Most of my readers know that I have a fond place in my heart for the wines from Carmel Valley, CA. Beth and I have made numerous trips to the Carmel-by-the-Sea and Carmel Valley region over the years, as evidenced by the travel post I wrote earlier this year. We’ve tasted some great wines over the years from wineries such as Heller Estate, Bernardus, Galante Vineyards and Boete. I only get truly excited, however, by the wines from Georis Winery and Parsonage Village Vineyard (PVV). Last weekend, Frank Melicia, Bill Parsons and the entire rest of the combined clan threw their very first party, their 1st Annual Wine Club Party, to be exact…and I was fired up!

Continuing in the vein of my first regional wine and food review of the Napa Valley, I will now travel south down the Central Valley to another loved wine region, Carmel Valley [WL]. Carmel Valley sits due Southeast from the beautiful and famous hamlet, Carmel-by-the-Sea, and is overlapped by the Monterey County and Central Coast appellations.

Beth and I adore the little seaside town and its accompanying wine region and have made numerous trips over the years with our little Pug Sebastian, always finishing each day with applause at sunset on the its white sand beach. This whole region is well-known as one of the most dog-friendly vacation spots in the US, as well as for its incredible beauty, both natural and man-made.
My list of recommendations span both Carmel-by-the-Sea and the Carmel Valley. I have included links to each individual website, as well as the accompanying information we have on WineLog [WL]. Enjoy!

My father and I started a new annual tradition in 2005, the year that I started at Genentech. While not an obsessive like myself, Pops is a wine-guy (kind of hard not to be while living in Napa). We decided back in ‘05 that we should start taking a wine-tasting trip every year that I get the week off between Christmas and New Years. The first year we stayed in Glen Ellen and hit much of the Southern region of Sonoma Valley. Last year we stayed in Healdsburg and took care of the Northern regions.

This year we decided to make it a little cheaper and just stay at the house and go to the many places in the Napa Valley that we hadn’t hit yet. Indeed, we stayed very low-profile on Thursday, just taking a taxi downtown and hitting some of the many tasting rooms that have or are about to open up in the city of Napa. The Napa downtown has (finally) come into its own again over the last 3-4 years, somewhat coinciding with the completion of the Napa Valley Opera House restoration. There are almost no empty storefronts any longer and there is actually some building going on and further restoration work happening in various places. The other part of the resurgence has been the proliferation of tasting rooms. The Napa Valley Register published a list of 17 tasting rooms downtown (15 are currently open already) earlier this year in August (thanks Na!) and we used that list to plan out our day. We heard later that there are supposed to be up to 10 additional tasting rooms that are to open downtown in 2008!

In honor of my beautiful mom’s birthday, Beth and I traveled up to Napa to join my sister Shauna and my parents Donna and Ed, for a day spent on the Napa Valley Wine Train (NVWT).

The Wine Train has had a long and sometimes contentious history in the Valley. The movement to start the NVWT was headed by Vincent DeDomenico of Rice-A-Roni fame, among many other food brands. The long legal battle was bitterly fought throughout the valley with many residents against the idea, including my own grandfather Bud Schroeder. Local protesters argued that the Valley was already fraught with enough tourists, a rather reasonable view, actually. Eventually the legal battle ended up in the California Supreme Court, where DeDomenico et al prevailed. The original dissension has dried up over the last 18 years of operation and, for the most part, the Wine Train is now an accepted part of Valley life.

I got quite the (early) 30th birthday weekend over Thanksgiving weekend, whew! My family and Beth, especially, truly went out of their way to make my 3rd decade start off with a wonderful wine-soaked bang.

We had a very special start to the weekend with Thanksgiving night at my sister’s condo in Napa, where she provided a cozy and well-appreciated dinner aided by my mom and Beth.

The next day my family and I went tasting around the Napa Valley, starting at Cartlidge & Browne, one of the best value producers in the world of wine. My family first learned about C&B when they owned Ehlers Estate in St. Helena. I grew up going to many a tasty picnic at that winery. They’ve since sold off that label and winery and are now are based in their large warehouse in American Canyon. We tasted a few wines there, where I liked their Sauv Blanc and Stratford label Cab’s. Please use the links below to read my reviews log notes for the wines I mention in this post!

Originally published at my personal MySpace Blog

My wife, Beth, and I have made many different wine trips around NorCal and we’ve built up a string of places that we really enjoy. As various friends and co-workers learned this over the past few years, I’ve started writing some rather extensive emails of recommendations for places we like in different regions.

So far, I’ve made a Napa Valley, Carmel-by-the-Sea/Carmel Valley (my favorite AVA), Sonoma Valley, Russian River/Alexander/Dry Creek Valleys and a small one for Amador County (where I actually haven’t spent much time). I thought that these would be great to post here and keep kinda updated.

In honor of the home team, I’m going to post about Napa first. I have included links to each individual website, as well as the accompanying information we have on WineLog [WL]. Enjoy!

Continuing our series on the VA Wine Festival, this post is about our tasting with First Colony Winery — where the pourer and/or Jason spilled red wine on me. Thanks to a little bleach the stain is now history, but my fond memories of their great wines have not been forgotten.

We visited the stand pretty late in the day, so the all-around good tasting wines were a pleasant finish to a great event. The most notable wine tasted was a classic ‘Kim’ wine — a hearty Meritage blend, very full-bodied with nice firm tannins. The First Colony Meritage 2006 ($18) is a memorable wine, the kind of wine that you hate to open because you know it cannot be replaced. The first sips are full of bright red fruits, and the back of mouth flavors are toasty, warm and nutty. The blend includes Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Petit Verdot.

When we announced that we were going to be at the Virginia Wine Festival, our very own Dezel (blogs, winelog) recommended that we be sure to make a stop at the Corcoran Vineyards booth.

Dezel said that Corcoran was a “young winery, but producing some pretty tight reds”. I don’t have great notes, but I remember liking what I tasted. The star of the show however was a white, the 2005 Corcoran Viognier which got a 5-rating out of me and a 4 from Kim.

It may have been the fact that everyone at the booth was busy ranting on about how great the Viognier was as we approached, but I like to think that I was able to put that behind me and make an unbiased judgment. We brought a bottle of the Viognier home with us, and haven’t drunk it yet. So we’ll get a chance to reassess.

Beth and I made our way back to Maui this past weekend for a 4-day sojourn with our friend Troy, who lives in a little bungalow above Wailea, in Maui Meadows. Along with sleeping on his screened in lanai, heading to the beach everyday and BBQing Upcountry, we had a fair bit of wine!

First of all, if you live on Maui or are heading that way (lucky you!), the best place to purchase wine is actually right near the airport in Kahului. Hawaii Liquor Superstore, despite the misleading name, is not only the best wine store I’ve been to on Maui, but one of the best that I’ve ever been to, period. It has an incredible selection of wines from around the world, even giving some good rack space (yes, besides the display bottle, all are horizontal) to Chilean and Argentinian wines. I’m used to this over here in the Bay Area, but I know that is not common across the US, much less on the islands where Maui has only two dominant wine distributors. The prices are very comparable to what I’ve seen at home and some Californian wines were actually cheaper. They even have back vintages of some wines, like one of my favorites, the 2001 Galante Vineyards Blackjack Pasture Carmel Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.

If you’ve been following my articles lately, you may already know that Jason and I had an opera date in our future. Well, the date was last night, and we had quite a wonderful evening.

With our bottle of Pio Cesare Barolo 2001 in hand, Jason and I arrived for our pre-opera dinner at Mercato, an adorable Italian BYOB at the corner of Spruce and Carmac streets in Philadelphia (details below). The restaurant had a great “locals-only” feel and the decor was very minimal, allowing the building’s architecture to shine.

We opted to start our dinner with a plate of cured meats, olives, a selection of speciality olive oils and a fig vinegar. Jason chose pumpkin fettuccinni for a main course and I had diver Scallops and a wild mushroom and pea risotto. Needless to say, the food was delicious. Our meal wasn’t complete without a shared tiramisu and two cappuccinos!