The New Facility, open to the public--NOW! This Fantastic New Facility is Designed Exclusively for the Creation of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon; Featured at the Oakville Tasting Room are Vertical Tastings and New Offerings for all Guests.

Silver Oak Cellars, producer of Cabernet Sauvignon from both Napa and Alexander Valley, has announced the opening of its new winery and tasting room in Oakville. Re-built from the ground up after the original facility suffered a fire in 2006, the winery is designed to produce one wine only, the Silver Oak Cellars Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Its first grapes were received September 1st. The new timber-framed tasting room features reclaimed stone, oak and redwood and is evocative of the original tasting room built in 1981. Open September 29th, the winery is certain to remain a beloved Napa Valley destination.

Merry Christmas to all! Today was supposed to be the final day of A Menu For Hope, our annual charity raffle, but it has really picked up some steam in the last few days so we're extending it through the end of the year! A number of new prizes in all regions have been added. So go find some fabulous prizes and bid on them:

You can find wine related prizes here on Vinography.

Prizes from Europe *including* the UK at Ms.Adventures in Italy

Prizes from US: West Coast at Matt Bites

Prizes from US: East Coast at Steamy Kitchen

Prizes from Canada at Hooked on Heat

Prizes from Asia Pacific, Australia, New Zealand at Tomato

And of course you can browse through the master list of prizes at Chez Pim.

We're hoping that the momentum we've seen recently (we quickly went from about $15k a couple of days ago to, at last count, $40k and change) will continue as we try to get somewhere close to the $90k we raised last year. It will be tough in this economic climate, but you folks have surprised us many times before with your generosity and your ability to help us spread the word.

There are still a ton of wine prizes that have only one or two raffle tickets purchased for them so far, meaning your $10 donation to the hungry children of Lesotho could easily get you something awesome. And don't forget that some people won some of the big, popular prizes last year with just a single ticket -- the winner of last year's Meadowood vacation (valued at around $3500) won with just a single raffle ticket.

Please spread the word, the holiday cheer, and the spirit of giving. And thank you so much for your support.

I helped out at a trade event in London devoted to Sauternes and Barsac the other week. Entitled ?Sweeties with Savouries? it set out to show how both Sauternes and Barsac can be drunk not only with the usual foie gras and desserts but also with all the courses of a complete meal. With courses ranging from roquefort crème brulee with figs (see picture) through roast Moroccan quail with sweet potato mash to blue cheese cheesecake, the food was absolutely wonderful. Attendees were then asked to vote for which wine made the best match with which course. There was quite a lot of agreement about which of the 16 wines went with which of the 5 courses but there were also many individual opinions. As with wine tasting there is no definitive answer in the area of food and wine matching.

Tasting through the 16 wines was an education in itself. Considering they were all the recently bottled 2005 vintage, there was a range of aromas from honey, peach, minerals and smoke to flavours on the palate of marmalade, peach, citrus and honey. There were also subtle but significant differences in the weight and texture on the palate. The differences can be understood when looking at the percentages of grapes with everything from 90% semillon and 10% sauvignon of the premier cru classe Chateau Clos Haut-Peyraguey through to the 70% semillon, 25% sauvignon and 5% muscadelle of Chateau d’Armajan des Ormes. The aging process whilst broadly similar in length of between 18 and 24 months, varies according to the percentage of new barrels used.

The key to good Sauternes and Barsac, apart from the terrroir, is the botrytis that is required to shrivel up the grapes and concentrate the sugar in the grapes. From talking to several of the producers the 2007 vintage was going to be a worry as the summer was cool. However the autumn was as hoped with cool misty mornings followed by sunny afternoons, the perfect environment for the ?mushroom? spores of botrytis cinerea to develop.

There is a much history associated with the ownership of the chateau in Sauternes with many of them having been in the same family for generations. Check out the web site of Chateau Dudon if you want some history of a typical family owned Sauternes producing chateau.

You cannot have a better match with a plate of salumi than with this wine. Chill it up a little bit, and start your engines. From the Grasparossa grape, I took a bottle over to a chef from Emilia-Romagna the other day. He has known me for years, but has rarely if ever acknowledged my presence in his world. When I handed the bottle to his son to give to him, you?d think I was his long lost cousin. His eyes lit up, he smiled, he liked me. He really, really, liked me. I owe it all to this friendly little Lambrusco.

Served slightly chilled, it is frizzante, and enters with a burst of slightly under-ripe dark cherry notes. Then the fruit kicks in and there, all of a sudden, you have a party on your palate.

Note: this wine is bone-dry.

Get yourself hooked up with a Lambrusco like this. It takes the snob off the table. It?s subtle and bold, delicate and a romp. It?s a serious wine that laughs at itself. Go get yourself some.

In the U.S. it retails for under $20.

Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro from Tenuta Pederzana.

Virtues and Necessities
by Martin Field

Wine is all about the senses. About sensory evaluation, sensuality and consensual enjoyment. And wouldn't it be awful to lose your sense of taste, of smell, of touch, of sight?

It happens. Years ago, a wine-loving colleague went through a devastating course of chemotherapy to treat cancer and was cured. Afterwards he told me he had permanently lost his taste for wine. He sold his not inconsiderable cellar soon afterwards. Another friend had an operation on his nose that left him without a sense of smell. He'll drink a glass of wine with dinner but admits to being indifferent to its finer points.

I was reminded of this aspect of wine and the senses recently while listening to a wine expert banging on about the unimportance of colour in wine. If I heard him correctly, his thesis was that if the wine smelt and tasted good you shouldn't worry too much about its colour.

I couldn't disagree more. I love the colour of wine in the morning, or the evening. The crystal clear, green-hued glisten of a young riesling; the black cherry colour of a young shiraz; the vibrant inky purple of a Coonawarra cabern? [enough already! - Ed.] The visual appeal of wine in the glass is to me an unmissable part of wine drinking.

The banging on wine person finally admitted to being colour blind! They used to call this attitude making a virtue of a necessity.

And talking of sensory evaluation
Long due for reassessment is the ancient scoring system used at most Australian wine shows. The one where wines are scored out of 20 - with a possible three points (15%) awarded for appearance, seven (35%) for bouquet and ten (50%) for palate. Anyone who's ever had a cold will tell you that smell is probably the most important sensory sensation where wine is concerned. When people have colds they typically complain, ?I can't taste a thing.' What they really mean is, ?I can't smell a thing.' It's their noses that are blocked up - not their mouths.

I realise that many judges just award an intuitive score out of 20 rather than individually scoring each component and then adding up the total. Nevertheless, I'd re-jig the weighting thus: three points (15%) for appearance, nine (45%) for bouquet, five (25%) for palate and three (15%) for overall finesse and balance. Whether the scoring system is out of 20 or 100, or whatever, the percentage weighting would remain the same.

Quite an unusual combination for the Balkans, since Syrah is fairly rare in the region. Skovin is probably trying to follow the world commercial trends with this Syrah Cabernet Sauvignon combination, and it’s not doing a bad job. Syrah brings in the spiciness and the earthy taste, which brings memories of those strong South African tastes of Syrah wines. Cabernet softeness it a bit, so overall it’s a nice wine, but distinctively dryer than the famous Australian Syraz-Cabernet’s.

Rating: 6/10
Price: 400 RSD (5 euro)
Retailer: Super Vero

Technorati Tags: Macedonian Wine, Skovin, Shiraz, Syrah, Syrah Cabernet

Well it’s Wine Blogging Friday for me this month, but hopefully I can sneak into the summary. The theme for Wine Blogging Wednesday this month comes by way of Philly-based wine blogger Joe who goes by 1WineDude online. And it’s a complete departure from our basic formula of wine variety, region or something a bit quirky. In fact, he has challenged us to actually drink madeirized — or intentionally heated and/or oxidized — wines. This style of wine is found in Madeira, Australia?s Rutherglen Tokays and Sherry. But Joe was also mindful that these wines might not be available everywhere so he included all fortified wines including Porto for his “Baked Goods” theme.

I knew at some point there would be an occasion to write about Sherry, a wine I’ve had over the years but didn’t really get into until a visit in June of 2007 to El Puerto de Santa María in the so-called Sherry Triangle. As a guest of Osborne, I visited their winery and tasted Fino literally pulled from the solera. But the most surprising part of this visit was a dinner with only Sherry served. I knew the starter would be easy with a Fino or Amontillado and the dessert course would be matched with a sweet Sherry of some sort but the entree would be a challenge. That’s when I was introduced to Oloroso which was a revelation at the time. But the best wine that night was a sweet Sherry made from a very old solera and the Pedro Ximénez grape. I rated it a 99, the only wine I have ever rated that high.

But before I dig my notes out for that wine let me flash forward to this week when I was looking for a Sherry to review for this tasting. As someone now a bit more educated about Sherry, I know that Fino is best consumed before 6 months from it’s bottling date. Most every Sherry producer has some sort of bottling code that indicates the day and year of bottling. Many times these are cryptic with Roman numerals used for the year but Osborne uses a more understandable code. So while I am continually disappointed in the stores here in the Twin Cities where Fino is “fresh” at 9-10 months past bottling, I was surprised to see a bottle of Osborne Pedro Ximénez “1827″ on the shelf with a bottling date of  June 23, 2007… just 5 days before my visit to the winery.

For those not familiar with how Sherry is produced, a quick aside before my tasting notes. The production of Sherry is very old, in it’s current form since the the Moors ruled Spain some 1,200 years ago. Some, according to this piece in Wikipedia, track this style of wine back to the city of Shiraz in modern day Iran, literally the cradle of viticulture in antiquity. The production of Sherry starts with grapes grown in very chalky soils around Jerez, Spain from Palomino or Pedro Ximenez. In the latter case, the grapes are dried for two days before pressing and fermentation begins to concentrate their sugars. After primary fermentation, the wine is fortified with brandy to levels of alcohol determined by the style of the final wine. Fino or Amontillado are fortified to 15 degrees alcohol so that flor yeast can survive to complete the wine. Oloroso is fortified to 17-18 degrees alcohol to prevent the growth of flor and the wine is primarily shaped by oxidation in the solera.

The solera is a system of large barrels between 3 and 9 in number usually stacked in a pyramid shape. This allows for the young wine to be introduced at the top of the solera to fill the lower barrels where the finished wine is drawn for bottling. Sherry is aged in barrel for a minimum of three years but this time in barrel is much longer for more highly prized and rare Sherries. Through reduction and oxidation the resulting wine gains complexity and since all the barrels are neutral, no aromas or flavors from the oak. This is a truly unique and old school style of wine that I hope more wine lovers will try.

Tasting Notes:

Bodegas Osborne, Pedro Ximenez “1827″ Sherry ($21) - Mahogany in color with powerful aromas of fig, molasses, espresso, hazelnuts and some heat from the alcohol. Rich and sweet in the mouth with fig, maple syrup, cocoa and caramel flavors finishing very long with enough acidity that balances the luscious sweetness. Decadent, delicious and an excellent value at around $20 a bottle. Also very nice poured over vanilla ice cream as it’s own dessert.

17% ABV
Screwtop closure
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Bodegas Osborne, Pedro Ximenez “Viejo” Sherry ($100/sample tasted at the winery) - Almost black in color with very complex aromas of fig, dates, espresso, dark chocolate, molasses and a hint of baked orange. In the mouth, very rich and layered fig, caramel, baked orange, spice and nut flavors mingle with quite a bit of sweetness that is balanced by acidity. This wine has a finish that seems to go on forever. One of the most extraordinary tastings of my life and as close to a perfect wine I have ever encountered. Buy it, if you can afford it.

16% ABV
Natural cork closure
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Thanks to Joe, the 1WineDude, for getting me back into this style of wine. I’m going to continue to explore Sherry both here and on my podcast… and might even post those recordings made in Spain some 17 months ago.

As a big fan of New Zealand's Kim Crawford wines - I had the pleasure of pouring them at a number of my book launch events last fall - I was thrilled when the folks behind the wine asked me to create a series of custom party tips for their newly revamped website. Now, the tips are finally live, and I'd love to share them with all of you. There are party ideas for pairing wine with music (seriously!), creating your very own component tasting (for a funny explanation of component tasting, click here), and a whole new kind of brown bag tasting party. With the holidays upon us and more reasons than ever for staying IN this holiday season, I hope you'll check out my Hip Tips, invite over some friends and put them to good use. Check 'em out here!

Note: Illustration by Marcos Chin and courtesy of Kim Crawford.

This interview with Don Reha, Winemaker at Thornton Winery, is a truly enjoyable conversation to listen to. It's interesting that this Northern California Winemaker came down to Temecula to be able to make quality wine. Who knew that was even possible?

Tasting notes:

Big bouquet of sweet cherry, rich spices, and earth

Rich and full-bodied on the palate

Finish of cherry, tobacco, and more rich, sweet spice

In many ways, this is a classic Brunello with cherry, sweet spice, and an earthy layer. I love that it's from the 1995 vintage, two years before Brunello exploded in popularity and price with the 1997 vintage.

If you have this, drink it soon. It's fully mature and ready to go. I only had a half bottle to enjoy with Billy of this blog. We paid $25 in a shop that always seems to turn up "lost treasures" covered in dust. Unfortunately, this was the only one.

Also read Billy's review of this wine below. Raise a glass!