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Sunday, September 15, 2024

The James Geneva alfresco Sunday Brunch

The James Geneva alfresco Sunday Brunch 

With fellow Pour Boy from our wine group, Bill and Beth in from Charleston for the weekend, we had a delightful Sunday afternoon alfresco dinner on the patio at The James Restaurant in Geneva, IL. This followed our gala Pour Boys Wine Group Citiscape dinner the night before in the City (Chicago). 

We enjoyed a producer wine dinner at The James last fall in the patio room as featured in these pages on this blogpost - James Restaurant "Cab is King" Wine Dinner w/ Bell Wine Cellars Wines.

Todays perfect early autumn afternoon provided an ideal setting for dining outside on the patio.

We enjoyed a perfect pairing of Mendocino Chardonnay with with our brunch Benedicts and apple pear walnut salads. 

We ordered from the wine list this limited release special label from the Meyer Family Vineyards. This is from the descendants of Justin Meyer, founder of iconic Silver Oak. Justin passed away recently and the Meyer stake in Silver Oak was sold to the rest of the investor owners. Matt and Karen Meyer have elected to partner with artisan growers to produce vineyard-designate bottlings under the Meyer Family label. 

The Meyer family continue to produce several labels under the Meyer Family Cellars brand with production divided evenly between site-specific wines from both Mendocino County, where the winery is located, and their remaining holding from the original Oakville estate in Napa Valley.

Up in Mendocino, they source fruit from their estate and growers in two sub-appellations: the Yorkville Highlands and Anderson Valley American Viticultural Areas (AVAs). 

They produce Cabernets from the original iconic Silver Oak Bonny’s Vineyard as well as labels from up north, Le Bon Bon, Spitfire, Fluffy Billows, The Gravels, and a Cab Franc.

Their broad portfolio also includes Elke Vineyard Creek Chardonnay, Monument Tree Vineyard Pinot Noir, Peterson Vineyard Pinot Noir (Comptche-Mendocino County), Wightman House Vineyard Pinot Noir. 

This Meyer Family Chardonnay is vineyard label designated sourced from the Donnelly Creek Vineyard in the Mendocino County Anderson Valley.

Matt Meyer grew up in the wine business under the tutelage of his winegrower father Justin. He spent much of his time in the vineyard and cellar at Silver Oak after school and working various jobs during the summer. Matt spent a couple years gaining experience at internships in Oregon, Australia and New Zealand. He also did one semester abroad at Adelaide University enrolled in this wine studies program. he went on to the University of California, Davis, where he was awarded a Masters in Viticulture. After this he moved to the Anderson Valley and started making wine with his father at the family’s new property.

Karen Meyer was born and raised in Perth, Western Australia. After doing a harvest in Margaret River to learn more about the process, she completed a degree in enology at Charles Stuart University, then spent the next few years working harvests around the world. Karen worked in the four distinct regions of Australia, did one harvest in France and spent three years in New Zealand. In 1999 Matt and Karen met in Oregon while working the crush in the Willamette Valley. In 2004 they would work together again in New Zealand after which point Karen moved to the Anderson Valley.

Today they live with their three children in Healdsburg California halfway between their vineyards in the Napa and Anderson Valleys.

Meyer Family Cellars Anderson Valley Donnelly Creek Chardonnay 2018

From the legendary Meyer Family, descendants of the founders of Silver Oak Cellars, this is a vineyard designated label from the Anderson Valley up in Mendocino County. 

This was an ideal pairing with our Brunch Benedicts and apple, pear walnut salad. 

Winemaker notes for this release: “The evenly paced 2018 harvest shows itself in our beautiful bottling from Donnelly Creek Vineyard, a Chardonnay that is all about balance. As usual, the wine is enticing right out of the bottle, displaying aromas of citrus, fresh peach, honeysuckle, and toasted brioche. In the glass, the fruit flavors are ripe and forward, with summer stone fruit and melon balanced by dependable Anderson Valley acidity. Barrel-fermentation and nine months of aging in French oak have added a tasty richness to this elegant Chardonnay”.

This was barrel aged for 9 months in 75% Neutral Oak, 25% New French Oak.




While the ladies shopped the Fifth Avenue shops and galleries, Bill and I enjoyed a delightful relaxing afternoon on the patio. We selected an after lunch dessert wine from the wine list for sensational casual sipping.

Inniskillin Niagara Peninsula Estate Vidal 2019

We love desert wines and serve them with salads, artisan cheeses and of course with deserts ranging cake to petit fours to dark chocolates or for casual sipping such as this.

Readers of this blog know we have a fairly extensive cellar, with numerous desert wines from the world's finest producers from the finest wine regions - late harvest rieslings from California, Sauternes from Bordeaux, Trockenberenauleses (TBA's) from Germany and Austria, and of course ice wines from the Niagara escarpment peninsula between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, between Buffalo, NY and Toronto.

This is from the iconic producer Inniskillin, the crown jewel of producers who take advantage of the unique terroir in the Niagara Appellation to craft true ice wine dessert wines.

Desert wine is nectar in a glass - essence of honey, apricot, violets - there is nothing like it under the sun. Among the absolute finest desert wines in the world are ice wines - wines from grapes allowed to lie on the vine beyond ripening, then past the winter freeze such that as much as eighty percent of the juice in the grape is frozen leaving behind but all the sugars in the remaining twenty percent of the juice. 

Such is ice wine which in North America comes from a small area in the Pacific Northwest where Inniskillin Okanagan operates in Oliver, British Columbia, and from Niagara-on-the-Lake, a small strip of land between the western tip of Lake Ontario to the north and the eastern tip of Lake Erie on the south. The small land mass adjacent to the Niagara escarpment there traps the air to protect the grape vines.

When the temperature reaches 8 degrees fahrenheit the conditions are right to harvest the grapes and collect the extracted sugar rich grapes suited for ice wine. Inniskillin Wines in the Niagara on the Lake appellation, licensed in 1974, the first winery to be licensed since 1929, has been producing and specializing in perfecting ice wines since 1984. Their Vidal Ice Wine from the 1989 vintage received the prestigious Grand Prix d'Honneur at Vinexpo in France. Inniskillin produces ice wine from several varieties of grapes including Vidal, Riesling, Chardonnay and even Cabernet Franc. They even produce a sparkling ice wine, which in other realms might be considered an oxymoron. Their 2006 Vidal Sparkling Ice Wine and 2007 Riesling Ice Wine won the Premio Speciale Gran Vinitaly "World Cup of Wine" in 2007.
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We visited the Inniskillin estate during our visit to the region back in 2012 and featured it in these pages in a more extensive blogpost at the time - Inniskillin Niagara on the Lake Wine Experience.

Inniskillin, named for the Irish village from where GI's hailed who were stationed in the area during the great WWII, has 120 acres of vines, and purchases grapes from local producers from another 250 acres to source the grapes for their wines. Their specialty and flagship wines are ice wines.

This popular Inniskillin Icewine boasts a variety of tropical fruit including orange, mango, and lemons. Flavors of peach and apricot are balanced by a fresh, crisp and lively acidity. Pairs beautifully with aged cheddar, peach tart, and baked cheesecake with a peach compote.

This release was awarded 93 points by Robert Parker's Wine Advocate – They wrote that this was the richest of the Vidal ice wines this issue. 

Pale golden straw colored, medium to full bodied, intensely flavored, unctuous, syrupy peach and apricot fruits accented by notes of sugary honey nuances with a tongue coating lingering finish, 

RM 92 points. 


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