Ian has delegated back to me the task of describing some of the winery visits we made last week over the Thanksgiving Holiday. I was not present for many of them, so I'll pass the change (from the buck) back to him for those.
The winery that stood out in my mind as really rolling out the red carpet for us was Joseph Phelps. I'd long admired their wines, but had never visited them before. The winery is a stone's throw West of Heitz Vineyards, on Taplin Road, in an absolutely gorgeous setting of rolling hills, pine trees and vineyards.
We were escorted to a private room where we were seated at a large table with place settings of several Riedel glasses. Our host, Claude, poured us tastes of 2002 Sauvignon Blanc and 2001 "Ovation" Chardonnay to prepare our palates for the reds. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the Sauvignon Blanc (no gooseberry or "cat pee", and lightly oaked), but I thought the Chardonnay was quite nice; full of rich, ripe fruit balanced well with oak.
Moving on to the reds, we next tasted a pair of Rhône style wines: Pastiche and Le Mistral - both 2001 vintage IIRC. The Pastiche had the more open nose of the two, and was made in an uncomplicated style. Rather a good pizza wine, I'd say. The Le Mistral was a bit fuller and sweeter on the palate. The cépage is Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre, Cinsault and Carignane, but the Syrah seemed to dominate.
Then we got into the more serious stuff. Claude decanted the "last bottle" of the 1986 Backus Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon and served it alongside the
2001 Napa Valley Cabernet. The nose of the Backus fairly leapt from the glass! Unfortunately, the palate did not deliver the promise of the beautiful, fully developed bouquet, and the wine was deemed past its prime by five years or so, the fruit having dried up. The 2001 Napa Valley Cabernet was more restrained in the nose, but rich and fruity on the palate. Although this is their "regular" bottling Cabernet, the vintage was excellent and the wine could be laid down for more than a decade.
The next two wines were the 1998 and 2001 "Insignia", which is the Phelps Bordeaux blend, and generally considered to be their top of the line - if not one of the California "First Growths". Although 1998 was a "difficult" vintage for California Cabernets, there were a few gems - and this is one of them. The wine is rather supple and precocious, tempting early drinking, but there's no hurry. The 2001 on the other hand is closed by comparison, but denser and more tannic in the mouth. This is a wine with a longer future, and should go 15+ years with no problem. It doesn't get much better than this, except...
The 2001 Backus Vineyard Cabernet _is_ even better! This wine was served alone, in a Sommelier series Bordeaux glass. The wine is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, aged in new French oak for two years. It's big, rich, jammy and mouth filling, with everything die-hard California Cabernet fans love - and the Bordelais envy. :^) You could hold this wine for 20 years, I'm sure, but I doubt that I'd be able to resist!
More later...
Tom S