Cabernet Sauvignon grapes at ZD Winery

On a recent holiday to the United States, I had the opportunity to visit the Napa Valley where wine has been produced, in what many consider as America’s premium wine country, for over 150 years.  Tthe first commercial winery in Napa was established in 1861.  An early boom and growth in vineyards was curtailed with Prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s and the vast majority of wineries were abandoned. Thankfully, this flawed legislation was short-lived and, since the 1940s, Napa has re-established itself and now produces some world class wines. The number of wineries now stands at 300+ and wine trade has become big business.

As with all things American, our cousins have taken the wine experience to the highest level of commerciality and customer friendliness. Make no mistake, Napa is no idyllic, backwater, wine valley – it is a full-on tourist melting pot.

The two main routes through the valley are highway 29 and the Silverado trail. Although there are plenty of wineries away from these parallel North/South roads, one does not really have to leave them to have a day (or two) of serious vineyard visiting.  The modes of transport are numerous and the roads are busy with cars, jeeps, coaches, shuttle buses, limos, Harleys and mountain bikes. If none of these fit the bill then there is the legendary Wine Train that puffs its way from down town Napa up to St Helena before turning round and chugging back to complete a 3 hour, 36 mile round trip.

Most wineries are open from 10.30am – 4.30pm daily, give or take a half hour. They all have well laid out tasting rooms with a team of friendly, knowledgeable “front of house” staff that are on hand to pour and advise. Sadly, very few (if any) offer this service for free now, as the visitor numbers have exploded and the tastings were turning into free for all booze-ups. That said, for $10 – $20, you can taste enough wine to get a real feel for each winery and to help you make those important purchasing decisions!

Cabernet Sauvignon is the King of Napa red grapes as is Chardonnay for the whites. Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc are common and there some very good Pinot Noirs now being made. There are many more varietals being planted and this willingness to experiment and be innovative is a key characteristic of the Napa Valley producer. During my trip I tasted some excellent varietals including Viognier, Riesling, Gamay, Zinfandel, Syrah and Muscat. 

The gates to ZD Winery

Part of the joy of visiting a wine region is the discovery of personal favourites amongst the producers. Two wineries that I enjoyed were V. Sattui Winery in St Helena which is in the heart of Napa and ZD wines on the Silverado Trail.  As well as an excellent range of wines to taste, the Italian, family run Sattui estate offers a superb deli (that now earns the winery as much their wine sales) and a picturesque picnic area in the gardens, allowing a much needed break to relax and refuel before continuing on the wine trail.

The ZD Winery makes a limited number of wines but the quality is second to none. Their Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon are excellent and well regarded, but my favourite is their Carneros Pinot Noir. ZD was the first winery recognise Carneros as a region on their first bottling in 1969 and this wine is beautifully made and is quite Burgundian in style.

Napa is definitely worth a visit for its, wine, food and activities and you will always feel most welcome. Best advice is to try and visit at off peak times of the year and avoid weekends where possible as it does get very crowded, particularly at the more famous wineries.

Jasmin over a barrel

If the assembled wine-tasters from Baltimore-based asset management company, T Rowe Price, would rather have been in the park on the finest summer evening this year, they weren’t letting on.  Instead, shoe-horned into an upstairs room in this traditional City boozer, they proved to be a model audience and even threw in some tricky questions – what dictates the size of the bubbles in sparkling wine and is there a correlation with quality?  No, was the answer to the latter when you are talking about bottle-fermented (although the cheapest method of sparkling production which involves pumping C02 through tanked wine will produce large bubbles which will rapidly dissipate).  The Champagne Companion (Michael Edwards, Firefly Book 1999) notes that ‘bubbles should be uniform in shape, lively, and flow in a persistent stream toward the surface of the wine; Experts differ about the ideal size of bubbles. Most Champenois say that the smaller the bubbles, the better the Champagne, but large bubbles are not necessarily the sign of an inferior wine – your palate is a better judge.‘  If any one out there can convincingly improve on this thesis, we’ll send them a bottle of Yapp Champagne!

Highlights of the Rhone wine tasting (it was sparkling Saint Péray that attracted the effervescent debate) were Domaine Georges Vernay’s rare, single-vineyard Condrieu Coteaux du Vernon 2007 (400 cases produced) which was tasted (perhaps unfairly) against the Ardèche co-operative’s generic Viognier (eminently drinkable, but not in the same league) and Patrick Jasmin’s Côte Rôtie 1999.  This was Patrick’s inaugural solo vintage (following the untimely death of his father, Robert the previous year) and it proved to be everything one might hope for in traditional (rather than single-vineyard, super charged) Côte Rôtie – rustic-nosed, medium-bodied, supple, smoky and silky.

We departed into the balmy night and the discreet group never let on whether they managed the assets of a certain Baltimore-based wine critic.

A couple of weeks ago, Tom and I convened for an informal bring-a-bottle (actually bottles) lunch at Andrew Edmunds’ eponymous restaurant on Lexington Street. While waiting for our guest, Stephen Browett, of fine wine brokers Farr Vintners, we toyed with a bottle of white Corsican vermentino from Domaine Saparale in the 2008 vintage. This is a blameless drop and makes for a wonderful summer aperitif with its wild herb aromas and a palate of citrus fruit underscored by a nervy minerality. The patron, Mr Edmunds, soon joined us and concurred with this thought, throwing in the observation that ‘it gets even more interesting with a couple of years bottle-age’. [The Spectator's resident wine-hound Simon Hoggart has napped this as one of this top 100 wines in his forthcoming book 'Life's Too Short to Drink Bad Wine' - clearly it is an estate to watch.]

Stephen then arrived and, as we perused the menu, team Yapp proffered a chilled red Saint Pourçain 2008, a simple blend of Pinot Noir and Gamay (described in the Sunday Times on June 28^th as being ‘pale red, fragrant and cool’). Nobody loved or loathed it so we passed swiftly on to a brace of red burgundies (served blind) a fruity Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2007 from Stéphane Brocard and a more meaty Nuits-Saint-Georges 2002 from Domaine Paul Misset. Neither Andrew or Stephen had any difficulty in identifying these as being red burgundy and both were pretty accurate in assessing their age and position in the burgundian appellational hierarchy. By this time our starters had arrived which provided some welcome sustenance. The food chez Edmunds is simple, understated and consistently good – my duck rillettes with cornichons and sourdough toast being no exception.

After a brief absence Mr Browett reappeared baring a brace of decanters. Following some protracted debate we all agreed that both contained quality, left-bank claret of considerable bottle-age. I’ll spare you all the adjectives but as we ate our main courses (again good – lamb chops with mash / roast cod with lentils) and these glorious wines unfurled they (and we) became more florid. Duly Stephen revealed them to be Gruaud Larose and Grand Puy Lacoste both in the acclaimed 1982 vintage. Both of these wines are beloved by Robert Parker who rated them respectively as scoring 98 points ‘one of the most concentrated Bordeaux’s I have ever tasted‘ and 96 points ‘a tour de force’. Unsurprisingly neither is cheap, retailing well into 3 figures, but both were impressive and neither of them is stratosphericly expensive. 

Pending the arrival of some splendid Lancashire cheese Mr Edmunds disappeared and then re-emerged with a mischievous grin and yet another decanter. I think we eventually decided that this was probably a Californian Cabernet Sauvignon. What we failed to deduce was that we were tasting (let’s face it drinking) the incredibly rare Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon in the 1997 vintage. Mr Parker gives this his maximum score of 100 ‘It doesn’t get any better than 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon. A perfect wine.’ and it changes hands at eye-wateringly costly sums. [Fortunately Andrew's bottle was a gift from a grateful client from his print dealership].

Interestingly I don’t think any of us rated any of these wines as highly as the world’s most influential wine critic although we certainly appreciated them more after we realised what they were and we did have a very jolly lunch.

What do drink after a ‘perfect’ wine? In my case a large expresso and lots of mineral water. I’m already looking forward to our next wine-tasting lunch and had better start saving for my contribution.

9am on Monday 20^th July and I found myself sweeping through the most northerly outpost of the named Côtes du Rhône Villages, Rousset-les-Vignes.  Eighteen villages are entitled to add their ‘handle’ to the Côtes du Rhône Villages moniker, marking them out as superior to generic Côtes du Rhône.  As I swept past gnarled vines and lavender fields I regrettably had no time to discover any local gems or to consider why nearby Vinsobres had gained an upgrade to full AOC status (2005), yet Valreas had not – was their topography so different?  I scanned the landscape then came to my senses and realised I’d only gained about 45 minutes on the infamous ‘broom wagon’.

I had entered into the Etape du Tour, a one day event that has been running for two decades and which allows amateur riders (8,500 of them this year) to tackle a stage of the vrai Tour de France with roads closed, feed stations et al.  Sportingly the organisers had picked the 170km journey from Montélimar (gateway to the Southern Rhône) to Mont Ventoux, the infamous Géant of Provence.  Nine-tenths of the route unfolded through the stunning countryside of the Drôme and the Vaucluse and, on another day, would have made for a very pleasant means of working up an appetite for (and riding off) a long lunch.  On this occasion, Ventoux (literally) loomed large all day and the 21km climb to its summit in 37 degree heat was the sting in the tail that many had feared.  Nevertheless, I finished in nine and a half hours without a broom wagon in sight.  The views from the summit and the elation of completing the stage were just about worth the ascent.  The ‘maillot jaune’, Alberto Contador, completed the ride five days later in half my time!

  Anyone who has visited our attractive premises in Mere can’t help but notice the two vintage Citroens that adorn (decorate) the courtyard. 

 The rakish black 1955 Traction Avant (produced 1934 – 1957) originally belonged to the doyen of Champagne, Bruno Paillard.  In his pre-Master of the Universe days when he was a cash-strapped Champagne negoçiant, Bruno sold it to Robin Yapp following a long lunch or possibly poker hand, the exact details are lost in the sands of time. Francs were exchanged for car keys and Robin drove it back to Mere. Allegedly Bruno has first refusal if we ever consider selling it.

Our liveried H-van dates from 1979.  The vans themselves, with their distinctive corrugated body work inspired by German Junker aircraft and which added cheap, light-weight strength, were produced as delivery vans during the period 1947 – 1981.  Our model grew up on a vineyard in the Loire before moving to the UK in the nineties and settling in Mere where it undertakes local deliveries in its semi-retirement.