The other night we celebrated a special occasion in San Francisco at Chef Hubert Keller’s Fleur de Lys. Amazingly, even after many, many years in the Bay Area, we’d never been to this famous restaurant known as one of the most romantic in The City. It is one of those restaurants that stays consistently outstanding (Chef Keller has been at the helm since 1986) and continues to thrive while trendy places come and go. The food, service, and atmosphere were impeccable. I’m not going to pretend to be a food writer since I can’t do this meal justice, so I will just list our menu. I would not hesitate to recommend anything here:
Amuse bouche
Chilled Carrot & Coriander soup and Chilled Cucumber & Mint soup
First Course
Pan Seared Artisan Foie Gras with rhubarb, corn, and truffle sauce
Veal Sweetbread “Meuniere” with morel mushrooms, poached egg “purse”, toasted brioche, veal jus
Second Course
Chilled Dungeness Crab Salad with shavings of young vegetables, lobster infused vinaigrette, and lobster fondant with caviar
Wild Prawns with brioche crust (unfortunately didn’t get the full description of this one)
Third Course
Slow-Braised Snake River Farm Waygu Beef Cheeks with Pretzel Crust on spatzle, choucroute gratin and scented beer sauce
Oven Roasted Venison Chop with Truffled Baby Bok Choy accented with rich cocoa nib red wine reduction, Spanish chorizo, and cocoa tuile
Dessert
Chocolate Souffle
Grand Marnier Souffle
A four course menu is priced at $82 per person though there are additional surcharges on a few menu items. Corkage was $35 which is reasonable in The City at a restaurant of this caliber — especially since they treat the wine you bring the same as if you had ordered it off their list providing proper stemware, decanting, and giving fantastic wine service. Kudos to Marcus, the manager and sommelier that evening for making our dinner special both in food and wine.
Speaking of wine, I guess I should explain the rest of the title of this post…

• 2001 Harlan Estate The Maiden – USA, California, Napa Valley (7/14/2009)
  Wood smoke, sweet blackberries, molasses, cedar, toasty oak, river rock, and chargrilled meat. It was an outstanding wine after about an hour in the decanter and proved to be a great compliment to the meal. Not overpowering, it was a graceful heavyweight that stood up to the rich, big flavors of the French Alsatian meal at Chef Hubert Keller’s Fleur De Lys (San Francisco). The one negative: after about 2 hours in the decanter, I did notice the fruit starting to trail off and the tannins coming across as a bit dry and dusty. It makes me wonder if the time to drink and enjoy this wine is now, not later. (91 pts.)
  Posted from CellarTracker

Just a reminder, I will be pouring our Match Vineyards 2004 Butterdragon Hill Cabernet and the soon-to-be-released 2006 Baconbrook Cabernet from 4-7PM on Friday 7/17/09 at Wine on Piedmont, 4183 Piedmont Avenue (across from the Piedmont Theatre) in Oakland, 510-595-9463. Your $5 tasting fee will be donated to the Alameda County Food Bank.

• 2001 Neal Family Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain Estate – USA, California, Napa Valley, Howell Mountain (5/27/2009)
  Tight with cedar and sour blackberries. A bit austere and angular right now but should improve with 2-3 more years in the cellar. By about hour 4 in the decanter, it edges had softened a bit and the wine displayed a smokier character. (88 pts.)
• 1998 Château Pavie – France, Bordeaux, Libournais, St. Émilion Grand Cru (5/18/2009)
  Absolutely wonderful. Creme de cassis, chocolate covered cherries, mint leaf, eucalyptus, and smooth, sweet oak. Drinking very youthful, but “ready.” Wine Searcher shows this wine around the country at $175 – $200. It would be worth it. (96 pts.)
• 2001 Gemstone – USA, California, Napa Valley, Yountville (5/2/2009)
  I had forgotten that 18 months ago I had decided to hold this for 3+ years. That shows how tough it can be to make such predictions because this wine is rocking and rolling right now. It is wonderfully balanced, walking the tight rope between lush, extracted fruit while still supported by a smokey, secondary complexity. Kind of the best of both worlds: Mouth coating, but not heavy. Earthy, but not rustic. Extremely long finish with tannins fully integrated.

  Gemstone is a list that I allowed myself to drop. When the wines were released, I found them cloying, but if this is how they can be at age 8, I need to rethink my decision to not buy. (95 pts.)

Posted from CellarTracker

Baconbrook Vineyard

Berries are a bit fuller than 3 weeks ago, but we’re still a few weeks out from being able to make an accurate crop size estimate.

Yesterday we bottled 584 cases of our 2007 Match Vineyards Butterdragon Hill. This was the first time we’ve used a mobile bottling line. There are always a few false starts on bottling day as everything gets set “just right” but I was very impressed by the mobile line crew and the Bin to Bottle staff in support. By the way, this ’07 Butterdragon is going to be killer!

The whole bottling line is inside this small trailer.

Final bottling count breakdown:
1122 x 6 packs 750 ml
24 x 23 packs 375 ml
9 x 6 packs of 1.5L
4 x 3.0L

Order when it’s Hot, Ship it when it’s Cool
Take advantage of the lowest prices of the year on these small production Napa Valley wines.

Sometimes shipping weather and a winery’s release season don’t coincide with when you may want to buy wine, so we are offering this special deal for those of you who are sitting on piles of cash, are staring at an empty wine celler, or those who just can’t wait until the mailers start arriving this fall

Share the news about our wines!

In addition to our regular Repeat Customer Discount program and the Summer Special described above, we want to thank those of you who help spread the word about our wines. If you are part of our Repeat Customer program and you recommend our wines to a new customer (or a mailing list member who has never purchased), you will receive a very special gift. All the new customer needs to do is put your name in the comments section of our order form when they order. Hint: a new customer can get in on this too. Just send in an order, thus becoming a repeat customer, and then have a friend order as well with you as the referrer. Sorry, two new customers can not refer each other. You’ll just have to share the free bottle of 2006 Baconbrook. (Whoops! I told you what the gift was.)

Time and again this Court has held that, in all but the narrowest circumstances, state laws violate the Commerce Clause if they mandate ‘differential treatment of in-state and out-of-state economic interests.’ This rule is essential to the foundations of the Union. States may not enact laws that burden out-of-state producers or shippers simply to give a competitive advantage to in-state businesses. We have viewed with particular suspicion state statutes requiring business operations to be performed in the home state that could more efficiently be performed elsewhere. – Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy

Sigh. Despite the statement above from a 2005 ruling by the US Supreme Court that states can not discriminate against out-of-state wineries and must treat them as they do their own in-state wineries, the powerful liquor/wine distributor lobby keeps trying to preserve their power to, in my opinion, the detriment of the consumer and the wine industry. A federal appeals court in NY has upheld a ruling that NY can bar out-of-state retailers from shipping wine into NY while NY retailers can ship wine.
This ruling seems, to me, to be counter to the 2005 Supreme Court decision. There are several similar cases coming up in the future in Texas and other states. Unless the Supreme Court steps in and broadens their decision and resolves the apparent conflict between the 21st ammendment (which grants states the power to regulate the sale of alcohol) and the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, we’re going to keep seeing this sort of thing happening. The only way around it is to make sure that your state passes laws that are in the best interests of the wine consumer.
Based on a story from Wine Spectator online.

Alder Yarrow of Vinography used the 4th of July holiday to post an excellent article declaring independence for modern wine drinkers. Everyone should read it and “sign” it. In fact, you should regularly read Vinography. It is, in my opinion, the best wine blog out there.

A winery doesn’t have to be around for very long before opportunities to pour their wines at public and private events start arriving. Participation in one will probably spur several more invitations. When we first started, I said “yes” as often as possible figuring that we had to get the word out about our wines. Now, 4 years after our first release, I’m still not sure I’ve got it figured out where it makes sense to invest our time and wine.
I recently posted a poll about this on the wine forum Wine Berserkers. (I like this forum because of the number of ITB — In The Business — participants and the welcoming atmosphere by members to folks who sometimes need to talk shop.) Anyway, the general consensus that came out of the poll is that the biggest bang for the buck, particularly for a small winery, is spending money on your existing customers or highly pre-qualified customers. Basically, one is going to sell more wine out of a wine dinner or open house for fans you already have rather than getting additional exposure. In fact, disappointingly, many of the public and private events we pour at result in little or no sales. Don’t get me wrong. They’re fun. Interacting with wine lovers is my favorite part of the biz, but even when the clientele is well-heeled and really “in to” wine, it is tough to make an impression on many buyers when folks are stopping at 25 different tables and perhaps trying 50 different wines that day.
But that doesn’t stop us from trying.

Recently we were invited to pour at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. The tasting was being organized by Wine 2.0. To quote their website: Wine 2.0™ is the innovator in social networking and events in the wine industry. With a focus on the next generation wine consumer, Wine 2.0 breaks down the barriers to learning about, experiencing, and enjoying wine.
Sounds cool, right? I’ve been trying to get a handle on the whole social networking thing for the business and what better way than working with Wine 2.0 at what many would consider “technology central” — Google. We were briefed on where and when we should arrive. We were also warned not to take photos or ask probing questions about Google’s operations. (No warning necessary here… I didn’t want to talk about Google, I wanted to talk about Match Vineyards!) Since I wasn’t allowed to take pictures, I did draw myself pouring at Google. I hope I don’t get into trouble by publishing the picture to the left.

It turned out to be a lot of fun. The Google employees were an inquisitive lot, asking many questions about wine, winemaking, and the business. A few showed their engineer side wondering what metrics we used to determine wine quality and success in winemaking. Everyone was gracious and had a good time.
A funny little thing happened while I was there. Several hundred Google employees arranged themselves in the shape of an arrow and held red construction paper over their heads while a plane flew over very high and took pictures. It seems that afternoon they were updating the entry for Google Maps of their own headquarters and wanted a huge man-made icon in the photo. I was next to the arrow (to the right) so when Google maps is ultimately updated — don’t bother to check right now, it’s still the old photo — one might be able to see me. This is especially true since I was holding up the BIG ASS bottle on the right. For giggles, I decided to open a six liter bottle of 2004 Butterdragon Hill for the tasting. I’d never actually opened one of our large formats and it proved to be a quite a conversation starter at the tasting.

By the way, what does one call a six liter bottle? I didn’t know. But one Googler asked this question into his phone, some sort of speech to text conversion took place, and a search online was carried out. The answer was a Methuselah — the equivalent of 8 regular bottles.

Baconbrook Vineyard

Butterdragon Hill Vineyard

Barbour Vineyards has just come through and leafed back the vines on Butterdragon Hill. Looking very clean.