Monthly Archives: April 2018

Birthday Weekend Wine, Food and Spa

Lori took me for a surprise 2-day vacation for my birthday last month. We didn’t go too far; just far enough to get away. First stop was lunch at Pascaline in Sebastopol. This is a small restaurant located on Highway 116, a few miles northwest of Sebastopol. French in style, with some nice looking pastries (which we somehow avoided trying). For lunch, we split a tuna sandwich (good, but nothing special) and their “Farro-Sotto”. This was farro done in the style of risotto, with mushrooms and chicken and greens. Simply delicious. We’re going to have to try to replicate this at home when the kitchen remodel is done.

Next up was spending the afternoon at the Osmosis Spa in Occidental. We did the cedar enzyme bath, then 90 minute massages, then spent some time in the meditation garden. One of the best spa experiences I’ve ever had.

Arrowood 2007 Cote de Lune Rouge

Then the Inn at Occidental, a largish B&B in Occidental. After checking in and having a glass of wine, we walked down the hill to dinner at Hazel. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, and the inside, while nice, isn’t overly done up. Just comfortable. We first shared their grilled pita appetizer, which came with tzatziki, feta, olives, roasted red peppers and Marcona almonds. The tzatziki was made fresh kefir cheese/yogurt, and was amazingly delicious. Next up was sharing the lamb meatballs, served in a tomato sauce. Again, delicious. Last up was a pizza, cooked in their wood fired oven, with garlic sausage and two sunnyside up eggs. Breakfast for dinner, sort of. Again, just delicious. We paired the meal with a bottle we brought, a gift from friends, an Arrowood 2007 Côte de Lune Rouge, Lasseter Vineyards, Sonoma Valley, which is a GSM (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre) blend. By the way, Thursday nights at Hazel there is no corkage fee for bottles from Sonoma County. This meal was one of our most memorable in the last few years, with food, wine, service (excellent!) and occasion all coming together, and yet it was just over $50 before tip.

Iceplant flowering on the Bodega headlands

The next day, after a nice night’s sleep and a very nice breakfast at the Inn at Occidental, we headed out to the Bodega headlands to wander around, watch for whales and check out the Spring flowers. Success on all counts: saw whales spouting a few hundred yards off shore, and the flowers were beautiful. Interesting to note that the California poppies, which are a bright orange further inland, were bright yellow at the coast. Soil, sunlight, wind, cold, humidity or maybe just a natural mutation of the flower.

Poppies and vineyards at Marimar Estates

Last on the list for Lori and I was a stop at Marimar Estate for a tasting. They do a very nice sit down tasting, and the weather was warm enough for us to enjoy the patio. Marimar does mostly Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, appropriate given their location in the Russian River Valley, but they also do some Spanish varietals including Albariño and Tempranillo. Great job by Mary leading the tasting, and we really enjoyed the wines and the views from the patio.

Marimar Estates has a beautiful patio for outdoor tastings

L’Chaim,

Larry

Armida Zinfandel and the ZAP Grand Tasting 2018

Brandon (right) and Larry Lapides at ZAP 2018

The first major wine tasting event of the year is the Zinfandel Advocates and Producers (ZAP) weekend in January in San Francisco. This year held on the third weekend of the month, it included a Thursday evening dinner with winemakers, Friday seminars and dinner, and the Saturday Grand Tasting. Last year I went with son Brandon, and poured his #Armida wines. I had so much fun that I volunteered to stand for 7 hours again talking and pouring.

View of Treasure Island and the Bay Bridge from Pier 27

The setting for ZAP is tremendous: the Pier 27 conference hall in San Francisco. It has windows on all sides, letting in light, with views of the San Francisco Bay (water, bridges, islands, boats) and the city skyline. Not much time to contemplate the beauty around, though, as we were talking about the beauty in the bottle.

San Francisco skyline from inside Pier 27 at ZAP

The tasting starts with a couple of hours for VIPs and #ZAP patrons only, then opens to the general public. Many years ago, the general public was allowed in for the whole tasting, and the admission price wasn’t much, so there used to be a lot of drunk “Zinfandel fans” by the end of the tasting. ZAP changed their format and price a while back, and moved to this new Pier 27 location, and it’s a great tasting.

The crowd at ZAP 2018.

For the VIPs, we were pouring the 2013 Armida “Tina’s Block” Zinfandel, from the Dry Creek Valley, and the 2013 Armida “Maple Vineyards” Zinfandel. Tina’s Block is the original 2 acre block of Maple Vineyards, planted in 1910. That’s old vine Zinfandel. The rest of Maple Vineyards was planted over the next 20 or so years, so it’s no spring chicken either. And all of Maple Vineyards is dry farmed, because these vines are old enough to have thrown down roots to the center of the earth. While Tina’s Block was originally planted to Zinfandel, over the years as individual vines died some were replaced with blending grapes such as Petit Sirah, Alicante Bouchet and Carignane. And some of the replacements have yet to be identified, even with DNA fingerprinting by U.C. Davis. This unique field blend gives the Tina’s Block Zin a unique taste, a complexity and subtlety and elegance that is rarely found in Zinfandel.

For the general public part of the tasting, we poured the Armida flagship wine, PoiZin, plus the 2015 Maple Vineyards and the 2015 “Il Campo”. PoiZin is a very nice $20+ bottle of Zinfandel, made from grapes from 5 different vineyards in the Dry Creek Valley. Great name, great label, great value. The Maple Vineyards Zin (both the 2013 and the 2015) are very nice single vineyard Zinfandels, the most popular single vineyard Zin in the Armida lineup. The Il Campo (“the field” in Italian) is a field blend of the Zinfandel and Petite Sirah (typically around 20% of the blend, depending on the year) grown at the Armida Winery site. Bigger, badder and bolder than the other Zinfandels, it showed well at the end of the tasting, when everyone’s taste buds are slightly blown out. But it’s really good any time.

About terroir and Zinfandel: While Pinot Noir is commonly talked about as enabling the terroir, the area where the grapes are grown, to shine through, good Zinfandel does that too. Both the Maple Vineyards and Tina’s Block wines bring with them their unique soil, topology and microclimate, and the Armida “Parmalee Hill Vineyards” Zinfandel, grown in an area between the Carneros region and the city of Sonoma, reflects that colder climate in its delicious profile.

By the end of the day, my voice was pretty much gone. Too much talking, because my pouring partner, Winemaker Brandon, had been elected to the ZAP board of directors last year, and was off talking to the press, chatting up special guests, hobnobbing with other winemakers and generally schmoozing. I’m a glutton for punishment though, so I’ll be back next year.

L’Chaim,

Larry