Wine tasting with Robert Parker...
Trip Start
Oct 11, 2009
1
56
57
Trip End
Mar 18, 2010
Napa, California
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
We had a couple of fantastic tastings – notably Pax, now Donelan Family wines and John Caldwell wines.
Donelan make Rhone-style wines – syrah/grenache blends as well as single vineyard syrahs which do a fabulous job at demonstrating terroir. I first tasted them at Wharton and it was great to finally visit their facility in Santa Rosa where we worked our way through the 08s while the bottles were waxed in the background.
John Caldwell started out with a chain of shoe stores and after an epiphany in what would become his vineyards, planted grapes and has never looked back, even risking jail to smuggle the best clones into California. He spent 5 years finding the best clones of different varietals in France and has deployed them to great effect in Napa. We enjoyed a very entertaining tasting in a room carved into the mountain by the vines over homemade pate and local cheeses, staggering out a mere two and a half hours later.
As for food, Ubuntu is a must - a starred vegetarian restaurant that opened last year in Napa. Chanterelle carpaccio, calcot and lemongrass soup, fabulous bean stew and delicious grits. Well worth a visit, as is The Girl and the Fig in Sonoma.
