Maybe I should have realized things were going to go south.
It all started innocently enough. We had planned a trip to Northern California, meticulously researching wineries, hotels and restaurants in Sonoma County, San Francisco and the Monterey Peninsula that we wanted to write about for Eve’s Wine 101 readers.
Things got thrown a little askew initially when something good happened – we got invited to attend a tasting party at the Napa home of one of our favorite winemakers – Abe Schoener of The Scholium Project, whose 4-part story you had the pleasure of reading on our site just recently.
As the party was the day before our planned trip, it was an easy decision to head up to Nor Cal a day early.
At some point, we realized we had missed the email that the party had been canceled due to harvest considerations. No problem, we were still in Nor Cal a day early, specifically in Napa.
The only problem was it was a busy Sunday evening and we did not have dinner reservations anywhere. After driving through downtown Napa and seeing lines outside of every restaurant we had an interest in, we decided our best approach would be to head over to the Oxbow Public Market, which is home to a variety of eating and drinking places. It was also busy there and by that point, we were really looking for somewhere to sit down and be taken care of.
Sharing the parking lot with Oxbow is the CIA at Copia.
The Copia property has an interesting history. Founded in 2001 as a wine and food educational project between Robert and Margrit Mondavi and other notables such as Julia Child, it closed in 2008. The Culinary Institute of America acquired the property in 2015 as a home for its Food Business School. They also offer classes, winetasting and other experiences, as well as having a restaurant.
We’ve dined at the CIA at Greystone before and have had marvelous meals there. Assuming that this place was similar, we weren’t sure we wanted something that upscale, nor were we particularly dressed for it. I said: “Let’s just check it out. We don’t have to stay.”
I was glad we did. The dining room was comfortably casual and the menu was reasonably priced. The food was delicious and service was excellent. My hanger steak was cooked perfectly [rare, just as I like it]. The restaurant wasn’t very busy and I think it doesn’t get nearly enough attention.
We had a wonderful dinner and I thought that the week was starting off great.
Wrong.
The next day we headed to Santa Rosa to begin the main part of the trip we had planned. Since we had essentially arrived a day earlier than planned for our winery appointments, Karen suggested visiting the Armstrong Redwoods for some enjoyment of nature. Well, some tangled roots and a day in the ER left Karen with the diagnosis of a fractured knee and that was pretty much “all she wrote”.
To be continued…
Michael Perlis has been pursuing his passion for wine for more than 25 years. He has had the good fortune of having numerous mentors to show him the way, as well as a wonderful wife who encourages him and shares his interest. After a couple of decades of learning about wine, attending events, visiting wineries and vineyards, and tasting as much wine as he possibly could, he had the amazing luck to meet Eve Bushman. Now, as Contributing Editor for Eve’s Wine 101, he does his best to bring as much information as possible about wine to Eve’s Wine 101 faithful readers. Michael is also Vice President of Eve Bushman Consulting (fka Eve’s Wine 101 Consulting) http://evebushmanconsulting.com/ and President of MCP Financial. Michael can be contacted at michaelthezinfan@aol.com or michael@evebushmanconsulting.com
There is a little more magic to mention: the invisible cellar, the shuttered chateau. But I do not want to emphasize this. Xavier does not play any of this up: like the vineyards, all of this disappears. There is no show: only wine. He does not even make a show of his methods; he never mentions his own devotion; he never draws distinctions between his way of working and his neighbors’. He does not celebrate or elevate what he does; he is utterly matter of fact. He never mentions “purity” or any other value. His only point of pride, if I read him right, is his wine’s relation to time. His only theory, insofar as I could grasp, is related to what he calls “matière”– “matter.” His labels have alchemical references (see photo); I think that he means something old-fashioned and metaphysical by this. He does not just mean “matter” or even something like information. He talks about his farming being devoted to translating matter from the field (not just the soil) to the grapes, and his pressing being devoted to translating the matter from the grapes to the juice. The density of this wine is due to this attention to matter– and also the complexity, I think. But this means that “matière” is not just some concentration of molecules, but some kind of system, with architecture, proportion, interrelation. For what else is complexity? His matter, I think, is something more like spirit or soul– not necessarily in the Christian sense, but in a way that Aristotle would understand.
The first bottle is a white wine from 2004. He makes only two wines, one red, one white. The white, 100% Chenin. Six years in barrel before bottling, then, in the case of this wine, four more years before release. Robert asks about skin contact (Xavier speaks no English, I translate as best as I can). No skin contact. We discuss the press regime and fermentation for 30 minutes. In great detail. He uses an old champagne press with a capacity of about 500 liters– very small, and exactly the same capacity as our presses at Tenbrink. A typical day during the white harvest has the following rhythm: wake up, harvest as much fruit as the press will hold, bring it back to the winery (“where do you do the work?” I ask, pointing to the overgrown yard and the complete absence of what we would call a crush pad. “Where you can,” he says with a smile). Load the press. Begin pressing. Go past midnight. Adjust the pressure. Assess. If all seems good, go home. Sleep, wake, return to the winery, release the pressure, break up the grapes (“Whole cluster?” “Yes. We do not crush or destem anything”), re-apply pressure, go harvest fruit, return, unload the press, begin the cycle again. They work with about 3 vineyards typically but make 3-4 passes in each vineyard. There could be a dozen days of pressing; sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. They break up the cake of compressed grapes only once and gently. He wants as little friction and trituration as possible. There is no breaking up of the fruit on the way into the press or in the press as we do (“makes the fermentation too fast,” he explains. “Oh yes, how fast? What counts as a rapid fermentation for you?” “Three weeks.” Ah, that is rapid. What is the optimal time for you?” “A few months . . . . A year.” “Ah yes, we call those ‘French Fermentations.'” He smiles.)
Temecula Valley Southern California Wine Country is home to more than 40 wineries boasting award-winning and 90+ point rated wines from Palumbo Family Vineyards, Lorenzi Estate, Callaway, Leoness Cellars, Hart Winery, Mount Palomar Winery, and more.
Each year since 1988, Wine Spectator has released its Top 100 list, selecting the best wines from the thousands reviewed during the course of the year. According to the magazine, the criteria used to create this highly-regarded, annual list focus on quality, value, availability and excitement.
Mezcal may be the oldest distilled spirit in the Americas, but has exploded in popularity only recently. In The Mezcal Rush: Explorations in Agave Country (Counterpoint Press, 295 pages), Granville Greene vividly describes his quest through the Mexican highlands to learn more about the varied cultures, plants, and traditions surrounding the drink, which has become a craft cocktail darling.
The judging panel, comprising five Masters of Wine, also presented MARTINI Prosecco Vintage with one of six Master Medals, a testament to the exceptional quality of the wine.
Tasting With Emilien Boutillat
