Tim Mondavi - the Decanter Interview

His left foot: Tim Mondavi with a bottle of Continuum

Interview with Tim Mondavi for Decanter magazine, December 2013

After the sale of Robert Mondavi Winery,
Robert’s son Tim could have gone anywhere.
But with his love of terroir, he chose to stick
close to home, as he tells me...

Interviewed at Continuum on Pritchard Hill, Napa, February 2013

Read the article here

Savour or Saviour? Report on Savour, Adelaide, September 2013

(This article first appeared in Meiningers Wine Business International, print edition)

From the moment Master of Ceremonies Jeremy Oliver stepped up to the podium and addressed 750 delegates in language more suited to the bedroom than the conference hall, the tone of Savour 2013 was set.

Australia has grown up, Oliver said. ‘We are more mature. When we get your confidence back we will treasure it. When you wake up in the morning expecting us to be beside you in the bed, we won’t be. We’ll be out and about, doing things, getting you coffee.’

For the last few months the unkinder wits in the international  wine world have suggested the addition of a letter ‘i’ to the title of the conference would be appropriate: the Australian wine industry seems to be in no doubt that it's in need of a saviour. Over the last five years exports have plummeted due to the combination of world recession and a strong Australian dollar, and while producers and marketers squabbled about the way forward – should they chase value, or promote sub-regionality, or varietals? – Australia lost its ability to charm the world’s press, which became bored with endless new strategies and briefings, each more complicated than the last.

Savour promised to be different, and from Sunday’s opening party in the market halls in downtown Adelaide to the Grand Tasting of hundreds of Australian wineries on Wednesday, journalists, critics, winemakers and buyers from dozens of countries have been left in no doubt that – as Oliver said – ‘Australia is open for business again’.

'spine-tingling' - Nick Cave

A look around the packed amphitheatre on the opening Monday – after a spine-tingling showing of South Australia tourism’s AUS$6m ad featuring Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – showed that the international wine world is keen to see what the country has to offer. Delegates from the two key markets that Australia wants to entice back to bed were there in substantial numbers – more than 10% (82) were Chinese, and nearly that number (75) were from the US. The latter figure surprised some commentators, given that the US market has been particularly hard for Australian producers over the last five years. ‘It’s been almost non-existent for us,’ one prominent producer said.

Savour 2013 was conceived and executed in much less than a year, driven by the exigencies of political funding priorities: in the last quarter of 2012 a federal grant was made available for Wine Australia and Tourism Australia for an international event – but it had to be spent by June 2013. ‘It was like organising the Olympics in seven months’ one member of the organising committee said. The board – whose members included globetrotting consultant Tony Jordan, and Robert Hill Smith of Yalumba – rapidly conceived the idea of a conference that would be not just a talking shop but a showcase for pan-Australian wine and food. ‘We wanted to break the mould. We wanted not just business  sessions but long lunches as well,’ Wine Australia marketing general manager James Gosper said.

By the end of the third day it was clear that Savour had lived up to Oliver’s initial promise to seduce - although many delegates fell in love despite, not because of, the business side of the conference, which sometimes seemed to be no more than an add-on to the task of demonstrating with verve and imagination the potential of Australian wine and food.

The business sessions actually took up no more than two mornings, and could seem frustratingly cursory and hurried. In that time, however, Wine Australia and Tourism Australia between them hammered home their key message: Australia is selling itself short, and it must find new ways of telling its story.

‘We under-promise  and over-deliver,’ said Nick Baker of Tourism Australia, quoting research showing only 27% of people who have not visited Australia associate it with good food, a number that increases to 60% with those who have visited. He announced that in a joint venture Wine Australia and Tourism Australia intend to double the current AUS$70bn spent annually in ‘overnight spend’  to AUS$140bn. One of the main planks of the campaign will be a promotion entitled ‘Restaurant Australia’, selling the country as a foodie destination.

Shiraz the Australian way (image:  Wojciech Bońkowski)

The business sessions may have been hurried, but they were thought-provoking. On selling wine in China, for example David Andrews of Hong Kong’s Macro Wines and Spirits stressed how Chinese wine consumers tend to value personal endorsement from peers, from family or from bosses – and from social media such as weibo and weixin – more than promotions from traditional media and wine companies. Alex Lu of Shanghai City Wine Shop contrasted the strength of Bordeaux in China with Australia’s image. ‘Australia hasn’t got a strong identity except for Shiraz. You need a backup story – you need to get across the diversity of style in Australia.’

Elsewhere Mike Osborn, founder of Wine.com, the world’s biggest online wine retailer, said value is increasing in website sales. ‘Previously, online has been about clearance of inventory, with low cost being a key driver. But now, with the increase in customers, the average bottle price is increasing. We’re proving that online can be a mechanism to increase value as well.’

Overall, panellists and speakers were of the highest level. There were retailers such as Osborn, or Jared Liu, CEO of the huge Chinese website yesmywine.com,  Jeremy Stockman of Watson’s Wine, Hong Kong’s largest specialist wine retailer, and Yang Lu of the Shangri-La group. They shared platforrms with winemakers and wine professors such as Chinese academic Li Demei, or those from the auction sector such as Simon Tam of Christie’s China, and critics and commentators such as MatthewJukes, Meiningers' own editor-at-large Robert Joseph, Hamish Anderson of Tate Modern, and wine communicators Leslie Sbrocco and Sarah Ahmed.

The conference covered a wealth of topics: How Australia is placed to take advantage of global trends; The role of social media; Australian economic update; Australia on the global stage; Re-booting a mature market; Retaliers – friend or foe?

It was this very richness of subject matter, together with the quantity and knowledge of participants that caused some of the talks to misfire. ‘Mythbusting’, for example, saw eight renowned winemakers and commentators, including Prue Henschke of Henschke, Steve Webber of de Bortoli, Bernard Hickin of Jacob’s Creek and Bruce Tyrrell of Tyrrells lined  up on stage. Once each had had their say there was no time for any audience feedback, something which left many delegates frustrated. As one put it, ‘it’s a common problem of conferences – you overload the proposition so it gets diluted.’

But Wine Australia had promised to provide ‘more than just business sessions’ and it amply fulfilled that part of the bargain. Lunches were lavish while the all-day ‘Providores’ Market’ showcased foods from around Australia. Before and after the conference, week-long ‘immersion tours’ of the regions – including Langhorne Creek, Mount Benson, Robe, Coonawarra, Barossa, and McLaren Vale - were impeccably put together, with well-thought-out tastings and visits, and quality access to key winemakers.

Afternoon sessions – ‘Landmark tastings’ – aimed to cover the enormous variety of wines commercially produced in Australia, from Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Chardonnay and Merlot to Riesling, Pinot Noir, Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc, Grüner Veltliner, Tempranillo, Pinot Gris and Viognier. One session presented Shiraz from every wine producing region – and not just any Shiraz but some world-renowned names: Spinifex La Maline 2010, Torbreck The Factor 2009, the scarce Craiglee 1996 from Sunbury, Victoria, Rockford Basket Press 1996, Henschke Hill of Grace 2004 and Grange 1999, among others.

Savour was conceived with good intentions and – considering the timescale – well-organised. Of the more than 750 delegates including 111 distributors, importers and wholesalers, 120 representatives of trade outlets, 89 media and 304 wine producers, it was difficult to find anyone to say anything negative beyond cavils about the layout of the business sessions or the selection of wines at a particular tasting. Most came away enthused by the Australian wine industry. Jared Liu of yesmywine.com, for example, said the conference was ‘a big success’.

‘I can see vividly how active Australian wineries and Australian government are, in the promotion of Australian wine to the China market and other international markets.’

Liu said networking was crucial, both in terms of growing the business: ‘I got to know a lot of wine makers and wine companies which will definitely help our import business’ – and building relationships: ‘potential cooperation between Yesmywine and Australian online leaders is also under discussion.’

The fact that Asian delegates were so numerous was testament to Australia’s importance in the region, but some delegates felt there was not enough effort made to break down barriers.

‘They needed to be engaged, instead of leaving them interacting among their grouping,’ Singaporean wine consultant Lim Hwee Peng said. ‘I was probably one of the few attendees that mingled among the Asian grouping (China, India, Thailand, and my home country - Singapore), as well as with
Australian wine producers and other nationals' representatives.

For Australia’s winemakers – and there were many celebrated names there, Jeffrey Grosset, Prue Henschke, Chester Osborn of d’Arenberg, former Grange winemaker John Duval and  many others – networking was also vital. One producer, Derek Hooper of the Mount Benson winery Cape Jaffa, told Meiningers that his conversations over dinner with a Canadian wine consultant ‘prompted me to revisit old markets. I’ll be watching the north American market closely and I’ll also be  getting on board one of Wine Australia’s export programmes.’

Derek Hooper of Cape Jaff

If the conference was seen as a success by Hooper, whose winery is a 70 acre (28ha), 30,000 case biodynamic operation in one of Australia’s smallest appellations, his enthusiasm was shared at the other end of the spectrum by Neil McGuigan, who runs Australian Vintage, lately McGuigan Wines. The last few days had ‘kicked up a lot of dust,’ he said.

‘It’s refocussed us. It’s back to basics. There are a lot of people who have just discovered what a great country we are, and we have to build on that. I’m halfway through a letter to Wine Australia and the Winemakers’ Federation [of Australia] saying “Great job – now what’s the plan?”.’

How precisely to capitalise on the fund of goodwill released by Savour is the subject of much debate: should the conference be repeated every two years, or every four years? McGuigan said the next thing should be a programme of intense ‘immersion tours’ of 40 or more people at once, while the majority canvassed thought bi-annually would be ideal. The key factor, as ever, is funding. ‘Should they repeat it? I don’t know,’ a major South Australian producer said. ‘The problem is, Wine Australia doesn’t have any money, so it will probably be a Tourism Australia event with Wine Australia piggybacking.’

A timely reminder that politics will be a major factor in how Savour progresses. South Australia was a natural home for the conference – it has more than half the country’s premium wineries – and it was delighted to win the bidding to stage it. If the goodwill created by the first Savour is not to be squandered, the other wine producing states should get more heavily involved. The first Savour has laid the foundations, and now the building must begin.

Shiraz tasting at Savour 2013. Every wine a beacon - just drink the bloody stuff

There are tastings that are merely excellent, and there are tastings that are memorable. This was one of the latter. It took place in the splendid galleried Mortlock Wing of the State Library of South Australia. Mark Davidson of Wine Australia handled a panel which included Huon Hooke (aka ‘The Trusted Voice in Wine’) and  Peter Barry of Jim Barry Wines, as well as critic Bruce Schoenfeld and sommelier Kim Bickley of Black by Ezard in Sydney. 100-strong audience down great central table. John Duval sitting at the very end (Davidson hauls him up to talk about the Grange). A huge, leisurely (three and a half hours) tasting, which is repeated the next day. Six bottles each per day of some very fine and very expensive wines.

What a line-up. Every wine was a beacon of excellence – I had two cavils with the Plantagenet and the De Bortoli, which I found short in the tannins, but I was knocked back by Hooke and Davidson, who said just drink the bloody stuff.

Some old favourites like the pre-eminent Jamsheed Garden Gully, and some I’d never tasted like the Craiglee and the Bests No 0. If I had to choose one to take home with me? The Hill of Grace. Or the Jasper Hill. Or the Craiglee. Frankly, if I was given any one of those bottles for dinner tonight I would count myself lucky.

[The tasting was part of the Savour 2013 conference in Adelaide, September]

Plantagenet 2010 Mt Barker WA

See-through garnet hue

Wonderful leather and cedar nose with stewed pruney fruit and pencil lead. Very linear precise tannins, ripe and soft but with good grip. Cooked dark fruit. Slightly disappointing length – fall off of tannins.

De Bortoli Estate Reserve 2010 Yarra Valley VA

Lovely rich garnet, almost like Pinot in transparency.
Stem inclusion.

Sweet attractive jammy nose with green notes of very juicy capsicum, sugar snap pea, dissipating quickly. Full-bodied round more pepper with plum and prune. Pepper notes persist, tannins very very soft. Length a ghostly presence, though fruit goes on.

Jamsheed Garden Gully 2010 Great Western VA

Dark purply red

Minimal treatment, minimal oak, no fining, no added yeast

Nose has notes of hay, old leather, cedar. Sweet cassis, blackberry compote.Notes of sweet tar and pencil lead. Tannins more insistent than what’s gone before – but not dominant, holding up the fruit which has jam and sweetness, some red fruit, cooked raspberry with balsamic, and a bit of salinity. Very attractive juicy finish. Loved it in May in London and love it now.

Jasper Hill Georgia’s Paddock 2009 Heathcote VA

Purple with lighter ruby rim

Attractive notes of green pepper, mown grass, hay on nose, then ripe fruit on the briar with leaves. Lovely pot pourri and and fresh acidic palate – the whole very fresh and clean with leafy dry notes. Tannins dry then dissolving on the tongue to release juice. Lovely dusty length. Soft and in a minor key: everything there for a purpose.

McWlliams Mount Pleasant Old Paddock and Old Hill 2010 Hunter Valley NSW

Bright reddish purple, see through

Blackberry and cream nose, sweet vanilla oakiness with acid heft on palate, creamy sweet palate with spicy clove tannins with grip and density. Soft plum fruit, blueberry and dark stone fruit.

d’Arenberg The Dead Arm Shiraz 2009 McLaren Vale SA

Nose quite closed but hint of brooding fruit there. Mighty tannic palate but not aggressive. Rich alcohol-soaked fruit, raisins and plums and black cherry. Splendid dry tannic end. Needs time

Spinifex  La Maline 2010 Barossa Valley SA

Includes 2% Roussanne

Lovely powerful licorice and violet nose, old-style perfume. Fresh open palate with plums, damson, bright dark fruit with no hint of red, sour dry tannins with juicy finish. Excellent, long, drinking well now but will last for ever.

Torbreck The Factor 2009 Barossa Valley SA

Tar and piney resin on the nose with eucalyptus. Medium huge palate with fresh acidity and dry tannins. Ripe black porty fruit, sweet but dense and leathery, elegant even delicate length, mouthwatering dissolving tannins. Amazing. Length goes on for minutes.

Craiglee 1996 Sunbury Victoria

12.5% alcohol

Cold winters and long hot summers. Sunbury is a GI but tiny.

Handharvested handmade. Included in Langtons. Gorgeous perfumed nose with lovely peppery, leathery spice. Deep red fruit – old cooked strawberry, almost fermented  summer berries – some age on this nose – secondary fruit coming over. Highly acidic, almost sour palate with powerful dense fruit on the red spectrum. Not hugely long but very pretty.

Best’s Bin No 0 1997 Great Western VA

$65

Aged in big puncheons 2 years. Vineyard planted 1886. (Huon Hooke: 'This was planted in 1886. Or was it 76? I should know, I worked a vintage there'. Davidson: 'In 1886? You're looking good on it, mate')

Nose a bit tight and giving little. Rich perfumed palate with mint and candied licorice. Lots of bright lifted red cherry fruit and sweet integrated tannins. Very fine, very fine unassertive juicy length. Like the Craiglee seems aged beyond its years – settled, delicious, but settling into a harmonious and long journey into old age.

Mount Langi Ghiran Langi 1996 Grampians VA

Made by Trevor Mast who died last year.

Wonderfully expressive nose, savoury and smoky. Bright, secondary flavours on the palate, sour dark cherry. Shows great maturity – seems a good 10 years older.

Rockford Basket Press 1996 Barossa Valley SA

Smoky savoury leathery nose, great gouts of powerful smoky spice on the palate with plums preserved in aromatic spices – cinnnamon and clove – very ripe textured tannins, dense sweet tart tannins with tremedous juice and power. Very fine, powerful length. Will get better and better over the next 15 years. Will reach peak in 3-5 years.

Jim Barry The Armagh 1998 Clare Valley VA

This vintage was watered twice. 12 months 50/50 oak, 14.5% alcohol

Peter Barry –‘we don’t tell anyone how much we make because we charge quite a lot and then people would be able to work out how much money we make and why would we do that? To make this quality it’s all about what you leave out  - we don’t harvest the end rows because they have more soil and so a bigger canopy for example.’

Lovely rotted bretty nose – rain-soaked forest floor, mushrooms – delicious aromas, really powerful. Great heft of tactile spice on the palate, with blackberry compote and black pepper. Set off by soft, precise tannins, fine grained and elegant.

Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier 2005 Canberra District NSW

12ha of vines

Sweet candied lemon perfume on the nose. Hint of slightly unctuous spice on the palate. Blackberry fruit, very open aspirated palate – a refreshing mintiness. Seems more delicate and precise than the previous one. Lovely juicy tannins.

Henschke Hill of Grace 2004, Eden Valley SA

Now under Vinolok glass closure

Bramble greenness on the nose with mint and blackberry, exotic  spices, a cedar box with compacted candied sweets. Very fresh very elegant palate, with saltiness and such perfumed acidity and fresh ripe tannins.Primary fruit characters, lovely dry fine tannins moving into juicy length. Lingering dust and pot pourri at finish.

Penfolds Grange 1999, SA

John Duval – ‘99 was a sleeper vintage- it crept up on us. For me this is still a bit young,  a bit arms and legs – this wine’s  got a lot of potential.’

100% new American oak.

Tarry nose with plum and blackberry notes. Strong spicy tannins on the palate, dry tannins getting juicy as they develop in the mouth – not exploding (as they will in time) but dissolving to juice. Fruit submerged at the moment - all arms and legs as John says –but when it comes up it will be dark and sweet – a dark and sweet core with raspberry and strawberry touching the edges.   

The Historic Vineyard Society of Sonoma: Do old vines make better wine?

How many times have I asked this question, and how many different answers have I had? Sometimes a winemaker will look at you askance, as if you've voiced a heresy, but usually they treat the question seriously. 

120-year-old Tempranillo at Vega Sicilia, Ribera del Duero

Winemakers prize old vines for reasons that seem obvious but, on closer examination, are more complicated. It is assumed, for example, that the older the vine, the better the wine. The root system on a 100-year-old vine, depending on the type of soil, can be extraordinarily deep, in loose soils, gravel or loam, they can go up to five metres or more. The vine tends to produce far fewer bunches with smaller, concentrated grapes dense with flavour.

Above and below: 1891 Cabernet Sauvignon, Brothers in Arms,  Langhorne Creek, South Australia. Unusually, the vines were trained and not bush-grown, hence the contortions

So it would seem to be a given that old vines make better wine. But is that simply a question of yield, and if so, wouldn’t a 30-year-old vine, properly stressed and sparingly irrigated, produce grapes of equal intensity?

Some, like Walter Schug, who founded Sonoma’s Schug Winery in 1980, are in two minds.

‘Sometimes it’s a thing that’s praised too highly. It’s got great value in consumers’ imagination and  it increases value of the wine but it’s very rare that you can actually see the difference in the taste of the wine.’

Lytton Springs. Now irrigated

Schug’s point is that a 15-year-old vineyard with rigorously-controlled yields will produce grapes of equal quality to an ancient vineyard whose yields are controlled by age. ‘At 15 years old you can get as good a wine as at 70 years.’

An interesting perspective on the question comes from Bordeaux, where – at least in the Medoc – vines are routinely replaced at 45-50 years. Olivier Darcy, winemaker at Chateau Teyssier in Pomerol (where the oldest vines are 80-year-old Merlot), says it all depends on the roots. ‘Where the root system goes deep in search of water, the quality seems to be better.’

But, he adds, a 20-year-old vine with perfectly adapted rootstock in good terroir ‘will give a result that in a blind tasting that would be hard to distinguish from wine from an older vine.’

Crucially, Darcy says, there will be little difference between a 50-year-old vine and one twice the age. ‘The roots don’t go any deeper after 50 years.’

100+ years Zinfandel at Ridge's Lytton Springs Vineyard, Sonoma County

It’s in the New World that the oldest vines in the world can be found, and in Somoma, where vineyards date back to the 1880s, a group of wine professionals and keen amateurs formed the Historic Vineyard Society, an organisation dedicated to preserving not only Sonoma’s old plantings but old vines across California. The Society’s mission statement is simple: to ‘compile a comprehensive, fact-based and consistent directory of California’s Heritage Vineyards’. Jancis Robinson is on the board, as is David Gates, head of viticulture at Ridge.

The society has some 200 members to date. ‘They are trickling in slowly but surely,’ Gates says. The oldest are concentrated in Alexander Valley, Dry Creek and Russian River Valley. The Society lists 26 vineyards in Napa, 12 in Lodi and a handful in Paso Robles.

Old Hill Ranch, for example, was established in 1852 by William McPherson Hill, the first viticulturist to import non-Mission grapes into Sonoma. The HVS says Old Hill is ‘possibly the oldest continuously farmed vineyard in California.’

The vineyard’s page on the HVS website is a distillation of old Sonoma. The varietal composition of this 6.1ha (40 acre) parcel is 71% Zinfandel, 10% Grenache, 7% Alicante Bouchet, 2.5% Petite Sirah and Peloursin, 1.3% Grand Noir, 1.2% Tannat, 1% Mourvedre. Then, the HVS goes on, there are ‘1% various table grapes, 5 % Carignan, Syrah, Trousseau, French Columbard, Cinsaut, Charbono, Lenoir, Palomino, Chasselas, Tempranillo, Petite Bouchet, Muscat and various unknowns’.

Gates admits it can be difficult assessing  the age of a vineyard. ‘It can be really hard to tell when it was planted. If it’s over 50 years old you get a good sense, but documentation is important.’ Those vineyards that have had ‘good families’ running them are the easiest. ‘They had a lot of pride in their work and they kept records.’

The first vitis vinifera - a mix of varietals known as mission grapes, used for sacramental wine - were planted in Mexican-owned northern California by Franciscan missionaries in the 1770s. Those early vines were decimated by phylloxera, with the result that the oldest vines today date back to the replantings of the 1880s. Many of these vineyards are incredibly diverse. Zinfandel is a mainstay: early on vignerons recognized its adaptability, but, as HVS board member Mike Dildine says, ‘in the late 19th Century, vineyards were often planted as “field blends” containing a hodge-podge of grape varieties, typically including Zinfandel, Grenache, Mourvedre, Carignane, Syrah, Petite Sirah, Alicante, Grand Noir, Tannat, French Colombard and many other miscellaneous and even unknown varieties.’

Vega Sicilia again

The greatest acreage of old vines is actually in the vast and fertile Lodi appellation in the Central Valley. But growers there can be resistant to signing up to a society like the HVS. ‘A grower may sell most of his grapes to a big winery, and keep a small old block to sell to others but he worries most about his contract with the bigger wineries.’

Similarly, the big wineries have little interest in their growers protecting their old plots as they are mostly interested in volume.

There is a resolution at present working its way through the California state legislature , but Gates says he prefers the ‘carrot not the stick’ approach: some sort of tax break, for example, but he admits that would be very complicated.

Whether the softly-softly approach works or not is a moot point. Even the most artisan of growers can be dismayingly cavalier, Gates says. After the 2012 vintage Andy Beckstoffer, one of Napa’s most renowned growers, pulled out a 60-year-old block of Petite Sirah in the Hayne Vineyard in Napa’s St Helena, to replace it with Cabernet Sauvignon. ‘It breaks my heart to pull those old vines out,’ he told the San Francisco Chronicle’s Jon Bonné. ‘But we couldn't do it. On the upside, those soils will produce some outstanding Cabernet.’

1889 Genache, Tri-Centenary Vineyard, Yalumba,  Barossa Valley, South Australia

‘I would have liked to protect that,’ Gates says. ‘But it’s all about the economics.’

Then there was Trentadue in Alexander Valley, where about 350 vines of 1890s Carignane were removed ‘to square off a block. I tried to stop them, but there wasn’t much I could do.’

What the HVS tries to do is stress the viability of old vineyards. To qualify for HVS membership, a vineyard must be ‘currently producing’. Dildine clarified this: ‘Ultimately, vineyards can only be preserved if they are valued in the marketplace’. These are not museum pieces: the 200-plus listed vineyards on the registry provide grapes for some of America’s most famous wines.

Here is Monte Bello, for example, a 1.6ha (4 acre) parcel of Cabernet Sauvignon that is all that remains of a 1949 planting by a theologian from Stanford called William Short, subsequently bought by the group of families that founded Ridge Vineyards. ‘These blocks,’ the HVS says in a typical understatement,  ‘were part of the 1971 Monte Bello that showed well in the 1976 Judgment of Paris.’

Or Pagani Ranch, whose 100-year-old Zinfandel goes into Seghesio’s rich wines, or the ancient Alegria Vineyard, mainly Zinfandel but with a rainbow of other varieties – Alicante Bouschet, Negrette, Trousseau Noir, Petit Bouschet, Carignane, Petit Syrah.

The biographies accompanying each vineyard are evocative. You get a palpable sense of the pioneer grit behind these biblical lists of names and quill-pen transactions. Alegria ‘is part of the 1841 Sotoyome land grant from the Mexican governor of California to Henry Delano Fitch, an immigrant from Boston who married Josefa Carrillo, sister-in-law of General Mariano Vallejo…Summers Brumfield sold 85 acres… in 1895 to George Davis, who sold … in 1896 to Elizabeth Moes…Moes built a small winery on her property. After she died in 1924, her daughter Ernestine and son-in-law Adolph DiNucci maintained the vineyard during Prohibition and until 1943. The vineyard then passed through a series of owners…’

Old vineyards, then, are the business of the HVS, and its members’ definitive answer to the question of whether old vines make better wine can be summed up as: you don’t need old grapes to make great wine, but they can add depth, complexity and site-specifity.

There are many reasons, the HVS says, why this happens. Old vines are more resistant, less influenced by weather and fluctuations in temperature, their roots are deeper, their ability to absorb nutrients better. The grapes they produce tend to be more balanced and lower in alcohol.

Mike Officer, who makes wine from 90-year-old vines at Carlisle Vineyard, has studied the question.

‘Are old vines a prerequisite for making great wine? Obviously not. But when it comes to Zinfandel and the often associated mixed blacks, it certainly seems to help. In several of our old-vine vineyards in which we have replaced misses, we pick the replants separate from the old vines. We know the replants are in a great terroir. The replants are vigorously farmed. Yet, the juice chemistry is completely different from the old vines. Compared to the juice from the young vines, the old-vine fruit is simply much better balanced in terms of acids, sugars, potassium, and nutrients, resulting in a more complete and harmonious wine.’

He goes on, ‘The interesting question then is at what age will the replants produce wine equal to the old vines? Ten years? Twenty? Fifty? Hopefully I will find out in my lifetime.’

The answer, as with so many aspects of wine, lies in experimentation and accumulation of knowledge over generations. What is certain, in a region where the average age of a vine is 17 years, vineyards that have survived a century and more should be respected. As Walter Schug admits, there is a nobility to an old vine. ‘I walk past an ancient vineyard every day. It’s wonderful to see those old trunks.’

Tasting with David Gates at Lytton Springs

I meet David Gates on a perfect Sunday morning in February, at Ridge’s Lytton Springs vineyards in northern Sonoma. The vines up here are some of the oldest in California, with a bewildering mix of varietals: Zinfandel, Carignane, Alicante Bouschet, Tinturier Grand Noir, Mataro, Grenache, Syrah, Petite Sirah and some scattered white varieties, Picpoul, Burger, Palomino. About 5% of that particular block went into Ridge’s Lytton Springs 2011. ‘It’ll make it into the 2012 as well,’ Gates says.

In the cellars at Lytton Springs we taste the 2012s in barrel, some ‘mixed blacks’ from old vines, then the Lytton Springs Zinfandel blend, a Petite Sirah, and Carignane planted in the 1940s, all in American oak. We contrast it with Zinfandel from a block they call the east bench, planted in 2000 and 2001. In another comparison, we taste Zinfandel from the Ponzo vineyard in the Russian River Valley – one barrel from a block planted in 1952, and another from ten-year-old vines.

In general, the old vines show bright dark fruit and sweet, dense, very present, lush and juicy tannins with no dryness at all. When it comes to the younger vines, the fruit is brighter and sweeter but there’s a marked contrast in the tannins, which are dryer, firmer, and chalkier than the tannins from their older cousins. I would not say either wine is superior.

‘There is less on the mid palate with younger vines,’ is Gates’s opinion. ‘The tannins show more, and the fruit is brighter and more lifted.’

Lytton Springs

This article appears in modified form in the latest Meininger's Wine Business International

More sex, please...Robert Giorgione's An Epicurean Odyssey: Sommelier Stories

Anyone who has ever spent time with sommeliers knows they can get pretty wild when they’re off duty. It must be a reaction to the enforced discretion of their professional life. After hours, and away from clients, a group of sommeliers determined to enjoy themselves can be an eye-opening – even a fearsome – sight. I remember scenes straight out of one of Hunter S Thompson’s more lurid fantasies after a sommelier awards ceremony at a big London hotel. And, as we’ve seen from the splendid revelations in books like Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, outrageous high jinks in restaurants aren’t confined to after hours.

Veteran sommelier and consultant Robert Giorgione has seen a thing or two himself, during 12 years pulling corks at some of London's best restaurants. ‘I went downstairs to the basement,’ he writes. ‘I needed to check on a couple of things. Whilst doing so I could hear a noise coming from the toilet. Someone was having sex (and quite enthusiastically by the sound of it) as I could hear much grunting and groaning.’

Moments later he surprises the restaurant manager and the sous chef snorting coke. Now, if this had been Bourdain, he would have joined them (the cocaine sniffers, not the rutting couple, though one never knows), and the episodes would have been the lead-in to an exhilarating chapter on the sort of behaviour that takes place behind the swinging doors marked ‘In’ and ‘Out’. If I remember, two of the main reasons Bourdain got into cooking were the thrill of back-heeling heavy oven doors shut, and the equally heady kick of seeing a chef shagging a female junior behind the waste bins. Oh, and the drugs, of course.

Giogione is a different pair of trousers, as they say. An Epicurean Odyssey: Sommelier Stories is a detailed look at the development of a sommelier, from his Anglo-Italian upbringing (his mother’s English, his father Italian), his four adored grandparents, their recipes for Minestrone and Papardelle pasta with rabbit sauce, and his apprenticeship through La Tante Claire, Orrery, the Oxo Tower, Fifth Floor Harvey Nichols….

He’s not afraid of putting the boot in. He offended Gordon Ramsay (who seemingly bore a grudge for ever after) and is waspish about various colleagues he doesn’t think up to the mark. ‘When it came down to it, not only did the guy have a bad attitude and was very petulant – he was also pretty useless.’ That about David Charvet, who I gather is a well-known huckster (if not, Giorgione had better get in touch with his lawyer, as indeed I should). One gets the feeling that he’s an exacting taskmaster, unforgiving of mistakes and jealous of his own successes. ‘I…demonstrated great skill and imagination and was rewarded with nominations for best wine list three years in a row…’

But the problem is, he’s just not nasty enough. That sommelier training – and they’re all butlers at heart – has gone too deep. Discretion is now part of his DNA. He quotes an anonymous source’s hardly world-shattering opinion that chefs are motivated by sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, but there’s precious little of that here.

Even when it looks like he’s going to open up a bit – ‘I met a beautiful woman, who I went on to date briefly’ – it’s not to be. That ‘briefly’ is freighted with loss, and we want to hear more. Then: ‘I mentioned her to my parents, but I never had the opportunity to introduce her to them.

At the end of the book I feel I know no more about him, or the running of a restaurant, than I would have learnt had he been pouring my wine for the evening at La Tante Claire.

Giorgione is a well-liked figure in the London wine world, and I suspect he imagines little knots of colleagues past and present looking over his shoulder as he slaves over the hot keyboard. ‘Deservedly at this point I need to mention…for their hard work’: a list of half a dozen names of interest only to a tiny coterie of London restaurant folk.

Sommeliers are the most mysterious of beings, carrying more knowledge of wine in their little fingers than most punters learn (or want to learn) in a lifetime. They are omniscient and inscrutable, and they work in the heart of great restaurants - and everyone from Orwell to Bourdain knows how fascinating they can be. So what we want from a sommelier like Giorgione is dirt, not paragraphs beginning, ‘I cannot stress enough the importance of good back-of-house practice and sound financial management.’

Sound financial management....is all my brain and body needs: Ian Dury

Good writing needs to be well-spiced. On the one hand I hugely admire the effort Giogione has put in – this book (as is I’m sure the preceding volume, A Road Trip Round New Zealand) is so obviously the work of a man in love with, and very good at, his profession. But unfortunately niceness and good will don’t make for compelling reading. We want more sex, more drugs, more rock ‘n’ roll. Let it all hang out, Robert. After all, Ian Dury wouldn’t have made much impact if he’d sung, ‘Sound financial management, discretion and ability to deal with difficult customers is all my brain and body need.’

The full mojito...the weird and wonderful wines of the Scholium Project

‘This is not a tasting,’ Abe Schoener says, opening his laptop, which has a death’s head motif on it – not the Scholium logo but the Alexander McQueen grinning skull. Schoener, burly, bookish, bespectacled (with a passing resemblance to the actor John Goodman), is a philosophy teacher-turned-winemaker, and he’s at the Sampler wine shop in South Kensington to explain his Scholium project – and to make every effort NOT to explain his compelling wines.

A Scholium tattoo

Scholium is hard to pin down. It’s best described as an experimental winery, based in the Tenbrink Vineyards in Suisun Valley,  Solano County, east of Napa City. As far as I can gather the operation is run almost entirely with devoted interns. One told the New York Times that working with Schoener was akin to falling in love.

Another intern, journalist and Decanter writer Courtney Humiston, who helped on the 2011s and continues to work in the vineyards, said, 'Abe is a great teacher, but what you learn most from working with him is that we are all students and the wine is the teacher...the vineyards, the vines, the microbes, the yeast, the mysterious transformation that takes place during fermentation. We can only seek to understand; it's not something you aim to master.' They all talk like that at Scholium.

The wines are produced in tiny quantities – 50 cases here, 160 there – sourced from small parcels throughout Napa and Sonoma. Schoener describes finding parcels of ancient Sauvignon Blanc behind garages (tended, one assumes, by toothless old men in bib overalls). He also makes wine in North Fork, Long Island.

Sourcing grapes is going to get more difficult, Schoener says, as this ultra-boutique style catches on. ‘Many of us are having success in using unheralded vineyards and unheralded grapes like Petite Sirah and Verdejo. There’s more competition for vineyards now.’

If you’ve been bruised by the "natural" wines kerfuffle (we’ve had it bad in London), Schoener might make you twitch, but he insists he's not a "natural" winemaker. His wines are unracked, unfined, unfiltered, untopped-up (which can lead to a sherry-like growth of flor). Fermentation is uncontrolled (the Choephoroi Chardonnay 2008 took two years to ferment), wines are never inoculated, SO2 used only rarely. He makes “natural” winemakers look like laboratory technicians, but he says, ‘most people expect me to be an exponent of natural winemaking but I’m not.’

His tastings are eccentric, to say the least. He lectures from his laptop while the wines are poured. He won’t allow spitting: ‘You are to drink all the wine, and you are to drink only the wine.’

Schoener is the type of philosopher-winemaker that only California can produce. A fierce admirer of Napa Chardonnay guru John Kongsgaard, under whom he trained, he talks about the metaphysical – ‘that unseen realm’ – and uses words like ‘heuristic’ (no, me neither). He brings in the 14^th century Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun. Indeed, he quotes him at length, warning us, ‘I’m now going to quote him at length’.

'I am not a natural winemaker'...Schoener

It might sound rather too rich a mix, but it’s leavened with disarming asides and tangents (on his no spitting rule – ‘I was drunk halfway through the last lecture’). The audience, moreover, is loving it, full of questions. There seem to be a lot of Americans – South Ken is brimming with diplomats and other rich expats – and they’re more attuned to this sort of thing.

‘I’m not going to talk about barrels,’ Schoener says, and keeps his discourse to the general rather than the particular. Winemaking is all about ‘preservation in the face of spoilage and preservation is achieved by the husbanding and management of microbes that would cause spoilage under only slightly different circumstances. So we as winemakers spend our lives hovering on the edge of disaster.’

What surprises you about the wines is the peculiar vividness of the flavours – it’s as de Quincey, say, or Aldous Huxley might experience them. So you don’t just get cigar box cedar notes, but a Siglo V on a balmy Sonoma evening; that’s not mere mint or spearmint in the Prince in his Caves, but the full mojito, complete with garnish and paper umbrella, and who knows, handed to you by a beautiful mixologista in white shirt and black tie. Tasting them makes for an intense experience – rather like looking at a minutely detailed canvas. You can’t appreciate the whole unless you step back and take a breath.

The ‘tasting’ was topped and tailed with a couple of grower Champagnes -  David Leclapart l’Amateur and one of the Sampler’s top grower sellers, the André Beaufort, and a Collet de Bovis from Bellet in Provence. Fine wines but after the technicolor delights of Schoener’s wines they seemed very much in a minor key and I couldn’t think what to say about them.

All the wines are available at The Sampler. It’s Scholium’s first London listing – the UK is now its 4^th largest market: New York is strong, as is Chicago, and he’s just sold some to Japan. ‘My wines are out of place in the US,’ he says. The Sampler has had them since October, manager Ben Slater tells me, and they sell out. ‘I can tell you that certain current wines have been impossible to keep up with demand for, especially given the small volumes available. With this in mind, I am confident that Abe will increase our allocation.’

THE WINES

Midan al Tahrir 2010

£28

526 cases made

Verdejo, Gewurztraminer, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay

Extraordinary honeyed nose with dense aromas of nettles and gooseberry leaves. Sharp, oxidised acidity – hot, but it’s not alcohol burn, more a kind of gentle lemongrass warmth. Salinity reminiscent of fresh lobster thermidor, bolstering sour apple – crabapple, that is – lime, lemon meringue pie and custard. Lots going on, all integrated discrete flavours. Refreshing, long.

The Prince in his Caves 2011

£42

263 cases made

Sauvignon Blanc. Blind, you’d say you had a mojito in your hand – great gouts of fresh crushed mint, citrus and tropical fruit, earl grey tea. Oxidative palate, more tea and spearmint, cut granny smith, pear, gooseberry, very fresh crushed pink rose petals, powdery, tannic acidity, (dust on a bowl of rose leaves). Sharp, tannic length. Superb, eccentric, like no other Sauvignon I’ve ever tasted.

Choephoroi 2008

£42

300 cases

14.5% alcohol. Severely botrytised Chardonnay – Schoener said ‘the grapes were rained on and turned into slime by the botrytis’. The skins were broken down but so fast that there was not enough spore activity to suck out the moisture and sweeten the juice. Fermentation took two years, with 5-10 gallons of wine lost in each barrel, flor-like growth in airspace. The nose is cabbagey but not disagreeably so. When that clears, there is more oxidation, composted tea bags, faint and sweet odours of rotting vegetable matter, then honey and tropical fruit – lychee and kiwi. Complex, powerful tannic acidity, sharp peppery flavours of coriander and rocket, lovely gentle honeyed length. Excellent and would go beautifully with robust seafood.

Chuey Chard 2010

£67

60-80 cases

Chardonnay, from Nelligan Rd Ranch, Spring Mountain, Sonoma

Nose of leather and spice – not just cedary notes of old cigar box but a Cohiba run lengthwise under your nose. Then peppery gooseberry, honey and sweet white flowers, apple, quince, tea (more earl grey), citrus, key lime pie. Bright zesty acidity detonating juicily on the end palate. Delicious

1MN 2011

£42

Cinsault, 140-year-old vines

40 cases

Dense dock leaf nose, summer hedgerow on a misty morning, minty violet perfume, very bright aspirated fresh nose. The palate is much more conventional, agreeable peppery green notes, good cherry and damson fruit leading to red fruit, raspberry and strawberry with muscovado sugar. Suave tannins but with very present grip carrying through to a food-friendly finish. Very good.

Bricco Babelico 2009

£42

Petite Sirah from Tenbrink Vineyards in the Suisun Valley,  Solano County, east of Napa City. About 160 cases

16.25% alcohol (the 08 was 17%, a Sampler staffer tells me proudly)

Baked earth nose with hot wet stones. Great sense of controlled power on the palate: christmas spice (clove and cinnamon) and sour cherry, fragrant plums and good sweet ripe acidity. Reminds me of Valpolicella Ripasso (are there raisined grapes in here?). Fine tannins tending to dryness for a young wine, some juice left but there won’t be much in a few years time. No burn from the extremely high alcohol, overall soft, dense length. Drink with rare game: grouse, venison. Good though would wonder about ageability of those tannins.

www.scholiumwines.com/

www.thesampler.co.uk

'We've got two wine OBEs in the audience today...'

Some of Napa’s finest wineries came together in London for a Masterclass last week. Nothing unusual in that, but what was notable was the personnel the wineries fielded – Delia Viader, Doug Shafer, Chris Hall (the list is at the bottom), and the wealth of wines on show. The idea wasn’t simply to showcase the wines but also, I think, to show development of style over three vintages, the 02, 05 and 08. ‘Cool, cooler, coolest’ as Tim Atkin, chairing, characterised them. 2002 had a dry, cool spring with rain, an average summer and a warm, windy September. Yields were low. In 2005 the crop was far bigger and the harvest was late – mid to end of October, rather than the more normal end of September. 2008 was the coolest of the three, with widespread frost damage (some estates on Howell Mountain reported 30% losses of fruit) then a cool summer with heat spikes, and an Indian summer to follow. At the time, winemakers were optimistic for an elegant vintage, hopes that were borne out in many of today's wines.

The first thing to say is that the tasting reinforced (as if it needed reinforcement) the concept of vintage variation in Napa. I don’t know why I even have to mention it, frankly, but there you go… The 2008s were invariably more austere, tighter – look at the Stag’s Leap District wines: Chimney Rock and Pine Ridge have a very different profile in 08 to the wines before them. And it’s not just that they are younger wines: the taut tannins and nervy acidity speak of wines that are going to mature into an elegant old age.

Three sparklers from Schramsberg. The Napa fruit is all Carneros, and accounts for 50-60% of the blend. The balance is Sonoma, Mendocino and Marin County. What lovely wines they are, the 02 especially, but I loved the tight, closed 08, which will mature beautifully. In 1972 Richard Nixon chose the 69 Blanc de Blancs to toast the Chinese premier Zhou Enlai after that old rogue Henry Kissinger had worked his magic on him.

Nice surprise...

The Merlots were an odd bunch. I kept thinking of Sideways and Miles’s ridiculous diatribes, and felt I could agree… And just as Sideways revolutionised California Pinot production (I went from Los Angeles to the top of Napa on a Pinot trip in 2006, and in every meeting, that great film was mentioned within ten minutes. Sales went up 16% in 06/07, and even Riedel felt the effect, its Pinot glasses flying off the shelves, sales up 45%, or so they said at the time) so it stuck a knife into Merlot, the grape disappearing from wine lists.

Oddly enough for what is still America’s favourite red grape, the Merlots here were presented as outliers. Andre Crisp at Luna was almost apologetic, pointing out the ‘only 100s of cases’ that they produce. For me they were mixed: the best had lifted cherry fruit and refreshing acidity, but many were marred by vegetal flavours, hints of cabbage and ammonia. Are they picking too young, chasing that ‘notion of Euro-elegance’ as Parker once said of Tim Mondavi? Note that Jean-Claude Berrouet, formerly of Petrus and Dominus, is now consulting winemaker at Twomey, from the 2012 vintage onwards.

There was a feeling of lift-off when we got to the Cabernets. This was by no means a pushover though: there were disappointments. Over the last few vintages we’ve got so used to elegance in Napa, that it can be a shock to remember there are still some big, hot beasts doing good business. The Shafers, for me, seemed old-fashioned. They weigh in at 15% and more and the alcohol makes its presence felt. Still, as Doug Shafer said, they may be big, but they certainly sell. Pleasant surprise was Chimney Rock, which people can be rude about. I loved them. In fact, just to make sure, opened a bottle of the Chimney Rock 2008 Tomahawk Vineyard yesterday, and it was very fine – tight and closed at first, pure fruit, juicy tannins. 24 hours later it had developed into a silky classic. And I have to mention the brilliant Viader, if I haven’t been effusive enough in the notes below. Among the finest wines in Napa.

Dynamic, thought-provoking, slightly chaotic (minor cavil - too many wines in too short a time. We all found ourselves hurrying through...) But what a great tasting (and did I mention the lunch?). It was packed - standing-room only - with bigwigs. Atkin began proceedings by noting 'We've got two wine OBEs in the room today' - that'll be Jancis Robinson MW OBE sitting right at the back, and Gerard Basset MW OBE MS smiling into his moustache. The only person missing was Steven Spurrier, who Napa holds dear.

Thanks to Emma Wellings for putting it all together, and Cessa Beckett of Napa Valley Vintners, and to The Palm in Pont St for hosting

The wines

Schramsberg Vineyards 2002 Blanc de Blancs Napa Valley

Creamy ripe citrus nose, with hints of crème brulee. Bright sweet melon, pineapple on the palate with racy acidity. Lovely smoky, woody end palate.

Schramsberg Vineyards 2005 Blanc de Blancs Napa Valley

Some earth and brioche notes on sweet nose of pineapple and sweet lemon. Nutty spice on the palate, around cut apple and more citrus notes. Nice long finish

Schramsberg Vineyards 2008 Blanc de Blancs Napa Valley

Hardly evolved, nose quite closed. Dense acidity and sharp spicy notes on the palate, with fine tropical flavours half-submerged but ready to burst. Crisp acidity and fine finish

Luna Vineyards Merlot 2003 Napa Valley

Ripe dense earthy slightly rotted nose. Powerful acidity and some early nose of ammonia (sulfites?). Powerful and dense, bright cherry fruit leading to slightly drying finish to the tannins

Luna Vineyards Merlot 2010 Napa Valley

Sweet plum and cherry on nose with a nice delicate vegetal hint. Powerful acidity, cherry and plum carried through. Tannins angular, the whole slightly boxy and four-square

Twomey Cellars Merlot 2002 Napa Valley

Jean-Claude Berrouet, formerly Petrus and Dominus, is consulting winemaker.

Evolved colour, dark red with rim of lighter brick. Slight hint of cabbage on first sniff, then attractive cigar-box aromas and dry crunchy leaves. Very fresh acidity, nice black hedgerow fruit, mostly blackberry. Sharp, angular tannins.

Twomey Cellars Merlot 2005 Napa Valley

With 4% Cabernet Franc

That slight cabbage aroma again, then on the palate powerful acidity and dry, chalky tannins which dissolve into sweetness and juice at end palate. Much more successful than the 02, with nice bright cherry fruit really integrated with the tannin. Will last.

Twomey Cellars Merlot 2008 Napa Valley

13.7% alcohol. Raspberry on the nose then sharp palate showing early-season, slightly unripe plum. There is sweetness fighting to climb above the acidity, but not quite managing to get its head up.

Chimney Rock Winery Cabernet Sauvignon 2002, Stag’s Leap District

In magnum. 14.2% alcohol. Lovely bright cherry fruit nose with notes of cedar and earth. Beguilingly perfumed with parma violets and mint. Ripe dark plums on the palate with bright sweet tannins. Very fresh acidity. Good.

Chimney Rock Winery Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, Stag’s Leap District

The nose is fresh and bright with sweetish dark fruit – blueberry, black cherry, leading to an austere palate mitigated with a heft of cherry and tobacco. Elegant but lush.

Chimney Rock Winery Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, Stag’s Leap District

Austere nose, quite closed, hints of cedar and vanilla (not pronounced). Palate is loaded with sour/saline plum, damson, cassis, with supple tannins and superb length. Excellent.

Long Meadow Ranch Winery EJ Church Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2002, Napa Valley

Founded in 1989 by Ted Hall, who took on renowned winemaker Cathy Corison as consultant throughout the 90s. Long Meadow was catapulted into the premier league by the purchase of 36ha of prime Rutherford vineland in January this year: it now joins Inglenook, Quintessa, Beckstoffer and Beaulieu Vineyard as one of the 10 largest land holders in Rutherford. There’s no 2002 in the lineup – LMR lost all of its library vintages – including the 2002 - in the devastating, and deliberately set, Vallejo warehouse fire of 2005 .

Long Meadow Ranch Winery EJ Church Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, Napa Valley

13.5%. Attractive green tinge on nose with ripe sweet blackberry and cassis. The palate is elegant and fresh with sour fruit notes, dense acidity and quite tough dry tannins.

Long Meadow Ranch Winery EJ Church Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, Napa Valley

Sweet ripe cherry on nose. Palate has ripe and racy acidity with real grip to the tannin and real definition to the fruit. Complex palate – there’s earth there, and aromatic summery forest floor, soft black fruit, leading to a fresh and juicy, food-friendly finish

Pine Ridge

Pine Ridge is celebrating its 30^th anniversary this year. It makes wine in five Napa AVAS – Howell Mountain, Rutherford, Oakville, Stag’s Leap and Carneros.

Pine Ridge Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon 2002, Stag’s Leap District

Nose of blackcurrant, hint of sweet vanilla. Powerful leather and black fruit on the palate, gripping tannins, hint of agreeable greenness. Fresh acidity, great length.

Pine Ridge Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, Stag’s Leap District

The nose is savoury, with hints of bovril. Palate sweet black fruit, blackberry, cassis, superb dryish gripping tannins. Very smooth though slightly marred by a hot finish

Pine Ridge Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, Stag’s Leap District

Bright nose with sour plum and damson, palate taut and nervy, full of fruit with nice tension to the acidity, dense dry tannins

Robert Mondavi Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2002, Napa Valley

83% Cabernet Sauvignon, Cab Franc and Petit Verdot

Bright fresh nose, very open with violet notes and cedary oak, and hints of grassiness. The mid-palate is elegant, there’s good blackberry and cassis, some mintiness, but sense it’s not firing  on all cylinders – slight hollowness before dry tannins kick in and resolve into juiciness. Slightly unsatisfying

Robert Mondavi Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2005, Napa Valley

85% Cabernet Sauvignon, Cab Franc and Petit Verdot

A powerful tannic wine, lots of blackberry, cassis, dark plum and dark sour cherry. Tannins are dense but integrated and never dominate, still juicy at end

Robert Mondavi Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2008, Napa Valley

Powerful chalky grippy tannins. This needs time – still young and tough, tannins dominant throughout but with dense dark fruit peeping round the edges. Big and brooding chocolatey finish.

Shafer Vineyards Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon 2002, Stag’s Leap District

The three Shafer wines are 15-15.5% alcohol

Lovely open nose with textured dark plum and blackberry fruit. Dense sweet black fruit on the palate, powerful tannins though smooth, notes of iodine and licorice. Complex

Shafer Vineyards Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, Stag’s Leap District

Dense, knotted, sweet nose, powerful and elegant. Some green notes. Huge palate – blackcurrant, mocha, cassis – but still very fresh. Alcohol: while it doesn’t burn, it makes its presence felt, giving a slight misgiving of imbalance. But nothing a hefty rare T-bone wouldn’t remedy.

Shafer Vineyards Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, Stag’s Leap District

Huge. Licorice, salinity and iodine alongside blackcurrant fruit on the nose. Deep palate, robust tannins complemented (aided and abetted) by brisk acidity, huge doses of blueberry fruit and coffee. Massive sense of alcohol (see the 05 above – it doesn’t burn but it’s an aggressive presence). When was this opened? I would leave half a day open – but in any case don’t come back to it until at least 2015.

Silver Oak Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon 2002, Napa Valley

82% Cabernet, 11% Merlot, Cab Franc and Petit Verdot

Really superb nose, savoury textured dark fruit, repeated on the palate. Tannins after 12 years are full of energy, great grip, chalky and detonating juicily on the tongue. Very satisfying. Lots of life left in this.

Silver Oak Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, Napa Valley

Great juicy tannins at first but falls down on the mid-palate – the fruit is bullied by insistent acidity, and the tannins close in and add to the ruck. Closed for the duration? I couldn’t decide about this. There’s primary fruit there but will it come through? Will the tannins get any sweeter? Jury’s out.

Silver Oak Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, Napa Valley

Ripe red fruit. Lots going on here, cherry and salty plum, violets. Tannins are soft at first and building into attractive dryness becoming mouthwatering for the finish. Very nice indeed.

Viader Vineyards and Winery, Viader Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 Napa Valley

Roughly 60/30 Cabernet Sauvignon/Cab Franc.

Delia Viader’s eyrie clings to the side of Howell Mountain but is some 200m outside the AVA, hence the Napa Valley designation. Never mind. Superb ripe blackcurrant nose with fresh mint notes and exotic spice (what? all-spice? Marijuana?) as well as some green. Vibrant, powerful, effortless. Lovely earthy structured wine, built around elastic, silky but ultimately dense tannins with grip. Viader loves her Cabernet Franc, and it shows…

Viader Vineyards and Winery, Viader Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 Napa Valley

Roughly 60/30 Cabernet Sauvignon/Cab Franc.

Powerful nose of blueberry and old leather. Refreshing acidity in a palate subtle with black fruit. Tannins bright and ever-present lead to food-friendly finish. This was Michel Rolland’s first vintage consulting for Viader.

Viader Vineyards and Winery, Viader Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 Napa Valley

Roughly 60/30 Cabernet Sauvignon/Cab Franc.

Bright and fresh with incredible young, chalky tannins. Bright fresh palate with earth and leather, plum and ripe black cherry. Exuberant, very elegant, unfussy. Delicious.

Waterstone Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 Napa Valley

Started in 2000, Waterstone sources fruit from all over the valley, much of it hillside. The 2002 is mainly (or all?) Oakville and Rutherford. Bright, minty nose with aromas that act on the nasal passages like a vapor-rub. Wonderful. The fruit is at that indeterminate end of the red spectrum, wild strawberry and raspberry with blackcurrant, then earth, leather, cherry and sour plum. Excellent

Waterstone Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 Napa Valley

Some smoke and earth on the nose, then the first hint of green, then a blistering (almost literally) palate with black fruits scrambling over each other for attention, and alcohol very noticeable. It’s still young though I wonder where that alcohol is going?

Waterstone Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 Napa Valley

First off on the nose is bright cherry, then woody blueberry fruit, some licorice. Superb refreshing acidity and ripe, suave tannins with grip. Long and lush. Excellent

Who was there:

• Schramsberg: Maryann Bautovich, Export Representative
• Luna Vineyards: André Crisp, President of Sales
• Twomey: Vivien Gay, International Sales Manager
• Chimney Rock: Elizabeth Vianna, Winemaker & General Manager
• Long Meadow Ranch: Chris Hall, General Manager & Proprietor
• Pine Ridge: Michael Beaulac, Winemaker & General Manager
• Robert Mondavi: Tim Fogarty, VP International Sales & Marketing Europe
• Shafer: Doug Shafer, President
• Silver Oak: Vivien Gay, International Sales Manager
• Viader: Delia Viader, Owner & founding winemaker
• Waterstone: Brent Shortridge, Owner