It was a pleasure to go to my local wine shop, The Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan as I knew that Tom Celani was conducting another wine tasting and he would be autographing bottles while he was there. I joked with him, that it was truly a Tom Celani Day, as I was hearing him being interviewed on the radio for his matching funds for a food drive for two local charities called “Hunger Free in the D,” as I was doing errands, before attending the wine tasting.  Since my earliest days as a clothier, I had stopped listening to music on the radio and listened to the top news radio station in the Detroit area, so that I, as a clothier could speak rather intelligently with the customers, a trait that has been lost, I have noticed among the clerks that I now encounter.  I lead in with this introduction, because for years I had heard Tom Celani and all the philanthropic work he has done in the Detroit area, long before he had a winery.  Tom Celani is lauded in the Detroit area for his largesse for charitable organizations that he helps in a grand manner.  He and his father ended up creating one of the largest Miller distribution companies in the United States along with other beers and wines.  Tom Celani fell in love with wines, first as a drinker and a collector and finally acquiring a Tuscan-style estate with seventeen acres of grapes and one-hundred-twenty olive trees in the foot hills of the Vaca Mountain range in Napa Valley.  As the proprietor of the Celani Family Vineyards he has chosen to bottle wine without costs becoming a consideration, to him wine is about quality and not quantity.  In fact, he was joking that he is not sure if the winery, will ever truly show a profit, because of his concern about getting the best wine each and every time.

The tasting began with Celani Family Vineyards Chardonnay Napa Valley 2022 from the Oak Knoll District.  The Chardonnay comes from estate grown Wente 2A clone grapes and was whole-cluster pressed and fermented on its lees for ten months using thirty percent new French Oak and seventy percent in self-stirring egg-shaped concrete fermenters. To maintain the natural acidity of the Chardonnay, malolactic fermentation was inhibited.  The wine was a nice soft golden color and offered notes of apple, pear, tropical flowers and brioche and some soft notes of spices and jasmine.  On the palate there were tones of fruit and floral flavors with crisp acidity, balanced and with a very decent length finish of oak and roasted nuts.  This Chardonnay was big and impressive and they feel that it will cellar for about ten years. 

The following wine was the Celani Family Vineyards Robusto Napa Valley 2019.  Tom Celani really enjoys a great cigar, and Robusto is a classic shape cigar, and one of his other charities that he hosts is “Cars and Cigars.”  The original Robusto was a Proprietary Red Wine, but it now is pure Merlot and aged for nine months in a mix of French Oak barrels.  I have never denied that Merlot is one of my first loves, back in the Sixties and Seventies when I first started learning about wine.  This estate wine is just a deep inky wine with notes of red and purple fruits, pepper, and secondary traces of new leather, licorice, and a dash of orange peel.  A nice wine with balanced tannins and on the palate tones of cherry, plum, pomegranate, currants with a nice medium finish ending with some fruit and graphite terroir.  Another wine that is touted for ten plus years of cellaring, and I believe it, though I may never know.  I drink Robusto before meals, as well as during meals, it is great with appetizers and conversations, and I like it with pizza, as well as fancy elaborate meals, this is one wine that we try to keep an inventory of in the house, as well as a guaranteed hit when we are dining out.