Pasta dinner features Premium Napa Red & White Wines

Pasta dinner features Premium Napa Red & White Wines

We were invited to Sunday Night dinner at Son Alec’s and D-in-law Vivianna’s. We were joined by son Sean and D-in-law Michelle. 

This allowed our four grand-daughters a chance to be together with their cousins - so much fun, and so important to their bonding together and learning to play with near aged kids. 

Alec and Viv prepared a delicious Bugatini pasta with a lobster vodka cream sauce with lobster medallions.

Prior to dinner we enjoyed several artisan cheeses that Sean’s and we brought - a baked cheese, an aged Gouda, and a truffle infused goat cheese - all great pairings with the evening’s wines. 

I brought from our home cellar one of our currently favorite drinking Chardonnays and Alec opened a big Napa Red. 

I’ve written often in these pages about the fun we have with the ‘V’ labels from various producers, most notably Kirk Venge. This big rich flavorful may be at its peak right now and shows as one of the best Chardonnay’s in our cellar right now, ideally paired with the rich pasta sauce and lobster medallions. 

Not ironically, we opened this same label with a similar dinner for the Christmas holiday dinner a couple of years ago with the same folks. I wrote about that dinner and this wine and producer in detail in a blogpost in these pages at that time, excerpted below - Venge Brown Ranch Chardonnay.

For Christmas eve dinner, Linda prepared a delicious lobster bisque soup with medallions of lobster. I pulled from the cellar this Venge Napa Carneros Chardonnay for an accompaniment. We were joined by Alec and Vivianna for a festive intimate dinner. 

The name Venge has been synonymous with Napa Valley wines for as long as I have been of drinking age since the '70's, but the Venge family wine affiliation actually goes back much earlier, to when Knud Venge emigrated from Denmark to the United States in the early 1900’s. Knud's son, Per Venge, entered in the wine and spirits business and started Vencom Imports, focusing on importing Western European wines and spirits. Per's son, Nils Venge, started in, then left the family business in the 1960's to study viticulture at UC Davis and set the family name in the California winegrowing community.

The Venge family planted viticultural roots in 1976 with the purchase of a 17-acre estate in the Oakville District that was planted to Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, establishing them among the winemaking pioneers of Napa Valley.

Buddy, AJ with Nils and Kirk Venge

We met Nils and Dianna Venge on numerous occasions at Napa events and visiting the Venge Vineyards in Oakville during the nineties. We first met their son, Kirk Venge, who engaged in winemaking from an early age while they were developing the Rossini Ranch Vineyards, Winery and caves up in Calistoga. We visited Nils at the Penny Lane Family Reserve Vineyard in Oakville, then drove up to meet Kirk at the Rossini Ranch site in the eastern foothills of Palisade Mountain near Calistoga back in 2002. 

Kirk took over Venge Vineyards in 2008 and has established himself as a talented winemaker making wines in his own style. Kirk has continued the Napa Valley heritage crafting wines from select vineyard sites across Napa and Sonoma Counties worthy of bearing the Venge family name.

We've been collecting Venge wines since their earliest days. We now have fun collecting them with their notable "V" branding to enjoy with our daughter-in-law, Vivianna, as her 'signature' wines.  

We also enjoyed this wine, BYOB, recently with seafood at BeachWalk Cafe in Destin (FL) during our vacation getaway -https://unwindwine.blogspot.com/2024/10/henderson-beachwalk-cafe-dinner-with.html

Venge Vineyards Brown Ranch Vineyard Los Carneros Napa Valley Chardonnay 2018 

This is a single vineyard designated label sourced from the 30 acre Brown Ranch Vineyard in Carneros, named for the previous cattle rancher owner Nadine Brown. The vineyard is bordered by HdV’s Hyde Vineyard and Beaulieu’s Vineyard No.9 on Old Sonoma Road in the Carneros district, straddling the rolling hills in the southernmost parts of both Sonoma and Napa counties. The cooling winds from the nearby San Pablo Bay, combined with the abundant midday California sunshine, create an ideal environment for producing elegant wines that combine power and finesse, with a perfect balance of crisp acidity and well-ripened fruit.

The property, formerly associated with Saintsbury Winery, was purchased in 2012 by the Renterias. 

The property was planted with twenty nine acres of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay but most of
the vines were afflicted with Eutypa, a fungi disease also known as the Dead-arm Dieback, which causes trunks or arms of the vines to essentially rot and die. Like the famous Dead-Arm Shiraz label from McLaren Vale, Australia, rather than pulling the vines out, the vineyard managers kept the rootstock, cut off the trunk just above the soil and nurtured a bud to grow into a new trunk. Like the Dead-Arm label, focusing all the mature rootstock energy into one vine branch resulted in rich, full, concentrated fruits. 

The Brown Ranch’s hillside alluvial soils, with Dijon Clone 76 set into the pre-existing rootstock, produces this rich full round Chardonnay, worthy of the iconic Venge name.

Winemaker's notes: The Dijon Clones are modern strains of Chardonnay carefully isolated from grapevine nursery blocks in France. These strains are selected for their incredible ability to produce the best of what the varietal has to offer and therefore have become quite popular with cool climate growers today. The cool and often foggy climate of the Brown Ranch Vineyard, located in central Carneros, Napa, allows for a slow growing season and optimal ripening. This climate aids in the balancing of acidity and lifting tropical aromas in the fruit and thus, in the finished wine. The vines were carefully hand harvested and delivered cool to the winery.

 

Winemaker's Notes: "This wine is stylish and freshly balanced, featuring a light, pale straw presence in the glass with a bouquet of fresh orange citrus, toasted pine nuts, mild allspice, rocky flints, and toasted oak. Crisp, savory pineapple, sweet delicious apple, savory stone fruit, and ripe pear lead into mouthwatering deliciousness. 

The grapes are blended into used French Oak barrels according to a Burgundian style of winemaking, light handed on the usage of new French Oak keeping it to an average of 45%.

495 Cases were Produced

This release was rated 93 points by Wine Enthusiast and Jeb Dunnuck and 92 points by Robert Parker's Wine Advocate. 

Golden lemon colored, medium to full-bodied, full, round, concentrated, complex opulent fruits with a layer almost bordering on butterscotch, accented by notes of baking spice, hints of lemon, grapefruit, ginger and a touch of peach and almond nut cream, with bright acidity, depth and balance on a full long finish. 

RM 93 points. 

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=3517412

https://www.vengevineyards.com/

@VengeVineyards  

Alec then opened this big Napa Red from Beau Vigne Cellars

Beau Vigne “CULT” Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2019

This is from the Beau Vigne portfolio of Napa Valley Cabernets that Alec, son Ryan and I all hold in our cellars. Beau Vigne was founded by Ed and Trish Snider in 2002 and quickly gained notoriety on a parade of rave reviews, such as Robert Parker calling it “one of my favorite wineries,” and over in the ensuing years, his Wine Advocate time and again honoring it with scores of 96–98+ points.

We’ve featured Beau Vigne wines in detail in earlier blogposts in these pages - Beau Vigne Reserve Proprietary Red Wine.

Interesting that Kirk Venge, who produced our Chardonnay tonight, was winemaker at Beau Vigne for a period. Initially, it was first-class winemaker Dave Phinney, then Kirk Venge, and then followed by current winemaker Julien Fayard who crafted this 2019 release.

 

This 2019 CULT release is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon grown on Beau Vigne’s gravelly estate vineyard in Rutherford and their impeccable site on the Oakville Bench that neighbors To Kalon, Missouri Hopper, and Martha’s Vineyard. For the final blend, he hand-selected barrels to create a wine that shows its exceptional quality in every sip.

Winemaker notes for this release - “Deep-purple in color, the 2019 Beau Vigne CULT Cabernet shows penetrating blackberry and blueberry aromas accented by rich notes of mocha, allspice, Maduro tobacco, and black licorice. Full-bodied and opulent, it’s built on firmly gripping tannins that complement the texture of the ripe black fruits and slide into a long and savory finish.”

While the Chardonnay complemented the lobster medallions, this rich full round full bodied red enhanced and illuminated the rich pasta sauce - both ideal pairings which amplified the enjoyment of both the food and wines. 

This 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Cult is the 11th Anniversary release of this label. It is composed of 99% Cabernet Sauvignon and 1% Petit Verdot. The producer states. “We think is the finest CULT produced to date.”

It was aged twenty months in French oak barrels, 80% of which were new, then blended from select “best lots dedicated to captivating flavors profiles.”

Winemaker notes - “Crushed black currant and bing cherry aromas. Among these scents are black licorice, clove, and melted dark chocolate. Flavors of shortbread, blackberry, and plum hit the palate. Loamy black truffle elements add layers of savoriness to the long finish.”

It was rated 93 points by Vinous who called it the “finest wine I have tasted from Beau Vigne.” It received 92 points by Wine Advocate and 91 points by Jeb Dunnuck. 

Don’t be taken aback by the $150 published price from the producer, their wines are often deeply discounted in special promotions and can be found discounted in distribution, even at Costco. Newcomers to fine wine often mistake that obtaining wine directly from the producer will get them the best deal. It’s the aim of the producer to set the price and associated value of the wine, avoiding undermining such with their direct pricing strategy.   

Deep garnet colored, full bodied, rich, round, forward bright vibrant black currant and plum fruits accented by notes of licorice, graphite, lavender, spice and leather with a full tannin laced lingering finish. 

RM 92 points. 

https://www.cellartracker.com/w?4179405

https://www.beauvigne.com/