2004 Outpost Cabernet Sauvignon – USA, California, Napa Valley, Howell Mountain (6/9/2010)
Opened at 3, decanted at 6, drank at 7. Initially I thought it was a bit thin, but it became more and more impressive, gaining heft in the decanter and glass. Currant, raspberry, and espresso combine in this dark, brooding wine. Some red licorice notes too. The finish of chocolate covered cherries is extremely long and satisfying. Well made for the long haul. Hold until at least 2012 and and the prodigious fruit combined with balanced structure will probably take it to its 20th birthday. (93 pts.)

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The desk is piled high with unopened mail.

The light on the answering machine is blinking.

There are a dozen faxes sitting on the fax machine.

The email inbox is full.

Vacation must be over.

Not that I don’t love you guys and the wine biz, but it is really tough to sit down and (have to figure out where to) start working.

So…

When the going get’s tough, the tough go to Napa to taste wine.

I’ve had tastings scheduled for the last couple of days — a very pleasant way to “ease” back in to the business.  I am sick of the traffic on I80 and making the 140 mile round trip two days in a row.

The wines are showing great.  I was especially pleased with the 05 and 06 Baconbrook.  Those two wines have opened up in the last few months and are really singing.  Additional cellar time would still be optimal, but drinking them now with a good amount of air time would not be a crime… in fact, they are great.

Alas… sigh… boo hoo…

Tomorrow, I start working on all this stuff on my desk.

I promise.

Unless I get distracted.

2005 Paul Hobbs Pinot Noir Russian River Valley – USA, California, Sonoma County, Russian River Valley (5/3/2010)
Extremely tasty and easy drinking. This in-your-face Pinot is not subtle, but the slightly fizzy, cherry cola, unsweetened cocoa, thyme, and menthol form a very fun package that while not an intellectual exercise, certainly are a party. Lively now, there’s certainly no rush. (88 pts.)

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2003 Kistler Chardonnay Vine Hill Vineyard – USA, California, Sonoma County, Russian River Valley (5/29/2010)
Fresh baked croissants and lemon zest. Great minerality with river rocks and petrol. Sweet oak well balanced. Lovely wine now. Depending on how you like them, drink or hold this gem. (93 pts.)

1997 Kistler Chardonnay Vine Hill Vineyard – USA, California, Sonoma County, Russian River Valley (5/29/2010)
Roasted chestnuts, lemon oil… Several other tasters have summed this up, in my opinion, correctly: Not the biggest and best older Kistler, but still quite nice. (90 pts.)

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2004 La Sirena Syrah – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Ynez Valley (6/11/2010)
Big and bold without being overbearing. Ripe, juicy blackberries and maple wood smoked bacon. Smooth and creamy mouthcoating flavors with a long finish of dark fruit and leather. The nose is a bit hot with EToH (14.8% ABV) but it doesn’t intrude on the taste. While great now, 2-3 years more in the cellar should even out a slight sharp edge to this wine. I don’t buy a lot of Syrah, but this was a standout a few years back at a tasting I did at Revana where La Sirena is made. (91 pts.)

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2006 Le Cadeau Pinot Noir Équinoxe – USA, Oregon, Willamette Valley (5/26/2010)
Pretty floral nose with balanced flavors of rum-soaked cherries, ripe plums, green cooking spices, and tea leaves. Excellent wine. Decant a couple of hours. Enjoy now and over the next 3-4 years. (90 pts.)

2008 Maybach Family Vineyards Chardonnay Eterium – USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Coast (5/21/2010)
Having zero experience with this wine, I wanted to take a peak at one to decide what to do with it. Heavy handed oak with really big flavors but (too?) low acidity. Quite disjointed. Needs several years to hopefully come together and tame the oak level. Not rated.

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2003 Blankiet Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Paradise Hills Vineyard – USA, California, Napa Valley (4/9/2010)
Blueberry syrup, extracted, not quite a foot on the back of your neck but definitely a bruiser screaming for attention Mineral, graphite, cherry tobacco, sweet mouthfeel. Tannins are pronounced and need some time. Blankiet is not for the faint-of-heart or faint-of-wallet. (86 pts.)

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June 4, 2010 – One hundred Napa Valley vintners, each with a barrel filled with a future release, lined the caves at Francis Ford Coppola’s Rubicon Estate.  It was really cold in the cave when I arrived — colder than usual.  Summer had finally begun in the Napa Valley and the difference in temperatures between the outside upper 80’s and the cave’s chill caused us all to shiver.  But it was about to heat up.  Soon thousands of guests were tasting their way through the caves.

We were all there to raise money for Auction Napa Valley, one of the largest charity wine auctions in the world.  Since it’s inception in 1981, Auction Napa Valley, conducted by the Napa Valley Vintners, has given away over $90 million to local charities.  In the Barrel Auction portion, guests bid on a case of a future release sampled from the barrel.  The top ten bidders get a case and the highest bidder also receives an autographed, engraved barrel head to commemorate their auction win.  Running concurrently outside of the the Barrel Auction, Marketplace Napa Valley offered wine tasting and wonderful food bites from some of the greatest Napa restaurants and chefs.  The day was also the finale of the E-Auction and computers were set up for last minute bids.

This is my favorite day of the Auction.  It’s the biggest with more guests, more wines, more food, more everything.  It’s also the most affordable event at $250 per person instead of the $2500 ticket for the 4 day package.  You see a wider-cross section of folks.  Not to knock the special dinners and the live auction portion — they’re great and actually raise the most money — but I’m a little more at ease chatting about our wines and how they’re made with folks in the cave than in being at a black tie affair and watching someone pay $200,000 for a 6 liter of Screaming Eagle.

From a bidder standpoint, I screwed up my strategy again this year.  I always kick myself for not tasting and bidding early.  The big names — the latest critics’ darlings and the old standards — always go for a pretty big chunk of change (~ $4k/case).  The crowd flocks to the best known wines so you”re not going to get a deal on Shafer Hillside Select, but you can often get some (even better) wines at perhaps less than retail if you bid fairly early.  The opening bid is $175 with $50 minimum bid increments.  A $175 bid won’t last, but $600 may squeeze in somewhere in the top 10 and get you a really nice case of wine, possibly at less than retail, and definitely all going to a good cause.

Most wineries were offering their 2008 vintage with a good portion of the wines either Cabernet Sauvignon or Bordeaux blends.  This was my first chance to take a look at this Napa vintage for anything other than our own wines.  After tasting so many barrels, I would summarize that 2008 will be a very good vintage though perhaps not quite as consistently great across the board as 2007 was.  As a consumer, you’ll probably want to be selective, trusting Cellartracker/Grapestories, professional reviews, and friends’ recommendations to find the very best.  This differs from the 2007 vintage when you could practically select great Napa wines using the dart board approach.  Many of the 08’s had really nice attacks and upfront fruit profiles yet did not have very complete finishes, some even being a bit thin in the middle right now.  I also noted some pretty rough tannins on some Cabs.  I predict that they will flesh out and the tannins will soften but will need some cellar age for that to happen.  It will not be an early-drinking vintage. Another common thread for the vintage is the production levels are going to be way down, primarily due to a much smaller harvest in 2008.

Although I certainly didn’t have the chance to try as many as I would have liked — I was there to “work” after all — I did try some.  Of those I tried, the following wines are the ones I would recommend.  The number of “*” indicates the relative strength of the recommendation.

• Alpha Omega 2008 Red Table Wine
• Blackbird Vineyards 2008 Bordeaux Blend
• Crocker & Starr 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, Crocker Estate Vineyard *
• Jones Family 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon ***
• Joseph Phelps 2008 Bordeaux Blend, Insignia Auction Reserve **
• Frazier Winery 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, Estate **
• Madonna Estate 2009 Pinot Noir, Due Ragazze Reserve
• Merryvale Vineyards 2008 Bordeaux Blend, Profile **
• Mi Sueño 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, Selección Herrera **
• Nickel & Nickel 2009 Cabernet Sauvigon, C.C. Ranch *
• O’Shaughnessy Estate 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon ***
• Paraduxx 2007 Blend
• Parallel 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, Estate
• Rocca Family 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, Grigsby Vineyard
• Rombauer 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, Proprietors Selection *
• Round Pond 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon *
• Roy Estate 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, Charles – A Tribute *
• Shafer 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, Hillside Select **
• Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon
• Terra Valentine 2009 Cabernet Sauvigon, Wurtele Vineyard *

This was our first year to have a barrel in the auction.  We poured our 2008 Match Butterdragon Hill Cabernet Sauvignon.  I’m very proud of how the wine is showing with lovely, complex fruit, significant spice, cooking herbs, sweet tannins, and a full, rich mouthfeel.  We’ll be bottling 350 cases of this wine in just two weeks.  Of course, it’s impossible for me to be totally objective when evaluating our own wine — sometimes I’m even harder on our wines — but I can honestly say that the only wine I tried that day that I would rather drink than my own was perhaps the 2008 Jones Family.  It was phenomenal.

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And a final note… Someone needs to invent a tasteless throat lozenge because after trying to speak over the din inside that cave for a few hours, I started losing my voice and coughing.  Hall’s Menth0-lyptus isn’t conducive to wine tasting.

Wine Spectator magazine sponsors a magnum party at a local restaurant each year as the first big soiree of Auction Napa Valley.  This event is by invitation only.  Don’t ask me how to get a ticket.  I’ve never gotten one.

However, there’s great fun to be had at the unofficial, informal kickoff party — the 1/2 bottle party at Gott’s Roadside (until recently called Taylor’s Refresher).  Open to the public, folks bring a 1/2 bottle to share, order (and pay for) their own food, and then make merry on the lawn at Taylor’s [damn] Gott’s.  Glasses are provided if you get there early enough.  (They tend to run out.)  This year’s party was yesterday at noon.

Pictured is the picnic table early in the party.  A lot more bottles showed up.  You’re only supposed to bring a 1/2 bottle but some folks cheat just a bit.  Arkenstone winery, apparently without a split, placed a 750ml on the table but labeled it “Half Bottle” just to be safe.

I didn’t write tasting notes and certainly didn’t get around to trying even a large percentage of the wines, but here’s a few that I tried and liked:

• 2008 Arkenstone Sauvignon Blanc Howell Mountain – tart, crisp, light, pineapple
• 2006 Ladera Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley – cherry, tar, tight and tannic
• 2007 Gemstone Facets – round, cassis, dark chocolate
• 2007 Fantesca Cabernet Sauvignon – bright cherry, lighter and more nimble than the Facets
• 2007 Abiouness Pinot Noir Carneros Stanly Ranch – charming, sweet round mouthfilling flavors
• 2008 Spellbound Chardonnay – California styled but not huge
• 2006 De La Guerra Chardonnay – full throttle, buttery, Cali Chard
• 2006 Spring Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley – elegant currant and pine, perhaps the best wine I tried this day

I brought both of our 07’s, Butterdragon Hill and unreleased Baconbrook, in 375ml format.  Although I didn’t try them today, I’m told they were good. 😉