Sierra Foothills Wine and Dine

December and January are big months in our family for
celebrations.  Aside from the usual
holidays we have a daughter in law’s birthday, my father’s birthday, my mother
in law’s birthday, Winemaker B’s birthday, my sister’s birthday, and my
brother’s anniversary.  More than
any other two months on the calendar. 

 

For my mother in law’s birthday, we headed up to her place
in the Sierra foothills.  Usually
there is snow on the ground this time of year, but not this year.  Drought years are interesting, and this
year looks particularly bad.  From
a wine/grape perspective, there are likely two issues.  First, the warm weather now may cause
early budding of the vines which, if there is a late frost, will significantly
impact grape quantities.  Second,
just getting water to the vines will be interesting.  Older vines with deeper root systems will likely have a
distinct advantage this year. 

 

But enough of drought. 
We were up there to celebrate, and so we did.  Nothing too elaborate or fancy, but we took Lori’s mom and
her husband, and their best friends, out to their restaurant of choice, the
Sierra Banquet Hall in Camino, near Placerville.  Their facility is a modern log “cabin” that the owners built
themselves.  Cabin does not do the
structure justice, as it is two stories, and just beautiful.  So a good start, just walking in to the
beautiful building, and finding a nice fire going in the fireplace.  While the menu had pretty good variety
to it, 5 of the 6 of us opted for steak that night, either filet mignon or
ribeye.  And we were not
disappointed. 

 

For wine we brought a bottle from a local winery, a 2008
Auriga Wine Cellars Barbera, El Dorado County.  We’ve posted about Auriga before, as it is conveniently near my mother in law’s house, has good
wine and very nice people.  We’ve
used it for rehearsal dinner wine, as well as enjoying individual bottles.  We had brought up the bottle of wine
from home, but luckily for me I had a few minutes to spare during the day, and
was able to go say hi and pick up a half case.  (Their French Columbard sparkling wine, a few bottles of Zinfandel and more
Barbera, since you asked.)  The
Barbera went great with our steaks. 
I’ll probably be stopping in again next year for some birthday
wine. 

 

L’Chaim,

 

Larry

 

New Year’s Eve Food and Wine

New Year’s Eve is always interesting for the food and wine
choices.  Champagne is a staple,
but what else? 

 

This year Lori and I spent New Year’s Eve in Santa
Cruz.  Actually, we spent the whole
week in Santa Cruz, and it was great. 
We haven’t relaxed that much in a while.  We saw a bunch of movies, trying to get a head start on all
the ones up for awards.  (American
Hustle was my favorite of the ones we saw.)  We met up with some old friends one night, and got each other
caught up on our lives and our childrens’ lives. 

 

New Year’s Eve, though, was just the two of us.  We went to Michael’s on Main, one of
our favorites in the area.  We’ve
eaten there a number of times, including hosting a wedding rehearsal dinner
there a couple of years ago.  They
had a 4-course prix fixe menu for the night:

 

–       selection
of appetizers, served with a complementary glass of sparkling wine

–       choice
of green salad or lobster bisque

–       choice
of steak, salmon wellington or spinach and artichoke raviolis

–       choice
of cheesecake or chocolate mousse

 

The appetizers and sparkling wine were nothing to write home
about, or write in a blog about. 
Lori had the salad, which she enjoyed, while I had the bisque, which I
thought was one of the best I had had. 
Not too thick, and plenty of lobster meat.  For her main course, Lori had the salmon wellington, which
was excellent.  I had the raviolis,
also excellent.  And we had one of
each of the desserts, sharing them both. 

 

We brought a bottle for the evening:  Windy Oaks Estate, 2005 Pinot Noir
Estate Cuvée, Schultze Family Vineyard, Santa Cruz Mountains.  Over the last 10 years, Windy Oaks has
consistently produced great Pinot Noir from their small winery at the southern
end of the Santa Cruz Mountains appelation, and this bottle was right
there.  It worked great with the
delicate fish and vegetarian dishes we ate. 

 

Another year in the books, a new year before us like an open
stretch of ocean.  We’re hoping for
us, and for you, that the only big waves are seen from a distance, and it’s
smooth sailing (and eating and drinking) in 2014. 

 

L’Chaim,

 

Larry 


Seafood Risotto and Pinot Noir

The holiday season provides interesting opportunities for food and wine and family and fun.  Here was one of our weekend days in December:  


– Lori took granddaughter Elli to a local (Santa Rosa area) production of the Nutcracker.  Nice little production, front row seats, and great grandmother-granddaughter special time.  

– Daughter-in-law Kim went and got a massage.  Some wonderful me-time for her.  

– Winemaker B and his father (that would be me) took care of his son Eden for the afternoon, and took responsibility for dinner.  

On the menu for the evening was Seafood Risotto.  (The recipe can be found on our Food and Wine Pairing page.)  I had never made risotto before, so this was going to be a bit of an adventure.  Lori and I stopped at the fish market on the way up to Santa Rosa and picked up some bay scallops and salmon, both of which looked quite good.  We already had all the other ingredients needed.  Once in Santa Rosa, we all split up to do our thing, as noted above.  This included taking Eden for a walk to the grocery store to get a nice loaf of fresh bread to go with the meal.  Then the cooking started.  

The chef (that would be me again) needed some white wine, both for himself and for the risotto.  So out came a bottle of 2012 Armida Chardonnay, Russian River Valley.  Nice, basic Chardonnay, good bottle to get things started.  Winemaker B pitched in by cooking the fish, and taking care of Eden himself while I cooked.  I found that risotto is a bit of work, as once you put the rice in and start adding the stock, you have to keep on stirring.  It ended up being about 30 minutes of adding stock and stirring, adding more stock and stirring, until the risotto got to the right consistency.  Then the seafood and other ingredients were added in, and we were ready to eat.  

Our younger son, Jacob, his wife Brittany and their daughter Zinnia joined us for dinner.  We had interesting wines to go with our risotto:  

2011 Arista Pinot Noir, Bacigalupi Vineyard, Russian River Valley

2011 Armida Pinot Noir, Bacigalupi Vineyard, Russian River Valley

Yes, two Pinot Noirs made from grapes from the same vineyard.  That was fun!  The wines were quite different, with the Armida having bigger fruit and body, and the Arista being a bit smoother, with better finish.  Both of the wines worked great with the risotto, which turned out good enough for us to publish the recipe.  

It was a great day.  I hope your holiday season went well also.  

Best wishes for a happy, healthy 2014!  

L’Chaim,

Larry


Napa Valley Wine Train – BART Connection

Here’s an interesting idea for an outing:  take BART to the Napa Valley Wine Train.  Earlier this year the Wine Train and BART started shuttle service between the BART North Concord/Martinez station and the Napa Valley Wine Train.  $30 round trip, and you don’t have to worry about a designated driver.  Here’s where you go for more information:  Wine Train – BART connection.  


Your outing does not have to be just the Wine Train.  From the train station, it’s a 5-10 minute walk to the Oxbow Public Market, where more food and wine treats await.  Three Twins Ice Cream might be a good way to finish off the day.  



Also, there are a number of wine tasting rooms in Downtown Napa within walking distance of the Wine Train and the Oxbow Market.  

No excuses now!  It’s easier than ever to get to Napa for wine tasting.  

L’Chaim,

Larry

Thanksgiving Wine and Ullage

Thanksgiving is always interesting from a wine perspective,
because you can do so much, and because you want to do so much, but …

 

Hi kids! 
Welcome to Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood.  Yes, for those of us of a certain age, this is a reference
to Eddie Murphy’s Saturday Night Live skits, where things didn’t always go as
smooth as Mr. Robinson would like. 

 

Well, for our Thanksgiving day skit, our word of the day is
“ullage”. 

 

I thought I had the Thanksgiving wine situation under
control.  Thanksgiving was going to
be great, with both boys and their families coming (all three grandchildren) as
well as my parents and Lori’s mother. 
No problem.  Let’s start
with a little bubbly, then move into the still whites.  That should get the afternoon rolling
fairly well.  Then as we get closer
to the meal, I was going to open up 3 different 2006 Dutton Goldfield single
vineyard Pinot Noirs, and we would do a blind tasting.  Then we’d have the Pinot with the meal;
usually a pretty good bet, Pinot Noir and turkey.  (This year there was both turkey and turducken, but that’s
another story.  Ask Lori for that
one.)

 

Anyway, I had a great plan, which I told to the wine
providers (my father and Winemaker B so that they could plan any wine they
wanted to bring to fit into that framework.  And Winemaker B did bring a bottle of his 2012 Armida
Gewurztraminer, which fit in pretty well with the still whites.  And he also brought an old bottle of
Gamay Beaujoulais, which he didn’t really have much hope was any good, so it
wouldn’t disrupt any other plans. 
But my father – argh, my father – he’s past the point of anyone being
able to control him, except my mother. 
And she doesn’t interfere in wine matters. 

 



Well, my father got it into his head that since we are
rarely in Southern California to drink wine with him, he was going to bring up
some of his old wine to share.  So
two 25 year old Cabernet Sauvignons came up north, for the express purpose of
being opened on Thanksgiving with all the family.  It is pretty hard to say “no” to those old bottles, and even
harder to say “no” to my father when he’s on a roll. 

 



Ah, you thought I had forgotten about ullage.  Well, ullage is the distance between the
level of the wine in the bottle and the bottom of the cork.  For old wine, a look at the bottle to visually estimate the
ullage is a good way to guess how well the wine has been kept.  The closer the wine level to the cork,
the less evaporation has happened. 
If wine has evaporated through the cork, then air, and with it nasty
oxygen, has come through in the other direction, and has accelerated the aging
of the wine. 

 

Unfortunately, evaporation is not the only sign that an old
wine is bad.  You can have a bottle
with minimal evaporation and it can still have gone bad.  With these bottles there wasn’t
excessive evaporation, so we thought there was a pretty decent chance of some
good wine. 

 

With old bottles, decanting is a must, so there went my
three decanters (previously earmarked for the Pinot Noir) for the three old bottles.  With the decanters being used for the Cabs and the Gamay,
and wanting/needing to wait at least an hour to see if there was anything good
there, the blind tasting went by the wayside.  In the end, only the William Hill Cabernet Sauvignon was any
good, and at that it was past its peak. 

 

We did end up grabbing a couple of random bottles of Pinot
Noir from our cellar to have with the meal, which partially rescued the wine
situation.  Actually, the bubbly
and the whites were really tasty. 
Here’s a list of the bottles that were opened over the course of about 6
hours of snacks, appetizers and main meal: 

 

Mitchell Katz Non-Vintage Sparkling Wine, Livermore Valley

Armida 2012 Gewurztraminer, Russian River Valley

Armida 2010 Sauvignon Blanc, Russian River Valley

Optima 1985 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley

William Hill 1986 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley

Louis Martini 1987 Gamay Beaujalais, Napa Valley

Desmond Estate Vineyards 2009 Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley

Soquel Vineyards 2005 Pinot Noir, Santa Cruz Mountains


Next year I think I’ll drive down before Thanksgiving and
raid his cellar myself.  


L’Chaim,


Larry


Livermore Wines; Old Friends

We went wine tasting in our backyard last weekend.  Provided that we can define our backyard as our home territory, otherwise known as the Livermore Valley.  The first winery we went to was Cuda Ridge, which we hadn’t been to since they moved into a new facility in Livermore a few months ago.  Cuda Ridge specializes in Bordeaux varietals, and they do a pretty good job at it.  We really liked their Petit Verdot, which is the fifth red Bordeaux grape, after Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Malbec.  It’s usually used just for blending, but this was really nice on its own.  




More important than the fact that we hadn’t been to the new Cuda Ridge tasting room was that they were having music there.  The guy with the guitar, Tim Gomes, was one of my friends at UC Berkeley, eons ago.  And now, like me, he has children; his daughter Audrey (now a sophomore in college) came and sang with him.  Fortunately, she didn’t ask me for any stories about her father, and even more fortunately, she didn’t ask Tim for any stories about me.  Tim can play the guitar really well, but it gets a lot better when his daughter accompanies him.  She’s got a great voice.  We also got to see Tim’s wife Nancy, who was a classmate of my brother, also at UC Berkeley.  Doesn’t get much better than a beautiful day, a nice glass of wine, and shooting the breeze about ancient history.  



Another winery that has recently changed locations is Mitchell Katz Winery.  This is another case of ancient history, although not quite as ancient, as Mitch and I used to play pickup basketball together a couple times each week, early mornings before work.  That was before knees started getting a bit less reliable.  Mitchell Katz Winery is one of the relatively older wineries in the Livermore Valley, at a ripe 15 years now.  And Mitch has an even longer history in winemaking, having helped his grandfather make wines.  

My consistent favorite from Mitch is the Sangiovese.  He just seems to have a nice touch with this wine.  He know regularly makes two different single vineyard Sangioveses; we went home with a few bottles of the Crackerbox Vineyard version.  Easy drinking, nice balance, good fruit, works with food, and a good value too.  Can’t ask for anything more than that.  

One more thing about Mitch and his winery:  great customer loyalty.  Customers keep coming back, whether to talk to Mitch, or because they have a favorite wine (we also liked the Merlot, the Zinfandel, and the nonvintage sparkling on this last visit), or because they just like the vibe and want to hang out there.  It’s great to see a friend be successful in something as tough as the wine industry.  

L’Chaim,

Larry


Italian Wines and Japan

In my day job I sell software development and test tools for a small company called Imperas Software.  Last week I was in Japan, Yokohama specifically, for a trade show.  Great view of Mt. Fuji from my hotel room.  The picture below, where Mt. Fuji is that white (snow-covered) spec in the middle, does not do it justice.  Cell phone cameras do have their limitations.  




One of the things we did as part of the trade show was to serve wine to our customers, and prospective customers, at the end of one of the days of the trade show.  My task was to go out and find a few bottles of wine.  So I checked out a couple of the local wine shops around the convention center, and ended up at this smaller shop, a little off the beaten path.  I was surprised to find that this shop had an excellent selection of German wines.  Better than most wine shops in the Bay Area, although maybe that isn’t setting the bar too high.  However, German whites weren’t going to do me much good, since I had no way of keeping the wines cool for the day, until we served.  



So I went for the Italian reds.  (Not a real good selection of California reds, and the Italians seemed a better value than anything else in the store.)  When I brought the wines up to the register to pay, I complemented the proprietor on her German wine selection, not knowing if she would understand English that well.  Fortunately, she did.  Her story was spending 4 years in Boston at the Berklee College of Music, studying piano.  Having lived in the Boston area myself for a few years, I know of Berklee, and its reputation for producing outstanding musicians.  So I said to her that she must be a very good piano player, to which she replied that it’s hard to make money at music, and wine was and is her other love.  Thus the shop.  

At the show, we opened a 2009 Brigaldara Valpolicella, and a 2007 Abrigo Giovanni Nebbiolo d’Alba.  A Dolcetto went unopened, taken home by my local sales rep.  Both wines were very good.  The Nebbiolo a bit bigger up front, with tanins on the finish, probably would have been better with food, but still quite good standalone.  The Valpolicella was smooth, really well balanced, and quite enjoyable.  

As for the show, it was a success.  Customers enjoyed the wine, and who knows?  They might even buy some of our products.  

L’Chaim,

Larry



Winemaker B and Armida Rock the 90s

No, this is not an article about rock ’n’ roll in the
90s.  This is about Winemaker B (aka
Brandon Lapides), of Armida
Winery, nailing a few 90+ scores from Wine Spectator.  So let’s just lay it out here: 

 

2011 Parmelee-Hill Vineyard Zinfandel     91

2011 Maple Vineyard Zinfandel           90

2010 Parmelee-Hill Vineyard Zinfandel     90

 


Armida:  Looking
past 2013’s empty grape bins toward the Dry Creek Valley. 

 

Now the bad news – good news story.  The bad news is that you can’t buy
these wines, unless you luck out somehow. 
Both 2010 and 2011 harvests were lower than normal, and these vineyards
were no different. Not that much wine was made either year, especially the
vineyard designated wines, and it’s tough to find now.  The good news is that both 2012 and
2013 had excellent harvests, from a quantity perspective.  And the better news is that both 2012
and 2013 seem better right now than 2010 and 2011, from a quality
perspective. 

 

One interesting note is that these vineyards, Maple and
Parmelee-Hill, produce completely different grapes.  Not surprising, since they’re in completely different
locations.  Maple Vineyards is the
classic Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel vineyard, with head-trained vines, including
some blocks that were planted nearly 100 years ago.  It’s all about the fruit as it enters your mouth, and it’s wonderful.  Parmelee-Hill is a Sonoma Coast
vineyard, actually closer to the Carneros region.  Armida gets some Pinot Noir grapes from that vineyard also, so
you know it has to be in a cooler microclimate.  Parmelee_Hill Zinfandels, at least as made by Winemaker B,
have more complexity than usually seen in Zinfandels, and more subtle fruit
flavors.  In my experience it’s
relatively unusual for a winery and winemaker to excel at both styles of
Zinfandel. 

 


 

Harvest is drawing to a close for Armida, leaves are turning
colors.  All the grapes were in
about 10 days ago.  There’s still
wine fermenting, and Winemaker B likes to call the end of harvest when they’re
through with primary fermentations and those tanks get emptied.  I think a more practical definition of
end of harvest is when he gets his first day completely off:  not one trip to the winery.  Once again this year, he’s worked every
day from the Tuesday after Labor Day to probably the weekend after
Halloween.  (That’s 9 weeks straight
without a day off, but who’s counting? 
Besides his wife and kids, that is.) 

 


 

We went to Armida a week ago to help with grandkids, and
check on the 2013 harvest. 
Beautiful day, and we spent a few hours there tasting, picnicing and trying
to tire out the grandkids.  (They
won that battle.)  Above, future
winemaker Elli was helping behind the tasting room bar, while below, future
winemaker Eden gets to relax with his father. 

 


 

L’Chaim,

 

Larry Lapides

 

New York City Food and Wine Visit

Lori and I visited New York City the first week of October.  Just for fun, although the timing of
the trip was determined by my parents being in New York City and having an
apartment where we could crash. 

 

A quick digression here.  My parents are spending the month of October in NYC.  At 85 and 80 years old, they have
rented an apartment in NYC (midtown/Hells Kitchen/Theater Disctrict area), and
are spending the month going to the ballet, symphony, theater, museums, restaurants
and doing everything else that NYC has to offer.  Plus seeing friends and family and doing a little business
while out there.  (Retirement is just a word to them.)  They’re both
using canes to get around now, but this only seems to just slow them down a bit, not stop
them from doing anything.  So while
this is, at first glance, incredibly foolish of them, it’s actually a wonderful
thing they’re doing.  They are
setting the bar quite high, and I hope in 30 years Lori and I will be able to
do something similarly crazy and wonderful. 

 

So Lori and I flew in to Newark a few weeks ago, taking the airport bus into Manhattan.  Tuesday was spent relaxing, and going
to a taping of the Daily Show with John Stewart.  More on that great experience in a separate post.  Wednesday, before going to the theater,
we ate at ViceVersa.  Nice Italian restaurant within walking
distance of the apartment, and of the theater we were heading to.  We had an Acacia 2011 Carneros Pinot
Noir with dinner, and it worked quite well.  

 



Thursday we went to the theater again.  But before the theater, we met Sean and
Jessica, friends of our son Brandon. 
They were, coincidently, also on vacation in NYC.  So we invited them over to the
apartment for wine and cheese, and they also brought some desserts:  chocolate covered strawberries, cannoli,
éclair.  We picked up a bottle of Ridge Vineyards 2011 Three Valleys.  This
is a blend of 65% Zinfandel, 20% Petite Sirah, 9% Carignane, 3% Mataro, 2%
Alicante Bouschet, 1% Grenache.  We
love the Ridge Zinfandel-based blends. 
This one was little heavier on the Petite Sirah than we would usually
like for an afternoon wine, but still quite good. 

 



Friday we splurged on lunch, going to one of the top
restaurants in NYC, Gotham Bar and
Grill in the Greenwich Village area. 
They have a great prix fixe lunch deal, which we all had.  We started with appetizers of either
salad or a roasted vegetable soup (see photo below). 
For the second course, the ladies had the goat cheese ravioli with lamb
shank, while my father and I both had the cod.  For dessert there was chocolate cake with Almond ice cream,
a trio of sorbets, and a crumble. 
We had a 2010 Wind Gap Pinot Noir, Woodruff Vineyards, Santa Cruz
Mountains with lunch.  Excellent
wine, but still a bit young. 

 



What a great vacation!  I hope we get to do this again.  


L’Chaim,


Larry


Derby Fifteen 10 and Red Snapper

Another night, another dinner, another bottle of wine.  Actually, we don’t have wine every night with dinner.  And not every dinner is gourmet.  Unless you consider burritos and tuna melts and sloppy joes as gourmet.  Tonight wasn’t really gourmet either, but somewhere in between.  Red snapper (wild, locally caught, and that sound you hear is Lori and I patting each other on the back for that), bok choy and Israeli couscous.  The red snapper was sautéd in some olive oil, seasoned with lavender salt, pepper, garlic powder, thyme and paprika.  At the very end of the cooking, fresh garlic, lemon juice and white wine were added.  Not gourmet, just a casual night of pulling ingredients and having it all work out well. 

We needed a bottle of wine to go with this.  Sometimes the wine cellar is first in, first out, when we’re going for the older wines, and sometimes it’s last in, first out, especially for the white wines.  There up front was the 2010 Derby Wine Estates Fifteen 10, their white Rhone blend from the Paso Robles area.  The blend for this year is 34% Roussanne, 27% Viognier, 21% Marsanne, 9% Grenache Blanc and 9% Picpoul Blanc.  I have no clue about that last varietal; never heard of it before.  But whatever the blend, this was great with dinner.  Nicely balanced, enough acid to really work with food, enough fruit to add to the flavor mix in the mouth.  And it’s still great after dinner, maybe even better. 

Another case of going to the winery (see our post from visiting this past summer), enjoying the tasting, buying the wine, and enjoying it again when opened.  We’re going to have to figure out how to get more of this wine. 

L’Chaim,

Larry