An Afternoon with Scott Young

Posted on April 15, 2018 by thewineraconteur

Scott Young is the winegrower and the winemaker for Young Inglewood Wines in Saint Helena, Napa Valley, California.  I had the good fortune to meet and taste his wines at Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan.  Fine Wine Source is one of the wine shops that I have been spending time at for tastings and shopping as the selection is well chosen and they don’t try to be an everything wine shop, as the name implies.  You won’t find the wines that are available at the mass market venues, party stores and grocery stores as they are not after that business.  The owner of the shop also has a wonderful restaurant in Downtown Detroit called Vertical that his daughter runs.

Young Inglewood is a small boutique winery in Napa Valley and they produce around a thousand cases of wine each year.  It is a family run business founded by Jacky and Jim Young, who loved French wines and wanted to produce their own style in their winery.  The winery grows five Bordeaux varietals; Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Malbec.  Scott Young was a very passionate young man who has the heavy burden of overseeing the winery as winegrower and winemaker.  I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention his sister Mary, who is a musician and handles special projects for the winery.  The wine tasting was done in a very casual manner, almost reminding me of a tasting at a winery, as there were people coming in at different times, so the wines even though they were poured in a certain progression, Scott was able to make sure that every one tasted the wines thoroughly while discussing the wines, even repeating some of the information for some that came in after I did, and it was enjoyable to glean extra information that wasn’t mention the first time around.  The winery itself is located in St. Helena and was originally part of Rancho Carne Humana, a Mexican government land grant that stretched from what is now Rutherford north to Calistoga, and vineyards were planted there in the late 1870’s, continuously except for the Prohibition era.  Almost the entire wine selection was estate grown.

With such a limited production, the first wine that was poured was the Young Inglewood Michael Mara Vineyard Chardonnay, Sonoma Coast 2014.  Scott was surprised that I knew this exact wine and I had wrote about it.  This is the one wine that is not estate grown, and in fact if you noticed, it is not even from Napa Valley, but from the Sonoma Coast.  Scott claims that Steve Mathieson of Michael Mara Vineyards is his wine mentor and he have a dedicated area that his fruit is harvested from each year, because of the friendship.  The hand-harvested clusters were gently pressed whole overnight and two-thirds of the juice was aged in French Oak, and one-third in Stainless Steel. The juice was aged Sur Lie for sixteen months without racking, fining or filtering. Only twenty-five cases of this wine were produced. This wine had a great nose, too bad that every Chardonnay wine does not, a beautiful light gold color, decent legs and a long finish.  This wine was sold out at the winery and there were only a few cases available at Fine Wine Source.  I was really looking forward to the rest of the tasting.

Posted in Wine | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Castillo Ygay Blanco Gran Reserva Especial

Posted on April 13, 2018 by thewineraconteur

This is a warning that I did not try this wine, and I don’t want anyone to get their skivvies bunched up.  In almost five years of writing about wines, I have only written about the wines that I have either drank or tasted, there is a slight codicil to that, as I have included wines that have been highly touted to me by a couple of my cast of characters that are paraded on these pages periodically.  I think that I should only write about what I know or have tried, that is why these articles have run the gamut from jug wines to First Growths that I have had the good fortune to encounter.  That being said, I do get a multitude of emails from assorted senders about wines, and I am sure that you won’t find that too strange, considering that I enjoy wines as a hobby.

This wine has kind of haunted me ever since I read about it from Elie Fine Wine in Birmingham, Michigan.  I also borrowed the photo from Elie Fine Wine as it is not in my cellar.  It has just sat kind of tucked away in a back room of my brain, that has been locked, padlocked, wrapped in barbed-wire and guarded by sentries and dogs.  It is the kind of wine that one could get divorced over, after being run over by the car a couple of times.  We are planning on retirement and this would just not fly as an ideal purchase and let’s face it, I have never been known as a cheap date.  I never discuss a rating for a wine, because I think it is an arbitrary number and I am always leery of anyone making a decision for me, but when you read about a white Rioja wine that is over thirty years of age that achieves a perfect 100, even I had to pay attention.

Marqués de Murrieta Castillo Ygay Blanco Gran Reserva Especial 1986 captured my fancy and my curiosity.  I have had red Rioja wines from Marqués de Murrieta in the past, but nothing of this grade and fame.  The grapes were planted in 1945 in the highest elevation of their Finca Ygay in the Rioja Alta.  The wine is almost entirely made from Viura with three percent Malvasia.  The wine was initially aged for two-hundred-fifty-two months in American Oak, and if that was not long enough it then spent an additional sixty-seven months in concrete.  This was not a quick bulk production job, in fact there was a little more than eighty-one hundred bottles produced.  I mean this is a story for a Raconteur, unfortunately, not this Raconteur.  My Bride will be pleased with my restraint.

Posted in Wine | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Two from Ms. Yoga

Posted on April 11, 2018 by thewineraconteur

It has been awhile since we have heard from Ms. Yoga about her adventures with wine.  She has been busy doing that cursed endeavor known as work.  She lives out of a suitcase quite a bit these days, so it is a good thing that her son is off at college.  We hear from her quite often, but not about wine, unless she really finds something intriguing.  One of the wines that she sent me a photo of was a wine that I had just recently had and wrote about when we were in Las Vegas, namely Orin Swift Mannequin Chardonnay, so I do pay attention when she tells me about something that she is impressed with.

The first was what she texted me as “blog worthy” so I paid attention to the photo.  She gave me no background material about where she was and considering that she has The Wine Raconteur on her phone, you would think that it would have been of assistance for me and my ramblings.  The first wine is Raats Family Cabernet Franc 2014.  Raats Family Wines specialize in Cabernet Franc and Chenin Blanc down in Stellenbosch, in the Western Cape province of South Africa.  The winery grows their 18-25-year-old vines on trellises with no irrigation on decomposed Dolomite granite, which I am sure adds to the terroir of the wine.  They are in no rush for a winery that only produces two wines, as this wine is aged for eighteen months in French Oak, of which twenty-five percent is new, which I am sure would allow the granite to hold its own against the neutral barrels.  She said that this was the best Cabernet Franc wine she had ever had, and she knew that my Bride is very partial to this grape.

The second wine that she sent for me to admire, and you may notice that she did not send us the wine, was when she was having dinner at the Capital Grille in Washington D.C., one of her favorite restaurants, and when she is up here, she makes it a point to at least have lunch there.  The wine she was raving about was Conn Creek Anthology Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2013.  She should rave about this wine, as it is the flagship of the winery.  In 1973, Bill and Kathy Collins started to make Bordeaux style wines in Napa Valley.  In 1979, they built Conn Creek Winery in Rutherford, and they were one of the first “green” wineries back then, they were pioneers both in the wine and the conservation.  You will notice that the wine has a name “Anthology” and it also says Cabernet Sauvignon, and while it is eighty-eight percent Cabernet Sauvignon, the balance shows their Bordeaux beliefs as it is Cabernet Franc, Malbec and just a wee amount of Petite Verdot.  This wine was aged in fifty percent new French Oak, five percent new American Oak and the balance in neutral barrels.  I can readily understand how she could get enthusiastic about this wine, and yes, Ms. Yoga we miss you and look for your next time here.

Posted in Wine | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Easter 2018

Posted on April 9, 2018 by thewineraconteur

Somehow this Easter just didn’t feel as much like an Easter as others have.  Perhaps, because it was so early in the year, or perhaps because Mother Nature has declared that Winter may not end for another month or so.  As I have often lamented or noticed, that I was from another generation, as I can remember getting new clothes to look our finest for Easter and so did everyone else back then, but this is a tradition that has fell by the wayside, as so many other genteel ways of the past.   Life goes on, no matter what, and I am feeling more and more like Ashley Wilkes remembering times that will never return.  Thankfully some traditions in our home have survived and most of my labors were done in preparation for the holiday and then I get to hide away on my computer in the office, until my services are required.  One of the first great aromas that wafted upstairs where I was hiding was the scent of bacon being fried, because my Bride needed some bacon grease for one of the side dishes that she was making for dinner.  The benefit of that was, that I had a chance to indulge in a very simple, but totally enjoyable bacon sandwich with the rashers that were not required for the dish.

My Bride was cooking up a storm for the anticipated guests, but punctuality is not a common trait found nowadays, so a couple of appetizers were never even put out, because most of the guest finally arrived when all the dinner dishes were completed.  We can always enjoy the two different pate plates at another time, as there were still ample trays of cut vegetables, fruit, cheese and crackers.  The pre-mentioned bacon grease was necessary for her dish of Brussel Sprouts with a Balsamic drizzle, but she also made a second plate that was done with Cilantro.  She had made Garlic mashed potatoes, and she also made mashed sweet potatoes, Armenian rice pilaf, as well as getting a salad ready for the day.   She had decided on Breaded Chicken and a classic roast ham, so I knew that one of the side benefits would be Split Pea soup being made in another day or two, because there was a big ham bone and some meat that I had carved for that dish.  She also made and decorated an Angel Food cake, because we took advantage of the day to celebrate the birthday honorees for the month.

One of my jobs for the day, besides carving meat was to select the wine for the day, and that was a rather easy chore.  I mean with the two main courses being chicken and ham, most wines could work very easily, did I want understated or something robust, was the only question.  I went with an understated approach as I wanted this early Easter to be a harbinger of true Spring weather and with it some sun and warm temperatures.  I opted for some pretty pink rosé wines.  The first wine was Willow Vineyard Pinot Noir Rosé Pretty in Pink 2013 from Suttons Bay in the Leelanau Peninsula of Michigan.  This winery was established in 1992 by John and Jo Crampton and it is a hilly area with an awesome view. The wine maker is Chris Guest who has over thirty years’ experience and was the founder of another winery Seven Lakes Vineyard in Fenton, Michigan.  There really was not much in the way of winemaker notes for this wine, but with the deeper color, I would surmise that the juice was left on the lees for a couple of days and from the taste I would say that it was aged in Stainless Steel.  A pretty wine with a slight nose, but very easy to drink.  The second wine is one that I have grown quite fond of and it was I believe the last of the purchase.  This was Chateau Thivin Beaujolais Villages Rosé 2016. Chateau Thivin has been around for about six-hundred years and is in the heart of Brouilly in the Beaujolais region. This wine naturally is made from Gamay Noir a Jus Blanc and after the grapes are macerated the juice is left with the skins for a natural coloring and this fruit is from vines averaging fifty years in age. After the one day, the juice is fermented in Stainless Steel to maintain the fruit.  As I have stated before it may have been the best Rosé I have had all year and my only complaint is why I didn’t learn of this wine sooner.  I may have been a bit premature on the wines to herald in the new season, but I tried.

Posted in Dining, Wine | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A Hasty Brunch

Posted on April 7, 2018 by thewineraconteur

While we were in Las Vegas, my Favorite Daughter was making plans to come to Detroit to do some visiting and get some Rest and Relaxation.  She wanted to make sure that she still got the corporate rate here for her Bed and Breakfast.  She figured that dear old Dad could be wrapped around her pinky.  You just know that I was going to be a fierce hotelier.  Well, we had to start making some plans, of course, she had other things on her mind, and being with us for the entire time, was not part of her plans.  So, we decided to throw a brunch and invite a bunch of people over for her to see, and then she would still have her evening free.

I have to admit the house smelled great that morning.  The aroma of both Canadian bacon and a maple glazed brown sugar traditional bacon was just awesome.  She was making hash browns with onions and cheese.  My Bride was also making a couple of different types of quiche, one classic and one a bit more unique.   As good as everything looked and smelled, I was praying that we wouldn’t run out of food.

Of course, Brunch without wine would just be breakfast and what fun is that.  So, we had to have some Mimosas, which are probably the easiest drink to make and consume early in the day.  I also decided that I would use a couple of sparkling wines that were not Brut finish, so that more people would find it easier to drink.  One of the wines that we used for this drink was Kirkland Signature Asolo Prosecco Superiore DOCG NV. The Kirkland brand is from the Costco Company, and I believe that I have read that they are now the largest wine retailer in the United States and they have been selling an assortment of different wines with their own branding. Asolo Prosecco is one of the newest DOCG designations from the Veneto district of north-eastern Italy, as well as a Prosecco DOC designation. These new designations now allow only wines from this area to use the Prosecco varietal, and sparkling wines outside of this district must continue using the older, less known varietal of Glera.  The other wine was one of our favorites from Michigan, L. Mawby Vineyards is a serious winemaker, and one of the wineries that my Bride would never forgive me, if we didn’t go there on the trip to Suttons Bay, even though they now have the Ann Arbor Vin Bar. This winery only makes sparkling wine and notice that I did not say Champagne or even American Champagne, since there is almost a universal trade agreement that only allows Champagne from the Champagne district in France to be called it, though there are a few wineries that are “grandfathered” in that can still label their wine as “American Champagne.” Even though the winemaker is very serious, the winery is a fun place, and when we went to one of the tasting areas, our server/host for moment grabbed a hammer and hit a gong to announce that a tasting was going. They produce quite a bit of bubbly and the winery has two labels to differentiate the winemaking process that they use. The M. Lawrence line is division is made using the bulk process, also referred to a “cuvee close” or the “Charmat Process.” I will mention this group of wines from Brut to Demi-Sec, or the level of sweetness. The US label is a Brut wine made from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes. Sandpiper is a Semi-Dry wine that is a proprietary blend and that is all I was told. These wines are made in small batches and fermented in the “cuvee close method” as indicated on the label. I prefer a little more sweetness myself in this type of wine, as I am always afraid that extra dry can have little nuance. I am happy to say that I could taste some fruit, and a little oak which made it more appealing.  To be truthful I would have enjoyed either of the wines without the orange juice, which I did, just to make sure that they would be up to snuff.  I am sure that my Favorite Daughter appreciated the fuss we did for her benefit.

Posted in Dining, Wine | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Two Theme Games

Posted on April 5, 2018 by thewineraconteur

I almost forgot to mention that when we were out in Las Vegas, our son gave us some presents for Christmas. Most people say that I especially am hard to shop for, but I don’t know if that is true. I used to listen to my kids constantly tell me that I should have gone on the Jeopardy television show when they were growing up, because I would be in another room doing a project and I would announce the answer, before any of the contestants would. I guess my brain is filled with useless bits of knowledge, because the only phone number that I can remember was the one to our home in Detroit when I was a kid, and back then the phone numbers had exchanges like “Vinewood” instead of 84, for any of you that wonder why there are still letters under each digit on a phone keypad. My ability to recall these random bits of memory did make me very popular if I was on a team playing Trivial Pursuit when the game came out, but I was not that popular for the opposing team. All of this rambling brings me back to the subject of the gifts that I brought back.


The first gift was aimed at my Bride, because she is the culinary one among us, I like to eat, but she has a real talent for cooking. I may never starve, but she is the talented one. Her gift was a game called “Foodie Fight,” a trivia game for serious food lovers. I liked the quote from Mario Batali “play this fun game after your next dinner party. The losers have to wash the dishes.” This compact game comes with a board, game pieces and a die. It has six different categories including “celebrity chefs,” “food science” and “proper dining etiquette.” An example of the type of questions in this game is “Who was the host of America’s first TV cooking show ‘I Love to Eat,’ which debuted in 1946.” The answer is James Beard whose name is still hallowed across the country.


The other game was geared for me and it is “Wine Wars” a trivia game for wine geeks and wannabes. They have a quote from the author and Master Sommelier Evan Goldstein “Whether you’re an aspiring Master Sommelier or a passionate enogeek, ‘Wine Wars’ is just the ticket to challenge your grape to glass savvy – striking an edutaining balance of bacchanalian trivia with those need to know factoids.” The game sounds daunting to me, considering that I have no formal training in wines. Like the first game, it has the same accoutrements and some of the categories are “Vine to Vino,” “Wine Cellar” and “Cork Culture.” One of the sample questions is “Which famous French wine is typically made  from a blend of Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle Grapes – Sauternes or Champagne?” OK, I know this answer and I would venture that most of you do too, as the answer is Sauternes. I guess I might have a chance with this game, now we just have to find some willing contestants.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

March Birthdays 2018

Posted on April 3, 2018 by thewineraconteur

I got home a couple days earlier than my Bride and I started getting back in to a routine.  There was some writing to catch up on, my correspondence is still lagging, some domestic chores because we split up the duties and of course that four letter word – work.  As I look upon that I am reminded of one of my club members favorite quotes “work is the curse of the drinking class.”  The moment my Bride landed from her side excursion to see her girl friend there was a real flurry of activity, as she was preparing for the monthly dinner to celebrate the birthdays in the month of March.

She jumped right back into her catering mode, as if she had never been away.  I think that she revels in preparing big dinner parties, as opposed to just making dinner for the two of us.  She also keeps track of the likes and dislikes of the guests and tries to offer dishes that will appeal to the crowd.  She also tries to rotate the dishes so that there is a change of pace.  Rather than always making her acclaimed Caesar Salad from scratch, she will offer a tossed salad with assorted dressings, like she recently did.  This time around she made sautéed chicken and a pork tenderloin.  She will also change up the vegetables.  About the only thing that she doesn’t have any control over is the desserts, because that is usually what is brought by the guests.

It was kind of a white wine menu for the day and there were not any wine lovers in attendance, so we went more casual.  It was just the two of us that were drinking wine, so I decided not to raid the cellar and just grab from the everyday section.   I really think that my Bride must have her photo on the walls at Costco headquarters, because she is an avid fan of their Kirkland Signature Sonoma County Chardonnay 2015.  This is just a good workhorse of a wine, one dimensional with no artistry or finesse, but infinitely better than a regional California jug wine.  I also opened up a bottle of Ferrari-Carano Sonoma County Chardonnay 2015.  Ferrari-Carano has been around since 1985 and they are located in the Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma County.  They have nineteen estate vineyards in four appellations in the county.  The fruit for their basic wine comes from the Alexander Valley, Dry Creek Valley, Russian River Valley and Carneros.  The juice was aged Sur Lie for a couple of months and then blended using French Oak, of which twenty-three percent were new, and then aged in the bottle for about six months prior to release.  The Ferrari-Carano is about twice the price of the Kirkland and from the same county, but it is a far superior wine for the money, in my opinion, though my Bride is still perfectly happy with her every day wine.

Posted in Dining, Wine | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Happy Easter

Posted on April 1, 2018 by thewineraconteur

Just want to take a moment away from wine, not really, but I want to wish everyone a Happy Easter and a Good Passover, from our house to yours.

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Heller Estate Malbec

Posted on March 30, 2018 by thewineraconteur

How can one not be excited when the third bottle of wine from my wine club is a Malbec?  There is just so much pleasure when I unpack my carton from “A Taste of Monterey” as I never know what is there.  They may be more expensive compared to the daily wines that we may have on a routine day, but that is the beauty of wine.   Some wines just scream out, that they need to be shared with friends or relatives that can appreciate them.  If I were rich, perhaps I would not be so excited, hell I might even become complacent, but since that will never happen, I guess that I shall revel in enjoyment about certain bottles of wine.

Heller Estate is a winery that we have visited a couple of times when we were staying in Carmel-by-the-Sea, but now they are known as Heller Estate Organic Vineyard.  The original vines were planted in 1968.  Heller Estate was one of the entities that pushed for the Carmel Valley AVA, which was granted in 1982.  The winery was not one to sit on their laurels but kept striving to better themselves.  The vineyards were certified organic in 1996 and then later the winery was certified in 2012.  There are plenty of rules and regulations to achieve this designation and it cannot be accomplished overnight.  The estate overlooks the Cachagua region of Carmel Valley and the term is considered of Indian derivation of the French “cacher” and the Spanish “agua” and combined they mean “hidden waters.”  The vine roots much reach down deep for their nourishment.  The vineyard grows nine different grapes from which they produce their wines.  The labels all depict the bronze sculpture that is on the grounds of “The Dancers” created by Toby Heller and the labels do not do the sculpture credit, after one has seen the actual work of art.  I am not sure which came first; the sculpture or the motto “Dances on Your Palate.”

The Heller Estate Malbec 2013 is the second year of a continuous drought that affected all of California, with Carmel Valley only seeing less than five inches of rain.  The yield at harvest was small, but the few grapes were concentrated.  The winery notes that this wine is fruit forward, medium body, soft tannins and a crisp fruity finish.  There were one-hundred-thirty-four cases of wine produced and their suggested aging potential is seven to eight years.  When this wine is opened, I will compare my notes to theirs.

Posted in Wine | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Stoke’s Ghost Petite Sirah

Posted on March 28, 2018 by thewineraconteur

“Oh, ho the Wells Fargo wagon is a-coming” is a cheerful opening line for one of the many songs in The Music Man and it best describes the feeling I have when I am opening up the carton from my wine club “A Taste of Monterey.” I mean I always get excited when I am in a wine shop, but when I get home I already know what I have purchased.  The excitement of opening the carton from my club is that I never know what I will find.  It is like opening a treasure chest that has been lost forever.

In 1833, British sailor James Stokes jumped ship in Monterey with a booty of stolen medicine. He opened a downtown pharmacy and launched a thriving medical practice as “Dr. Stokes”. Despite a knack for killing his patients, he landed a commission as the personal physician to California Governor Jose Figueroa. Within a year, the governor was dead.  The phony physician was astonishingly successful for someone so poor at his job. He grew wealthy, married the widow of one of his patients, and served as mayor of Monterey. Eventually the gig was up. According to legend, Stokes’ sons confronted him of his devious deeds and he ingested poison, falling lifeless at their feet. His former home still stands and to this day, is haunted by the ghostly figure of a man dressed in 1800s garb. This, is the legend of Stokes’ Ghost for all its glory.

Stokes’ Ghost Wines is part of the Scheid Family Wines group.  Stokes’ Ghost Petite Sirah 2014 is the second vintage for this wine.  All of the fruit for this wine was from their estate vineyard in the Hames Valley in Monterey County.   The fruit was night harvested, crushed and fermented in small lots to get the full benefits of this varietal.  The wine was aged for fourteen months in a mix of American and Hungarian Oak barrels.  There were one-hundred-ninety-nine cases of this wine produced and the suggested aging potential is for seven to eight years.  The question is, can I wait that long before I open this bottle to enjoy the inky dark violet wine that is in there, with the guaranteed teeth staining liquid that I come to expect from Petite Sirah.

Posted in Wine | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment