Big Red Wine Flight for Big Red BBall Clincher

Big Red Wine Flight for Big Red BBall Clincher

Much of the family gathered on Saturday to watch Big Ten basketball, Indiana at UCLA. Indiana won a double overtime thiller. Never-the-less, it’s been a tumultuous rebuild year for IU basketball, unlike the miraculous turnaround of the IU CFB Champions football team, which we followed and featured in this earlier blogpost, Big Reds Celebrate Big Red Win. 

Tonight’s game was an exciting remembrance of their undefeated championship season, fifty years ago, when that win streak began with a win over then defending national champions UCLA in the season opener, that we attended in the Checkerdome in St Louis. 

Tonight, we ordered in pizza, pasta, mussels and Italian Sausage and Peppers from Angeli’s Italian, our neighborhood trattoria. 

With the hearty meal, we opened a wine flight of Big Red wines, and a crowd pleaser Sonoma Coast Chardonnay.

Walt Sonoma Coast Chardonnay 2022

The Walt brand is from Hall Wines, named for Kathryn Walt Hall’s parents, Bob and Dolores Walt. Hall Wines produce an extensive portfolio of ultra-premium wines under the Hall brand, primarily sourced and produced in their two Napa Valley estate vineyards and wineries in St Helena and Rutherford. We’ve visited both, and most notably their magnificent Hall Napa Valley Rutherford Estate on numerous occasions, as featured in this earlier blogpost. 
 

The Walts were dedicated winegrowers who produced six different varietals that were sold to several great wineries. Kathryn, an accomplished attorney who also was US Ambassador to Vienna, actually managed the vineyard operations from 1982 until 1992. Walt has a dedicated winemaking team and its own state-of-the-art winemaking facility in Sonoma.

Walt wines are Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, crafted to showcase the terroir, those specific qualities of the vineyards where they are grown. 

Initially, they produced wine only from their own grapes, so they could have total control over the vineyards. They eventually expanded to source grapes and make wine from the premier vineyards up and down the west coast from Santa Barbara to Oregon. In total they have 130 vineyards accounts for about 50 percent each of production from growers and owned estate vineyards. 

Walt vineyards are located in premier locations in Sonoma County, Anderson Valley and Central Coast, Napa County, and Willamette Valley in Oregon. 

They seek out vineyards in cool climates with low-vigor hillside sites that produce elegant, opulent, supple and silky wines. 

Walt employ hand sorting every berry; pressing Chardonnay as whole clusters; allowing native yeast fermentation; encouraging a long malolactic fermentation with weekly batonnage and topping off; barrel aging on lees to create more texture, richness, and complexity; and never fining or filtering. 

The Walt Sonoma Coast Chardonnay is from the Sonoma Coast Appellation with its terroir of climate of heavy fog and strong winds tempered by bright afternoon sunshine, and sandy, well-draining soils that stress the vines into producing grapes of full varietal intensity. The fruit is sourced from Bob’s Ranch Estate Vineyard, with its proximity to the Pacific Ocean; Coastal breezes along with low rolling hills and morning fog define this cool climate site, and the legendary Sangiacomo Vineyard a low-yielding site, just outside the city of Sonoma, that is famous for many top Chardonnay labels.

Winemaker notes - “The 2022 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay opens with enticing aromas of crisp apple, lemon zest, and a hint of citrus blossom. The palate is ripe and vibrant, offering layers of citrus and stone fruit flavors, complemented by a touch of flint. The finish is bright and refreshing, with a lingering note of minerality.”

This label was rated 92 points by Wine Enthusiast and 90 points by Wine Spectator.

Pale golden colored fulled bodied, firmly structured, concentrated forward citrus and melon flavors with hints of mango and pineapple with a resounding bold expressive finish. This is not for the feint of heart, you either love or shun this bold expressive style and profile. 

RM 90 points. 

https://www.cellartracker.com/w?4917478

Turning to the reds we opened two Big Reds from favorite producers.

Mollydooker Blue Eye’d Boy 2021

We’ve featured this producer and this label often in these pages as chronicled here - BBQ Ribs and Syrah, and recently here - Blue Eye’d Boy with Flank Steak.

As I’ve written in these blogposts, this is one of our favorite big bold Aussie Shiraz’s and whimsically shares the Blue Eye’d Boy moniker designation between the producer and us with our son Alec, hence this being one of our family signature wines we keep and have fun commemorating our son and enjoying on family gatherings.

I chronicled the Mollydooker brand and their portfolio of wines in this earlier blogpost. 

I wrote about Mollydooker and the Blue Eye’d Boy label in more detail last year in the blogpost - Blue Eye’d Boy McLaren Vale Shiraz 2020. 

We hold more than a half dozen vintages of this label and this is the newest, latest release which we're trying here for the first time, since we customarily will open the oldest vintage in our cellar as part of cellar inventory management. 

Winemaker Notes - Black crimson in color, this wine leaps from the glass with powerful aromatics of blueberries, fresh plum, licorice and nuances of chocolate biscuit. The seamless texture is laced with fresh berry fruit, coffee, vanilla cream and warm spice, giving us a full-bodied Shiraz with an endless depth of flavor and great length.

This was rated 92 points by Robert Parker's Wine Advocate.

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate wrote an interesting observation about this label; "Once you taste a few of a producer's wines side by side, you really start to get a feel for stylistic preference between warm vintages and cool ones. I surprise myself by saying here that I prefer the warmer vintages at Mollydooker (this does not make it right) because the sunshine and ease with which ripening can occur in a warmer year really seems to suit the plush, high-octane style being proliferated here. So, this 2021 Blue Eyed Boy Shiraz is far more on the blue fruit spectrum than the 2020 ..."

The key here is comparisons of this same label from vintage to vintage, and contrasting the resulting impact from a warm vintage vs a cool vintage. Such distinctions are best revealed through comparison tastings of one vintage alongside another or others - what is referred to as a 'vertical' tasting (as opposed to 'horizontal tasting' which would be various wines from the same vintage). 

This was dark inky colored, full bodied, powerful concentrated, full throttle big round black and blue fruits accented by spice, black tea, notes of licorice and hints of bitter dark mocha chocolate with a long full finish.

RM 92 points. 

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=4404716

https://mollydookerwines.com.au/

https://twitter.com/MollydookerWine

https://twitter.com/unwindwine

Family Brunier/Kermit Lynch Les Pallieres ‘Les Racines’ Gigondas Red Blend 2016

As noted above, this is one of our favorite producers that we know well from visits to the estates and our extensive collection of their wines dating back several decades. This is a special label for opening with the kids, since we all visited the Domaine toegether. We discovered and were first introduced to this label during that visit to the Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe. Châteauneuf-du-Papewinery estate during our Rhone Wine Experience back in 2018. 

Tasting this wine with producer Daniel Brunier
at the estate

 
Brunier Lynch Domaine les Pallieres "Les Racines" Gigondas 2016

As noted above, we discovered and were first introduced to this label while visiting the Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe. Châteauneuf-du-Pape winery estate during our Rhone Wine Experience back in 2018. 

This  Domaine Les Pallières, label is a collaborative partnership between the Brunier Family of Château Vieux Telegraphe with the noted merchant exporter (importer to America) Kermit Lynch, in the nearby commune and appellation of Gigondas. 

This was rated 96 points by Jeb Dunnuck and James Suckling, 94-96 points by Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, and 94 points by Vinous.

This is 80% Grenache, 15% Syrah – Cinsault (co-planted) and 5% Clairette made from the oldest 75-year-old vines of the estate located around the domaine in Gigonda, the appellation to the north and east of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. 

We visited the Gigondas appellation during our Rhone Valley Wine Experience back in 1999.

The area sits about 200-400 feet in elevation, higher than the lower appellation sites lying closer to the Rhone River in the valley,  with soils that are a mix of broken limestone and clay. The resulting wines are invariably darker black with more dense and concentrated fruits, more akin to the typically more prestigious Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines.  

Dark blackish purple garnet colored, full bodied, complex layered spice-accented black currant, black raspberry and notes of blueberry, baking spices, olive tapanade, herbs, black tea with gripping but smooth polished tannins on the long finish. 

RM 92 points. 

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=2841670

http://www.vieux-telegraphe.fr/en

Gala Family Christmas celebration wine dinner

Gala Family Christmas celebration surf & turf dinner features festive flight of red and white wines

The family gathered for our gala Christmas celebration and we feasted on surf and turf and a festive flight of red and white wines. We Decked the Halls with a flight of Hall wines - a top ranked red and two whites, one from Napa and one from Sonoma.

Offspring ... kids, grand-kids ...

Before dinner we had an extensive selection of artisan cheeses and holiday sweets accompanied by Pierre Gimmonet et Fils 1er Cru Champagne. 

Dinner started with Linda's signature lobster tails on a ramaken of buttered croutons. With this we served a Hall Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc, a Walt Sonoma Coast Chardonnay, and a Fantesca Russian River Valley Chardonnay. 

Dinner featured Linda's signature grilled beef tenderloin served with mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, haricut verts, and sauteed spinach in a Madeira sauce. For the main course we served two very special wines, Château Léoville Las Cases 1990 and Hall Jack's Masterpiece Napa Valley Cabernet 2015, two memorable wines ideally suited to the occasion.

 
Later with deserts and after dinner treats Alec opened a Hill Family 'Origin' Napa Valley Cab, and Ryan pulled from our cellar a 1995 vintage Pride Napa Valley Cabernet. 

It was a wonderful memorable gathering with family after a tumultuous year.  

Château Léoville du Marquis de Las Cases, St Julien-Beychevelle, Bordeaux 1990

 

I wrote about birthyear celebration wines for son Alec's wedding this summer. To contribute and join in the celebration dinner, I took from our cellar a flight of very special wines I have collected over the decades and held for this occasion, from the birthyear vintages of the bride and the groom. Fortunately, his birthyear 1990 vintage was one of the most spectacular of a lifetime.

 

Three times, wines from that vintage were awarded #1 Wine of the Year by Wine Spectator Magazine as part of their annual Top 100 Wines of the Year, all from the 1990 vintage. A testament to the global success of the vintage, one was from California, one from Bordeaux and one from South Australia, a further testament to the amazing spectacular 1990 vintage. 

 

We served those three wines at Alec and Vivianna's wedding celebration dinner. All those wines were acquired upon their release back in the early nineties, in some cases, even before being so recognized and heralded. A fourth wine from that vintage was also part of the wine flight, the 1990 Château Léoville Las Cases. 

At the time, I wrote that "we're holding a case plus several bottles of Alec's 1990 birth year release that we'll most assuredly celebrate with him, family and friends as part of his wedding festivities in the coming year". 

 

Since the wedding festivities were significantly scaled back due to the Covid pandemic, we didn't get to serve most of these. So, tonight, we opened another one as the 2020 celebrations continue. 

Linda's and my visit to the Chateau was one of the highlights of our trip to Bordeaux last year both because we've been fans of and have been collecting this wine for four decades, and because it was going to feature prominently in our once in a lifetime celebrations. 

 

This wine was awarded 96 points by Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, he projected the drinking window at the time, in 2009 to be "now-2035".  Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar gave it 94 points, Wine Spectator 93 points. Neal Martin gave it 95 points in his Wine Journal.  

 

As with an earlier tasting of this wine, this bottle had a good above neck fill level, the foil, label and cork were all in exceptional, excellent condition, the wine was great, drinking very nicely and still at a peak drinking level, showing no signs of diminution whatsoever, dark inky garnet purple, medium full bodied, elegant, polished, smooth, complex but perfectly integrated and balanced, sweet blackberry fruits, notes of graphite, leather, cassis, tobacco on a lingering balanced finish with tangy acidity and smooth approachable silky tannins. 

RM 94 points. 

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=254

 

https://www.domaines-delon.com/en/accueil.html

@DomainesDelon

https://unwindwine.blogspot.com/2019/08/leoville-du-marquis-de-las-cases.html

https://unwindwine.blogspot.com/2020/10/broad-diverse-flight-of-big-reds.html

Hall Jack's Masterpiece Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2015

HALL Wines is a 500-hundred acre estate in the Rutherford Hills of Napa Valley. It was established in 2003 when Craig and Kathryn Hall acquired the historic Bergfeld Winery and then remade it into a state-of-the-art facility. Today Hall has ten estate vineyards and two wineries and hospitality centers, one in St Helena and one in Rutherford. 

 

Our tastings at the Rutherford site have been highlights of several of our Napa Valley Wine Experiences such as this on back in 2013. We tasted this wine during with Kathryn Hall during the release tour tasting for Club Members in Chicago in 2018. We acquired this wine as part of our Hall wine club allocations.

 

Before getting into the wine business, both were successful luminaries with meritorius careers, Craig Hall created the HALL Group at the age of 18 in 1968, a business in college rooming houses and apartment buildings. Over time the company diversified into the HALL Park in Frisco Texas, the KPMG Plaza at Hall Arts in downtown Dallas and a financial services firm. Craig has invested in oil, American Airlines and the Dallas Cowboys.

Kathryn was a successful businesswoman, community activist, attorney and in 1991 ran for mayor of Dallas. She was Ambassador to Austria under the Clinton administration. Kathryn’s family had been in the wine industry for several decades as grape growers in Mendocino County where she and her brother managed their family property for 10 years. 

This is another very special wine for a several reasons; it is devoted to family, it is based on artwork, and it is a birthyear vintage for two of our grandkids. Our dearly beloved Lucy was an artist, our daughter Erin was educated in Art, Art History and Fine Arts, and taught art for several years, and Linda is a budding artist and studied and taught art history. 

Shown 2013 Jack's Masterpiece

Each year, HALL’s former winemaker and current president, Mike Reynolds, returns to his first love and blends a signature Cabernet Sauvignon known as “Jack’s Masterpiece,” named for a piece of artwork that decorates the label. The painting was created by Mike's son Jack as a Father’s Day gift  when he was only 18 months old. Every year Mike steps back into the cellar to create this signature blend and he chose this very special painting to appear on the label. Mike oversees the blending of this special wine to create a deeper expression of Cabernet Sauvignon. “This is a wine that really demonstrates the depth and muscularity of the fruit we source from our HALL St. Helena estate and Sacrashe vineyards,” he says. 

The 2015 HALL Jack’s Masterpiece is 98% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Cabernet Franc.

Winemaker notes: "The 2015 yields highly complex aromas, lead by ripe dark fruits, espresso, dark chocolate and loads of crème de cassis currently on parade. The hedonistic nose continues to bring you back to the glass for more. Crème de cassis, pencil lead, dark cherry reduction, mocha, anise and red bell pepper flavors all marvelously build in the glass. Intense and focused, with moderate tannins, this is an extremely age-worthy wine that needs at least one more year of bottle age before it begins to hit its stride."

Dark inky purple colored, rich concentrated dense black fruits, powerful and structured yet elegant, polished, smooth and approachable with jammy fruits accented by dark chocolate, expresso bean, hints of licorice and baking spices with gripping sinewy fine grained tannins on the lenghty finish. This should be delicious over the next decade or more. 

RM 95 points. 

This release was awarded 97-99 points by Jeb Dunnuck, 96+ by The Wine Advocate, and 91-94 points by Vinous / International Wine Cellar.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=2592084

https://unwindwine.blogspot.com/2018/09/kathryn-hall-vertical-tasting-hall-wine.html  

https://unwindwine.blogspot.com/2013/04/hall-napa-valley-rutherford-estate.html

https://www.hallwines.com/

 

@HALLWines

 

Also see...

Walt Bob's Ranch Sonoma Coast Chardonnay 2017

Hill-Family Estate Origin Napa Valley Red 2016

Fantesca Russian River Valley Sonoma Chardonnay 2010

Hall Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc 2018

More to follow ... 

Walt Sonoma Coast Grgich Blue Beret Chardonnays

Walt Sonoma Coast, Grgich Blue Beret Chardonnays BYOB for Longboard's Lobster Fest

Passing through Orange County on my west coast roadshow, I stayed with Sister Jan and Bro-in-law Bill in Huntington Beach. We went downtown where they were holding their Tuesday evening festival.

We dined at the legendary Longboard bar where they are featuring Lobster Feast '18 for the fall. We picked up some Chardonnay up the street to take BYOB, Walt Sonoma Coast, and Grgich Blue Beret Napa, 2016's.

The Walt wine brand is from Hall Wines in Napa, named for Kathryn Hall's maiden name and her parents, Bob and Dolores Walt who were dedicated winegrowers. The Walt family produced six different varietals that they sold to several notable wineries.

We tasted a Walt Pinot Noir at the recent Kathryn Hall regional release tour in Chicago. That was a vineyard designated select label from Bob's Ranch vineyard on the Sonoma Coast. While this Chardonnay is designated Sonoma Coast, the rear label cites Bob's Ranch Vineyard as one of the sources for this bottling, a blend from numerous sources from the area.

Hall Vineyards Walt Sonoma Coast Chardonnay 2016

The winemaker notes: "Our Sonoma Coast Chardonnay sources from cool climate vineyards located near the influence of coastal breezes within the Sonoma wind gap. Notes of lush tropical fruit and vanilla lead to a palate of stone fruit and citrus, bolstered by lively acidity and underscored by toasty oak."

This was bright lively and full bodied, ideal for pleasurable sipping, and perfect for the lobster fest dinner accompaniment.

RM 90 points.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=2852784

https://www.waltwines.com/ 

Our second wine for the dinner, this was lighter and less complex than the Walt. It might have been fine for the dinner but after drinking the Walt, it was diminished by comparison.

Grgich Hills Estate "Blue Beret" Napa Valley Chardonnay 2016

Miljenko “Mike” Grgich is a legend in the wine world and Napa Valley. He gained international recognition at the celebrated 'Paris Tasting of 1976' known as the Judgement of Paris, the historic blind tasting by a panel of eminent French judges did a comparison tasted of notable French wines opposite selections from upstart California Napa Valley. When their scores were tallied, the French judges were shocked to learn they had chosen the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay, crafted by Mike Grgich,  as the finest white wine in the world. The results stunned the international wine establishment and immediately earned Mike a reputation as one of the greatest winemakers in the world. The story chronicled in the book 'Judgement of Paris' and is told in a fantastic pop culture movie 'Bottle Shock'.

Thirty two years later, in 2008, 93 year Mike Grgich was was inducted into the Vintners Hall of Fame in honor of his many contributions to the wine industry. He hallmark is a sporting blue beret. Hence, this whimsical 'Blue Beret' label designated Estate Napa Valley Chardonnay.

Curiously, I find no reference to this label on the Grgich wines website, nor even on Cellartracker with its five million labels, only several postings from restaurant winelists. Perhaps its too early in its release cycle but wouldn't you think the producer would at least feature it? Its invisible in web postings to date. All I can think is that they consider this their 'generic' Napa Estate Chardonnay, but the Blue Beret is prominently featured on the label in a branding effort, that is clearly falling short in promotion and execution.

RM 88 points.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=2717448

https://www.grgich.com/

Afterwards, we picked up some artisan chocolates and took home to enjoy with an after dinner big red wine.