Some More Wines at Home

Posted on May 1, 2026 by thewineraconteur

I don’t want it to sound like I just drink, when my Bride and I have dinner at home, we will open a bottle, unless she is going to church function, as she doesn’t want to give the wrong impression; I don’t have that problem.  I am also in the process of culling photos from my iPhone.  

Of course, at home my Bride is partial to having fish, she was like that since the early days that we were dating.  She has also become very partial to Sauvignon Blanc over the last several years.  We have had a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, and I had refrained from opening it, because some are known for being rather aromatic and quite distinctive.  I opened it up, as I always keep learning to this day, so we had Tua Tua Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough, New Zealand 2023 by David Clouston.  In a small coastal village in New Zealand there is a legend about a mysterious seashell called Tua Tua.  It is said to represent good luck and prosperity and is kept and revered as a talisman.  David Clouston crafts distinctive, innovative Marlborough wines that reflect the valleys where they are grown.  His grapes are grown on the clay soils of the high-density planted Brookby Hill Vineyard along with select sites in the Awatere and Wairau Valleys.  His winemaking techniques include native fermentation, aging in concrete egg tanks, large oak cuvées, a range of French Oak barrels, and clay amphora.  The wines are bottled, unfiltered and unfined to preserve complexity and texture.  This wine is pure Sauvignon Blanc and was a delicate straw-like hue that offered notes of pineapple guava, elderflower, currants and wet stones.  On the palate this medium-bodied, well-balanced wine displays tones of kiwi, passion fruit, pineapple, pink grapefruit and ending with a medium-count finish of exotic fruits and lime zest.

Now we don’t always have fish, we were having a classic roast beef dinner, as we had a leisurely day at the house, to make this dinner with all of the sides. I went down to the cellar to look for something different, and that is really a joy with a cellar.  I selected a bottle of Scheid Hames Valley Vineyard Petite Sirah 2009.  This is a new AVA for me, Hames Valley, located in the Southern part of Monterey County.  One of the unique aspects of Hames Valley is that it can have a fifty degree temperature differential from day to night, which the winery claims is ideal for growing Petite Sirah.  Scheid Family Wines was founded in 1972 by Al Scheid, a Harvard graduate, and is now managed by Scott and Heidi Scheid.  The winery began with ten acres and now they have a few thousand, and after three decades they created their own brands.  The wine is pure Petite Sirah and the fruit is hand-harvested and destemmed and placed in bins for fermentation and it gets punched down twice a day to extract color, tannins and flavor.  Then the wine is racked and placed in small barrels for secondary fermentation for about eighteen months in a mix of Hungarian and American Oak, with about ten percent new, with a production of about two-hundred cases. I decanted the bottle, as you can see from the residual dregs that coated the bottle.  This was a deep blackish purple wine that offered notes of blackberry and plums, followed by tobacco and mocha.  On the palate this full-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of dark fruit, in a big chewy wine, and the bold tannins had mellowed, but still feisty, ending with a long-count finish of rich fruit, oak, spiciness and terroir. 

The third wine I will mention is because my Bride was preparing filets, and she still doesn’t like cooking them, she would rather have them in a restaurant.  For her endeavors, I went and selected one of the first wine brands that she developed a special affinity for, as I opened a half- bottle of Peju Province Merlot Rutherford 1998 and after decanting we had two excellent servings of the wine.  The estate was founded in 1983 by Tony and Herta Peju along with their daughters and the original Rutherford estate was twenty-two acres, and today they have more than ten times that amount with all their other vineyards in Napa Valley.  I went into my original brochures and pamphlets when we bought this wine, but there were no production notes and they no longer make a Rutherford Merlot, just a Napa Merlot.  The current Merlot wine is aged for sixteen months in a mix of French and American Oak, of which forty percent is new.  Even at twenty-eight years of age, this wine was still a deep garnet and offered notes of black cherry, blackberry and plum, along with some coffee, spices and Sous-bois.  On the palate this full-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of black fruit, spices blending with very mellow tannins and ending with a long-count finish of fruit, spices and terroir; and a very happy smile on my Bride who is probably mad that we didn’t buy more.  

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A Delightful Night in Farmington

Posted on April 28, 2026 by thewineraconteur

It was a night of firsts for us, as we tried a new restaurant, a wine bar and the “Big Band Goes to the Movies” at the historic Farmington Civic Theatre.  The City of Farmington just recently won the Great American Main Street Award for 2026 recognizing its excellence in preservation-based commercial district revitalization.

We started the evening off with dinner at Spruce and Ash, my Bride had been there, with one of her girlfriends, but she was sure that I would like it.  There motto is “From scratch-kitchen! We fry in beef tallow & limit our use of seed oils.”  We did three Small Plate selections.  We started with “Boom Boom Shrimp” which was tail on shrimp fried and tossed in their house sweet chili sauce and scallions.  We then had the “Tipperary Nachos” which were crispy tallow fried potatoes and topped with Cheddar Cheese, bacon, scallions and sour cream; our waitress suggested that we order extra crispy, and we also requested no sour cream.  Later the chef came by, said that he reread the order and said that he didn’t make it extra crispy, so he sent us a new order, and if you get it, ask for a side of the chili sauce (and as a further aside, it was fried potato skins). We also had Salmon Croquettes with red onion, jalapeno, garlic and lemon aioli.  We also got a bottle of Loren Crossing Sauvignon Blanc Oakville 2024. I couldn’t find any information about the winery, but this wine is eighty-six percent Sauvignon Blanc and fourteen percent Semillon.  The fruit is hand-picked and the Sauvignon Blanc underwent primary fermentation in a Stainless-Steel tank, and the Semillon in Hermitage cigar barrels with some lees contact; then six months of blending before bottling.  This soft golden colored wine offered notes of Meyer Lemon, limes, and white peaches along with honeysuckle.  On the palate this light-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of citrus and exotic fruits and ending with a decent medium-count finish of citrus and fruit, it was very refreshing.

After dinner, we went to Santé Wine Tasting Room, where they offer about a hundred different wines and a rotating inventory of thirty-two wines using the Cruvinet System pouring by the ounce.  We had our dessert with a glass of The Rare Wine Company Historic Series Madeira New York Malmsey Special Reserve NV made by Barbeito in Madeira, Portugal.  It may be one of the longest names for a wine and it is a classic caramel-based wine that can possibly live forever, even after opening with just a classic cork as a stopper.  The Rare Wine Company was and is the pre-eminent source of Vintage Madeira from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and in 1998 they began working with Vinhos Barbeito to create a series of Madeira wines with the proper blending of wines from ten to sixty years.  The use of different cities with old engravings on the labels tie the historical connection of America to Madeira, as the Old South preferred dry, the North preferred the sweeter Madeira like the Boston Bual and the New York Malmsey.  Malmsey is a fortified wine made from a group of varieties of the Malvasia grapes under the rules of Portugal’s Madeira DOC.  Malmsey is the sweetest and richest example of Madeira and contains more than twice the residual sugar of a Madeira Sercial or Madeira Verdelho. The name Malmsey is probably a bastardization or a second corruption, in nicer terms, of mariners trying to pronounce the Portuguese name.  This was a beautiful dessert wine that was sweet but not cloying and very balanced.  This deep brownish-red wine offered notes of figs and dates, caramel and toffee, along with some chocolate, coffee, almonds and a touch of orange peel.  This full-bodied, well-balanced wine was very rich, with notes of candied and stewed fruit and ending with a nice long-count finish of rich candied fruit, molasses, vanilla and toffee.

We finally made our way to the Farmington Civic Theater with an Art Moderne style by C. Howard Crane, that same man that designed the Fox Theatre in Detroit.  The theater was built in 1940 and went from father to son who later sold the theater to the city in 1998., though in 1989, the balcony was converted into a second theater.  The city updated the seats, the sound system and replaced the film projectors with digital projectors and the support technology.  The Henry Ford Big Band with eighteen musicians were set up on the stage to wail away, first with pure music and then they were joined with a local chanteuse Olivia Van Goor.  Of course, we go to see The Wine Raconteur Jr. who is a saxophonist and acted as the Concert Producer as well.  The evening began with Mercer and Mancini’s Days of Wine and Roses and finished with Mancini and Mercer’s Moon River. 

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DaVinci and Cantina Zaccagnini

Posted on April 25, 2026 by thewineraconteur

I don’t know about you, but I am constantly getting messages that I have too many photos on my phone, and as I start searching, I find another article to be written that was pushed out by other articles.  Of course, by now you realize that I am not just a wino. 

I discovered that we had gone to see “DaVinci the Exhibition at The Henry Ford Museum.”  We have a family membership to The Henry, which is the new name for the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, which is one of the greatest places to visit in the State of Michigan.   This was a limited-time, immersive showcase of Leonardo DaVinci’s life, art, and inventions.   There were over sixty-five full-scale inventions, handcrafted by artisans from DaVinci’s original sketches and modern Codices, including military machines, civil engineering designs, flying contraptions and musical instruments.  There were also twenty museum-quality reproductions like the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper and Virgin of the Rocks, plus some that are still debated, but attributed to DaVinci.

There were also in-depth studies on concepts such as the golden ratio, anatomy and proportion with enlarged sketches and annotations.  One of the well-studied and explained was his “Vitruvian Man.”  I have to admit, that both of us were as bad as the young students who were there from school field trips, as we waited until the students were done with some of the interactive displays.  He had created machines to make man work smarter, instead of harder, with actual displays of assorted rope pulley demonstrations; things that we take for granted today but were totally novel and wonderous at the time.  It was here that I had to invoke the inner Michael O’Hara, but there was no Rita Hayworth as I dared to venture into a small-scale version of a mirror room.  It also reminded me of the “House of Mirrors” room at a traveling carnival that would come to my old neighborhood in Detroit, when I was a kid.  I remember that I solved the mystery by looking at the floor and not the mirrors, and I discovered which way to go, because there was no mirror installed from the floor up to the ceiling.   All in all, a wonderful exhibit, and the type of exhibits that are now featured, and there were no traveling exhibits when I was a kid riding my bicycle to see either the Henry Ford Museum or Greenfield Village on a Saturday.

I was feeling rather nostalgic, not for DaVinci, but for the Museum and the Village, so we went for a classic pie and an antipasto, and they now have a location near our house, in a former restaurant where the waiters would sing opera, between servings.  We had a bottle of Azienda Agricola Ciccio “Cantina” Zaccagnini dal tralcetto Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2022.  The “Tralcetto” line refers to the small vine twig that is affixed to the bottle with raffia and has been their trademark.    Azienda Agricola Ciccio Zaccagnini is one of the leading producers in the Abruzzo region of Italy, with around seven-hundred-forty acres of vineyards. The bottles are always adorned with a small remnant from a vine and a great marketing image.  The winery was established in 1978 and has steadily grown, and they now produce over three million bottles of wine, and seventy percent of the production is now divided among forty-five countries.  This wine is grown on medium-textured clay soil.  After manual harvesting, destemming and crushing the wine undergoes submerged-cap maceration, and then temperature-controlled fermentation for fifteen days, then aged in Stainless Steel on its lees.  This deep ruby wine offered restrained notes of red cherries and raspberries, along with pepper and cloves.  On the palate this medium-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of red fruit, spices and soft tannins, ending with a short-count finish of fruit and spices; perfect for a meat-lover’s pizza.  

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It Was Thirty-three Years Ago

Posted on April 22, 2026 by thewineraconteur

It is hard to believe, that it is only thirty-three years ago, that I met my Bride, though there are some days that she thinks that maybe she shouldn’t have gone to that dance. 

I knew it was right, as I told her that evening that we were going to get married.  We actually got married three years later and we danced to “Love is Lovelier the Second Time Around” as crooned by Francis Albert.  While there are highs and lows, it has been great and eventually we will even figure out how to enjoy retirement; I have been practicing for around seven years, she is still deciding, though she is more pro than con these days.  Not to mention that we have a cellar to drink up.

We have lasted longer than the 2003 Crus Bourgeois Classification which included three tiers of quality – Cru Bourgeois, Cru Bourgeois Superieur and Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel.  Actually, the first attempt was in 1932 for a designation for the Medoc region wines that were not recognized in the 1855 Classification of Grands Crus Classes.  The 2003 attempt fell apart amid disappointment, infighting and legal action, and was annulled by the courts in 2007.  A new attempt was begun starting with the 2012 vintage, and this classification will be reviewed and renewed every five years.  It is an ideal marketing tool, as it makes another group of wines look affordable and appealing.  There is a small additional label affixed to the bottle affirming the Crus Bourgeois of a wine.   

All of this leads to my Bride just going out for an Antipasto and a Pizza for our anniversary celebration dinner.  And you thought being a wine blogger was glamorous and prestigious.  Much to my Bride’s chagrin, I selected a new wine, instead of our normal pizza wine, after all I do have a blog to write.  We had Chateau Bel Air Gloria Haut-Medoc Cru Bourgeois 2017 from Domaines Martin.  Henri Martin had Chateau Gloria, and then he was part of the group that reunified Chateau Saint-Pierre and eventually owned.  In the eighties he bought Chateau Bel Air in Cussac, adjacent to Saint-Julien Beychevelle and added Gloria to the name.  The estate is 37 hectares vines averaging thirty years of age planted on fine gravel ridges of blue clay.  The wine is a blend of sixty percent Cabernet Sauvignon and forty percent Merlot.  Initial vinification is done in Stainless-Steel vats and the aged for twelve months in French Oak of which twenty-five percent is new.  This deep purple wine offered notes of blackberry and currants, along with violets, tobacco and licorice.  On the palate this medium-to-full bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of black cherry, blackberry, spices blending with grippy tannins and ending with a medium-to-long-count finish of fruit, spices and terroir; a good chewy wine.     

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A Few More Wines That I Tasted

Posted on April 19, 2026 by thewineraconteur

It really was a pleasure to do some more tastings, especially on a one-on-one experience as is usually the case at The Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan.  I also do enjoy the more structured tasting events that they enact as well, as each offers different experiences.

The next wine that I had was Azienda Agricola Demarie Giovanni Langhe Nebbiolo 2023.  The Demarie family’s interest in winemaking goes back to the late 1800s, but was officially founded in 1957 by Giovanni Demarie, and it is still a family business and now run by Aldo and Paolo Demarie.  They have a thirty-hectare estate in Roero but use the Langhe DOC designation.  In 2013, they built a state-of-the-art, eco-friendly winery powered by solar energy.  This Nebbiolo wine is from twenty- to thirty-year-old vines planted on sand, marl-sandstone and fossilized seashells on exposed hillsides and using dry-farming techniques and hand harvested.  The wine undergoes maceration with the skins for twenty days and they used indigenous yeasts for fermentation in temperature-controlled Stainless-Steel tanks. The wine then ages for six months in concrete vats, and after bottling it rests for an additional four months prior to being released.  It is clarified using clay and only lightly filtered, they produce 850 cases of this wine.  This ruby colored wine offered notes of raspberries and blackberries, followed by violets, leather and spices.  On the palate the medium-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of red cherry and raspberry, followed by traces of cocoa, blending with fine tannins and ending with a medium-count finish of red fruit, spices and terroir.

We followed up with Casa Vinicola D’Angelo Aglianico del Vulture DOC Basilicata 2019.  Casa Vinicola D’Angelo has spanned four generations and almost a century in the history of Aglianico del Vulture.  While the winery was established in the thirties, in 1924 the wines were exhibited at the IV Commercial Fair in Bari.  In 1971 Aglianico earned the DOC designation.  Mount Vulture is an extinct volcano and is part of the landscape of norther Basilicata.  The wine must be made exclusively from Aglianico, on volcanic soil, and altitude is an important factor in that it must be planted between 200m and 700m.  The fruit is manually harvested, and basic Aglianico del Vulture wines must be aged in oak barrels for at least a year, before being released.  The D’Angelo wine undergoes ten days of maceration on the skin and is aged for eighteen months in large barrels.  Their first vintage was 1960, and the average age of the vines is from 30-35 years of age.  The wine was a deep garnet color and offered notes of black fruit, Sous-bois, sage and licorice.  On the palate this medium-to-full-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of black cherry, earth and tar and a very chewy wine with firm tannins that ends with a medium-to-long count finish of fruit, spices and terroir.

I thought I was done and they brought out one more wine and who am I to say no?  A bottle of Philip Togni Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2014.  Philip Togni Vineyard is a small, family-owned Napa Valley wine producer, and one of the oldest in the Spring Mountain District.  The winery was planted in 1981 by Philip and his wife Birgitta on a ten-acre plot (four hectares) and all the wine is estate grown and they are ably assisted by their daughter Lisa.  The winery is solar-powered.  The wine is described and likened to an age-worthy Margaux-type blend of mainly Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.  They also annually hold back a portion of the newly bottled wine to re-release when it is ten, twenty and thirty years old.  This deep garnet colored wine offered notes of dark fruits and cassis, orange zest, and Sous-bois.  On the palate this full-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of black cherry, blueberry and plum blending with a touch of minerals and silky tannins and ending with a nice long-count finish of refined fruit, terroir and just a touch of ethereal sweetness, an elegant wine.  

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The Fine Wine Source Club – April 2026

Posted on April 16, 2026 by thewineraconteur

With so much going on between me and the house, and my Bride helping her sister, it felt wonderful to go out and be with people.  And picking up the wine club selections was a bonus.

As always there is a wine representing the Old World, and one representing the New World.  The first wine is Il Colle Pinot Grigio delle Venezie DOC 2022.   The first wine that I picked represented the Old World and it was a bottle of Il Colle Cabernet Sauvignon Veneto IGT NV.  Il Colle was established in 1978 by Fabio Ceshin and his wife Gianna, with the desire to pass on this wine culture to their three children.  The location of the vineyard is in the Hills of Treviso in Veneto, on clay soil, and the vines are ten to fifteen years old.  After harvesting the grapes undergo a soft maceration and fermentation is for about fifteen days in Stainless-Steel tanks with temperature control.  The wine is then aged for six months in Stainless-Steel tanks.  The wine is described as straw yellow and offering notes of lemon and lime citrus, and green apples, followed by white florals and some spices.  On the palate this light-bodied, well-balanced wine displays notes of crisp and fresh green apples and pears blending with citrus acidity and ending with a good medium-count finish of fruit and crisp acidity. 

The wine representing the New World is Ocnautic Red Blend Paso Robles Shandon Vineyard 2023, one of the brands from ASV Wines (Arroyo Seco Vineyards).  ASV Wines was started in the early Seventies and now are into the fourth generation of families in the business.  ASV Wines was created in 1982 and now they have acquired 1,500 acres of vineyards in Monterey County.  Located in the southeast of Monterey Bay adjacent to the Arroyo Seco Creek, the vineyards benefit from the extended growing season, maritime climate and the geographical features and soils of the region.  This wine is a blend of sixty-two percent Cabernet Sauvignon, twenty-four percent Petite Sirah and fourteen percent Zinfandel and all sourced from their Shandon Vineyard.  The fruit is harvested at night, with extended skin contact during pressing and the Initial Fermentation is done in the tanks.  Secondary Fermentation occurring in the barrel; Cabernet was aged in new and seasoned French Oak, the Petite Sirah in neutral French Oak and the Zinfandel was treated to all new American Oak.  All the components were aged for eleven months, and then combined into the final blend.  The wine is described as a deep garnet color offering notes of dark fruit, and dark chocolate.  On the palate this medium-to-full-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of black cherry and blueberry, along with anise and mocha blending and ending with a good medium-count finish bold almost sweet hints of black cherry pie, blueberry jam and cooking spices.

They then asked me if I had time to taste a couple of wines.  It was pure music to my ears, after seeming to be in solitaire for the last couple of weeks.  I had a glass of Francine Bachelier “Hommage” Chablis 2020.  Francine Bachelier and her husband, Olivier Savary, own a small, highly regarded estate in Maligny, which lies at the northern edge of the slope of the Grand Cru Chablis vineyards.  Olivier markets his wines as Domaine Savary, while Francine produces limited-run selections in the cellar for her own label.  While they own property in two Premier Crus, their specialty is producing quality Chablis Village wines.  She also produces a very limited special bottling “Hommage” dedicated to her father Raymond Bachelier who runs the family Domaine in Villey-en-Auxois.  The grapes are sourced from fifty-year-old vines on hillside vineyards of clay and limestone in Villy.  The soil also has an abundance of ancient, fossilized oyster shells, which create a mineral-driven wine, and the wine is an un-oaked Chablis, which reflects the terroir.  This wine comes from 1.6 hectares of densely planted Chardonnay and produces less than six hundred cases.  Initial Fermentation, as well as Malolactic Fermentation is done in Stainless-Steel tanks.  This soft golden colored wine offered notes of pears and yellow apples, lemons and limes, white florals and spiced honey.  On the palate this medium-to-full-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of yellow orchard fruit, with traces of pineapple blending with crisp acidity and ending with a medium-to-long-count finish of fruit, citrus and distinctive minerality.       

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Easter Sunday 2026

Posted on April 13, 2026 by thewineraconteur

In Armenian one would say Shnorhavor Surb Zatik or Happy Easter in English.  We had about fifteen here for Easter dinner and alas the family is getting splintered, and plenty is from the demands of employers.  Of course, when I was a kid, only a few businesses were open, in fact I remember that there was only one pharmacy in Detroit that had Sunday and holiday hours. 

My Bride had taken a sabbatical from helping her sister, so that she could work just as hard here, preparing for our annual Easter dinner.  We started the day with a quick version of Eggs Benedict, to hold us over until we ate with all the guests.  We began the day with Mimosas, but to our chagrin, we were out of Orange Juice, so we tried it with a tincture of Lime Juice; I mean we can’t drink sparkling wine at nine in the morning.  For a good sparkling wine to use for a Mimosa, we used Korbel Methode Champenoise Brut California Champagne NV.  It is a blend of Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, French Colombard and Pinot Noir.  A perfect way to start the day, and Korbel is one of those houses that have been grandfathered in using the term “California Champagne.” Korbel Champagne Cellars was established in 1882 in Sonoma by three Korbel brothers, who came from Bohemia.  The winery was bought by Adolph Heck in 1954 and is now under the ownership of his son Gary and production has grown that they are now the twelfth largest producer in the United State of America.  It has been served at six different presidential inaugurations, and they are also known for their Korbel Brandy.  Before the addition of the Lime Juice, the golden-colored wine with a decent flow of bubbles, offered notes of citrus, and a touch of cinnamon.  On the palate this medium-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of oranges, limes and strawberries, and ending with short-to-medium count finish of fruit and a dash of vanilla.  

My Bride has started to clamp down a bit on time, and had decreed that appetizers would begin at two, and dinner at three.  At two, she began laying out her charcuterie boards, vegetables and jumbo shrimp with a horseradish sauce.  I wanted to make it a day for my Bride, and I selected one of her favorites to begin the festivities with.  I started pouring Azienda Agricola Ottella Lugano DOC 2022, and the Lugano region straddles Lombardy and Veneto, but is considered part of Lombardy.  The grape for Lugano is known as Turbiana, Verdicchio and as Trebbiano di Lugano. The Montresor family has been running Ottella for four generations and it has been attested that the Montresor family were the only ones to produce Lugano in the province of Verona in 1905.  In 1964, the family began delineating the land and they began working to get a DOC designation.  The fruit is manually harvested and undergoes slow fermentation in temperature-controlled Stainless-Steel tanks for five months.   The wine is a straw-yellow color and offers notes of candied fruits, citrus, and minerals.  On the palate this dry wine offers tones of citrus, apples, tropical fruits, and lemon zest with a nice medium count finish of fruit and minerals.

At three, my Bride moved everyone from the living room to the dining room for dinner.  She started with Hearts of Romaine, fruit and Champagne Vinaigrette, followed by a Lamb Roast with root vegetables, Armenian Pilaf, Sautéed Chicken (for those that won’t eat lamb), mashed potatoes, and other vegetables and sides brought by guests.  After dinner, she also had cakes and pies for dessert, as we had a birthday to celebrate as well.  And to keep my Bride smiling I poured another of her favorites Cain Vineyard and Winery Cain Concept “The Benchland” Napa Valley 2007.  Cain Concept “The Benchland” is from vineyards lower down the mountain side going from Yountville to Oakville to Rutherford to St. Helena and all very special real estate of its own, which are alluvial fan benches.  The fruit is from the Oakville/Rutherford vineyards of Beckstoffer Georges III, Missouri Hopper and To Kalon and Garvey Family, as well as two vineyards in Carneros the Truchard Atlas Peak and Stagecoach.  This wine is a blend of fifty-seven percent Cabernet Sauvignon, eighteen percent Merlot, thirteen percent Cabernet Franc and twelve percent Petit Verdot.  Cain Concept is handled by the winery the same way as they produce Cain Five (which is the mountain vineyard) which is hand-harvesting, gentle destemming, manual pressing and maceration, native yeast Initial Fermentation followed by Malolactic Fermentation in the barrels with twenty-one months in French Oak of which seventy-five percent is new; with egg-white fining and bottled without filtration.  This deep purple wine offered notes of dark fruits, Sous-bois, tobacco and oak.  On the palate this full-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of plums, black cherries and cassis blending with smooth velvety tannins and ending with long-count finish of fruit, herbs and spices and rich terroir. 

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Easter Eve 2026 – Part Two

Posted on April 10, 2026 by thewineraconteur

The annual gathering of all the cousins is a major event, and the crowd is growing, because of weddings, and even the announcement of a new cousin or grandchild, depending on your point of view, so the happiness will continue. 

With the retirement of a local caterer, my cousin took it upon herself and one of the others to learn how to make boregs (phyllo stuffed pies), both cheese filling and meat lamb filling, as well as Lahmajoon, the classic Armenian pizza for a lack of better description.  She also made stuff grape leaves, plus a large charcuterie board.   Another major hit in the appetizers was an item that I had found on social media, Basturmah and String Cheese in a woven pastry.  Now Basturmah is like a earlier and distant cousin to Pastrami, only much more pungent.  Did I mention that we brought some wine.  The first wine was Gran Passione Rosso Veneto 2020, a limited production wine made by Cantine Bertoldi.  Cantine Bertoldi is known for their Valpolicella and Amarone wines.  They were founded in 1932 and several generations later they now own fifty acres of hand-cared vineyards.  They are now part of the larger umbrella wine producer and distributor Casa Vinicola Botter.   They began selling local Veneto wines in 1928.  After World War II, they moved onto bottled wines and started exporting.  Now in their third generation, ninety percent of their business is done overseas.  The soil of the estate is basically clay, and this wine is a blend of sixty percent Merlot and forty percent Corvina.  The grapes selected for this wine are hand selected and harvested, allowing for the grapes to dry on the vine, reducing the weight by about fifty percent.  This technique is in the tradition of Apasimento (to dry and shrivel), just like how Amarone is made.  After harvest, the over-ripe grapes are destemmed and undergo maceration and fermentation for fifteen days on the skins, and then malolactic fermentation occurs in the barrel aging.  This intense purple color wine offered notes of black raspberry, black cherry, cassis, black tea and dried violet blossoms.  On the palate this medium-bodied, well-balanced wine had intense flavors of black fruits, blending with supple tannins and finishing with long-count finish of fruit and terroir.

For the dinner, my cousin had a caterer set up in a garage stall to smoke and roast lamb for a myriad of Armenian dishes that everyone was encouraged to create.  There were salads, vegetables, sauces, sides and enough of everything to make the table and the dishes sag from all the weight.  My grandparents and all the deceased parents and relatives, I am sure they were looking down at us with total approval.  Suffice it to say that I couldn’t even avail myself of all of the wonderful desserts that followed. The second bottle that I opened has become one of my Bride’s favorite wines, and she never liked this varietal until she had this wine, and I think that we still have four cases left; and I have never mentioned it.  I am talking about Elyse Winery Zinfandel Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County 2019.  Nancy and Ray Coursen arrived in California from Cape Cod to fulfill Ray’s dream of making wine in 1983. He began working at Mt. Eden Winery, Tonella Vineyard Management and then Whitehall Lane Winery.  In 1985 he started the Elyse brand, their daughter Elyse Sarah was born in 1986, and in 1997 they purchased a small winery.  This wine is made in one of the smallest AVAs in California, and Dry Creek Valley is known for its climate, and well-drained soils.  Carreras Vineyard is famed for their ancient hundred-year-old Zinfandel vines.  This deep black-purple wine offered notes of blackberry, peppercorns and coffee beans.  On the palate this medium-to-full bodied wine displayed tones of mixed black and red berries, blending with velvety tannins and ending with a long-count finish of fruit and terroir.

Everyone was having a wonderful time, and it was great to sit back and have some great conversations and remember the old days.  As always, there are some that couldn’t make it.  A true joy, especially to relive the egg battles, and watching how big the children’s eyes got when they received their own Easter baskets.  Just getting a group shot was amazing to observe.   Our hostess looked great in what I called her vintage Carmen Miranda headdress. I know that we are looking forward to next year’s gathering.

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Easter Eve 2026 – Part One

Posted on April 7, 2026 by thewineraconteur

One of my cousins several years ago, realized that all the families were starting to splinter, because we all had children and some even had grandchildren and there was no singular matriarch or patriarch to keep us all together.  So, rather than trying to compete, she started a new night that no one had “dibs” on.

We were all products of major holiday events that were divided by our parents under the careful eye of their parents.  Most of us grew up in two family flat homes with a kitchen that could seat at least eight, while the cooking was going on, and then the dining room was where all the adults sat, so all the cousins were always together.  I think that the other unwritten rule about big family events was that there would not be any empty spaces on any table, where food could be featured.  Since I was a fat kid, I never understood how anyone in the family could be thin, with all that food.  Easter always had the traditional egg fight, no we didn’t toss raw eggs, we would each choose a decorated hard-boiled egg (and everyone had their own method of selecting the proper trait of a winning egg).  Then systematically one egg end, would strike another egg end, and one egg would crack, eventually one egg would survive all the other eggs, and that was the result, that you had bragging rights for the year.   

My cousin also had a mini shrine placed in her house honoring her mother.  I was the ringbearer for her mother’s wedding, and yes, there are age differences among all the cousins.  Her mother lived in the upper flat with her mother (who was also my grandmother) and my father and mother and kids lived downstairs in the lower flat.  Lifestyles were much different back then.  I digress, as I usually do.  The bottle was hand-painted and decorated and was also inscribed with paint and says “Medzeeg” which translates from Armenian as “grandmother.”  I had never heard of the wine, and it took a while to find any information.  The wine is Domaine Badet Clement “Josephine” Cabernet Sauvignon IGP Pays D’Oc 2022.  Domaine Badet Clement offers 111 wines with the designation of Pays D’Oc.  This designation is a catch-all for the southern coast of France and basically corresponds to the Languedoc-Roussillon, one of the larges wine regions in France and produces the majority of what used to be called Table Wines.  This bottle of wine will never be opened, but I have found out that it is a garnet-colored wine that is light-to-medium-bodied with decent acidity and tannin structure.  I think it is a great item for the family.

My cousin had her whole house decorated for the Easter celebration with butterflies of assorted sizes and motifs.  She was also requesting that everyone take photographs of the evening and send them to her, and she would create a total page or site for the party.  She had Armenian flags flowing as well, and before the dinner commenced, she had the group pray “Hayr Mer” or “Our Father” and known universally as “The Lord’s Prayer; and people could recite it in Armenian or in English. And in a more playful tone, my cousin had a huge collection of bunny ears (not reminiscent of Mr. Hefner) and she was taking photos of everyone.  For years I had survived not being in the ears, but my Bride and my cousin ganged up and just as the photo was being taken, the ears slid off the top of my head, and I had the only example of a bunny goatee.   

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More Wines Served at Home

Posted on April 4, 2026 by thewineraconteur

As I have stated, the first several months are rather quiet at the home front, with my Bride helping her sister.  This year that worked out very well, as just before Christmas, I had a hernia operation that ruptured, and it was totally a period of being pampered.  And now just before Easter, I must have some oral surgery; let me say that I have had better years.

My Bride has always been partial to fish, so she loves to serve fish for dinners.  One night, and even the next night we enjoyed Isxir Grande Reserve White 2015 from Batroun, Lebanon.  Isxir derives from the Arabic word “Iksir” which is the original Arabic word for “elixir.” The first time I had this wine it blew me away, and we have had it a few times, though I think this is the last one now.  The wine is a blend of sixty percent Viognier, twenty-five percent Sauvignon Blanc and fifteen percent Chardonnay.  The wine was aged for five months in French Oak, of which half was new.  A deep golden-yellow wine that offered notes of assorted white fruits, white florals, eucalyptus and a whisp of smoke.  On the palate this full-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of peaches, pears and citrus, blending with striking minerality and ending with a long finish of fruit, terroir and pepper.

Another wine that we enjoyed when we could have dinner together was Chateau La Castillonne Bordeaux Blanc 2022.  Chateau La Castillonne is in the commune of Saint-Ferme, and is affiliated with Maison Bouey, the owner of one of the largest wine cellars in Bordeaux.  The wine is a blend of Semillon, Muscadelle and Sauvignon Blanc.  The wine undergoes fermentation, blending and aging in Stainless Steel tanks.  The pale-straw-yellow colored wine offered notes of peaches, pears, kiwis and white florals.  On the palate this light to medium bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of peaches and flowers with bright acidity, ending with a medium-count finish of fruit.

The last wine that I will discuss at the moment is Bos Wine Wishflower Michigan 2021. I have had the pleasure of meeting and tasting the wines David Bos is making up in Elk Rapids, Michigan as well as a couple of California wines that he produces as well.  Wishflower is a blend of Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Riesling; co-fermented with fruits harvested from Leelanau Peninsula and Old Mission Peninsula (on each side of Traverse City).  The Pinot Gris is from Brigadoon Vineyard on Leelanau Peninsula, while the Pinot Blanc and Riesling are from Ten Hands Vineyard on Old Mission Peninsula.  A soft-yellow wine that offered notes of white fruit and white florals.  On the palate this light-to-medium bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of green apples, lemon, and ginger with a splash of high acidity that ends with a medium-count finish of fruit, spice and a refreshing tartness.

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