Dallas Wine Chick

Corison Winery: A Sense of Place, Time and Terrior

Corison Wines are all about the time and place.  If you have paid attention to the evolution of blue-chip cabernets in Napa Valley, chances are you have consumed a wine that has Cathy Corison’s magic touch.  Cathy, one of Napa’s first female winemakers, started making cabernet in 1978; several years after getting her Master’s in Enology from U.C. Davis.  From 1980-89, she was the lead winemaker for Chappellet Vineyard.  She also made wine for Staglin Family Vineyard, York Creek Vineyards and Long Meadow Ranch.

In 1987, she decided to focus on her own wine and began making Corison after making a handshake agreement with three farmers, who still provide grapes for her Napa Cabernet.  In 2003, her venture was so successful that she stopped making wines for others.  She originally focused on “100 percent cabernet all the time” and she and her husband, William Martin, purchased the current winery property in 1996.

We were greeted by one of my favorite folks in wine, Hardy Wallace, who manages the tasting room and has his own wine that I’m dying to try.  We talked about Cathy’s philosophy that the winery should be a place to make wine.  Looking around, you see no big tasting salon and no branded merchandise underscoring her philosophy.  During harvest, it’s a three person production crew – Cathy, William and her cellar master – just the way it’s been for the past 15 years.

While Cathy originally started with just cabernet, she was quickly called to be on the wine dinner circuit due to the success of her wines.  Most wine dinners start off with a white wine, and since Cathy used to only make reds, someone else’s wines were usually served first.  After having to drink someone else’s white wine which was not up to her standards, she decided to start making the Corazón Anderson Valley Gewürztraminer.  The 2009 was bone dry with honey, floral notes and tropical flavors.  I now own six bottles.

We then tried the 2008 Helios Cabernet Franc, which had fabulous green notes with vanilla, spice and that chalkiness that defines a cabernet franc.  Cathy makes two barrels a year of this wine.  You may start to notice some Greek influences in the names as well as the fact that the Corison name is only branded on the cabernet which is 100% cabernet (a wine can be called cabernet even if just 75% of the grapes are cabernet).

We then moved into the Corison cabernet vertical line up made from grapes in the Rutherford Bench between Rutherford and St. Helena.  We tried the following:

-          2009 Napa Cabernet – full of berry, cocoa and promise of what magic would happen if you put this wine down for 20 years.

-          2005 Napa Cabernet – berry, fruit forward, cassis and lots of spice and cherry.

-          2001 Napa Cabernet – we actually opened a second bottle of this because it wasn’t showing the true potential and I am so glad that we did.  This was my favorite – it was balanced, earthy and full of blackberry and bramble.  This was truly a hallmark year and Hardy told me was one of Cathy’s favorite vintages.

-          2004 Napa Cabernet – full of flowers, plum, currant and definitely could use some more time in the bottle to show its truest potential.

Our single vintage Kronos line-up included the following:

-          1998 Kronos – elegant, smooth and ridiculously good.  My tasting note was “wow” and that summed it up.

-          2006 Kronos – this was a muscular wine with cassis, blackberry, allspice and chocolate notes.

-          2008 Kronos – cherry, blueberry, plum, allspice and chocolate were all prevalent in this wine.

We briefly had the chance to meet Cathy as her investors were in town and she was incredibly gracious.  If her wines could talk, they would have amazing, complex and unique stories to tell.  She definitely lets the vineyards speak for themselves.

An Evening at Jordan: An Experience for the Bucket List

When I started my blog a little over three years ago, I never expected that it could lead to an invitation from one of the best California wineries, Jordan Vineyard & Winery, to stay at their estate for an evening.  Due to a friendship with Lisa Mattson, Jordan’s head of marketing and engagement, we found that ourselves in the position of winning the wine bloggers lotto.

Approximately five days before we left, my husband tore his Achilles which meant he would be on crutches for the trip and many months to come.  It was touch and go until two days prior to our trip if he was going to be able to make it.  The stars aligned, the doctor gave him clearance, we were upgraded on the flight, and then American lost our luggage.  But more on that later.

We were met by Sean Brosnihan from guest services who showed us to our amazing suite that was stocked with fruit, water and a lovely bottle of Jordan Chardonnay.  Every detail was handled by Nitsa Knoll, director of hospitality.  Jordan, who absolutely has the art of customer experience down pat, also provided toiletries since they knew we had no luggage.

In 1972, Tom and Sally Jordan shared a love for French food and wine and always dreamed of owning a winery in France.  A glass of Bordeaux-style Beaulieu Vineyard’s Georges de Latour Cabernet during a meal in San Francisco changed their mind and they began to research locations in Sonoma and Napa.  In 1972, the day their son John was born, they bought the Alexander Valley property and began to plant more than 200 acres of vineyards with the vision of making a first growth quality Bordeaux-style wine.

The chateau, which was completed one week before Jordan’s first harvest in 1976, was built modeled on a French chateau with the goal of being a place for winemaking and hospitality.  The Jordan’s brought in the famed Andre Tchelistcheff, who directed the architecture of the winemaking process and brought in Rob Davis to help with the winemaking.  More than 40 years later, Davis remains Jordan’s winemaker.  In 2005, John Jordan stepped in as CEO of the winery and began an effort to make the winery more eco-friendly which included installing hillside solar panels to offset 75 percent of the winery’s electricity usage, irrigating their grapevines with recycled water reclaimed from the winery.

Sean Brosnihan on the Jordan Patio

I talked before about customer experience – and this begins with the people, the beauty of the property and the pairing of food and wine.  After a tour of the breathtaking property, we stopped at a patio to try the 2010 Jordan Chardonnay, which is now 100 percent allocated to restaurants and only sold at the winery.  The wine is made with 100 percent Russian River Valley grapes and was made in an Old World style.  It was full of stone fruit, tropical fruits, slate, apple and had great minerality and acidity.

It was served with curried cauliflower with Maharaja spice and a Zarnicholi with cauliflower puree and green onion with caviar.  Who would have thought cauliflower and caviar would have been the star pairing with this chardonnay?  I bought several bottles to take home.

We then proceeded to tour the inside of the winery – the barrel room, the formal dining room and finally the secret passage door, which led to a VIP tasting room.  There we were treated to a beautiful cheese plate designed to go with the 2003 and 2008 Jordan Cabernet wines.  The 2003 was a beautiful Bordeaux style cabernet that was silky and beautiful.  The 2008 cabernet, Jordan’s most current release, was big, vibrant and soft with lots of cherries and plums.  Just lovely, but very different from the 2003 as the blends change year to year.

We returned to our room to sample the bottle of 2010 Jordan Chardonnay.  The winery even provided a driver to our dinner at Scopa, where we were lucky enough to meet up with Graham, the Wine Czar, who recommended a lovely Salina Bianco wine from Italy that I had not tried yet and matched perfectly with the seafood we ordered.  Our same driver was kind enough to haul our luggage up the 24 stairs to our room, when our luggage finally arrived 12 hours after we had landed.

The next morning, I had the chance to jog around the property and see the vineyards, olive trees and the fruit and vegetable garden that Jordan’s culinary team uses to prepare unique dining experiences on the property, before we were served a lovely breakfast.

If our experience was any indication of what the Jordan’s envisioned for their guests, I can say that it was the quintessential marriage of food, wine, and hospitality making the experience of Jordan stand out in my mind for years to come.

A Night with Morlanda and Judith Llop in Dallas

Judith Llop, the winemaker for Morlanda, one of Spain’s shining stars from Priorat, came to town last week and I had the chance to sit down with her at an intimate wine dinner.  Morlanda is part of the Heredad Collection, a small collection of limited-release premium wines from the top estates in Spain.  It is owned by the Ferrer family, who you may know for the widely distributed Freixenet, who uses its wide distribution network to bring great wines out of Spain that would never otherwise reach the United States.

We were invited to the home of Janet Kafka, who runs the Freixenet family’s PR efforts, which is worth a mention as one of the best entertaining houses in Dallas.  The artwork alone is worth its own column.  We started with the Segura Viudas Reserva Heredad, which was a source of much discussion about how much of a value and crowd pleaser this sparkling is.  I personally have served it for many brunches and have always received great comments.

Judith talked about the wines that we would taste and how they truly are “her babies.”  Her goal is to make wines that are drinkable today, which is often not a characteristic of wine from Priorat.  She is the daughter of vineyard owners in Terra Alta in Spain.  After getting her Oenology degree from Tarragona University, she worked for Miguel Torres, Vina Errazariz, among others, before joining the Freixenet group in late 2003.

We tried three wines from her collection along with some belt loosening, but very good food.  We started with a Wild Mushroom Souffle with rosemary black pepper demi with the 2011 Garbo from Montsant.   This was young, drinkable wine.  It was very fruity with notes of blueberry.

Our next course was Smoked Beef Short Rib with Manchego Whipped Parsnip Cauliflower Puree, Sweet Snap Peas and Peppers paired with the 2009 Mas de Subira and 2007 Morlanda from Priorat.  The Mas de Subira had tons of structure with slate, cocoa, plum and cherry.  The 2007 Morlanda, which I absolutely loved, was full of plum, chocolate, balsamic and mocha.

The more wines I try from Spain – especially from Priorat – the more I realize I how much I am a huge fan of just about every wine I have tried from this region.

Bocelli Family Wines: An Aria for My Curtain Call

I recently brought a chapter of my life to a close.  I left my old job working for a company based in Stockholm to begin a new one located about seven minutes from my house that wouldn’t require the 210,000 miles that I flew last year.  Before my tenure came to an end, I had my management team meet in Dallas so we could appropriately transition activities while the company looked for my replacement.

In typical “Melanie” fashion, I didn’t want to do a formal meeting, so everyone came to my house.  We worked hard, ate a ton of food and when the clock hit six, we decided to taste the Bocelli wines samples sent to me earlier in the month.  It was bittersweet, as I definitely had many glasses of wine with these girls over the year as we built the success of the marketing department.

The Bocelli family has been making wines for four generations in Tuscany.  While you may not know the wines, you know the famous tenor, Andrea Bocelli, a huge wine enthusiast and one of the most successful solo artists of all times.

We tried two of the wines – the Bocelli Prosecco and the Bocelli Sangiovese.  The prosecco was full of green apple, tropical fruits, pear and floral notes.  The Bocelli family is in collaboration with Trevisiol, the first family of prosecco.  It even converted a non-sparkling person to a sparkling fan.

The sangiovese was balanced with cherry, strawberry, smoke and earthiness.  Both of these wines were in the $14-16 range.  I strongly recommend either of them.

You can find them in Dallas at Central Market and Kroger stores with a fine wine selection.

Head East: Steven Kent Wines Ahead

I recently received an invite to attend a Twitter tasting featuring the wines of Steven Kent Winery.  I wasn’t familiar with the wines from Steven Kent, but I’ve been hearing buzz lately about Livermore Valley, so I immediately accepted.  A few weeks later, a half case of wines found their way to my door.

First, more about the Livermore Valley, one of California’s oldest wine regions dating back to the 1760s.  In terms of location, it’s less than an hour east of San Francisco.  Robert Livermore planted the first vines in 1840 and according to the Livermore Valley Wine Map and Visitors Guide, the wineries in Livermore were the first to bottle Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Petite Sirah.  And, the region has also gained recognition for Bordeaux style wines due to similar growing conditions.  There are more than 50 wineries including well-known names like Wente and Concannon and more than 4,000 acres of grapes planted.

The Steven Kent winery was started in 1996 with a single minded goal to make the best Cabernet that rivals its global competitors.  Steven Kent Mirassou, of the Mirassou family brand now owned by Gallo fame, also owns La Rochelle Winery, which focuses on Pinots and Chardonnays, and was with us for the tasting.

From what I could tell, there were about 100 wine bloggers that were online to taste the wine.   Many – especially those not from California – had limited experience with Livermore Valley wines.  And, I would venture to guess that most immediately figured out what we had been missing.

2011 “Lola” (Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon Blend) Ghielmetti Vineyard $24 — orange blossom, honeysuckle, lime, floral, minerality and pear.  A perfect patio wine on a sunny Spring day.

2010 La Rochelle Chardonnay, Dutton-Morelli Lane Vineyard, Russian River Valley $65 – apple pie spice, pear, butterscotch, white flowers, peach, caramel candy and vanilla.  A very elegant Old World style chardonnay.

2009 La Rochelle Pinot Noir, Santa Lucia Highlands $38 – fruit forward, black cherry, raspberry, earthy, very silken with a hint of smoke.

2009 La Rochelle Pinot Noir, Donum Estate, Carneros $75 –  cherry cola, blackberry, oregano, dried cherries and notes of mushroom.  This was the earthiest wine in the bunch.  The Old World Pinot lovers raved and the New World Pinot lovers didn’t in our group.  I liked both the Pinots, but the style was very different.

2009 Steven Kent Petite Verdot, Ghielmetti Vineyard, Livermore Valley $50 –  cocoa, chile, leather, smoke, figs, plum and tobacco.  This was like a spicy fig newton in a glass, but smooth and balanced.  I enjoyed this thoroughly.

2009 Steven Kent Cabernet, Home Ranch Vineyard, Livermore Valley $65, cassis, plum, chocolate, spearmint and oak.  A wonderful representation of the promise of Cabernet.

Perhaps a trip East the next time I am in San Francisco is in due order.

Give Cork A Pop: A Wine Bar Review

It had been a while since I had last visited Cork Wine Bar and it was time for a return trip.  I knew that Cork used Enomatic wine dispensers, and I am a huge fan of the technology.  It allows consumers to try a wide variety of wines while making business sense for wine bar owners.  Thus, I made the journey to the West Village in Uptown.

When I walked in, I saw 48 wine options labeled into categories (big and bold, eight for eight, etc.) along with a variety of computer touch screens giving information about each of the wines along with the price.  You can try in quantities from a one ounce tasting to a full glass of six ounces. 

My friend compared it to a “grown up’s Dave and Busters,” in reference to the card that you buy to insert into the machines as you taste the wines.  We tried wines from several regions – from California to Spain to France to Washington State.  The unanimous favorite for the wine was the 2011 Chateau Guiraud ‘Le G de Chateau Guiraud’ Blanc Sec from Bordeaux, France.  It was a Sauvignon Blanc blended with Semillon and it had flavors of citrus (lemon and grapefruit), thyme and notes of honey. 

Our favorite red was the 2010 Spring Valley Vineyard Kathryn Corkrum Cabernet Franc from Walla Walla, Washington.  This was a well balanced red with flowers, green pepper, raspberries, herbs and some strawberry.  This was a very nice and fragrant cabernet franc that represented the grape well.

I tried six wines for less than $25 and loved the variety of choices.  Cork also designates a certain happy hour section each night and features a retail selection with 350 wines and craft beers.  They also have a selection of appetizers and desserts.

WinePoynt Review on CultureMap Dallas Today

Photo Courtesy of WinePoynt

Click here to see my review of WinePoynt in Culture Map Dallas.  All in all, a cool application today to find the best wine selection in the bigger box retailers and chains.  I’m looking forward to when wine bars, specialty retailers and smaller restaurants are added.  Then this will truly be a powerful handheld sommelier.

California and Rioja Wines: A Mix of Cellar Worthy & Tuesday Night Wine

The sample wines were multiplying again, so I invited over some friends and opened a variety of bottles from California and Spain.  I’ve found as the blog gets older, the wines are definitely getting better.  Today was no exception.

California

Cornerstone Cellars never disappoints.  We started with the Cornerstone Cellars 09 Cabernet Sauvignon from Howell Mountain.  I was lucky enough to have tried this before at A Taste of Howell Mountain in Dallas.  This was a gorgeous wine with lots of black cherry, currant, licorice, mocha, cinnamon and lots of depth and complexity.  These wines are consistently good – the grape and the region don’t seem to matter.  It is priced at $80, but it is cellar and special occasion worthy.  

Our next journey through California was the 2010 Matchbook Syrah from Dunnigan Hills, a winery that I was not familiar with before the tasting.  It was jammy and spicy with notes of raspberries, blackberry pie, plum and currants.  We were eating olive hummus and it was a fabulous match with the food.  At a suggested retail price of $16, this was a great wine for the price.

Spain

I continued my love affair with the Rioja region with wines from Basque Country. 

We started with the 2007 Bodegas Ruiz de Viñaspre, which is 100 percent tempranillo, with lots of berry, licorice, violets and mocha with candied fruits.  This was another very drinkable value wine for about $15. 

The second bottle was the 2007 Finca Monteviejo, which is from Viñedos y Bodegas de la Marquesa – Valserrano, a decades-old, family run winery.  The wine is 95 percent tempranillo and a 5 percent mix of graciano and garnacha. This was an earthy and intense wine with dried fruit, blackberry, currant, jam and chocolate.  Very well balanced and $42.

Super Bowl: Santorini Style

It was time for the Super Bowl game and we were invited to a friend’s house for an impromptu get together.  It was a sunny day with weather in the 60’s, I knew we’d have some rich snacks, and since I am never one to follow the beaten path, I grabbed some sample wines from Santorini.  These wines impressed me when I tried them at the Wine Bloggers Conference (#wbc12) in Portland and I was ready to give them the focus that they deserved.

It’s funny how things come full circle. I’m asked often about my favorite wine experience ever.  Mine happened to come while I was in Greece before I knew anything about wine.  My husband had just received his MBA and we hadn’t seen much of each other while he was in school.  We decided that we would take a vacation that we couldn’t afford and visited Turkey and then some of the Greek Islands.  One day we were on Santorini with our trusted Foder’s book in tow.  Most of the restaurants that had four stars had price tags that matched the number of stars given, except for one which had the single “$” sign next to it.  We soon found ourselves in a courtyard with a Greek family who served us fresh fish, Greek salad, hummus and the most wonderful crisp and dry wine that I’ve ever had.  It was amazing and still tops my list of wine/food experiences.

Santorini, while also an island, is a Greek wine region located in the southern Cyclades Islands of the Aegean Sea.  The wines became famous because of the Assyrtiko wines, the island’s flagship grape, commonly referred to as a “white grape in red’s clothing” because of the full-bodied and age-worthy wines produced.

We tried several wines including:

• Domaine Sigalas, Assyrtiko White 2011 – a delightful white with minerality and notes of citrus.  This was definitely a crowd favorite and one that I will seek out in the future. As it opened, I liked it more and more.
• Santorini Nykteri 2010 – Nykteri means “working the night away” in Greek as it was traditionally harvested at night due to the hot temperatures.  I tasted citrus, nuttiness, pear and notes of flowers.  This wine begged for food that would stand up to its finish.  Our salty snacks didn’t do it justice.
• Vin Santo Boutari 06 – this is a sweet wine produced from sun-dried grapes. I tasted maple, dried raisins, caramel and honey.  I immediately craved Baklava.

These wines not only were drinkable today, but have the ability to age.  Based on this experience, I’m going to invest in a few bottles and see what happens in the next decade.  Or on second thought, maybe I’ll drink them today.

A Night with John Robert Eppler

In October, I had the chance to meet John Robert Eppler, the proprietor of John Robert Eppler wines, at a Howell Mountain Wine tasting in Dallas.  I was impressed with the Howell Mountain Cabernet that I tried and when I found out John had Texas roots, I asked him to host a dinner at Lakewood Country Club.  Happily he accepted and in less than 60 days we had set a date and a time.  John assured me that he’d bring several wines that you could only get at the vineyard and he definitely didn’t disappoint.

His mission is to produce wines that are rich, intense, and expressive from the terrior where they grow.  John’s passion for the wine industry began when his son’s grandfather, originally from the Park Cities in Dallas, served him a ‘61 Grand Cru Burgundy that changed his life.  “I never tasted anything that good before – it was a representation of the promise of wine.”

Then in 1974, he worked with the wine cellar of Neiman Marcus at the flagship store in downtown Dallas where Stanley Marcus told him that his first lesson was to learn to never say no, so he didn’t.  He went on to become a wine steward and sommelier in the area.  He attended a wine tasting in Austin and met a small producer of Burgundy whose passion for winemaking put him on the path to become a winemaker.  He went back to school for a degree and moved to California in 1986.  He produced his own wine for another 15 years until he started John Robert Eppler Wines. 

He classifies himself as a farmer first and is the only employee of John Robert Eppler Wines.  He produces about 3,500 cases of small production Zinfandel, Petite Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Fume Blanc, Chardonnay and others varietals.

We started with the 2009 Fume Blanc Rutherford, which had notes of banana, melon and other tropical notes, served with Iberico ham, olive oil and rye toast as well as ahi tuna, pate choux and preserved lemon.

William Koval, the executive chef of Lakewood Country Club and one of Dallas’ most accomplished chefs, had put together a menu that worked perfectly with the wines.

Photo courtesy of William Koval

Our first course was the shrimp pernod, saffron bisque, carrot, fennel, lobster and chive served with the 2010 Chardonnay from Sonoma.  The lobster in this dish sang with the wine with notes of lemon, minerality, melon and Old World style. 

Photo courtesy of William Koval

Our second course was the seared venison loin, sweet potato, chestnut, bacon, truffle, chocolate and blackberry gastrique.  Great pairing with the 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon from Howell Mountain, which was a nice dense red with blackberry, mocha, cherry and floral notes.   

Photo courtesy of William Koval

Our third course was the braised short rib, prime cap meat, marjoram potatoes, porcini, roasted onion and beef jus served with the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon from Rutherford.  Big notes of cassis, blackberry, cedar and blueberry.  Very well balanced and definitely on my favorite list.

We then moved into two of my other favorite reds – the 2009 Cabernet Franc, with only 2 barrels made, and the 2006 Rutherford Reserve Cabernet.  These are collector wines and I adored both of them.

Photo courtesy of William Koval

We ended our dinner with the 06 Zinfandel Alexander Valley Late Harvest wine paired with olive oil ice cream, chocolate, basil, cranberry, nutella and hazel nut stuesel.  This was John’s “make lemonade out of lemons” approach when fermentation stopped on his Zinfandel grapes.  It made me sad that it might be his first and last vintage.