Cabernet Sauvignon

The best wine clubs in the U.S. include several award-winning wineries that produce some of the best wine this country has to offer. Luxist examined the benefits of some of the best, most popular ones, including those from Domaine Carneros, St. Francis Winery & Vineyards, Duckhorn Vineyards, Far Niente and Cakebread Cellars. There are certain advantages to be had when subscribing to a wine club offered directly from a winery. Here is what we learned:

St. Francis Winery & Vineyards
Located just outside the historic town of Kenwood, St. Francis Winery & Vineyards, is known for its intensely flavored and complex award-winning wines. St. Francis grows 100% of its grapes in Sonoma County and was among the first to plant Merlot in the Sonoma Valley, enduring many a raised eyebrow for daring to plant a blending grape on prime soil. In June, the winery was a Luxist Awards' Readers' Choice Nominee for Best Domestic Red Wine.

Wine Club:
St. Francis offers three different wine clubs. Called "The Patrons Society", the difference between the three options are selections and shipping schedules. Its "red wine club" ships four, six or eight times per year. The "white wine club" includes six-bottle shipments four times a year (February, May, September and November). The Zinfandel Wine Club ships three bottles per shipment over a six month schedule (February, March, May, June, September and November).

Benefits of Membership:
Members are given the ability to sample small production wines before they are released to the public. Often, the wines are so exclusive, that only wine club members have the opportunity to purchase them, as most never hit store shelves.

Discounts:
Members receive a 20% discount on all Artisan wines and a 25% discount on all Sonoma County tier wines. They also receive a 20% discount on all retail merchandise and on reserve wine & food pairings for two (reservations required).

Freebies:
Complimentary wine tastings at St. Francis' Visitors Center and opportunities for "members only" activities at the winery. Members also receive recipes from the winery's Executive Chef, David Bush, for foods that pair well with the wines. Invitations are extended to members for St. Francis regional events around the country.

Cost:
Price varies, depending on size of shipment and does not include tax and shipping (which costs $14 to $21 for a three bottle shipment by UPS Ground). The white wine club ranges from $80 (for a four bottle shipment) to $91 (for a six bottle shipment). The zinfandel wine club ranges from $96 to $108 (for three bottle shipments). Click here to sign up for the wine club. For more information, call (800) 650-5437.

How to pair wine with food? The old adage that white wine pairs well with fish while red wine works with meat, serves as a good basis to start from, according to wine expert Brandon Walsh, president of Reston, Va.-based Hosted Wine Tasting (see video below).

Wines should always be served at their optimal serving temperatures, as well.

Another consideration, he suggests is the concept of matching weights of the wine with the food.

Lighter-bodied white wines include reisling and pinot grigio. Medium-bodied wines include sauvignon blanc while chardonnay is a fuller, heavier-bodied wine, he says.

Lighter-bodied wines go well with salads, as well as light fish, such as sushi. Medium-bodied wines works well with light and flakey fish as well as poultry. Heavier-bodied whites, such as chardonnay, pair very well with salmon or swordfish.

Red wines also range from light to heavier, fuller-bodied wines. A lighter-bodied red wine is a pinot noir or beaujolais. A medium-bodied red is a merlot, syrah (shiraz). Heavier, fuller-bodied wines include cabernet sauvignon. Pinot noir pairs well with salmon as well as some poultry. Syrah and merlot pairs well beef or pork. A cabernet sauvignon pairs well with beef, lamb and game.

See our review of The Best Wine Clubs offered directly from wineries here.

Wine can be an important part of your Valentine's Day celebration but choosing the right wine is a combination of making sure that the wine matches both the food and your beloved's preferences. George Miliotes, Master Sommelier at The Capital Grille restaurant group, offers up a few recommendations and romantic finds – including basic food pairing advice to help ease the course of true oenological love.

Best Wines for Romance
There is no magic wine that does it for everyone, as tastes vary. Find out what type of wine your special someone likes. Then research and find the best of that type. Come armed to impress with the story of why the wine is the best of its type so you can wow your loved one with the knowledge as you drink it. Nothing says romance like I care enough to get you the best. Few suggestions (across price points) are below:

If they love Red, my faves are:

• LOW ON DOUGH: Juan Gil Monastrell...there is no other red wine as flavorful for less than $20 and it pairs amazingly well with a Filet.
• IN THE MIDDLE: De Toren Z $40...Merlot/Cab blend at a world class flavor level. Partial to a Delmonico? The plush yet strong tannins here will match perfectly with the marbled richness of the steak.
• IN THE MOOD TO SPLURGE: Lewis Cellars 2007 Reserve Cabernet ...can run $175+ depending upon market. Is there anything more American than a dry aged New York strip sirloin? Have this great American Cabernet with the great American steak.

Get your bottle of wine ready. Tomorrow September 2 is #Cabernet Day on a variety of social media websites. Wine Business reports that more than 50 wineries, 600 wine drinkers and 100 restaurants around the world will gather for what is hoped to be the largest online wine tasting held to date. The event is open to anyone using the #Cabernet hashtag in search engines and social network sites. The event runs for a full 24 hours, starting in Australia and moving across the world as it becomes drinking time in various nations. Wineries have been advertising the event to consumers and some have special deals for the event. Wine Library and Cork'd are putting on a special tasting at the Roger Smith Hotel in Manhattan. Full details are available on the Cabernet Day Eventbrite site. The site says that it's not just Cabernet Sauvignon, Cab Franc and Cab-dominated blends are welcome for this global celebration. We recommend Duckhorn Vineyards Cabernet Sauvigonon, The Luxist Awards winner for best domestic red wine.

New York City has its own urban winery with a vineyard. The Queens County Farm Museum Winery opened in May in the Floral Park neighborhood of Queens, New York. Wines and Vines reports that the Queens County Farm Museum is a working historical farm located on 47 acres. Its history dates back to 1697 and it is New York City's largest remaining tract of undisturbed farmland and the only working historical farm in the City. It's also the longest continuously farmed site in New York State. The site includes farm buildings, a greenhouse complex, livestock, farm vehicles. planting fields, an orchard and an herb garden. It is open for tours and also hold events including the Dinner on the Farm series.

The vineyard project has been years in the making. Back in 2004 the first phase of the project began with the planting of Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Franc grapes. Gary Mitchell, the farm museum's vineyard manager, did some training in the University of California, Davis's famous oenological program to learn how to grow the grapes and later pulled out the Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon leaving about 1.5 acres of Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Grapes at the farm museum are sent to the Premium Wine Group in Mattituck for processing. This spring saw the release of a 2006 and 2007 Merlot, a 2007 and 2008 Chardonnay, and a 2006 Adriance, a premium red wine blend named for the Dutch family that first farmed the museum's land. Prices range from $21 to $29 a bottle. You can only get this wine at the winery shop at the museum. Eventually Mitchell would like to plant more acres to grow this unique enterprise.

Cakebread Cellars, a recent Luxist Award winner,has a new release that is the culmination of 11 years of planning, planting and trial winemaking. The single-estate mountain-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, Dancing Bear Ranch is named after the property which straddles 200 acres on Howell Mountain on the northeastern slopes of the Napa Valley. The land was acquired by the Cakebread family in 1998. The sloped vineyards looks out over Bell Canyon and the ranch is ringed with ridges of fir, oak and pine trees. Grapes in a challenging spot often yield some of the best wine and the unique position of the land has led to a distinctive wine with rich, ripe fruit flavors.

The 2006 Dancing Bear Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon is the first national release. It consists of mostly Cabernet Sauvignon (79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot and 4% Cabernet Franc) and 2,500 cases were produced. The bottle features the name of the ranch and the rendering of a golden bear. It sells for $106. It can be enjoyed now or for those interest in delayed gratification it can be aged 7-10 more years in your cellar.

Duckhorn Vineyards, located in St. Helena, Ca., is the winner of the Readers' Choice Award for Best Domestic Red Wine.

Co-founded by Dan and Margaret Duckhorn in 1976, Duckhorn Vineyards has spent nearly 35 years establishing itself as one of North America's premier producers of Bordeaux varietal wines. From its modest inaugural vintage of 800 cases of Cabernet Sauvignon and 800 cases of Merlot in 1978, to its addition of Sauvignon Blanc in 1982, Duckhorn Vineyards has crafted a tradition of quality and excellence that continues today.

Duckhorn made an early decision to focus on the production of Merlot. Though many Napa Valley wineries were using Merlot as a blending grape in the late 1970's, few were exploring the potential of this varietal as a stand-alone wine. A great fan of Merlot since traveling to St. Emilion and Pomerol, Dan Duckhorn felt that this elegant varietal was under appreciated in North America. "I liked the softness, the seductiveness, the color," says Duckhorn. "The fact that it went with a lot of different foods; it wasn't so bold, didn't need to age so long, and it had this velvety texture to it. It seemed to me to be a wonderful wine to just enjoy. I became enchanted with Merlot."

Napa Valley's Shafer Vineyards, recipients of the James Beard Foundation's 2010 "Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional" award, recently released their 2007 One Point Five Cabernet Sauvignon.

Located in the Stag's Leap District of the region, Shafer has continuously produced top-rated Cabernets, Chardonnays and Merlots under the guidance of winemaker Elias Fernandez, and this release is no exception. Comprised of 99% Cabernet Sauvignon and 1% Petite Verdot, the 2007 spent 20 months in 75% new French oak and 25% one-year-old French oak barrels.

Aggressively jammy notes greet the nose and are followed by plum and musty barnyard scents. A pleasantly dryer alternative to the much-maligned "fruit bombs" of the area, the palate receives gamy flavors and lots of clove. The finish is short without being fleeting.

Shafer recommends pairing with everything from Ahi tuna to roast lamb loin, although I served the bottle with shrimp and mussels in a spicy tomato sauce over fresh linguine, to praise.

And while the name One Point Five may elicit thoughts of a software upgrade its provenance is actually a bit of a familial in-joke: Doug Shafer joined his father John in 1983, just two years after Shafer's initial release. It wasn't so much a new generation taking over as a son catching up to his father. Nearly 17 years later, that partnership has been recognized by the James Beard Foundation for its fecundity.

(750ml, $70)

A Napa winery owned by a Korean maker of animal food has earned a perfect score of 100 points from wine critic Robert Parker for one of its wines. The Dana Estates' 2007 Lotus Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon was one of just a few bottles this year to attain this prized ranking. When the wine was announced last January, a press release said the wine had a 94-97 point estimated score for the barrel sample of 2007 "Lotus Vineyard" Cabernet Sauvignon. The difference in just a few points may not seem like a lot but those few points carry a lot of prestige. The ranks of Parker 100-point wines are small.

Dong-A One, a unit of the Woosan Group, is one of the country's largest wine importers and it crated Dana Estates in Napa Valley, California, in 2005, after purchasing a winery and vineyards. Dana is the pen name of Woonsan Group Chairman Lee Hi-sang and means "spirit of generosity.'' Winemaker Philippe Melka is behind the vintage which is an edition of 3,000 bottles. The Dana Estates wines are primarily sold through the winery's mailing list. Last year's vintage sold for around $275.

Can the Sinatra name sell wine? The Sinatra Family Estates has announced its first wine offering, Come Fly With Me, a limited-production 2007 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.The winery partnered with the Frank Sinatra Estate and his three children (Tina, Nancy and Frank Jr.) to produce the wine. The wine is being produced from a five-acre vineyard site in Napa Valley, and only 500 cases will be bottled and are selling at a steep price of $570 for six bottles. The website says the wine has notes of cherry with hints of leather and spice and says it has a 92 rating but no indication of where that rating came from. Each vintage will be named after a Sinatra classic and the wine label features a logo of a record.

[via Limewire]

Summer may be within reach but no matter the season a great bottle of Cabernet always hits the spot. Fantesca's 2004 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon soothes your stress away and satiates your wine desires with notes of deep earth and rich fruit. The combination of chocolate cherries, cassis and warms the soul while a hint of earth-scented spice perks up the palate. Fantesca Estate on Spring Mountain is known for its superb sun exposure and long growing season offered by the elevation and hilly terrain which makes for high quality wines with a lasting impression. With only 800 cases produced the $65 bottle is certainly worth purchasing. If you prefer to cellar it you can count on fifteen or more wonderful years of drinking pleasure.

*Disclosure: This bottle was provided as a sample*

There are plenty of wines out there with cute dogs on them but the Cru Vin Dogs area little different. If you put champion dogs on your label you've got a bit to live up to. The 2005 Best in Show Cabernet Sauvignon features a pastel pencil drawing by artist Jay P. Snellgrove of a German Shorthaired Pointer. The wine is made from the Jackson Selection of Cabernet Sauvignon from Sonoma's Dry Creek Valley. The original cuttings of this clone came from pre-phyloxera vines and the resulting wine is an intense spicy wine with hints of dark chocolate. 97 cases were produced and it sells for $75 a bottle.

Cru Vin Dogs pledges that a minimum of ten percent of sales revenue on all wines, art, and merchandise is split equally between Canine Companions For Independence and the Morris Animal Foundation's Cure Canine Cancer Campaign.

For years getting onto the mailing lists for Napa Valley's big fruit bomb cult Cabernet Sauvignons has been no easy feat. You practically have to sell your soul to get your paws on Screaming Eagle or some of the other wines with the limited allocation and the highest reputations. But now, as Bloomberg's Elin McCoy puts it: the recession is making room for you. Those on the lists are dumping their allocations to save money and only purchasing from a few select favorites. Even restaurants are paring back their usual bottle grabs because the clientele is staying away from the deep end of the wine list.

If you believe in the long-term value of these wines now might be the time to grab a few and cellar them. Currently those who flip their allocations aren't finding a hot market for the wine but if you can hold onto them for a few years and the name brands regain their value you might have a nice investment on your hands.

Argentina and Australia have both widened our national palates and expanded our wine vocabulary. As they have grown in prestige and density the U.S. has embraced their unique qualities and beamed with pride at the continued diversity of personal wine knowledge.

Another country home to the Southern Hemisphere is also prompting increased interest among oenophiles -- Chile. Although known for their Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet blends exports for Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Carmenere and Syrah have increased in spite of the American recession. To capitalize on consumers' continued interest in the range of wines from Chile the 'Wines of Chile' is to open a new U.S. office in NYC.

If you're unfamiliar with Chilean wines I suggest you start with the Carmenere -- typically they are full-bodied and hold a deeply colored essence plus it sounds sensual when it rolls of the tongue.

Custom wine facility Crushpad has a unique answer to the financial crisis, Bailout Wine. The wine is a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon which will sell for $39 per bottle. But what makes this wine with the bear and bull label so unique is that for every 100-point drop in the Dow Jones from the date of purchase to the projected bottling date of August 14 2009, Crushpad will knock another $2 off the bottle. If the Dow rebounds the $39 price stands. Only 500 cases of Bailout will be produced but the company could still take a hit if the Dow tumbles. For example if you bought when the Dow was at 8,800 and then on August 14, 2009 it closes at 7,300 (let's hope not) you would pay just $9 a bottle and get your $30 back. The wine will be shipped after it is bottled in Summer 2009.

[via Decanter]