Cain Five and King Eider

Posted on March 31, 2019 by thewineraconteur

The Gods were looking down upon me that rainy afternoon and they must have smiled in my direction while I was at Fine Wine Source in Livonia.  Some days being a Raconteur in person, as well in print brings good fortune and I cannot separate the two.  I had just enjoyed a private tasting of Vega-Sicilia wines, two from Hungary and four from Spain and my taste buds were incredibly happy, and I knew that I was going to have to bring them back to reality when I got home.  I had selected some wine to purchase and also packing up my wine club selections for the month.  As I was at the counter and still talking to the owner about wines and I think we were both enjoying the afternoon chat.  I saw a new display of Duckhorn Wine Company’s Three Palms Vineyard Merlot and I mentioned that outside of some Bordeaux wines, that was the wine that sealed my life-long love affair with Merlot.

He asked me, if I had ever been there, and I recounted how we had gone there in the early days of the winery, and had arrived during harvest season.  One of my clients from years back had been a silent investor with Duckhorn, because one of his sons had gone to college with one of the Duckhorn sons, so he got me a private tour and invitation.  Our guide that day was one of the sons and after the tour of the facility and watching all of the excitement of the grapes coming in from the harvest to be processed, we climbed on the back of a huge semi-trailer that was stacked with cases of wine.  This was a very impromptu tasting, as our guide was ripping open cases of wine that we were not using as seats and that is how we did the tasting with glasses that we had carried with us into the trailer.  Back then, all of the Duckhorn labels were made on the estate; Duckhorn, Migration and Decoy and the Merlot wines were heavenly.  I mean we had the Estate Merlot, the Howell Mountain Merlot and the Three Palms Merlot, the perfect trifecta of Merlot wines and all from one house.  I was also telling the owner of Fine Wine Source that we bought and still have some of their King Eider Vermouth, which they no longer produce, and I always felt that Dan Duckhorn must have enjoyed Vermouth personally.  The owner of the wine shop was not aware that they ever made Vermouth.

He then asked me, if I had some other great memories from any of the other wineries that I visited.  The first winery that I mentioned was Cain Vineyard & Winery, not only because it was a very memorable drive to get there, but watching the organized chaos of harvest time at another location.  Cain Vineyard & Winery now offers three wines, but when we were there, they actually had a fourth wine, a white Cain Musqué Sauvignon Blanc 1998, but this was an experimental wine for them as the fruit came from the Ventana Vineyard in Monterey County.  I remembered telling the owner of the shop that we were going to splurge and buy a case of the current Cain Five, but they would only sell us two bottles, so I was going to have my Bride buy two bottles in a separate transaction, but the winery declined, claiming that it was only two to a family or address.  When the owner heard that, he asked his one employee to bring a fresh wine glass and a special bottle in the back, as he had the good fortune to pick up some Cain Five 2007 and he was going to join me in a taste of that wine as well.  When I was first introduced to Cain Vineyard & Winery, they carried a Napa Valley appellation and now they have the smaller Spring Mountain District of Napa Valley.  Cain was one of the first Bordeaux styled estate grown and bottled wineries, long before the word Meritage was ever coined.  This particular vintage is sixty-eight percent Cabernet Sauvignon, sixteen percent Merlot, six percent Malbec, five percent Petit Verdot and five percent Cabernet Franc.  It truly is a shame that not all wines produced are as stellar as the seven wines that I had that afternoon.  I mean every wine hit all the high notes and I was enjoying the experience.  The Cain Five just hit the ball out of the park and it wasn’t even close to being fully matured, as it was still feisty and delicious, what every Claret wishes to be.  Like I say, the Heavens not only opened up that afternoon with rain, but also with the good fortune to allow me to have such spectacular wines all in one day.

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Valbuena 5 and Unico

Posted on March 29, 2019 by thewineraconteur

I was just in Seventh Heaven being honored with a special tasting of wines from Vega-Sicilia with the owner of Fine Wine Source.  Not only was I tasting, but the owner and one of his employees was tasting along side of me.  I may have missed the guest speaker, but the company and the information that I was getting was stellar.  I have to admit that in the decades of drinking wines, I have had the good fortune to have had some outstanding wines and vintages, but there were plenty that I have missed and there are plenty that I may never have.  There are two major reasons for my lack of knowledge about some wines, first, Detroit was not that cosmopolitan of a city with large selections of wine shops back in the day, and then also back in the day, most restaurants could get by with a much smaller selection of wines.  The second reason was money, in the beginning I was a high school and then a college student, and then I started a family, and discretionary funds for wines had to be justified, and to this day, they still have to be justified.  Vega-Sicilia was one of the wineries that I thought I was only going to know by name and from reading about, as they are considered one of the premier winemakers in Spain.  Who would have thought that I would be tasting the wines from this winemaker and especially the two “flagships” of the theirs?

Bodegas Vega-Sicilia Valbuena 5 Ribera del Duero 2011 was the first of the final two wines in the tasting that I was enjoying.  Ribera del Duero DO was recognized in 1982, but Bodegas Vega-Sicilia began in 1864 and for years was one of the two prominent winemakers for the region.  The designation is for red wines only, and the main requirement is that seventy-five percent or more must be Tempranillo or the local name of Tinto Fino or Tinta del Pais and the balance can be blended with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot or Malbec, and in addition up to five percent can be Albillo or Garnacha (Grenache).  The aging requirements are the same as Rioja.  The Valbuena is blended only with Merlot and each vintage the amount used changes due to the discretion of the winemaker, and this particular vintage is pure Tempranillo.  The fermentation begins in Stainless Steel, but the aging for five years (hence the 5) is a mixture of French and American Oak (new and used), and time in the bottle before it can be released, and it was bottled in 2014.  The aging potential for this wine is twenty to thirty years.  This was a big, heavy Tempranillo with plenty of terroir to be appreciated and a very long finish.

After enjoying that wine, it was hard to think that there would be one more. But there was and it was Bodegas Vega-Sicilia Gran Reserva Unico Ribera del Duero 2005.  This wine is there big one, and where the Valbuena 5, can be blended with Merlot, this wine can be blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and this particular vintage has six percent blended.  This wine even begins differently, because the fermentation is even done in oak tanks.  This wine undergoes one of the longest if not the longest aging periods of almost ten years, with a minimum of six years in a mixture of French and American Oak (both new and used) and a minimum of three years in the bottle, and this vintage was held for five years in glass before being released and it was bottles in 2011.  This wine is expected to cellar for forty to sixty years, long past my years left.  This wine left me shell-shocked as it was silky, it was chewy, it had its own unique taste of terroir with a delightful and surprising taste of pepper, and a finish that just went on and on.  The professionals may have spit, but I enjoyed it to its fullest, each drop until it was gone.

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Macon and Alion

Posted on March 27, 2019 by thewineraconteur

How do you explain the good fortune of being in the Fine Wine Source on a rainy afternoon and you are tasting and discussing wines with the owner and one of his employees?  I mean I was not happy that there was a dearth of business for them, after all I am an old retailer at heart and I know what a day of rain can do.  I was just enjoying the fact that I had the chance to enjoy the wines from Vega-Sicilia even after the event that they had with the regional sales manager.

Vega-Sicilia is considered by many to be the finest winemaker in Spain and they are based in Ribera del Duero and of course Tempranillo is king at the winery and all of Spain.  They own about a thousand hectares in their domain and more than half is planted with vines and they go back to 1864.  The Alvarez family purchased the estate in 1982 and those that have had a better chance to observe than I, have stated that the quality and the consistency has increased since the new owners have taken charge.  Tempranillo accounts for about eighty percent of the grapes grown on the estate, but the also grow some Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and some Malbec.  The first two Spanish wines of theirs that I tasted were not estate grown.

The first of the Spanish wines that I tried was the Vega-Sicilia Bodegas de Rothschild Macan 2013.  Macan is a Rioja estate created in 2009 as a joint-venture with the Compagnie Viticole Baron Edmond de Rothschild. It lies to the northeast of Samaniego and features a gravity-fed winery built over four levels.  There has been French interest in the Rioja for years, but this wine with such a joint endeavor belies most of the wines from the region.  Here is a wine that averages vines that are forty years old and is aged for fourteen months in French Oak and it is touted to be able to handle twenty years in the cellar.  I found this wine to be an elegant Rioja wine delivering plenty of terroir, some pleasurable heat and a very long finish.  Considering that I have been drinking wines from the Rioja with vintages going back to the Fifties, this was totally an eye opener and made me really want some more.  The second of the Spanish wines that I tasted was the Vega-Sicilia Bodegas y Vinedos Alion, Ribera del Duero 2011 and this wine they consider is made for an earlier consumption.  This wine has come from thirty-year-old vines and has been aged in only new French Oak for the average of fifteen months and then another fifteen months in the bottle, before it is sold.  Here was another big wine and from the nose and the first taste I picked up dill, which surprised me, but not in an unpleasant manner and then I also enjoyed another healthy helping of terroir.  Considering that they think this is a wine to be consumed in its youthful age, I was surprised at the amount of complexity and a long finish, that I thought this wine could easily do twenty years in the cellar, but then maybe it is because I have a cellar and I have been known to put wine away and try to forget it for some time.  Here I was enjoying two great wines and I still hadn’t had a chance to try their “flagships” and more to come.

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Oremus Tokaji Dry and Aszu

Posted on March 25, 2019 by thewineraconteur

As I mentioned it was a bleak and dreary rainy day when I made my way to my local wine shop The Fine Wine Source.  As you can imagine, I am a very quiet and demure individual and most of the time, they never even notice me wandering around.  I didn’t think you would believe it, I don’t even believe that I wrote that.  I guess from working with the public for decades, I am rather gregarious, but in the old school way.  Unfortunately for me, the day before, they had what sounded like a great wine presentation with a representative from the winery and I had to miss it.  Even though I am semi-retired, that day before made the words “work is the curse of the drinking class” so true.  I missed the event, but I was asking questions about it, and they had a very successful day of it, especially because they moved their three and six pack verticals that they were featuring.  I guess my wallet and the Exchequer at home appreciated that fact.   As I said, it was very quiet and the owner joined me, as well as one of his employees that was kept very busy working the day before to relive the wines from the presentation, and may I say I was in heaven.

                                                                                                                                                                    I will mention the first and the last wine of the tasting now, instead of proceeding in a more orderly fashion as I did that afternoon.  In 1993, just three years after the world saw that Communism and Socialism did not work in the former Soviet Hungarian Republic, the Alvarez family that had bought Vega-Sicilia founded Tokaji-Oremus, but respecting the time-honored traditions of the district.  The region known as Tokaj is actually twenty-seven municipalities and land, but Tokaj is the major city of the area.  The history of Oremus goes back to 1620 and they are credited with making the first Aszu wine as well.  When I was first learning about wine, I had always wanted to try all the versions of Tokaji wines, but back then it was the Cold War and the Communists ran a monopoly on the wines of all of the countries that they ruled by the jackboot and intimidation.  Rumor has it that Pepsi Cola was an un-official conduit for wines and spirits behind the Iron Curtain for years, keeping the United States in Stolichnaya and Monimpex Tokaji.  While there are a couple of different varietals that are grown in this region, the main one is Furmint.  Furmint produces a highly acidic juice that when nurtured can develop into one of the longest-lived wines known.

                                                                                                                                                                We started with a glass of Oremus Furmint Mandolas Tokaji Dry 2014, a curious wine that has become popular in this century, because it is a dry wine.  This wine is named for the vineyard that the grapes come from and it is only planted with Furmint.   This is a golden grape that buds late and because of a peculiar trait has one of the potentially longest growing cycles and is very labor intensive.  The grapes are delicately pressed and the fermentation process can take eight to ten days and then the wine is aged in small oak barrels, which is the traditional way.  Even though this is a dry white wine, and can be enjoyed immediately, it can be aged for about ten years.  The wine delivered a curious blend of floral and smoke and was full flavored with a good finish.  After four red wines we enjoyed a glass of Oremus Tokaji Aszu 5 Puttonyos 2006.  Now here is where the Furmint grape and the wine known as Tokaji are most celebrated.  Tokaji Aszu can only be found when Mother Nature allows the elements of weather to be ideal to create an Aszu vintage.  The berries swollen due to the humidity split and the “Botrytis cinérea” establishes in its skin and creates the noble rot.  This procedure has been going on for hundreds of years.  The special grapes with the noble rot are collected in special baskets which are known as Puttonyos, and the number of these special baskets are then added to the already crushed grapes.  I have quoted this passage from Oremus to explain the next step “The fermentation of the Aszú must is a slow process that can sometimes last up to two months. It is then put into wood barrels and is left in a protected wine press, waiting for the fermentation to stop by itself. We then add a little Eszencia, which has been collected drop by drop from the Aszú berries. We thus symbolically return its soul, which is embodied in the Eszencia.”  The wine is left to age for two to three years and then it is aged in the bottle for an additional year, before it is released.  This wine is a blend of several varietals of which the lion’s share is the Furmint.  There is also the Harslevelu which adds mildness and floral notes, the Sarga Muskotaly (Yellow Muscat) with its distinctive nose, the Zeta which lends robustness to the blend.  They are also traditionalists and are growing some varietals that were prior to the phylloxera blight and that is the Koverszolo and the Goher, but both are in limited areas.  There were 23,400 bottles produced of this wine and it could be cellared for forty years.  This was just a big wine, it was floral, chewy, robust with enough terroir to please the fussiest taster, with a nice smooth lingering finish and even a bit of pepper at the end to lure one into another taste.  And now I can think of the wines that were in between.

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A Cab and a Grenache

Posted on March 23, 2019 by thewineraconteur

It was one of those days when it was raining and all I could think of was the old Charles Addams cartoon where Gomez and Morticia looked out the window and opined “what a wonderful day, makes you glad to be alive.”  I had some errands to do, and you know by my age, one would think that errands and bills should somehow be over with.  I thought that I would stop at my local wine shop The Fine Wine Source and see if the new club wines were out, or if they had anything interesting to try.  I guessed right on the both counts, but for now I will discuss the new club selections.

The first bottle was Les Jamelles Grenache Pays d’Oc 2015.  IGP Pays d’Oc is the current form used for the old Vin de Pays d’Oc when I was growing up.  The IGP designation is more in line with the Common Market designations and the blurring of old established country laws.  The Vin de Pays d’Oc referred to “table wines” and I am sure that plenty of people still view that designation in the same light, and the Pays d’Oc basically is the entire Languedoc-Roussillon district in France, and the largest wine production area under one umbrella.  The area is huge and there is not one common terroir or even varietal, so one can find almost any type of wine that they are looking for.  At one time, the area may have been looked at with disdain, but no longer, and there are some wineries that are now achieving price points never conceived of, because the wines they produce are worthy of those prices.  Since 1995, Les Jamelles has been produced by Catherine and Laurent Delaunay, two young winemakers from Burgundy whose family has been producing wine for four generations. After working in California, they both fell under the charm of the Languedoc-Roussillon region in the South of France.  The particular wine is pure Grenache and is grown on twenty-year-old sloping vineyard near the Mediterranean Sea.  Most of the juice is aged in Stainless Steel, I would have to presume, because only about ten percent is aged in oak for about eight months.  The wine is stated to be deep purple in color, fruit forward offering raspberry with spice undertones of pepper, cinnamon and paprika.

The second wine Primary Wines Cabernet Sauvignon 2015 carries the California AVA.  This wine is offered through a wine distributor and importer Massanois.   There were no technical notes for this wine, and I can find nothing about Massanois.  Cabernet Sauvignon is the most planted varietal across the entire state of California.  Since I have not tried this wine, I will go with the notes supplied to me from the shop.  This wine is a full-bodied with aromas of cassis, plum and berry and slight notes of dried herb and vanilla, with mid-weight tannins on the finish.  I am sure that it is an easy drinking wine with a red meat dinner.

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Carmel Road North Crest Pinot Noir

Posted on March 21, 2019 by thewineraconteur

A lot of things come in threes, and the wines that we receive four times a year from our wine club “A Taste of Monterey” also has three to the carton.  The third wine that I will discuss is from Carmel Road Winery based in Soledad, California.  I have had wine twice before from this winery, once courtesy of the wine club and once with dinner at a restaurant in Pacific Grove.  As I was doing some additional research and I went to their website, and two things I was surprised about, that was glaring by omission was that they have a joint business with the actress Drew Barrymore for her wine line, and that the winery is part of the Jackson Family Wines group.

Carmel Road claims that their name is for the back road that stretches from Carmel-by-the-Sea through the Arroyo Seco and the Santa Lucia Highlands, which I am sure would be a lovely road to discover, when one has a free afternoon for a nice pleasant drive in the country.  The Salinas Valley and Monterey County have long been known to have the coolest climate in California and that is why the Pinot Noir varietal does so well there.  The first vintage for Carmel Road Winery is 1998, so soon they will be celebrating their Twentieth vintage.

The Carmel Road North Crest Pinot Noir 2015, is the newest wine for me to discover.  The wine is pure Pinot Noir from the Panorama Vineyard in the Arroyo Seco AVA.  The wine spent thirteen months aging in French Oak, of which twenty percent was new.   According to the tasting notes from the winemaker, the wine offers aromatics of cherry, strawberry and framboise, and delivers juicy red fruit flavors on the palate with subtle hints of vanilla bean and cocoa.   Bright acidity leads to a clean and balanced finish.  That is not the way I describe wines, but eventually I will have my chance to do so.  The suggested aging potential for this wine is five to six years.

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De Tierra Vineyards Five by Five

Posted on March 19, 2019 by thewineraconteur

I have been writing about the wines that I receive from A Taste of Monterey for several years now and I have always just put a little blip about the winery and the wine.  I just never really felt comfortable about it, because the Lord knows that I like to ramble, once I get started.  Also, some of the wineries just get short changed because the biggies and the cult wines get all of the publicity.  I don’t know about you, but as we get closer and closer to full retirement, the cult wines are just an expenditure that we don’t need.  I also find it fun, if I can find a quirky tidbit about a winery, because that is just me, especially when I meander.

De Tierra Vineyards in 1998 as an organic grape-growing concern in the Salinas Valley by an agriculture professional from Phoenix, Arizona by the name of Tom Russell.  He teamed up with a friend and winemaker from Vignalta, Italy named Lucio Gomiero and they created a forty-acre estate and called it De Tierra Vineyards, which translate to “of the land.”  It is an artesian winery or a boutique winery, both names are proper.  On the estate they grow five varietals; Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Merlot, Riesling and Cabernet Franc and then they have contracts with growers in the Monterey County.  They also maintain a tasting room in Carmel-by-the-Sea, and my Bride will remind me that we are over due for another holiday there.  I have had the good fortune to have written about a couple of other wines, a De Tierra Vineyards Syrah 2002 which was a Monterey AVA and a De Tierra Vineyards Tondre Grapefield Pinot Noir Santa Lucia Highlands 2012 and both of these were fruit harvested under contract.  I am sure that if I go into the cellar, I will probably find a few more, because I am that organized.

The wine I just received also carries a Monterey AVA, because two of the grapes in this wine are not grown on the estate’s Russell Vineyard.  The De Tierra Vineyards “Five by Five” Red Wine 2015 is a Bordeaux blend, that a lot of wineries call a Meritage, if they have joined and paid the dues to that society.  The wine is a blend of twenty-five percent Petit Verdot, twenty-five percent Malbec, twenty-five percent Syrah, twenty percent Merlot and five percent Cabernet Franc.  The wine was aged for twenty-four months in a mix of half new and half neutral oak barrels, with a total production of two-hundred-fifty-two cases of wine.  From the wineries tasting notes they describe it as a deep burgundy in color with a nose that promises cigar box, smoke, black currants, plums and dried rose petals.  On the palate it is listed as having robust tannins and vibrant acidity and flavors of blackberry, plum and raspberry.  The suggested aging potential for this wine is eight to ten years.  Time will tell.

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Line Shack Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon

Posted on March 17, 2019 by thewineraconteur

I recently received my wine club delivery from A Taste of Monterey and we look forward to it four times a year.  The odds are that we will receive some wines that may not get out of California otherwise, and most of the time the wineries have such small production that they are under the radar for the three-tier antiquated system that has supplied the shops with wines since Prohibition.  Thankfully a former governor here in Michigan lost an historic case which allowed wines to be shipped here, and I could stop claiming olive oil on all of the packing slips and invoices.  I am rambling again, and I lost the thrust of the article.

In 2003, Bob and Daphne Balentine, the founders and winemakers began Line Shack Winery in the southern part of Monterey County in the new San Antonio Valley AVA.  There were twenty-one missions begun by the Spaniards and the second one that was founded was Mission San Antonio and it was also where some of the first grapes were planted in California, long before statehood.  This is a mountain vineyard and winery on the southern portion of the Santa Lucia mountain range and west of Paso Robles, which allows the vines to enjoy warm days and cool evenings.  In 1989 when the property was first purchased, the only building standing was a line shack that populated the old ranches as a haven for unforgiving weather.  This line shack was eventually remodeled and repurposed and became the winery, storage and tasting room that is still being used today.  The goal was to produce affordable, world-class Cabernet Sauvignon, and a lofty goal it is indeed.

This is the first wine and the first time that I have learned of the winery, so I had to do some research, even though I am hardly a wine scholar.  The winery offers seven wines, actually six wines, as this wine is bottled separately as I will explain.  The Line Shack Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2016 is made from a blend of four different clones and also eight percent Petite Sirah.  Aged for over nine months in French Oak, of which twenty-five percent is new.  From over four-hundred barrels tasted, thirty were selected to be chosen Reserve, and the rest became Line Shack Cabernet Sauvignon 2016.  The tasting notes supplied were full, balanced body, medium tannins and a smooth lingering finish.  Flavors of back cherry, currants and plum complement aromas of mocha, vanilla and leather; and anyone who knows me, knows that I do not write descriptors like that, but it will be interesting to compare my notes later when the wine is opened.  The aging potential for this wine is suggested for eight to ten years.

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A Paprikash Dinner

Posted on March 15, 2019 by thewineraconteur

You may have noticed that when we are in Las Vegas to see the family, we are always out and about going to restaurants.  I do think that is the norm, when one goes to Vegas, though most people don’t have dinners for ten every night.  One of the things that we always have to prearrange when we are at a restaurant is where the waiter or the waitress takes the bill for the evening, because the kids will try to make a heroic effort to grab the bill and in today’s climate the kids have enough expenses raising their own family, let alone paying for the old man.  At least that is the way I look at it, though it was different when I was their age, or though it seemed.   I always tell them, that we plan on spending the money, when we come to Vegas, and when they come to Detroit, then they can be a sport, though we never let them do that here either.  I guess one always worries about your kids, no matter how old they are.

Well our one son knew that it was a loosing battle to try to take us out for dinner, I mean we even pick up the tab for the very mediocre pizza at the bowling alley that we go to every time we are town, just for another outing, or for the cinema.  He wanted us to come to his house for a dinner, and my Bride agreed.   I used to have an uncle that enjoyed being out and about, but whenever he had dinner at a house, he always had water or pop, he only really enjoyed his adult beverages, if he could hear a cash register ringing in the background, and especially if he knew that he was picking up the tab.   We were going to have Chicken Paprikash, just a classic Hungarian dish that has been taught and handed down from generation to generation in our Daughter-in-Law’s family.  I even reminded the kids how they used to insist that I take them periodically to a restaurant in my old neighborhood for an open face roast beef sandwich with Paprikash gravy, and they only kind of remembered it, but that was thirty years ago.  The grandchildren were happy, because they could play their video games after dinner, and even though I think they enjoy being with their grandparents, kids get bored and want to do what kids do.  Of course, we did help and stopped at a grocery store before we got there, to pick up dessert.

We also bought some wine, and I am so sure that you would be surprised to hear that.  We actually had to go to two stores, because of the wine, which I will explain.  While at the grocery store, but away from the aisle with the one-armed bandits I found a wine that I could be happy with, and I think everyone could.  We had probably the most famous and popular, and the wine that created the Pinot Grigio craze in the first place.  We opened up a bottle of Santa Margherita Pinot Grigion Alto Adige 2017.  The estate was founded in 1935 by Gaetano Marzotto, and today is widely renowned for its popular Pinot Grigio wines, though they also have vineyards and wineries all around Italy.  They are rather famed and even credited with creating the Pinot Grigio of today, by not allowing the juice to be with the must, so that the tell-tale rust or pink that is prevalent from the grape is not seen.   After the pressing and fermentation, the wine is aged in Stainless Steel until the bottling for a nice crisp wine that is very easy drinking.  The Alto Adige or the Sud-Tirol is the farthest northern wine making region in Italy and it is quite Germanic and Pinot Grigio is the single largest producing grape for the area.  The other wine that we had to go to another store to get was a wine that we had just earlier that week, and I keep telling her, that she is ruining my ability to tell spin my yarns with always the same wines.  She loves to drink the same wines, and I am always looking for something new, but I lost this round.  We were going to enjoy some more of the Arrowood Vineyard and Winery Sonoma Estates Cabernet Sauvignon 2013 and the wine is just beautiful.  Arrowood was founded in 1986 and in 2006 became part of the Jackson Family Wines.  The fruit for this wine was harvested from Knights Valley, Sonoma Valley and Alexander Valley.  The wine is a blend of eighty-nine percent Cabernet Sauvignon, ten percent Merlot and one percent Cabernet Franc.  The wine was aged for eighteen months in a mix of oak, with thirty percent new.  I was totally enthralled again with the notes of black cherry and a long finish, and the fact that I still think it was a total bargain.

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A Return to Capo’s

Posted on March 13, 2019 by thewineraconteur

“Hey, what’s with the food around here? A kid comes up to me in a white jacket, gives me a Ritz cracker, and uh, chopped liver, he says, ‘Canapes’. I said, uh, ‘can of peas, my ass, that’s a Ritz cracker and chopped liver!’”

A great line about food, just to get you in the mood, but the food at Capo’s will make any Caporegime happy.  While we were in Las Vegas, one of the places that even the grandchildren wanted to go to was Capo’s and why not?  The ambience of the room, the food and the drinks are perfect.  From the moment that you walk in to the “joint” and you are in a room with no doors, except for the one you came in, you are ready to relive the days of the speakeasy.  A peephole opens up and you are asked for the password, then part of the wall that a payphone is hanging on, swings open and you are brought into the restaurant.  Once your eyes get used to what seems to be a pitch-black room, you start to notice the photos of legendary gangsters of New York, Chicago and Las Vegas, and also cinematic gangsters from Rico to Michael Corleone and not to mention a huge blow-up of the mugshot of Francis Albert.  Yes, I can get comfortable in a “joint” like this, though it might have over-kill for my eldest grandson’s girlfriend, and this was the first time that she was in a setting with all of the family.  It is also a place where you can here a real crooner singing real songs that are perfect for listening to while one has dinner.  A table of ten, with children, and I might add, they all were perfect and no one had to get “a back hand.”

One of the curious features of dining at Capo’s is the lighting or should I say the lack of lighting.  There are chandeliers and sconces in abundance, but the wattage of the bulbs is so low that each menu has its own flashlight attached to it.  While the Mothers were trying to figure out what dishes for each of the kids, knowing their own likes and dislikes, my Bride and I were just as busy trying to decide what we wanted to eat.  First things first like getting some appetizers to pass around the table, to keep everyone entertained, plus soft drinks for the ones that can’t drink in a restaurant.  How can you not enjoy a “joint” that still has bread and breadsticks, and each meal comes with salad or soup, potatoes or vegetables and sides?   Not to mention they still offer Creamy Garlic dressing, OK, so I died and went to heaven.  Some of the diners were happy, because they could get breaded veal cutlets, even though they weren’t on the menu.  My Bride had “Capone’s Carbonara” with Pancetta, tomatoes, peas, red onions, shallots & fettuccini tossed in a garlic egg cream sauce.  I had the “Scarface Shrimp Scampi “sautéed in lemon, butter and white wine sauce with a touch of crushed red pepper over angel hair pasta.  All the dishes had “named” honors to them, just to remind you of where you were.  I guess there is always room for Tiramisu and cannoli.

I mentioned that the menus had their own flashlight, well so did the wine list.  While I was looking at the list, our waiter brought over a bottle of wine that I had never heard of, that was their house wine I guess, Kings of Prohibition Cabernet Shiraz Red Blend Barossa Valley in a dark bottle with a screw-cap closure, and the waiter said that it was on the sweeter side, so I decided to pass on his suggestion.   We started off with Peltier Winery & Vineyards Chardonnay Lodi 2017.  The vineyard was bought in 1985 and a custom crush facility was built in 2001.  This is from a special collection of wines that the winery makes and it is their “naked” unoaked style of wine with just a “brush” of Viognier added to mix for a floral nose and some nuance.  The vineyard is certified Green by the “Lodi Rules of Sustainable Winegrowing Practices” and this was a limited wine as there was just over twelve-hundred cases made of this wine.  I found it fresh and easy to drink and was a great way to start the night off.  With all the different dishes we had to have a red wine, and I have to admit that I have ordered this wine before when I have been here, and they refer to it as a “Baby Amarone.”    The Allegrini Palazzo Della Torre Veronese IGT 2014 is just a great value, even in a restaurant.  Allegrini is a winery that has been based in the Valpolicella region of the Veneto since the Sixteenth Century.  This wine is a blend of forty percent Corvina Veronese, thirty percent Corvinone, twenty-five percent Rondinella and five percent Sangiovese.  A small percent of the Corvinone grapes are left to dry like raisins and then pressed and then are blended with the juice from the other grapes.   The juices are aged for fifteen months in second used Oak barrels and then blended together for another two months in the barrels and another seven months in the bottle, before it is released.  The use of the raisin juice is referred to as Ripasso Method and if they had used Molinara instead of Sangiovese, the wine would have been a Valpolicella.  The Corvinone grape is relatively new in name only, as it was originally lumped together with the Corvina Veronese, until it was discovered to be its own grape.  The wine is just delightful and really deserves some cellar time, but that really doesn’t happen that often in a restaurant and I am sure that they go through plenty of this wine in the course of a year.  While everyone else was enjoying dessert, I had my own version, as I had a glass of W. & J. Graham’s 20 Year Tawny Port.  Graham’s is one of the prominent Port houses and began in the 1800’s as a textile company and received a barrel of Port in lieu of payment, and that is how they began.  To be a Port the grapes must be from a demarcated area in the Upper Douro region of Portugal and was the first area to be officially delineated of all wines in 1756.  This fortified wine is a potential blend of the following wines, and I say that because most of the vines are so old that they are lost in the record books; Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Cao and potentially Sousao, Tinta Amarela and Mourisco Tinto.  This amber glass of liquid with the caramel notes kept this Raconteur happy with the crowd and the grandchildren could get sugared up, because they were not coming home with us.  I also beg your forgiveness, but even with the flash, the photos of the wines were rather murky even with editing.

“Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”

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