannins, acids and sugars in the well-balanced, rich, fresh flavored wines of Ballard Canyon. 

Because this is the only AVA dedicated to Syrah, Ballard Canyon is becoming the home of Syrah in America and Santa Barbara County’s most prestigious AVA.  When you see “Ballard Canyon” on the label, you can expect great Syrah!  Some of these include Rusack and the very prestigious Jonata.  I’m happy to say that Rusack was the very first winery and tasting that we visited on our now historical “Rakos Sideways Tour” of 2006.  We will be pouring Rusack and Jonata Syrahs at our soon to be famous “2021 Wine Star Award Wine Region of the Year and Rakos Sideways Tour Revisited”  dinner.

Rusack Vineyards 

Located on Ballard Canyon Rd just about halfway between Solvang and Los Olivos nestled among the oak trees and rolling hills, you will find the Rusack boutique winery and vineyard. Rusack Vineyards was established in 1995 by Geoff and Alison Rusack on a 48 acre Ballard Canyon estate planted with twenty-one acres of grapes. Syrah makes up about half of it with the rest being Sauvignon Blanc and Petite Sirah. There is a tiny bit of Merlot and Petit Verdot grown for blending into their renowned “Anacapa”, a Bordeaux-style red blend. Following their 2001 harvest, they replanted most of the vineyard in rows precisely following the hillside contours which allowed for good drainage, optimal sun and even ripening of the fruit. They installed a new state-of-the art irrigation system and with all of their hard work were rewarded with some of the best wine Ballard Canyon can offer. They also source Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes from some premier Central Coast vineyards like Bien Nacido and Solomon Hills. Their Ballard Canyon Estate Syrahs quite often receive scores in the low 90s with the 2015 being no exception.

Interesting little known fact about Rusack is that they also own a vineyard and make wine on a 650 acre ranch on Catalina Island. Alison Wrigley Rusack is a majority owner of the island which now includes Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Zinfandel vineyards. It must be quite drinkable wine as the 2018 vintages of Chard and Pinot were awarded 94 points.

2015 Rusack Ballard Canyon Estate Syrah represents the bolder style of Syrah.  The winemaker says it has an abundance of aromas of boysenberry, blueberry, and hints of cinnamon with complex flavors of anise, vanilla and dark chocolate.  It’s a blend of 88% Syrah and 12% Petite Syrah with a garnet purple color.  According to Wine Spectator, who rated it at 90 points, we can expect to get those touches of cracked black pepper which Syrah is known for, plus black soil, garrigue and Provence herbs.  Wine Enthusiast rated it 91 points and mentioned cracked white pepper.  I’ll be happy to get some pepper!

Jonata Winery

Jonata (pronounced “Ho-notta”) is one of the most high-profile cult wine producers in Santa Barbara County, if not the highest.  Jonata and The Hilt are owned by Stanley Kroenke who just happens to own Screaming Eagle, the Los Angeles Rams and the Denver Nuggets among many other things.  Jonata consists of 586 acres with 84 acres planted in grape vines all located in the Ballard Canyon AVA of the Santa Ynez Valley AVA.  You can find it on Highway 101 just north of Buellton. 

Jonata, meaning “tall oak” in Chumash Indian language, pays tribute to the 1845 Spanish land grant, Rancho San Carlos de Jonata.  Sustainability is the way of life here and Matt Dees, the winemaker of Jonata and The Hilt, has turned out a series of wines that have garnered substantial critical acclaim from Robert M. Parker Jr., Jeb Dunnuck, Antonio Galloni and Stephen Tanzer.  It became clear from the first harvest in 2004 and on- going that this vineyard could produce some extraordinary  results, in fact some of the best ever seen from this region. The entire Jonata property is comprised of sand—namely a soil found in the area called the Careaga Sandstone. But the sand here has better drainage than most other sand-based vineyards. 

The 84 acres of vines are planted with 11 different grape varieties including some high-acid experimental Greek plantings like Xinomavro and Assyrtiko.  The flagship wine from the portfolio is the El Desafio de Jonata, a Cabernet Sauvignon that includes tiny proportions of Merlot and Cabernet Franc, available via allocation only. Multiple red blends are produced from the estate including the Fenix, a Bordeaux-style that is predominately Merlot with Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc; “The Defiance” Cabernet Sauvignon; El Alma de Jonata; “The Soul” Cabernet Franc; La Sangre de Jonata “The Blood” Syrah; Todos “Everyone” Red Wine Vineyard Blend; Tierra “Earth/Soil” Sangiovese; Fuerza “Strength” Petit Verdot; Flor “Flower” Sauvignon Blanc and La Miel de Jonata “The Honey” Dessert Wine made from Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc that is barrel-aged in French oak prior to bottling. I recently bought a bottle of Todos from Total Wine for $56, but expect to pay $150 – 200 for a bottle of El Desafio which is far less than a bottle of Screaming Eagle for well over $1000. 

 

2009 “La Sangre de Jonata” Ballard Canyon Santa Ynez Valley,  99% Syrah plus 1% Viognier, was produced in 50% new French oak and 50% neutral French oak.  Just 900 cases of this hopefully amazing wine were produced.  It’s been rated as high as 99 points by JD and 94 RP and expected to be dense and rich with aromas of blackberry, charcoal, blood, lavender and violets.  Expect massive underlying structure and tannins.  I am most anxious to taste and hope it is still delivering! 

Los Olivos District AVA

The Los Olivos District AVA is a relatively new sub-region of the larger Santa Ynez Valley AVA with establishment in January 2016. It stretches over almost 23,000 acres with 12 bonded wineries and 47 commercially producing vineyards all bordering the neighboring AVAs of Ballard Canyon to the west and Happy Canyon to the east.  This AVA is above Solvang on a broad alluvial terrace plain of the Santa Ynez River creating nearly flat terrain that gently slopes southward toward the river.  This means that there is limited erosion and allows for mechanical tilling and harvesting in the vineyards which their neighbors with steep terrain can’t enjoy.  The vineyards receive uniform amounts of sunlight, rainfall and fog because there are no hills or mountains to block the rainfall and fog or shade the vineyards.  And since it is 30 miles inland from the ocean, it gets a much thinner layer of fog that burns off quickly in the morning — all a benefit to ripening, acidity and overall sugar accumulation. Soils are well to moderately drained fine sandy loams and clay loams with low to moderate fertility. They are less prone to root disease but don’t require frequent irrigation. With Los Olivos being in the middle of climates for the area, so are its wine styles.  They can not only grow grapes typical of Bordeaux here (Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Merlot), but also Syrah and other Rhone varietals. 

You will find the towns of Los Olivos and Solvang within this AVA borders.  When visiting Santa Barbara County, please do not miss spending time in these two towns. 

Los Olivos is a tiny little town with population of under 800, but it is a wine lover’s tasting paradise.  You can barely take a step without walking into another tasting room!  There are over 30 of them many of which are in historic pastel-colored Victorian buildings from the 1800s.  You can visit Bien Nacido, Brewer-Clifton, Epiphany Cellars, Samsara and Stolpman just to name a few without even leaving town.  And then there is the outstanding food!  Don’t miss the Los Olivos Wine Merchant and Café.  You will probably recognize it as where Miles and Jack took their dates to dinner in the movie Sideways.  Or maybe you will remember the payphone on the back wall that Miles used.  Or surely just outside in the alley where Miles delivered his most famous line about not drinking ******* Merlot!  Three of us had a fabulous lunch there while on our Rakos Sideways tour both before and after visiting several great tasting rooms.  This all makes for a great getaway weekend! 

Drive up 46 miles northwest of Santa Barbara into Solvang and you might think you took a wrong turn, crossed the ocean and landed in Denmark!  This little town with a population just over 6,000 is known as the “Danish Capital of America” and celebrated its centennial back in 2011.  The 1911 settlement was founded by a group of Danish-Americans who purchased 9,000 acres of the surrounding Rancho San Carlos de Jonata, so they could build a community of Danes far from their cold Midwestern winters. Its Danish-themed architecture began in 1947 making it a tourist attraction for tourists from Nordic countries plus all of the rest of us.   You can see Danish windmills, statues of Hans Christian Andersen, eat Danish pastries in the local restaurants and pastry shops and take a sightseeing tour on a replica of a 19^th-century Danish streetcar.  There are more than 20 wine tasting rooms here and maybe your wine might be paired up with an aebleskiver!

Foxen Winery & Vineyard and foxen 7200

Dick Doré began Foxen in 1985 with his close friend Bill Wathen on his family’s land, the 2,000 acre Rancho Tinaquaic, in the Santa Maria Valley. The Rancho, where the winery is still located today, was purchased in 1837 by Dick’s great-great grandfather.  Dick is named in memory of William Benjamin Foxen, an English sea captain who came to Santa Barbara in the early 1800s. The Rancho originally totaled nearly 9,000 acres and comprised most of what is now known as Foxen Canyon.   Captain Foxen adopted the distinctive “anchor” as his ranch cattle brand, which also became a trademark of the winery.

Foxen made their first vintage in 1985 in the old blacksmith shop on the ranch. This building, now known as “The Shack”, and the accompanying barn were Foxen’s winery and tasting room for over 20 years. With the completion of Foxen’s new solar-powered winery and tasting room in 2009, the historic “Shack” was renamed “foxen 7200”, where Bordeaux and Italian varieties are featured under a brand of the same name. Foxen Burgundy, Rhône, and Loire varieties are showcased in the solar-powered FOXEN tasting room just down the road. 

Today they make Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Maria Valley Vineyards plus Rhone style/Syrah wines in the Los Olivos District AVA, Happy Canyon AVA and Santa Maria Valley AVA. 

The original tasting room and barn-like structure are quite rustic and easy to miss.  That is what happened to us on our Rakos Sideways tour.  After several trips up and down Foxen Canyon Road and not finding an entrance, we went on to our next stop.  Lucky for Miles and Jack they did not miss it!  While you don’t see much of it in the movie, they were here tasting and Jack decided to serve himself a “mansize” pour while the server was out of the room.  The new modern winery was built and opened on up the road since the movie.  Foxen is located approximately 12 miles from Fess Parker. The address is 7200 Foxen Canyon Road.  And as they say “If you don’t know Foxen, you don’t know Dick….or Bill”. 

2018 Foxen Syrah Williamson-Doré Vineyard, Los Olivos District is 95% Syrah and 5% Viognier, 10% whole cluster, 90% whole-berry destemmed into small open-top fermenters with Viognier co-mingled.  It was aged 20 months in French oak puncheon that were 33% new.  Just 380 cases were produced.  This wine is a 96 point winner with inky dark fruit, hints of lavender, licorice, cloves, ground pepper, new saddle leather and crushed stone – all according to the critics. 

Alisos Canyon AVA

Alisos Canyon became the newest AVA in Santa Barbara County on August 25, 2020.  It is due east outside the tiny little town of Los Alamos on US 101 and about 20 miles south of Santa Maria.  The Canyon runs from west to east over 9 square miles, a little under 6,000 acres with about 240 of those acres planted in wine grapes.  It has one bonded winery and nine commercially-producing vineyards.   

Alisos Canyon has been producing high quality grapes for a number of years including Rhone varietals such as Syrah, Grenache, and Viognier. In addition to Rhone varietals you will find Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, Tempranillo, Albarino, Sangiovese and Nebbiolo. Local owners and growers decided it was time to bring some recognition to their wines instead of labeling them “Santa Barbara County”.  After six years of research and waiting, they got their wish!  Owners such as Noah Rowles, owner of Dovecote Estate Winery on the Thompson Vineyard and who spearheaded the campaign along with Wes Hagen, brand ambassador for J. Wilkes Wines;  Ken Brown, who has made wine here since 1977 and Joey Tensley, in his 27^th harvest of Syrah; hope this will bring more well deserved accolades to their wines.  Even the famous cult winemaker, Manfred Krankl of Sine Qua Non is part of this scene.  He established his “The Third Twin Vineyard” in Alisos Canyon in 2010.  His wines from this vineyard rate around 98 points and sell for about $500 a bottle.  Yes, we missed that one, too!  Sadly I have to say I have never had any of his wines and most likely never will!!  The Alisos Canyon climate is influenced by the Pacific Ocean which is just 25 miles away and brings for cool air and fog.  Pair that up with the warmer inland climates of more moderate temperatures and you have what is referred to as the “Goldilocks Rhone Zone”.  It is JUST RIGHT for Syrah and Grenache – not too hot and not too cold! 

Some wines to look for made from Alisos Canyon AVA grapes: Lepiane Alisos Vineyard Nebbiolo, Epiphany Thompson Vineyard GSM, Ken Brown Thompson Vineyard Syrah and Zinke Thompson Vineyard Syrah.

Los Alamos is a little town (population about 1900) in the middle of Alisos Canyon.  It looks like a scene right out of a Clint Eastwood Western movie.  It’s also a funky very cool town with some underrated spots for tasting wine and a terrific culinary scene.  Bob’s Well Bread is in an old 1920s gas station on Bell Street, which is the town’s main drag.  It is open for breakfast and lunch serving up pastries and bread-focused dishes using seasonal ingredients from the garden.  Just a block away on Bell Street in an old bank, is the not-to-be missed “Franch” restaurant simply named Bell’s.  But there is nothing simple about this place — – except they don’t have a phone! It’s a family-run French-inspired bistro from Food & Wine “Best New Chef” Daisy Ryan along with her husband and co-owner Greg.  And guess what?  They have a Michelin star!!  They will tell you that “Franch” is French with a California accent, and they are famous for blending together food from local purveyors into something phenomenal.  Both Daisy and Greg worked at top NYC kitchens like Grammercy Tavern and Per Se before settling down in Los Alamos.  Their menus change daily “based on local availability and the chef’s whims”.  They also have an eclectic award winning wine list.  If you want to eat dinner there, you must have a reservation and the pre-fixe only menu is $75 per person plus wine, etc. etc.     

Until Our Next Trip!

We have always known that Santa Barbara County was a winner for wine whether you are new to wine tasting or had a lot of years practicing.  Finally the rest of the wine world agrees with us – at least the world according to Wine Enthusiast Magazine! Even the April 2022 issue of Food & Wine Magazine has included Sta. Rita Hills as one of the “Top Chardonnay Regions Worldwide”. They rated it right up there with Burgundy, Sonoma County, Willamette Valley and Margaret River.  Santa Barbara County and Central Coast  was the first major wine country area of California that my husband and I ever visited.  Previously we had taken a few day trips or weekends from the Los Angeles area, but nothing ever rivaled this trip.  This one marked the beginning of some “serious” wine adventures and tasting for us as we joined the world of wine aficionados.

We were quite a bit less knowledgeable about wine back in the days or our Sideways tour.  Researching for this article makes me wish we could recreate our 2006 tour and visit those wonderful wineries with a whole new appreciation.  Nor did we have the time to visit as many wineries as our friends Matthew Horkey and Charine Tan of Exotic Wine Travel.  They wrote and published a book in 2017 about Santa Barbara County and over 50 wineries.  You can buy it online and read it: “Sipping Santa Barbara: Recommended Wines and Producers”.  That book brought back lots of memories for me. But for now in 2022 researching for this article and “armchair traveling” has to be the next best thing! As usual my research included information from numerous online articles and Karen MacNeil’s “The Wine Bible” second edition.  Can’t leave out the Rakos scrapbook and Shutterfly book of our adventure, which seemed quite painstaking to make at the time, but now they are priceless!

I hope that you have enjoyed our travels through California’s Central Coast Santa Barbara County, and possibly even learned a few new facts about the area, or even better –  read about a few wines you would like to try.  Congratulations Santa Barbara County, and now we are off to drink some of your great wines!  Cheers!!!!!

lfrakos@gmail.com

4.19.2022

www.forkandcorkdivine.com

We did it! “Cooking The New York Times” #1 is now history. Six foodie friends gathered around the table with us on March 4, 2022 to experience a wine dinner with a menu designed completely from recipes published in the “NYT Cooking” App. You can read my article published on 2.18.2022 www.forkandcorkdivine.com “Confessions of a foodie to find out why in the world I picked this dinner theme! In order to spare you from that, here’s a little background condensed from that article.

Like any good foodie my inbox is flooded daily with messages and recipes from cooking websites, food magazines, other foodies, and on and on.  One of those that found their way to me quite some time ago was “NYT Cooking”. I used to just scroll right down through them until one day I decided to open and read it.  Not surprisingly I found many really interesting and appealing recipes. However, when I actually tried to download a few of those recipes, I discovered that to be easier said than done.  And then was the dilemma of needing to sign up for yet another digital service.  Sometimes I could download a recipe, but so often I could not unless…………..you guessed it, pay your $5 a month and you too can not only see but print the recipe.  I finally succumbed after several years of telling myself that I refuse to pay for one more digital streaming service or app. Now that $5 a month disappears from my bank account like clockwork. Since then my collection of NYT recipes continues to multiply. Yes, I still like them on paper! It seems my cooking is soooo much better from a recipe on paper that just sits there on my countertop for me to read!  Because I usually try to have a theme in mind when planning a dinner party, I decided to do some research about the NYT food pages and somewhere along the way my next dinner party theme was borne — quite appropriately titled: “Cooking The New York Times”.

Here’s a little background on The Times. Its a daily newspaper based in New York City since it’s founding in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones. Today it has a circulation of about 5,496,000 news subscribers and 4,665,000 digital only subscribers.  There were 1, 398,000 subscribers for games, cooking and audio as of November 2020.  Today it is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. 

The NYT saw their vision for the future and decided that not only did they have a big enough audience of foodies  to merit a standalone cooking section but that they would also PAY to use it!  And that is exactly what happened.  The app launched in September 2014 featuring 16,000 recipes available at no charge, and just one year after launching the digital “NYT Cooking” (cooking.nytimes.com also available as an IOS app), they had about 120,000 subscribers.  And as of June 2017 they charge $5 a month ($40 a year) for access to it!  Yes, we foodies are indeed special people because it’s not included in a basic monthly digital subscription to the Times.  All of this meant that they had better have a product worthy of the cost.  Sam Sifton, the founding editor of “NYT Cooking“, and his team scoured through decades of Times recipes that seemed suitable for more modern times.  Guess it was quite a success as about 3 million people now subscribe to its main Cooking newsletter – which does not require a subscription – and comes to your inbox weekly.  The recipe library has grown to 20,000+.  The Cooking team continues to expand with additional innovations and features.  The NYT Cooking YouTube channel had 300,000 subscribers, 2.8 million Instagram followers and overall 600,000 subscribers as of a February 2021 article. The NYT has also published several cookbooks, some of which reside on my shelves.  It seems that foodies and cooking are a very big business!

Here are some names you may recognize if you have ever seen the NYT Cooking app and those never ending email posts.  Lots of interesting and delicious recipes have come from these folks.. 

Sam Sifton is the founding editor of NYT Cooking and an assistant managing editor for The Times.  He has been the national editor, restaurant critic and culture editor of The Times. 

Melissa Clark has been a columnist for the Food section since 2007.  She’s written dozens of cookbooks.

Florence Fabricant has been contributing for a long time when she wasn’t writing some 13 cookbooks. 

Dorie Greenspan was a columnist for The NYT Magazine (until just recently) and written 13 cookbooks, one of which – “Around My French Table” – is a favorite of mine and has a special place on my cookbook shelves.  I would happily cook every recipe in the book and am well on my way! According to Dorie, she is now focusing on her personal newsletter, “xoxo Dorie”. You can be sure I signed up for that one!

Eric Kim is a cooking writer for the Food section with his “Korean American” cookbook recently published and now available on Amazon.com. Eric also hosts on the NYT Cooking You Tube channel. 

Genevieve Ko is a senior editor for the Food section and has contributed to more than 20 cookbooks.

J. Kenji López-Alt writes a monthly column for the Food section and is a restaurant chef/owner.

Julia Moskin has been a Food staff reporter since 2004 and was named after Julia Child.  She was also part of their 2018 Pulitzer Prize winning team. 

Yotam Ottolenghi is a writer and chef/owner of a number of restaurants. He also writes a monthly column for the NYT Food section. 

Tejal Rao is the California restaurant critic at The NYT and a recipe columnist for The NYT Magazine. 

Kim Severson has been reporting food news since before the phrase “farm-to-table” was invented. 

And whose recipes did I select for

“Cooking” from The New York Times foodie team?

Read on to find out and see the pictures.

Here’s my menu of food and wine pairings.

A little amuse bouche:

Julia Reed gave us a recipe for “Hot Cheese Olives”.  Julia passed away in September 2020 after contributing more than 100 recipes to The NYT. “Hot Cheese Olives” was an outstanding success! This should be a timeless recipe to add to any appetizer table.

Amanda Hesser provided us with “Roquefort Cheeseballs”.  Not only was Amanda at one time the food editor of The NYT Magazine but left the Times in 2008 to become co-founder and CEO of Food52, another foodie digital platform constantly in front of us in our digital media. “Roquefort Cheeseballs” were our second favorite on the appetizer table. A bit too heavy for a first bite! But very tasty. So sorry, Amanda. For some reason I did not get a picture of this dish. When the guests arrive, time sometimes gets away from me.

Soup course:

Yewande Komolafe is a Nigerian born food writer, author and food stylist who joined the NYT as a cooking editor in February 2021.  She has 2 cookbooks published or on the way including “My Everyday Lagos Kitchen: Nigerian Classics at Home and in the Diaspora,” and a cookbook inspired by “Waffles + Mochi,” a Netflix children’s show. We will be cooking her recipe for “Spicy Tomato-Coconut Bisque with Shrimp and Mushrooms”.

Yewande’s “Spicy Tomato-Coconut Bisque with Shrimp and Mushrooms” recipe proved to be a superstar! It was so delicious. And paired with that bottle of Schramsberg “Mirabelle” Brut Rose from California’s North Coast was a magnificent pairing. This course was probably my favorite. Schramsberg is a personal favorite of mine ever since we visited their winery in Calistoga, CA and have watched Hugh Davies saber a bottle of sparkling for us at Angelina’s Ristorante.

Salad, Main Fare and Dessert courses:

David Tanis was the one who really got me going on this idea for a special NYT recipe dinner.  We will be cooking his “Curly Endive Salad with Mustard Dressing, Egg and Gruyere”, “Pork Chops with Sage, Dates and Parsnips”, “Savory Potato Tart” and last but not least “Tangerine Flan”.  David writes the City Kitchen column for the Food section, has had a long professional cooking career (including chef with Alice Waters at Chez Panisse) and authored several cookbooks featuring seasonal home cooking.  I can’t wait to feature and cook his recipes!

The salad course was really a winner. I added some romaine (in my opinion a little endive goes a long way) and the radicchio gave a bit of color. The egg slices always seem to be appreciated plus who doesn’t like Gruyere? The Dijon vinaigrette dressing was just the right touch. And the wine? This 2010 Blanc from Chateau Carbonnieux was my first choice for pairing with the salad; however when I searched for it in our wine cellar, it was nowhere to be found. I did the next best thing and planned for another white. But on the day of our dinner, surprise to me! I could not locate my second choice and the Carbonnieux magically appeared! I truly believe it was destiny that this wine be on our table with this salad. And as usual, one must be flexible when cooking and serving!!!!

The pan seared Berkshire bone-in Frenched pork chops were purchased from D’Artagnan.com, an online food company specializing in farm-to-table, artisanal, free-range, grass-fed and everything else you can think of that goes along with excellent proteins and other special products. If I want to serve a meat that I know will be one of the best I can serve, I source from D’Artagnan. Yes, it is expensive but it comes right to my doorstep! I’m sure that Chuck’s culinary skills played a major role in the preparation of these chops, and they were truly superb! He put a bit of dry rub on them, then seared them in a very hot pan cooking until browned followed by finishing in a 350 oven till about 140 degrees. And while the Medjool date sauce might have sounded a bit unusual, it proved to be a perfect accompaniment to the pork. The dates were sautéed with fresh sage leaves in butter, then finished off with black pepper and fresh lemon juice. The parsnips were par-cooked, then finished in some butter with salt and pepper.

And then there was that “Savory Potato Tart”! Yes, I made the pastry crust just like David Tanis said although for a few seconds I did actually consider buying prepared pastry! Horrors!!! If I was going to all of this effort to make it just right, that just could not happen. The tart was filled with Yukon gold potatoes and 1 1/4 cups crème fraiche, so you know it had to be good. And it was! The picture does not do it justice. It all made for quite an impressive dinner plate.

We paired this entree plate with three exceptional red wines:

2018 Mauritson “Charlie Clay” Pinot Noir from the Russian River Valley, California

2017 Four Graces Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley, Oregon

2011 Il Poggione Brunello di Montalcino from Tuscany, Italy

All wonderful pairings for our wine lover foodie friends to enjoy. And enjoy we did!

I cannot forget dessert! Tangerine flan was superb! I had a bit of trouble unmolding it, so my pictures are not the best, but the taste was delicious. Flan is one of my favorite desserts. This version by David Tanis calls for tangerine juice, not orange! You may know as well as I, that tangerine juice is not as easy to find as orange juice, but perseverance pays off and plenty of it ended up in our refrigerator. My flan was made from half-and-half with a rosemary sprig and bay leaves in the custard. Yes, I did remember to remove them after cooking although I have made that mistake before. Check out the picture of my fresh garnish – those are “sumo” oranges usually in season from January until the end of April. For once my timing was just right, and little did I know that a Trader Joe’s shopper made it famous on TikTok. Obviously my daily dose of social media does not extend to TikTok! Sumos originated in Japan in the 1970s and have a signature “top knot” on the top of each piece of fruit. They are larger than standard oranges and they are delicious!

How did our “Cooking  The New York Times ”  dinner turn out? According to our guests it was an outstanding culinary success.  No, I did not do a test run of any of these recipes prior to our dinner. But with all of this NYT talent and the foodie skills in our kitchen, I am happy to say that dinner was a spectacular success.  And each course was perfectly paired with an excellent wine.  Many thanks to Julia Reed, Amanda Hesser, Yewande Komolafe and David Tanis. Their recipes did not disappoint! Now whenever I am in search of a recipe or just an idea of what to cook, I immediately head to the NYT Cooking App. Almost every day I’m downloading a recipe or two to add to the ever growing pile of “recipes I would really like to cook”! Here’s betting that there will be a sequel in our future! Maybe even an annual event – best of the year! I could even have our guests vote. OK, now I am really getting carried away. But you probably get my point. These are some terrific recipes that can make you shine at your next dinner party.

Linda Rakos

lfrakos@gmail.com

www.forkandcorkdivine.com

3.29.22

Yes, I confess!  I admit that I am a foodie.  I’m even a #foodie!  Most of my life revolves around food.  I love to eat it. I usually eat food to satisfy my heart and soul, not just because I need nourishment and I’m hungry.   I love to cook it.  I love to go to local restaurants (preferably not chains) where I already know many of the chefs and owners.  However we do venture out to try new ones whenever possible.  I love to entertain and spend weeks researching, planning and presenting it at foodie  events to our friends who seem to humor me.  I take pictures of everything I cook and eat plus everyone else’s – much to their dismay……….well almost.  Doesn’t everyone have 25,000 photos on their phone? I really can pull myself away from my iPhone camera when it comes to cereal, cold cuts, ice cream, etc. and that sort of mundane thing.  And after the pictures comes the constant social media posting of the food! There are countless people who SAY that they enjoy following all of my never ending posts on my personal Facebook and Instagram pages plus all of those #foodie group pages I belong to.  How could I ever disappoint them?  They are counting on me, right?

Planning a menu to me means deciding what wine(s) to pair with it.  It’s almost a mystical experience. Many times that goes in reverse order. First the wine and then the food!! I even used “Building Websites for Dummies” to develop my own website back some years ago to record it for posterity ….even if no one else reads it!  It’s called www.forkandcorkdivine.com if that is any indication of my obsession.  And if you are reading this article now, I thank you very much for checking it out. Cooking and dining in general continues to evolve through the years……just like me.  I majored in “Food and Nutrition” for my BS college degree because my aunt suggested it as an excellent profession.  Guess she didn’t know about the salary! Most of those professors at Carnegie Mellon University (Carnegie Tech way back in those days!) weren’t specifically trying to teach us how to cook. They really wanted me to know all about food chemistry and other exciting stuff, but there was quite a bit of cooking along the way. The people dining in our Institutional Foods class tearoom were probably never the same after we cooked and served them. Then there were those 50 plus years of actually enjoying my profession as I labored away at Dietetics, Food Service Management and Hospitality.   After I learned how to make things like meat loaf, mashed potatoes and gravy just like Mom made and having my college instructors telling me that my technique was all wrong (guess I did finally learn the correct way), I moved on to try my hand at Julia Child’s culinary adventures.  I could almost see myself as “The French Chef”!  Then came ethnic cuisine, authentic cooking, back to our roots cooking, farm-to-table, “leave no animal’s parts behind” cooking. Yes it is a very long way from those days in the 1960s to the 21st century.

Our house is filled to overflowing with almost every single piece of cooking equipment there is – rice cooker, air fryer, instant pot, deep fryer, tagine, stovetop smoker, etc.; however I still have yet to succumb to my desire to buy a sous vide cooker.  There are hundreds of dishes and glassware of every kind, and every ingredient, etc. that will help me experience a world of tastes, flavors and textures.  There are large pieces of furniture dedicated to storing cookbooks; reams and reams of pages of recipes plus foodie magazines and foodie  adventure articles can be found on just about every shelf and many tables. Got to have Bon Appetit, Food and Wine and Milk Street just to name a few. Did I outlast Gourmet? Open any cupboard or closet and you might have an avalanche of it all.  There are wine glasses of every description on every shelf and in numerous boxes.  Ingredients such as miso paste, gochujang, sumac, za’atar and pomegranate molasses became my new best friends.  And don’t forget those eight shelves of herbs and spices and other glorious condiments that any respectable foodie worth their “salt” MUST have. By the way how many salts can there possibly be, anyway? However I should mention that you don’t have to be a culinary whiz kid to be a bona fide foodie. You just have to like and appreciate it all.

Obviously I am not the lone foodie.  There are many of us out there! It seems that the “foodie” concept began way back in the early 1980s.  In fact there was even “The Official Foodie Handbook” published in 1984 by Barr and Levy of England’s Harpers and Queen Magazine.  I could also write an entire article on types of restaurants and dining but will save that for another day.

So now that my foodie confessional is out of the way, you are probably wondering what this all has to do with “Cooking The New York Times” .  That’s easy.  Like any good foodie worth their miso paste, my inbox is flooded daily with messages and recipes from cooking websites, magazines, other foodies, ads for meal kits, and on and on.  One of those that found their way to me quite some time ago was “NYT Cooking”.  In fact as I sit here at my laptop the very first message that just arrived on my iPhone inbox is NYT “What to Cook Right Now”.  I used to just scroll right down through them until one day I decided to open and read it.  Not surprisingly I found many really interesting recipes and of course, they required ingredients like that wonderful miso paste.  How in the world did I ever do without it?  Next I actually tried to download a few of those recipes, and discovered that to be easier said than done.  How frustrating was that! And then was the dilemma of needing to sign up for yet another digital service.  Sometimes I could download a recipe, but so often I could not unless…………..you guessed it, pay your $5 a month which they will gladly deduct from your checking account for the rest of your life, and you too can not only see but print the recipe.  I finally succumbed after several years of telling myself that I refuse to pay for one more digital streaming service or app, forked over my necessary personal information, set up passwords that I was doomed to forget, and felt like I had arrived in the next century!  Now my good old fashioned collection of some pretty interesting NYT recipes continues to multiply  —-because I really need more stacks of paper in my life, and I just don’t feel right without that hard copy to take to the kitchen with me. Since I usually try to have a theme in mind when planning a dinner party, I decided to do some research about the NYT food pages and somewhere along the way my next dinner party theme was borne quite appropriately titled: “Cooking The New York Times”.

The New York Times

The Times is a daily newspaper based in New York City since it’s founding in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones and was initially published by Raymond, Jones and Company. Today it has a circulation of about 5,496,000 news subscribers and 4,665,000 digital only subscribers.  There were 1, 398,000 subscribers for games, cooking and audio as of November 2020.  Today it is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. 

We all know that digital communications is now fairly normal in our lives. That includes our email, phone calls, TV, video games, web pages, social media, etc. and for many people ALL of their news.  The NYT saw their vision for the future and decided that not only did they have a big enough audience of foodies  to merit a standalone cooking section but that they would also PAY to use it!  And that is exactly what happened.  The app launched in September 2014 featuring 16,000 recipes available at no charge, and just one year after launching the digital “NYT Cooking” (cooking.nytimes.com also available as an IOS app), they had about 120,000 subscribers.  And as of June 2017 they charge $5 a month ($40 a year) for access to it!  Yes, we foodies are indeed special people because it’s not included in a basic monthly digital subscription to the Times.  All of this meant that they had better have a product worthy of the cost.  Sam Sifton, the founding editor of “NYT Cooking“, and his team scoured through decades of Times recipes that seemed suitable for more modern times.  Guess it was quite a success as about 3 million people now subscribe to its main Cooking newsletter – which does not require a subscription – and comes to your inbox weekly.  The recipe library has grown to 20,000+.  The Cooking team continues to expand with additional innovations and features.  The NYT Cooking YouTube channel had 300,000 subscribers, 2.8 million Instagram followers and overall 600,000 subscribers as of a February 2021 article. The NYT has also published several cookbooks, some of which reside on my shelves.  It seems that foodies and cooking are a very big business!

Here are some names you may recognize if you have ever seen the NYT Cooking app and those never ending email posts.  Lots of interesting and delicious recipes have come from these folks.. 

Sam Sifton is the founding editor of NYT Cooking and an assistant managing editor for The Times.  He has been the national editor, restaurant critic and culture editor of The Times. 

Melissa Clark has been a columnist for the Food section since 2007.  She’s written dozens of cookbooks.

Florence Fabricant has been contributing for a long time when she wasn’t writing some 13 cookbooks. 

Dorie Greenspan is a columnist for The NYT Magazine and written 13 cookbooks, one of which – “Around My French Table” – is a favorite of mine and has a special place on my cookbook shelves.  I would happily cook every recipe in the book and am well on my way!

Eric Kim is a cooking writer for the Food section with his “Korean American” cookbook coming in March 2022 and hosts on the NYT Cooking You Tube channel. 

Genevieve Ko is a senior editor for the Food section and has contributed to more than 20 cookbooks.

J. Kenji López-Alt writes a monthly column for the Food section and is a restaurant chef/owner.

Julia Moskin has been a Food staff reporter since 2004 and was named after Julia Child.  She was also part of their 2018 Pulitzer Prize winning team. 

Yotam Ottolenghi is a writer and chef/owner of a number of restaurants. He also writes a monthly column for the NYT Food section. 

Tejal Rao is the California restaurant critic at The NYT and a recipe columnist for The NYT Magazine. 

Kim Severson has been reporting food news since before the phrase “farm-to-table” was invented. 

And who are we “Cooking” from The New York Times team?

A little amuse bouche:

Julia Reed gave us a recipe for “Hot Cheese Olives”.  Julia passed away in September 2020 after contributing more than 100 recipes to The NYT.

Amanda Hesser provided us with “Roquefort Cheeseballs”.  Not only was Amanda at one time the food editor of The NYT Magazine but left the Times in 2008 to become co-founder and CEO of Food52, another foodie digital platform constantly in front of us in our digital media. 

Soup course:

Yewande Komolafe is a Nigerian born food writer, author and food stylist who joined the NYT as a cooking editor in February 2021.  She has 2 cookbooks published or on the way including “My Everyday Lagos Kitchen: Nigerian Classics at Home and in the Diaspora,” and a cookbook inspired by “Waffles + Mochi,” a Netflix children’s show. We will be cooking her recipe for “Spicy Tomato-Coconut Bisque with Shrimp and Mushrooms”.

Salad, Main Fare and Dessert courses:

David Tanis was the one who really got me going on this idea for a special NYT recipe dinner.  We will be cooking his “Curly Endive Salad with Mustard Dressing, Egg and Gruyere”, “Pork Chops with Sage, Dates and Parsnips”, “Savory Potato Tart” and last but not least “Tangerine Flan”.  David writes the City Kitchen column for the Food section, has had a long professional cooking career (including chef with Alice Waters at Chez Panisse) and authored several cookbooks featuring seasonal home cooking.  I can’t wait to feature and cook his recipes!

How will our “Cooking  The New York Times ”  dinner turn out, you may ask?  Since I rarely take my new-to-me recipes for a test drive before practicing on my dinner guests, we will just have to wait and see.  But with all of this NYT talent and the foodie skills in our kitchen, I am willing to bet that dinner will be a spectacular success.  And in case you are wondering, yes indeed each course will be perfectly paired with an excellent wine.  Sorry there are no more reservations available!  But you can be sure there will be plenty of pictures………and a forkandcorkdivine.com article.

################################

Definition of a foodie:

A person with a particular interest in food;  a gourmet.  (Oxford Languages)

A foodie is a person who has an ardent or refined interest in food, and who eats food not only out of hunger but also as a hobby.  (Wikipedia)

A person having an avid interest in the latest food fads.  (Merriam Webster)

Linda Rakos

lfrakos@gmail.com

www.forkandcorkdivine.com

2.18.22

It was all about the good old USA when a few serious lovers of wine and food gathered together for our most recent “wIne tIme” event.  The theme was  a celebration of wine “Made in the USA” but most importantly from states a little further down the list of major wine producers that we are so familiar with; i.e. California, Washington and Oregon.  Our guests brought wine made in some other State that they knew we would all enjoy, and in many cases we were all tasting for the very first time.   Of course, being the foodies that we are, there had to be a delicious culinary treat prepared and presented to go along with each special bottle of wine.

Once again our timing was impeccable!  Just a few days after we decided to go with this theme, the May 2021 issue of “Food and Wine” magazine appeared in my mailbox.  Their theme for the overall magazine was “The Escape Issue” and their article on Bottle Service was titled appropriately “The United States of Wine”: Five fantastic wine regions to discover – no passport required.  So yes, I decided to piggyback with “Food and Wine” and go with “The United States of Wine” as our title, too.  After all we thought of it first, right?  And it’s really not anything too original.  Now that we have that little tidbit of info out of the way, I would not be giving a good representation of forkandcorkdivine  if I didn’t give you some United States wine information tidbits!

A quick overview of USA winemaking

There are over 11,000 wineries in these fifty United States of America, and wine is made in every one of them.  The USA is not new to winemaking  – wine has been made in America for over 300 years – but compared to Europe and parts of the world much further east like the country of Georgia, where wine can be traced back to 6000 BC, 300 years is just the blink of an eye. Now United States ranks fourth in the wine producing countries of the world, and three of the top wine producing companies in the world are from the United States. 

We Americans should be pretty proud of our wines.  After all, didn’t our California wine edge out the French wine in that very famous 1976 Judgment of Paris blind tasting wine event?  Just 44 years later in 2020 California had over 4700 wineries (according to Statista.com) and produces 85-90% of our US wine. From the cult classic and unbelievably priced wines of Napa Valley like a bottle of 2018 Screaming Eagle that will set you back an average of $3300 on wine-searcher.com or probably $7500 or more for an older vintage (that is if you can find it and I may be off a few $1000s), or “just” some 2018 Schrader for an average $444 on wine-searcher down to a really great bottle of 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon from Joseph Phelps currently selling for $80 on wine.com.  A bottle of 99 point Insignia is on sale for a paltry $250!  Of course, there are many excellent bottles of wine available in every price range.  The fun part is searching them out which we winelovers “love” to do! 

Did we say there is wine made in every state?  You bet!  The very first AVA, or American Viticultural Area which is similar to the geographical wine classification system in Europe, was recognized in Augusta, Missouri in 1980.  There were 252 approved AVAs in the US as of November 2020.  The largest AVA is the “Upper Mississippi River Valley AVA” which crosses four states – Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois – with a whopping big 19 million acres!  And then there is the southernmost AVA, the “Texas Hill Country AVA” with over 14,000 square miles.  Texas wine has been steadily gaining in recognition; Texas now ranks number four in number of US wineries by state (WinesVinesAnalytics.com). Here is one that may surprise you –Hawaii has an appellation – in fact one of the commercial wineries is the “Volcano Winery” near the summit of the Kilauea Volcano which should really not come as a surprise.  Hawaiian winemakers primarily make fruit wines like a pineapple sparkling wine.  The principal grape in Hawaii is the Symphony grape, a cross of the vinifera varieties Muscat of Alexandria and Grenache Gris, that makes white wine with a slight spiciness and aromas of citrus, apricot and peach. 

It is hard to determine the actual number of wineries and AVAs in every state as one must search through many different sources of data; however according to the January 2021 listing from WinesVinesAnalytics.com who claims to be “the leading source for wine industry data”, California leads the way with almost 5,000 wineries, Oregon and Washington each have around 850, Texas has 470 and New York State has 433. Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio are all in the 300-400 range. Everybody else ranges somewhere between 0 and 300.   So unless you are a stickler for those exact figures, these may be close enough for you.

According to a 2020 report from the Society of Wine Educators, there are currently 252 AVAs in 33 states with over half of them (141) being in California.  American Viticultural Areas are approved by the TTB (Tax and Trade Bureau) of the Department of the Treasury.   

Here are the newest established AVAs added in 2020:

11.18.2020 Tehachapi Mountain AVA in Kern County, California: 9.25.2020 Candy Mountain AVA in Washington State; 9.2.2020 Royal Slope AVA in Washington State bringing the state total to 15; 8.25.2020 Alisos Canyon AVA in Santa Barbara County, California and 6.3.2020  Tualatin Hills AVA and Laurelwood District AVA, both in Willamette Valley, Oregon (21 AVAs.)

“The United States of Wine” tour is now leaving the station……….

Sparkling, Rosé & White Wine Bar

NEW MEXICO Gruet NV “Sauvage” Blanc de Blanc Sparkling

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gilbert Gruet was born in France in 1931 and aspired to produce quality Champagne, later creating the Union Vinicole des Coteaux de Bethon, a co-op in the village of Bethon in 1967.  In 1983 the family was traveling in Southwestern United States and met a group of European winemakers near Truth or Consequence, NM, 170 miles south of Albuquerque.  In 1984 their Champagne house, Gruet et Fils, began their American wine making adventure by planting an experimental vineyard of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  In 1989 the first release of Gruet wine in the US made its debut.   Since then they have won many awards and now have two tasting rooms, one in Albuquerque and one in Santa Fe.  Gruet is known for their NV Brut sparkling, Blanc de Blanc, Blanc de Noirs, Brut Nature, Extended Tirage Rosé, Brut Sauvage, Sauvagé Rose,  Demi-Sec and several still dry wines: Chenin Blanc and Pinot Meunier. 

“Sauvage” is made from 100% Chardonnay grapes, is bone-dry and pale straw in color with a delicate but persistent mousse.  Aromas of bright mineral and citrus notes are followed by green apple, lemon and grapefruit.  The bright acidity makes it a perfect pairing for oysters, sushi and cream sauces. 

MICHIGAN Mari Vineyards 2017 “Simplicissimus” Sparkling

Traverse City, Michigan

Mari Vineyards was born on Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City, Michigan, the passion of Marty Lagina.  Marty was born on the Upper Peninsula but has Italian roots.  His background is in engineering and frequent adventures like treasure hunting on Oak Island.  Marty, his son Alex and his brother Rick can be seen on the TV show, “The Curse of Oak Island”, as they attempt to use modern technology to hunt for treasure off the coast of Nova Scotia. Marty also uses his innovation to practice sustainability at Mari Vineyards from organics to composting to working with the “Bee and Butterfly Sanctuary” to replace lawns with sustainable cover crops in the form of pollinator habitats.    He also has a wind energy company, Heritage Sustainable Energy.  Mari Vineyard’s winemaker is Sean O’Keefe, the son of Ed O’Keefe, who founded Chateau Grand Traverse Winery in 1974.  The history of Michigan grapes started back in the early 70s.  Dr. Konstantin Frank was making a start on the Finger Lakes, and California consisted mainly of old Italian families who survived the Prohibition.  This region in the Great Lakes is surrounded by water with a continental climate and there is nowhere exactly like it.  Soils are predominantly sandy and drain well.    Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio are exceptional here.  With Marty’s Northeastern Italian heritage, Alpine and Sub-Alpine grapes grow well here.  Sean and his family have a great German influence, so between the two of them it is no wonder there are wines grown like Grüner Veltliner, Malvasia Bianca, Merlot, Refosco, Teroldego, Malbec and Nebbiolo. 

The Simplicissimus Sparkling Riesling is clean and crisp with lemon curd fruitiness.  It is made in a style somewhere between Pet-Nat (they did riddle the wine for clarity and to improve age ability) and traditional method (they don’t add sulfur, yeast or sugar).  The natural grape sugar provides the sparkling character.  Sean prefers to call it “method ancestral”. 

“Simplicissimus” was a German Satirical magazine published from 1896-1967 that Sean really enjoys.  The name originally stems from a book titled Simplicius Simplicissimus from 1669, fiction depicting the adventures of witty or roguish lower social class heroes in corrupt societies.  It’s regarded as the first adventure novel in the German language and the first German novel masterpiece. 

NEW YORK 2020 Wolffer Estate “Summer in a Bottle” Rosé

Long Island, New York

Wolffer Estate is located in the Hamptons on Long Island, New York.  It was founded in 1988 by Christian Wolffer, a Hamburg, Germany-born international businessman, and owned and operated today by his children.  The estate spans 170 acres plus they also manage 52 acres on the North Fork of Long Island, 200 acres in Mendoza, Argentina, 2.5 acres in Mallorca, Spain and manage 160 more acres in collaboration with North Fork growers.  They have excellent maritime conditions (2.6 miles from the Atlantic Ocean) perfect for achieving the balance of ripeness and acidity that now defines Wolffer’s signature style: food friendly, elegant and built for longevity.  They use sustainable farming and grow Merlot, Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and small lots of Trebbiano, Pinot Noir and Vignole.  Wolffer Estate is one of only three vineyards in the Hamptons appellation. 

“Summer in a Bottle” is a blend of Merlot, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Gewurztraminer, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Meunier and Pinot Blanc.  It is bright shiny copper in color with aromas of pears and apples, a spiciness in the mouth and fine tannins.  It is livened up by nice acidity and classic minerality with creamy yeast and delicate chalk notes on the finish.  Very food friendly and a perfect summer wine.  Serve it with smoked salmon, lobster, shrimp and soft cheeses; fish and pork.    

PENNSYLVANIA  2018 Chaddsford Winery “Presage”

 Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania

Chaddsford Winery is one of the oldest, largest and most acclaimed wineries in Pennsylvania producing more than 24,000 cases annually. You can find it in the Brandywine Valley of Chester County, southwest of Philadelphia. It was founded in 1982 by Eric Miller who sold the vineyards in 2012. The new owners moved the winery focus from dry wine to sweeter wines; however their dry 2017 Cabernet Franc was a finalist in the 2019 Pennsylvania Sommelier Judgement Day awards. The current goal is to produce “craft approachable, food-friendly wines for every palate”. The winemaking team celebrates the Mid-Atlantic Uplands microclimate at Chadds Ford and strives to make an evolving portfolio of dry, sweet and sparkling wines – something to satisfy everyone’s taste.

 2018 marks just the second vintage of “Presage” which is a blend of five grapes. It showcases Vidal Blanc with it’s fruity characteristics as the main varietal. Other grapes are Seyval Blanc, Vignoles, Sauvignon Blanc, and Pinot Grigio. The wine spent 5 months in French oak which brings out the sweet baked apples, toasted almonds and ripe pears in it. Presage is a luscious, fruity and dry white wine that paired well with our seafood appetizer bar.

The Vidal Blanc grape is often shortened to Vidal and is a white hybrid resulting from the crossing of the Vitis vinifera grape Ugni Blanc (also known as Trebbiano Toscano) and another hybrid varietal, Rayon d’Or. Frenchman Jean Louis Vidal developed it in the 1930s hoping to use the grape in cognac production. When his grape ended up with some unexpected super powers — Its got a tough skin and is able to thrive in cold climates — it became tremendously popular in the American Northeast and Canadian wine regions.

Seafood Appetizer Bar

     Smoked Salmon Roll Ups  

Shrimp Cocktail with Two Sauces:

Traditional Cocktail Sauce        Horseradish Sauce

Stone Crab Claws with Joe’s Famous Mustard Sauce

Baked Crab and Corn Poppers

Baked Oysters Melanie 

Seafood almost always pairs well with sparkling, white and rose wine. And our seafood display was spectacular. You can’t go wrong with shrimp, stone crabs and oysters. Make a few delicious sauces and you will hear the praises from your guests. The salmon roll-ups looked beautiful and tasted even better and were so simple to make. And Mariann’s baked crab and corn poppers were definitely a hit!

Main Fare Buffet and Wines

VIRGINIA  2019 Barboursville Vineyards Fiano Reserve

2018 Barboursville Petit Verdot Reserve,  Barboursville, Virginia

Virgina Brunswick Stew with Spoonbread        

Barboursville Vineyards is a winery located in central Virginia in the Virginia and Monticello AVAs. It was founded in 1976 by Gianni Zonin, an Italian winemaker from the Veneto whose Zonin family has been prominent in winemaking since 1821. The winery was built on the grounds of Barboursville, the home of the 19th Governor of Virginia, James Barbour. The home is based on an architectural design provided by Thomas Jefferson. Construction began in 1814 and was completed in 1821, just as Casa Vinicola Zonin was being founded in Palladio’s home province, the Veneto. This estate is the first producer in Virginian wine history to plant Vitis vinifera grape vines after failed attempts by Thomas Jefferson. Today Barboursville produces 35,000 cases of wine per year from predominantly Bordeaux grape varieties for red wines and Viognier, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc whites. Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Barbera, Petit Verdot and Pinot Noir are all grown here. “Octagon”, one of the most renowned red wines in Virginia and the Barboursville flagship wine, is a Bordeaux-style wine mainly based on Merlot.

The Zonins opened a barrel aging room for Octagon in 2006, the year of the winery’s 30th anniversary. Chuck and I have visited Barboursville, and the Octagon barrel room is quite impressive. The estate itself is located on 900 acres of ground of sedimentary rock of volcanic origin, sandstone and conglomerates, with sloping exposures of even greater variety. The vineyards are exposed to temperate mid-Atlantic weather. You will also find an Inn and restaurant on the property.

Fiano was first produced on the East Coast here at Barboursville in 2015. Its an Italian white grape grown primarily in the Campania region of southern Italy and on the island of Sicily. It is particularly noted around Avellino especially the DOCG Fiano di Avellino. Outside of Italy, several Australian wine producers have begun to use the grape plus some winemakers in Argentina north of Mendoza. It’s grown here in central Virginia on the slopes of Goodlow Mountain. The 2019 Fiano Reserve consists of 93% Fiano and 7% Falanghina grapes that were fermented in stainless steel and aged on the lees for 7 months. It’s pale yellow in color with a green reflex, a very floral aroma, citrus with dried-lemon, peach, salt and stone character. It’s soft on the palate then increases in character and strength followed by a a long tasty dry fresh finish.

Petit Verdot is primarily used in classic Bordeaux blends as it adds tannin, color and flavor to the blend. It ripens fairly reliably here in the New World and is more frequently made into a single varietal wine. When young, its aromas have been compared to banana and pencil shavings. It also develops strong tones of violet and leather as it matures. It is grown at Barboursville mainly for use in the Octagon blend; however we got to enjoy it as a single varietal. The 2018 Petit Verdot Reserve was made from 100% Petit Verdot grapes, fermented in stainless steel, then aged for 12 months in French oak barriques. It has dense dark fruit color, rich, earthy intense flavors of black currant and licorice, followed by great palate length with fresh assertive tannins.

Both of these wines paired beautifully with Dave’s Virginia Brunswick Stew and Spoonbread. What a delicious treat!

NEW JERSEY 2015 Sharrott Winery “Trio” Red Bordeaux Blend

Hammonton, New Jersey

The Sharrott Winery vineyards were first planted in 2005 on a former apple orchard in the Outer Coastal Plain AVA of Southern New Jersey and Camden County. The winery itself was founded by Larry Sharrott in 2006. The estate vineyard is on a flat plain with sandy soil full of quartz which encourages the summer rains to run off. Winters don’t reach freezing and Larry compares it somewhat to the Bordeaux area for climate and soil. Merlot is well-suited here with Cabernet requiring a bit more finesse. Larry’s initial desire was to make Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot their targeted wines, however he learned that you should probably produce what the customers want. And that was sweeter fruit wines! So they produced the popular blueberry wine plus cranberry and peach. Sooner or later, some customers gave those dry wines a try and actually liked them! Now sales have shifted from the “traditional” New Jersey wines to dry, varietal specific allowing them to make a “best in Class” at the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition for their second vintage of unoaked Chardonnay. Their 2015 “Trio” Red Bordeaux Blend won a Gold Medal at the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition. They now have a 34 acre property with about 25 acres planted in vines and are considering purchasing additional land. Who would ever have thought that New Jersey wines could compete with some of the world’s best? Larry Sharrott is leading the way!

The 2015 “Trio” is a red Bordeaux blend that is black garnet in color with complex aromas of fire-roasted beets, black cassis, lavender and tarragon with a medium full body and medium long bergamot and antique leather furniture finish.

As do most red Bordeaux-style wines, lamb is a great pairing. Jay’s lamb chops and Carolyn’s New Jersey”ish’ blueberry mint sauce really made that Trio shine. After all New Jersey is known for it’s blueberries……..and tomatoes…….and maybe now for it’s wine!

Lamb Chops with Blueberry Mint Sauce

TEXAS  2018 Inwood Estates Tempranillo-Cabernet

Texas High Plains, Fredericksburg, Texas

Dan Gatlin grew up in the retail beverage trade as his family owned and operated the Hasty chain of wine, spirits and convenience stores in Dallas, Texas.  Dan built his wine skills as a buyer and eventually VP of the company.  When his parents died and Hasty was sold, he turned his interest to vineyard research.  He had close ties with the California wine industry and began to research whether Texas held any possibilities for wine production by establishing one of the first vineyards in the state, in 1981.  This first vineyard proved to be an invaluable source of information.  He discovered that the terroir here was best suited for varieties found in southern Europe especially the Iberian peninsula and southern Italy.  In 1997 the Gatlins bought in a then undervalued part of Dallas where they remodeled the house as their residence and planted a 245-vine “urban” vineyard.  They did produce some Palomino-Chardonnay with a yield of less than 50 gallons per year.  Palomino is usually used to produce sherry in Spain. After a total of 5 other vineyards, Dan put in a block of Tempranillo in Yoakum County, Newsom Vineyards.  This vineyard is now the producer of the Tempranillo and Cabernet that go into their Inwood Estates flagship wine.  The winery was built in j2005.  The 2003 Temp-Cab and 2005 Palo-Chard were released August 1, 2006 to a great reception of restaurant customers in Texas’ four largest cities.

Texas is widely regarded as the preferred home for producing America’s finest versions of Spain’s famed Tempranillo wines.  Inwood produces a blend of Tempranillo and Cabernet in the classic tradition of northern Spanish river valleys, as well as the newer modern varietal Tempranillos. This one is full-bodied and inky – 55% Temp and 45% Cab – using grapes grown exclusively in the Texas High Plains, just a few miles from the Texas-New Mexico border.  It exhibits sumptuous red fruit flavors of cherry, raspberry and strawberry from the Temp and darker flavors of blackberry, black currant and cassis from the Cab.  Chocolate, nutty finish lingers from aging in French Oak barrels. 

Texas High Plains AVA is the second largest in Texas with 422 square miles and 270,000 acres.  There are at least 6 wineries within the AVA although many wineries outside of the AVA source grapes from the high plains.  When I think of food to pair with Texas wine, beef and Tex-Mex comes first to mind. Chuck being a “seasoned” steak cooker on our indoor stovetop grill pan, a rib-eye steak went immediately on the menu. Complement it with some beautiful mushrooms, a BBQish sauce for the meat (that is if you don’t have to be a purist with no sauce!), well seasoned pinto beans cooked all day in a slow cooker with jalapeno peppers, and some really tasty eggy mustardy potato salad. All in all it’s a marriage made in heaven with that bottle of tempranillo-cab.

Rib-eye Steak “Texas-style” a la Chuck with Mushrooms

Texas Sauce

Tex-Mex Pinto Beans and Texas-style Potato Salad

Dessert Table and Wines

NEW JERSEY Sharrott Winery “Wicked” Port-style Wine

Chocolate Blueberry Brownies

Sharrott NV Wicked is a port-style wine made from Chambourcin with aromas of roasted nuts, dark chocolate shavings, lacquer and salted molasses topping. You will also taste flavors of black pepper and raspberry liqueur all making it a perfect pairing for Carolyn’s decadent chocolate blueberry brownies. It/s a balanced and peppery dessert wine that will taste wonderful with a plate of cookies, a crème brulee and mixed berries.

PENNSYLVANIA 2018 Chaddsford Winery Artisan Series Traminette

Finger Lakes, NY 

Pennsylvania Gooey Butter Cake

The 2019 Chaddsford Artisan Series Traminette is a soft and sweet wine with notes of lychee, honey, sweet peaches, flowers and candied mango making it a good choice for Mariann’s authentic Pennsylvania Gooey Butter Cake. The 100% traminette grapes were harvested in the New York Finger Lakes area, and the 153 cases were finished in stainless steel. The next time I ever see this ooey gooey sinful cake, I’ll race you to the table for it!

Cheese Board

          NEW YORK  2016 Dr. Konstantin Frank Cabernet Franc

  Finger Lakes, NY

Dr. Frank ignited the “Viniferia Revolution” a movement that forever changed the course of wine growing in the Finger Lakes and the US.  His vision, knowledge and determination are credited with elevating the NY wine industry from happy mediocrity to a level that today commands world attention.  Dr. Frank’s Wine Cellars includes a winemaking team from CA, Australia, France and Germany.  Their focus is on world class wines with a tradition of excellence.  Dr. Frank emigrated to NY in 1951 at the age of 52 with a PhD in Viticulture from Odessa, Ukraine and decades of experience in vineyard management.  He also survived two world wars and the Russian Revolution. He knew the climate and soil was right for growing high quality cold weather grapes, and he pushed forward despite opposition to plant the first Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir vines in the Finger Lakes revolutionizing the Eastern US. 

The 2016 is a light-bodied Cab Franc that offers tones of spiced currant and cranberry on the nose and palate with a framing of green herbs.  It has a juicy acidity and fine-grained tannins that meld with the tart red fruit flavors.  I selected cheeses that were said to pair well with the Cab Franc, and so they did. You can’t miss with a good and simple cheese board.

Camembert, Cheddar, Goat and Swiss   

WHAT A PERFECT SALUTE TO FLAG DAY JUNE 14, 2021

LFRakos@gmail.com

forkandcorkdivine.com

6.14.2021

The Hill Family Estate Winery is ”A family working together” in Napa Valley, and here is the story of how Chuck and I first learned about the family and their wines, had the opportunity to taste them and then introduced them to some of our SW Florida friends in a wine dinner “forkandcorkdivine”-style.

The family

Doug Hill is a third generation farmer who grew up on the family farm in Healdsburg growing prunes and apples along the Russian River before moving on to Napa Valley to manage vineyards in the 1970s.  Eventually buying vineyards of his own as well as leasing land, he has now been growing grapes for more than forty years.  After getting a degree in Plant Science from Cal State Fresno and the experience of traveling around in Latin America, Doug came home and went to work for Sonoma Cutrer.

In 1981, Doug and his wife Darci moved to an acre of land at the northern edge of Yountville, worked for the Jaeger Family (who founded Freemark Abbey Winery), started Oak Knoll Farming, and learned all about Napa Valley microclimates and soils.  He pioneered new varieties and growing regions while their children Ryan and Carly grew up playing in the vineyards. Doug planted the first vineyards in American Canyon and brought the first Albariño grapevines to Napa Valley.  They also helped their neighbors grow organic fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables from these gardens are still being served at a few renowned local restaurants including the French Laundry. 

After four decades of farming, Doug decided to take his family business to the next level and in 2001 Hill Family Estate was born.  Their first wines (totaling about 900 cases), a Merlot and a red blend called “Origin”, were produced in 2001.  Now they own 120 acres of vineyards focusing on Atlas Peak, Carneros and Oak Knoll.  They are 100% family farmed, owned and operated producing fruit for other Yountville wineries (ie. Cakebread, Duckhorn, Far Niente) as well as their own family business.  Hill Family Estate annual wine production ranges between 9,000 to 12,000 cases made from the grapes of 12 different vineyards.  Varietals include Albariño, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah and Zinfandel.  They also make Late Harvest/Dessert, Red Blend, Rosé and Sparkling wine.   

The Hill children have grown up in the wine business making son Ryan Hill a perfect choice for VP and Director of Sales.  With his degree in Wine Business Strategies and lots of experience in the hospitality business, Ryan continues to grow the family business.  Ryan’s sons are now the fifth generation of farmers! Ryan’s sister Carly Hill got her degree in Food and Nutritional Science and became a Registered Dietitian.  She now lives in San Diego where she works in Pediatric Sales and continues to help the family with wine events in Southern California. 

Alison Doran joined the Hill Family as their winemaker making the inaugural 2001 vintage.  Alison came with some pretty big credentials including a mentorship by Andre Tchelistcheff, a winemaking degree from UC Davis, spending time working in Alsace,  and not to forget she was the winemaker for Lewis Cellars.  Alison and Doug now have 43 harvests on their resume.

Where to experience Hill Family’s wines

You can experience Hill Family’s ultra-premium wines first-hand at their tasting room on Washington Street, Yountville and their winery on Solano Avenue in Napa.  If visiting the Yountville tasting room, you can see one of Ryan’s ideas firsthand – “the stained project”.  Several types of wood were stained by red wines and sent back to the Fender guitar company who used that wood to produce 100 very limited red wine stained guitars.  One of them hangs on the wall near the tasting counter!  You will also want to take note of the door to this tasting room – it was carved by a wood worker from Montana and also stained in red wine.  You can probably guess where this is headed!  The Hill’s own a vineyard called Red Door located in Carneros that produces excellent Merlot, and they named one of their wines for it…………you guessed it! ……..RED DOOR.  2017 Red Door is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Syrah and Merlot, and it is excellent.  Just 415 cases were produced and I’m overjoyed that we have a bottle of it in our cellar! 

In late November of 2019, the Hill Family bought the old McVicar vineyards and winery just about a mile south of their Yountville tasting room west of Highway 29 off of Solano Avenue and Hoffman Lane.  The winery building was completely restored in 2014.  You can reserve a tasting there, but the wine is still produced at nearby Laird Family Estate.

For the most unique experience and only a 5 minute drive from the Yountville tasting room, make arrangements for “The Secret Garden” tour and wine tasting usually available between June and October.  This fabulous little certified organic 1.3 acre garden is filled with over 120 types of fruit trees including 10 varieties of figs, 10 varieties of pears, and 15 varieties of peaches; a wide range of vegetables; herbs and 25 different culinary flowers.  Produce is sold to just 4 Michelin starred restaurants including the world-famous Thomas Keller’s French Laundry and Ad Hoc.  The French Laundry was known to purchase the tiny flowers on fennel, using tweezers to place them for service and tiny Sungold tomatoes that they peeled by hand.  Other unique products include peach leaves (used to make peach leaf ice cream), hyacinth bean vine flowers (don’t eat the pods – they’re poisonous!) and Korean mint flowers.  Did you know peach leaves smell like amaretto when they are crushed? You may also get to see some free-range farm-raised certified organic snails! 

Albariño and Napa Valley’s “lowest” vineyard

So many of Napa’s highest vineyards get all of the attention, but near the estuary that forms just south of the city of Napa, you will find the Stewart Ranch Vineyard where grapevines are planted between 6 and 12 feet above sea level. There is even a levee around the vineyard to help keep it from floodwaters.  Doug Hill manages this vineyard which is much less famous than the wildlife refuge on the other side of the highway.  Stewart Ranch is also home to an Albariño vineyard, the first Albariño planted in Napa Valley.  Hill Family has been making wine from them since 2010, and it’s distributed primarily to various Morimoto restaurants around the country including the one in Napa.  This wine is ONLY available for tasting and purchase at the Hill Family tasting room PLUS we lucky participants of a Hill Family wine dinner at Liberty. I’m sure we weren’t the only lucky ones, but we like to think we were! You can be sure we purchased a few bottles of this delightful Albariño with its notes of green apples, pear, lime and citrus blossoms.  After all if Iron Chef Morimoto likes to pair it with his seafood, that’s a good enough recommendation for us!  You can buy a bottle of it for $80 at Morimoto Asia in Disney Springs.

All about the wines

As mentioned earlier, Chuck and I were lucky enough to taste through the Hill Family wines right here in Fort Myers, Florida in March 2021 when Bob Boye, Chef/Owner of Liberty – “culinary workshop” paired up their wines for a six course culinary adventure.  Heather Smith, our local Sales Consultant from Breakthru Beverage greeted us, and Ryan Hill was there to personally tell us the story of Hill Family Estate and present each wine as it was served.  

The wines that we tasted that night at Liberty seemed perfect for a future wine dinner to be planned, prepared and presented “Rakos-style”/ www.forkandcorkdivine.com at our home for a few of our winelover friends. And of course we purchased them! Those were the same wines and vintages that we served at our forkandcorkdivine dinner on May 15, 2021 for a party of six.  Next up is our menu and pictures of the delicious and perfectly paired food prepared by the Rakos team and several of our foodie friends. The wines and information about each of them is interspersed throughout the menu.  (Note: Most of my comments about the wines are taken from the winemaker’s tech sheets.)                                       

“Wine Dinner in the Secret Garden”

• 

Sparkling California Welcome

Roederer Estate Brut, Anderson Valley, Mendocino, CA

Brie and Pear Tartlets Amuse Bouche

Lemon, Fennel Pollen and Parmesan Popcorn

We always begin our wine tastings and dinner events with a sparkling wine to start the evening in a festive mood and set guest expectations for all of the wine and culinary goodness yet to come! Hill Family does make a sparkling wine, but sadly there was none available, so I opted for another California sparkling and one of my personal favorites – a Brut from Roederer Estate in Anderson Valley. Chuck and I had visited their estate on one of our California wine trips and have enjoyed it ever since. The Brie and pear flavors in the pastry tartlets and the lemon, fennel pollen and Parmesan flavors showcased that Roederer bubbly just right! And if that popcorn was good enough for Cakebread Cellars to serve, it was good enough for me. Our Meyer lemon tree isn’t yet bearing fruit this year, but when it does you can be sure I’ll make another batch of that popcorn with Meyer lemon zest.

Next up, my tablescape was supposed to resemble a garden, even if it’s not “secret”. I few fresh veggies, fruits, herbs and gardening tools gave it a “Rakos garden” feel., of course nothing like the Hill Family Secret Garden, I’m sure. We even decorated with real grapevines from our basically ornamental Cabernet Sauvignon grapevine that grows right outside our back door! It does bear fruit which the birds really enjoy.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

First:  2020 “Stewart Ranch” Albariño

Just 371 cases of this 97% Albariño (plus 3% Sauvignon Blanc) were produced from the Stewart Ranch Vineyard in Carneros.  The harvested fruit was whole cluster pressed and fermented in stainless steel for about 3 weeks, then rested on the lees for 2 months in the tank before racking and bottling.  The result is a wine with aromas of orange blossoms, apricots, mandarin oranges, a tiny bit of pineapple, a satiny structure and zippy acidity on the finish.   It’s a perfect choice for pairing with fresh seafood and tapas.  Since Chef Morimoto serves it in his Japanese restaurants, we knew it would pair well with our seared scallops dressed with a pineapple, apricot and chili sauce. We served them on Chinese spoons – one, because I have a big box of them!, and two, because it gives a tiny bit of Oriental vibe. adding lots of interest to the first course presentation. Another great pairing would be the smoked scallop carpaccio, lime and ginger that Bob served to us at Liberty. And yes we even had that garden effect going on in the napkins!

Seared Scallops with Pineapple, Apricot and Chili Salsa

• 

• 

Second:  2016 “Carly’s Cuvée” Chardonnay 

Three thousand four hundred cases of this 2016 100% Chardonnay were made from grapes of several vineyards on the valley floor.  It’s made in a partial-malolactic style with just 10 months in French oak barrels, 45% of them new, making it a great choice for those who prefer a fresh and bright style of Chardonnay.  It has aromas of tropical fruit, melon and hints of fig followed by ripe citrus, light peach and a bit of nuttiness and touch of mineral.  Even though our winelover friend Anita had not yet tasted Carly’s Chardonnay, she knew exactly what flavor profile to go for! Her yogurt marinated chicken and fresh apricots skewer was dressed up with some tabbouleh and pita bread, and it was wonderful. We also enjoyed it at our Liberty dinner paired with a lemon basil flan and notes of soy-caramel.

Yogurt Marinated  Fresh Apricots  and Chicken Skewers with Tabbouleh and Pita Bread

• 

• 

Third:    2017 “Stewart Ranch” Pinot Noir

The Stewart Ranch Vineyard is cool and breezy enough to work some magic on those Pinot grapes.  Four hundred ninety cases of the 2017 were produced spending 11 months in 55% new oak barrels and no fining or filtration.  According to Alison Doran, the winemaker, expect aromas of cherry crème soda and ripe plum with a core of black cherry and flavors of clove and spice on a rich finish.  It was a big hit paired with Bob Boye’s pork belly and black garlic cauliflower plate, so our foodie wine friend Jeff took that pork theme and ran with it – in a really big way. He made an outstanding porchetta, chilled it, then sliced it to be topped with his vinegar red peppers. What a winning combination. We are so lucky to have friends who really know their way around the kitchen.  And all of our guests gave rave reviews about the Stewart Ranch Pinot Noir.

Chilled Porchetta with Vinegar Peppers

• 

    Fourth:     2017 Barrel Blend

Barrel Blend is the Hill Family “surfer” wine!  Kyle Knox, who is a great surfer and also a wine professional, suggested naming this blend after the term “being in the barrel” which is both a wine and a surfing term.  Look closely and you will see a picture of Kyle carving a perfect cut in “the barrel” on the label.  Kyle collaborated with the Hill family to make a really great blend of wine that won’t break the bank.  The 2017 is a blend of 44% Merlot, 17% Zinfandel, 16% Syrah, 7% Petit Syrah, 5% Malbec, 4% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3% Pinot Noir, 2% Petit Verdot and 2% Dolcetto.  Wow!  Don’t think I left anything out!!!! All of these grapes were harvested before the big fire of 2017 hit.  The Malbec and Merlot had great berry fruit and dense color, the Syrah and Petite Syrah had density and texture, lots of fruit from the Zinfandel, a little Cabernet and Petit Verdot for dignity and finally a touch of Pinot for grace.  Just as you would expect with all of these grape varieties, the “Barrel Blend” gave off blueberry, red cherry, deep black fruit followed by more blueberries, black pepper, jammy blackberry and black cherry.  Just over 4,000 cases were made, and Bob paired our glass with an outstanding duck meatball in a vodka sauce with fennel and oregano.  It was just a fantastic taste explosion!  I personally am not a lover of all things duck, but that duck meatball was just such an awesome pairing that I made duck meatballs stuffed with some mousse of foie gras, and simmered in caramelized onions and cremini mushrooms.  I ground my raw duck breasts and mixed them with ground pork (just like my recipe from Cakebread Cellars told me to do). Look out, you surfers and fellow foodies!!!!! This dish and wine pairing were a major hit at our dinner.

Duck Meatballs with Foie Gras, Caramelized Onions and Mushrooms

• 

• 

   Fifth:    2016 Origin Red Blend

All five Bordeaux varieties were included in the 960 cases of Origin – 55% Merlot, 18% Malbec, 17% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Petit Verdot and 5% Cabernet Franc.  The Merlot added richness, structure and plush fruit; Malbec is for big color and low tannin; the Petit Verdot and Cab Franc for texture to balance the Malbec and dignity from the Cabernet Sauvignon.  The wine was aged for 16 months in 68% new oak barrels and bottled without fining or filtration.  As you would expect, there wwere aromas of raspberry and roses, mouthfuls of berries and cherries moving on to blueberries, red currants and plums and finishing out with subtle tannins.  Bob hit another winner when he paired our glass of Origin with a hangar steak and pretzel spätzle.  I’m not a tried-and-true lover of hangar steak, but I do love flank steak. Since flank steak is a really good protein (in my opinion) for serving to a number of guests, at the Rakos wine dinner we served our Origin with grilled marinated flank steak, miso-glazed fingerling potatoes and a Japanese Swiss Chard salad. As far as I am concerned it was perfect in flavor and wine pairing. I did the prep work for our Japanese inspired plate and Chuck grilled off that flank steak to perfection while finishing those little potatoes in a glaze of white miso paste and mirin. What a great plate full of umami flavor. The Swiss Chard was cooked lightly then chilled and dressed in soy sauce, lime juice, sesame oil, sugar and garlic. Top it off with a few sesame seeds and scallions and you have a restaurant quality entree plate.

Grilled Marinated Flank Steak with Miso Glazed Baby Dutch Yellow Potatoes and

Japanese Swiss Chard Sesame Salad

• 

• 

    Sixth:   2017 Red Door Cabernet Sauvignon

What a way to end a wine dinner!  “Red Door” is a blend made to showcase Hill Family’s best lots regardless of variety or sub-appellation.  Just 415 cases were made to show off the blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Malbec, 10% Syrah and 2% Merlot from 5 different vineyards.  It was aged 16 months in 65% new French oak, and you can enjoy it today – like we did! – or put it away for 15-20 years.  There were ample blue fruits, leafy herbs, and damp earth-like aromas and flavors in a really well balanced wine with fine polished tannins.  And since it went so well with Bob’s chocolate dessert, I decided not to mess with perfection and to be a “copy cat”. Chocolate MUST be served with Red Door. This flourless chocolate cake was complete with a pound of bittersweet chocolate, eight eggs and one cup of butter. But don’t stop there! You absolutely must serve it with a Cabernet Sauvignon dried cherry sauce in order to do that Red Door proud……….and be the perfect ending to our Hill Family wine dinner. I just happened to have a bottle of very high end Cabernet from Alexander Valley sitting open from the night before, and it was just the two cups of red wine that my Napa Valley Vintners recipe called for. As you can see, I really like to use authentic recipes for the region to complement our wines. Sort of like that famous saying “what grows together goes together”.

 Flourless Chocolate Cake with

Cabernet Sauvignon Dried Cherry Sauce and Blueberries

• 

• 

Our forkandcorkdivine Hill Family dinner was quite a success. Everyone enjoyed the wines and all of our food pairings, and we always enjoy the camaraderie. While we love wines from France, Italy, Spain, and every other country we can source from including Armenia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, Turkey and Lebanon just to name a few we have featured, we always owe our first allegiance to the wines of United States. Stay tuned to hear about a tour of some United States wines in the very near future from states that don’t currently receive as much recognition as California, Oregon and Washington. And we hear they are great!!!!!!!

Thanks to Ryan Hill, Heather Smith, Bob Boye and his team at Liberty –“culinary workshop” for introducing us to these excellent boutique Napa Valley wines that won’t break the bank.  Our wish is that the Hill Family will continue to work together for a very long time.  We also hope that our winelover friends enjoyed the forkandcorkdivine “Rakos-style” Hill Family wine dinner equally as well.   

5.25.2021

lfrakos@gmail.com

forkandcorkdivine.com