Lodi Live

Just finished super fun tasting of six Lodi wines and have to tell you discovered more to love about this wonderful growing region so close to home.

For Turkey Day be on the lookout for

Uvaggio Vermentino: at 12.4% alc, golden color and lush flavors it will take the edge of your family interactions in a constructive way

To pair with your turkey loving red wine guests try to get your hands on Fields Family 2010 Old Vine Zin. Only 175 cases produced, so hit those interwebs now www.fieldsfamilywines.com Delicious and complex

For your gift baskets D'art Zin Pretty label prettier wine---and how often does THAT happen? Add some chorizo, Membrillo and manchego cheese and let your snarky sister in law regift with aplomb!

Don't forget Lodi!

As Kidder Family Wines says "one sip is never enough"

And if you know M2, you know that's true !

Salud

Napa Gems: Spring Mountain Vineyard and Its Chardonnay and Cabernet

Drawn by a longtime, childhood dream to see the “Falcon Crest” house of 1980’s TV fame, and my ongoing search for lean, elegant, subtle, structured wines in Napa, I took my mom to taste at Spring Mountain Vineyard last weekend.  Although we could only see the famous house from a distance, the tasting and our short walk around the Miravalle property, the lowest part of the Spring Mountain Vineyard estate, were stunning and educational.



As our hosts Tony and Brynn showed us with a Google Earth tour of the estate, Spring Mountain Vineyard  rises over a thousand feet over several microclimates and four original, contiguous vineyard properties that date back to the 19^th century. In general, the Spring Mountain AVA gets a lot of rain in the winter and cool afternoons and evenings in the summer, and the vineyards on the Miravalle part of the estate are surrounded by shadowy, lush, evergreen hills.  Almost all the vineyards are sloped so that well-drained, sedimentary soil stresses the vines to create more concentrated fruit and lower yields than in the vineyards on the valley floor.  As of this Veterans Day weekend, the Spring Mountain crew was still picking Cabernet from the estate’s highest vineyards at nearly 1450 feet.



Noontime sun and shadows at Miravalle, Spring Mountain Vineyard



Spring Mountain Vineyard tastings take place in an olive tree grove facing the winery and terraced vineyards.  The wines we tasted were all beautiful but two stood out.  Aged in neutral oak, the non-malolactic 2010 Chardonnay had a very pretty nose of lemon, orange blossom, and honey.  The wine is weighty but crisp in the mouth with citrus and apple flavors up front and minerality and caramel on the finish.  The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon had funky, earthy, leathery, and cherry aromas—almost too beautiful to stop smelling and start tasting.  It tasted just as beautifully with silky tannins and concentrated raspberries, cranberries, herbs and balanced acidity on the front and a long leathery, almost meaty finish.  It is easily my favorite Cabernet in several years for its elegance, restraint, and a sense of a place on a gorgeous autumn day.

Discoveries from Wine an Food Affair

I've heard that people buy cookbooks and never try the recipes. A benefit of the Wine and Food Affair is that you can see, taste, try the wine pair and then go home and try for yourself. Dutcher Crossing had a wonderful Tomato Bisque paired with their Cab. It was too hot too appreciate that day ---lucky for us. But the recipe called to me. so, with the waning delish tomatoes at the Farmer's Market, I whipped up an easy but sophisticated treat on this nippy evening.  The tomato bisque is  a warm, rich souvenir of Summer, especially with my addition of dill cream. I paired it with a 1221 Cab Cuvée from Chateau Diana. The winery has been there for 30 years but they just built a super cool tasting room last year. Of course the best surprise was seeing @Mykhael and as always his reco's were spot on. The wine has dark berries and menthol in the aromas.  Young cabs can be tempting when young...#jailbait  These Cab flavors will be better later, but drink great now.  Today, they complemented my soup and warmed my tummy. 

 I am looking forward to trying my other discoveries!

Tomato Bisque:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup onions, chopped

1-1/2 tsp dill weed

5 cups tomatoes, chopped

4 teaspoons honey

1-1/4 cups heavy cream

salt and pepper

In a  large pot saute the onions and the dill weed in the olive oil about 5 minutes or until the onions are transparent.  Add the tomatoes.  Reduce the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Add the honey and cream,  and remove the pot from the heat.  Using an immersion blender, carefully puree the bisque to a smooth consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve hot. 

This comes out super creamy.  When I make this again, I will use 6 cups tomatoes and reduce the cream to 3/4 cup.  We tried pairing it with a Tablas Creek Viognier and it was overpowered by the soup, so we recommend a white with a touch of RS like a Riesling or less delicate viognier for our white wine drinking occasions.