We found ourselves at the historic Dearborn Inn, which just recently reopened after about a two-year renovation.  Some say that it is the first airport hotel in America, as right across the street Henry Ford had a private airport and airline for the business.  We got there early for a dinner reservation, so we wandered around a bit and ended up at The Four Vagabonds, which in the last version of the hotel was kind of an afterthought bar, as it was in a walkway to the convention center of the hotel.  It is still a bit of a breezeway, but much more elegant and even with a private dining room adjacent.  Especially for the Detroit historians and others, the Vagabonds were Henry Ford, John Burroughs, Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone; a nickname they bestowed upon themselves for their getaways and to get away from their businesses.

You may have noticed that we occasionally will just belly-up to the bar for a drink or two, and if there is something to nosh-on, all the better.  We got a charcuterie board and some Smoked Trout Rillettes.  I selected two different white wines for us, the first was Mary Taylor Wine “Jean Marc Barthez” Bordeaux Blanc 2023.  Mary Taylor Wine represents the two decades of working in the European wine industry.  She prefers the European system of “place name” or appellation and tries to offer the terroir of the region.  Jean Marc Barthez, besides being her winemaker for this region, is also the president of a small cooperative winery in the village of Monsegur in the Entre-Deaux-Mers subregion with their alluvial sand and clay-limestone soils.  The wine is ninety-five percent Sauvignon Blanc and five percent Semillon; and the age of the vines are thirty years of age.  The wine undergoes fermentation and aging in Stainless-Steel tanks.  A rather soft-golden yellow wine that offered notes of melons, white fruits, citrus and white florals.  On the palate this medium-bodied wine was well balanced and displayed notes of green apples, pink grapefruit, citrus zest and a nice medium-count finish of fruit and terroir. 

The other white wine that I selected, I knew would bring a smile to her face as she enjoyed a wine tasting at the winery, and we really don’t encounter the wines that often.  We had the St. Supery Estate Vineyards and Winery Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley 2023, which is one of their estate wines.  Robert Skalli arrived in Napa Valley from Corsica, when his grandparents founded Terra Vecchi.  In 1982, he purchased the Dollarhide estate, a 1500 acre cattle ranch in Napa Valley, and he also purchased 56 acres in Rutherford where the winery is built, and the first vintage was in 1989.  All the wines produced are from their own estate vineyards and are sustainably farmed.  The Skalli family sold their Napa Valley holdings to fashion giant Chanel in 2015.  The fruit for this wine was harvested over a month, to take advantage of the mild weather, with seventy-two percent coming from the Dollarhide Estate Vineyard and twenty-eight percent from the Rutherford Estate Vineyard.  Fermentation and aging were done at cool temperatures in Stainless-Steel tanks to maintain the crispness and delicate acidity.  A soft golden-yellow wine that offered notes of grapefruit, lime zest, gooseberry and fennel.  On the  palate this medium-bodied wine displayed crisp tones of grapefruit, lime, lemon, and a touch of anise with refreshing acidity and ending with a nice medium to long count finish of fruit, capers and a saline vibrancy; for a young wine it showed great complexity.