The Appellation Trail

We decided to do the Appellation Trail for a few reasons. We love wine, it was an excuse for us to go to places we’d never been, and we figured it would be inexpensive and give us an opportunity to see lots of our friends. So how’d that work out for us?

Loving Wine

I can’t speak for Mike, but I love wine more than ever. I feel like my palate has become much more educated than it was when I began this journey. I also am much more aware now of how much I have to learn than I was when I began this project.

Sadly, my adjectives did not grow nearly as much as my palate did, and I feel that my wine assessments in this blog suffered as a result. I found myself using the same words over and over again and was frustrated by my limited ability to describe what I was tasting.

I’d like to get the wine aroma wheel sometime this year and see if it helps me develop the nuance and range of adjectives that would make me better at describing what I smell and taste.

When we began this journey, we thought nothing of visiting six or more wineries in a day. Over the course of the year, we learned to identify exactly when we hit palate fatigue, and we learned we were hitting it faster than we’d originally thought. If we’d taken the same number of trips but hadn’t taken notes during the tastings, I’m not sure we would have realized how fast our taste buds became numb.

[Okay, I'll speak for myself: What she said. -Mike]

Visiting New Places

I can safely say that we would very likely never have gone to Lompoc or Placerville had it not been for this project. Now that we’ve been, we absolutely want to go back. We were also scared of Napa, but our experience there also made us wish to return. Heck, we wouldn’t have discovered that San Benito had great wine if it wasn’t for this project!

This project got us out of our Monterey wine cocoon to see a wider world of wine. I can tell you flat out that Monterey wine is awesome, but seeing what else lay out there really gave us new appreciation for what we have right here.

[Couldn't have said it better myself. -Mike]

Inexpensive? No, but it could have been cheaper.

One of the things we got a new appreciation for is just how budget-friendly the wine-tasting experience in Monterey is. Here, a tasting that costs more than $5 is surprising, and more than $10 is flat-out shocking. As we learned, much of the rest of the wine-tasting world is in the $10 to $25 range.

Add on to that the cost of eating out and staying overnight, not to mention the cost of buying just a fraction of all the fabulous wines tasted, and this wound up being a significantly pricier experience than we’d originally estimated. Upon reflection, however, I’ve realized we could have done it more cheaply.

Tactical wine tasting = cheaper project

Our personal goal was to explore appellations in as many different areas as possible. When we could, we’d also tack wine tasting on to trips we were already taking. In the end, we hoped to rack up AVAs from all over the United States.

Unfortunately, some changes in our lives affected these plans. I took on many more responsibilities at work. In this relationship, I’m the trip planner; the added work responsibilities left me far less time to plan and made it more difficult for me to get away on weekends. I also traveled a lot more for work, and some of those trips left me traveling back home on weekends.

Due to limited time and limited budget, the majority of our tastings were in California. We’d planned to hit Texas, Long Island, Oregon and North Carolina, but for a variety of reasons either the trips or the wine tasting portion of the trips never happened. While those would all have been great experiences, Oregon is the only location on that list with enough AVA density to make an efficient Appellation Trail trip.

The Efficient Appellation Trail

If we’d done this project the efficient way, rather than the exploratory way, we could have done it in only four trips.

• Napa (17 AVAs as of December, plus adjacent to and serving wine from Yolo County)
• Sonoma (13 AVAs)
• Southeast Washington (8 AVAs)
• Lodi (7 AVAs, plus adjacent to and serving wine from El Dorado and Amador)

By strategically selecting our wineries in each location for the broadest range of AVAs, we could have easily racked up 40 AVAs with these four trips. If we had not excluded Monterey County (9 AVAs) from the project, we could have done it with only three trips.

[But efficiency wasn't really the point, getting to many different places was. So we win! -Mike]

Friends? Not as often as we would have liked.

As I mentioned above, our trips became less thoroughly planned as the year went on. Our next-to-last wine tasting trip, to Placerville, was planned about 24 hours ahead of time. Unfortunately, it’s tough to invite friends along to a last-minute trip like that. In addition,  because I was so focused on other things, I didn’t have it in me to plan the logistics for other people as well as ourselves.

And here again I have to give a shout-out to Shawn for having planned out the Woodinville wine trip. [Edit: And to Mary and Luke, who really led us on our Sonoma trip!] The opportunity to go on a wine trip that someone else had planned was absolutely the best holiday gift I could have gotten.

[Yay Shawn! -Mike]

Are you guys doing the Appellation Trail again in 2012?

We’re not visiting 40 more wine appellations in 2012 – but that doesn’t mean the Appellation Trail is over!

We aren’t going to set a number of AVAs to visit, but we are going to write about our future wine tasting experiences in this blog and continue to track the new AVAs that we experience. There’s over 100 AVAs in California alone, so we’ve got many more to go just in this state! With so many new AVAs cropping up all the time (too many? Well, that’s another post), we’ll never run out.

[I'll make sure to keep a wine tote in my car. -Mike]

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If I had to pick just one winery to have on a desert island, I’d be hard-pressed to think of a better one than V Sattui. It’s not just because the wine is good (which it is). But at V Sattui they also have an Italian deli and market (including wood-fired pizzas), picnic grounds and other amenities. In fact, if I had V Sattui on my desert island, I’m sure I wouldn’t be alone for long.

We somehow failed to take any pictures of the exterior and picnic grounds, so please enjoy this picture of a deer instead:

Wha?

We made it to V Sattui on our second day in Napa. We drove into the parking lot on our first day, and it was packed. We were at the end of our tasting day and didn’t feel like dealing with a crowd. We tried again the next day, and although the lot was packed again, we found rock-star parking which we took as a good omen.

Nikki adds: V. Sattui landed on our list because of Twitter recommendations from Jamie Hoover and Veronica Belmont. Then we arrived in Napa, and at our first meal our server called V. Sattui “the WalMart of wineries.” That made us hesitant. In the end, we decided that we had to go for two reasons: we’d gotten recommendations from two great people, and we hadn’t yet visited a tasting room that was so large or had so many customers per day flooding in and out. The scale of the tasting room means that tasters must pay upfront before the tastings rather than paying when they’re done. Frankly, it would be unmanageable any other way. They didn’t do the tasting-coupon thing that is so prevalent in Livermore, however.

The place was hopping. But even though there were lots of people everywhere, having picnics, enjoying the scenery, going in and out of the tasting room, we managed to get a spot at the tasting bar right away. It never felt crowded; rather, it was like being at a big party. After our tasting we picked up some tasty noshes from the deli and enjoyed a picnic as the sun dipped toward the horizon. I’m glad we made a second effort to visit.

The Marketplace...

... and the tasting room. This was one of the three or four tasting bars in the facility.

It was the final stop on our Napa trip, so it was our last chance to spot any of the legendary snobbiness we’d heard about. And we failed utterly. Maybe we just didn’t go to the right places, but the concept of the Napa snob now seems like a bit of an urban legend – perhaps it has some roots in a long-past reality, but now it’s just a story used to scare children around the campfire.

Brittany, our Tasting Room Associate, was a much better representative of  the attitudes we experienced on our trip. She was gregarious, informative, and she took very good care of us. Nikki adds: I described her in my notes as “charmingly punk rock.” She was absolutely delightful.

And she's willing to get a little goofy.

I must confess that my palate was getting a little fatigued by this point (plus, V Sattui has a very deep wine list we tasted about 400,000 wines here Nikki adds: it was wine tasting as endurance sport), so my tasting notes may lack detail. This is not a reflection on the wine, which was of uniformly high-quality.

The Wines

2009 Vittoro’s Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc (Napa Valley): An appealing aroma greets you with the promise of tropical fruits and grapefruit. The flavor fulfills that promise; it’s well-balanced, producing a very drinkable wine.

2007 Sattui Family Chardonnay (Santa Lucia Highlands): The aroma was mellow but not buttery. The flavor had a bit more edge to it, fruity with just enough acid and a hint of bubblegum. It also hinted at other classic elements one expects in a Chardonnay. Nikki adds: No surprise there; these grapes were grown practically in our backyard! Santa Lucia Highlands is a Monterey County appellations, and we do great Chardonnay here.

2010 Estate Grown Riesling (Alexander Valley): I got raisin and pineapple in the aroma. It smelled rather like a dessert wine! The flavor was delicious with a nice sweetness to it, with tropical fruit and stone fruit – a touch of peach and apricot. Nikki adds: This was a little too sweet for me, but it would be the perfect steppingstone for the person who has begun their wine explorations with White Zinfandel.

2010 Dry Riesling (Carneros): This had a richer aroma than the previous whites, with less brightness. On the tongue it was almost effervescent and had a nice melange of pear, melon and lemon. Both of these Rieslings would be delightful to sip with friends on a summer afternoon. Nikki adds: This wine would be great with something spicy like szechuan or the hotter Indian dishes.

2010 Gamay Rouge (California): Sweet, delicious, easy-drinking. Nikki adds: This was also very reminiscent of a White Zinfandel, with a little more complexity.

2007 Monastero di Coriano Sangiovese (Tuscany): Brittany called this wine “Butch-tastic!” and I’d have to agree. Definite notes of leather, tar and tobacco, although with just enough restraint. I found it to have a good body, with a flavor that was not too sweet nor too tannic. I noted that this would be excellent with bold, spicy or meaty foods. Nikki adds: This 100% Sangiovese wine is from grapes that are imported from Tuscany rather than grown in California.

2008 Mount’s Vineyard Zinfandel (Dry Creek Valley AVA): The aroma displayed both fruit and tannins. On the tongue it was very smooth with a hard-candy quality to the fruit, framed by tannins at the end.

2009 35th Anniversary Zinfandel (California): Nikki notes: Though Vittorio Sattui began making wine back in the 1800s, the original winery was shut down by Prohibition. The current winery was founded by his great-grandson Dario in the 1970s, and this wine commemorates the 35th anniversary of the re-establishment of the winery. Less fruity, but nice. Nikki adds: The smell made me think of cherries sauteed over a birchwood and pine fire. When I tasted it, I got a lot of raspberries and an acidic hit.

2007 Merlot (Napa Valley): Smooth, mellow, nice tannins. Nikki adds: My notes say: “Spicy like a Thomas Dolby song.” This one, in fact.

2009 Syrah (Napa Valley): Juicy! Lots of fruit. Big tannins fit nicely. Hint of vanilla or caramel. Bold, chewy, serve with bold foods, steak.

2007 Cabernet Sauvignion (Mt. Veeder AVA): Great color, vanilla and cedar notes in aroma and on palate.

2007 Preston Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon (Rutherford AVA): Pleasant, mellow fruit, with nicely balanced tannins.

2009 Muscat (California): Gorgeous aroma with melon and tropical fruits. The flavor reveals melon, star fruit, lemon and key lime. A little on the dryer side of the Muscat sweetness spectrum.

2010 Moscato (California): The aroma here is quite similar to the ’09 Muscat. The flavor is also similar, but a bit richer at first. There’s also a bit of an effervescent feel, although it’s not a sparkling wine.

Madeira (California): I got a nice warm sugar aroma here, a little spicy, plus plum. The flavor is warm and beautiful, with notes of caramel corn and mixed nuts. Nikki adds: This is the oldest Madeira produced in Napa.

1998 Port (no AVA): Rich, sweet and delicious with the flavor of chocolate and just a hint of bell pepper. Nikki adds: Smells like a pipe-smoke-filled library (leather chairs and all) and has a somewhat syrupy quality.

Thanks, greater Napa area, for a wonderful experience! We’ll definitely visit again.

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Once again, we’d gone into our trip without very much pre-planning. After all, with over 400 wineries in Napa, we figured we were sure to stumble onto something good even if we just went door to door until someone let us in and poured for us out of their liquor cabinet.

But I’m a hardcore planner at heart, and I couldn’t bear to go to Napa without a few sure things in my back pocket. I posted to Twitter asking for winery recommendations. To my surprise, my Twitter stream instantly filled (and my Klout score went up by eight points in 24 hours). Patricia_eddy, who had previously effused about Charbay on Twitter (read more about our Charbay visit here), recommended we visit Jessup Cellars.

Might I just say — Patricia bats 1000 when it comes to winery recommendations.

Yountville is a cozy, compact little town, and the Jessup Cellars tasting room fits right in. Because of its small size (well, for Napa, at any rate), visitors are advised to call for an appointment. We did, and managed to get two spaces at the bar. Which had purse hooks! Thanks, Jessup!

The tasting room was cozy and warm with tons of natural light. And did we mention the wine?

The tasting room supervisor, Erin, clearly had her hands full with the number of people at the tasting room, but she quickly made us feel right at home. So did the Steelers fans next to us who were getting in a spot of wine tasting before the Monday night game against the 49ers. (Sorry about that game, guys.)

The couple next to us weren’t wine drinkers, but Erin evangelized to them, giving them ideas of what their entry point to wine could be. By the end of the tasting, it was clear they had each found something in the wine to enjoy. But with wines like this, who wouldn’t?

We've got Erin surrounded and we won't leave unless she gives us some more Table for Four!

The Wines

2010 Sauvignon Blanc (Napa Valley): It was love at first sniff. It had that sparkly, grapefruity crisp scent that I like so much, and the sense memory brought me back to a wine tasting trip I once took in the Hawkes Bay region of New Zealand. The flavor was great, with bright sweet pineapple and kiwi notes balanced by a hint of pink grapefruit.

2009 Pinot Noir (Russian River Valley AVA): The nose on this one was full of sultry wood, as well as that tiny bit of strangely pleasant skunk note I’ve mentioned repeatedly in this blog. The oak was prominent in the flavor, but it wasn’t like sucking on wood chips; it was soft and flavorful and really added to my enjoyment. There were also hints of fruit and rosemary.

2008 Merlot (Napa Valley AVA): I was immediately lured in by this estate wine’s juicy, deep jam scent. I expected it to be a rich, chewy fruit bomb and was surprised when it delivered some mighty tannins with the fruit.

2008 Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley AVA): There was a basil-tomato spiciness to the scent that immediately made me think “Italian.” The wine delivered, with delicate savory layers of fruit that piled on top of one another until they became a flavorlanche. (Flavor + avalanche. Get it? Ha ha, I slay me.) Next time I go to Napa, I’m buying a bottle of this and then going to Clemente’s at Val’s to grab some malfaltti – the two would go great together.

2008 Table for Four Estate Red (Napa Valley AVA): The smell reminded me of an Indian goat curry, stewed and spicy. The flavor was incredibly enjoyable, with cherry, blackberry and plum strengthened by just a hint of warm oak. It was complex, intriguing and yet easy-drinking enough to drink all day.

2008 Juel (Napa Valley AVA): This blend of merlot, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc had a spicy scent that said “Hey, there’s alcohol here.” The flavor, however, was full of soft fruits with just enough gentle tannins on the finish to warm the tongue.

2009 Cabernet Sauvignon, Lot 3 (Napa Valley AVA): The scent was warm and comforting, and the taste…well, let me just transcribe my notes here: “Perfect, delicate fruit doing the Nutcracker dance on my palate.” (Specifically, Act 2 Tableau III: Part III – Divertissement: Tea.)

2008 Petite Syrah (Yolo County AVA): The tasting room, as we discovered via MapQuest, is within 50 miles of Yolo County, so much to our surprise this was yet another AVA we accrued on our visit. The smell reminded me of great chicken Marsala in Boston’s North End (I may be a vegetarian, but I still remember the marsala sauce fondly). My palate, however, was unable to pick out individual flavors beyond “This tastes like yummy wine that I’d love to have again.”

Zinfandel Port (Napa Valley): Yes, please! Sweet, rich and complex, with hints of spicy plums. We sampled some chocolate with it, which seemed to make the port sweeter but not more complex.

2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Port (Napa Valley): Love! It had a dark chocolate coated cherry scent and a candied cherry flavor. Delicious and enjoyable.

[Mike here - this is a rare occasion where Nikki's tasting notes and mine match to the point where I don't really have anything to add, apart from agreeing with what Nikki's just about to tell you below. Back to you, Nikki!]

Jessup Cellars was absolutely one of the highlights of my visit to Napa Valley, and I will make sure to stop there when I’m next in town.

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In an area with something like 400 wineries, sometimes you choose by careful planning, research and recommendations. Other times, it’s “Look at this ad. Cool building! Hey, it’s nearby. Let’s go there!”

And thus we decided to visit Artesa. The ad we saw showed a starkly geometric window protruding from under a grass-covered hill, with an abstract sculpture out front. It looked interesting and different. Nikki adds: It looked like a spaceport from the best cerebral ’70s science fiction film that was never made.

Dude, I am SO THERE! Are you kidding?

What the photo failed to impart was the sense of grandeur and elegance we experienced when we arrived. The facility is on a high hill protruding from the valley floor, offering breathtaking views of the surrounding area. The approach to the building is modern and austere.

Backing up a bit... these lead up to the area in the first picture...

Stairs lead straight to a pavilion before the front entrance, passing by reflecting pools that extend the sky. Fountain elements and the abstract sculpture add dynamism, and the whole approach feels almost ceremonial.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you look to your left you'll see fountains...

... and to your right is the abstract sculpture.

We later learned that this was no accident. The winery even has monks come and sing to the wine in the barrels, in honor of the unique role wine has played in ritual and ceremony for millennia.

But back to the building: Upon entering, you see an elegant reception desk adjacent to a wall of windows looking into an inner courtyard with a reflecting pool.

Piazza my heart.

The foyer has tall columns, and it feels like entering a high-end luxury hotel. Or possible an elegant spaceport.

Off-world shuttle to Phobos, now departing at gate 16.

Moving through the art-adorned foyer and the gift shop, you go through glass doors to the expansive tasting room. The large exterior windows offer stunning views of the valley below.

Yes, the foreground is the roof of a lower floor.