Napa Valley wine

Cosentino Winery Closes Its Doors

Filed under: Wine

Last week I mentioned Mitch Cosentino's new wine project with golfer Fred Couples but I was unaware of the troubles that have befallen Cosentino Winery. Wines & Vines reports that he 70,000-case winery in Yountville, California closed its doors on November 11 and is now for sale. Mitch Cosentino, who began making wines in 1980 is no longer involved with the company. In 1991 Cosentino partnered with Larry Soldinger, a Chicago CPA, and his wife Edie. Soldinger bought the controlling stake in the parent company, Cosentino Signature Wines PLC, from Mitch Cosentino in 1992 and became operating chairman. Cosentino was no longer involved in the management of the company, but served as its winemaker until recently. In a statement on the Cosentino Winery website Soldinger praised Mitch Cosentino saying in part: "Thank you Mitch, for your leadership, passion and total dedication in the making of our incredible wines. There is no doubt that you have made some of the finest wines in the world."

The building on Highway 29 could be attractive to a number of wine companies including Bill Foley, the winery-gobbling billionaire who recently bought Eos winery in Paso Robles. Foley Family Wines owns a number of wineries in Napa Valley.

Tags: bill foley, cosentino winery, mitch cosentino, napa valley wine, wine

Press Restaurant Celebrates Local Napa Wine

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

Celebrating the deliciousness of Napa Valley's famous red wines is Press restaurant, a new dining experience in St. Helena, California. The restaurant has a custom-built wood-fired grill and rotisserie. A wide selection of hand-cut steaks, chops, grills and roasts are meant to be paired with the terroir-based wines of the Napa Valley. Fresh salads,appetizers and a raw bar featuring fresh oysters, shrimp and lobster offer a tempting prelude to the main event. Side dishes include artisanal vegetables as well as comfort food classics, all designed for sharing.

The USDA Prime Angus beef has been naturally grass fed and finished on corn. It is sourced from Creekstone Farms and dry-aged for a minimum of 28 days. The locally raised American Kobe Wagyu beef is sourced from Masami Ranch, California. Press also features 100% Japanese Kobe Kuroge Wagyu and each steak is grilled over a cherry and almond wood fire. Organic free range poultry comes from Fulton Farms, and when available, lamb from the Sonoma Coast or Berkshire pork from Carneros. Seasonal produce is selected from the Rudd Estate Garden, the farmers market or local Napa Valley farmers whenever possible.

The wine list includes some rare, cult wines, older vintages as well as small, locally known producers that are difficult to find outside the Napa Valley. The wine list was designed to complement the menu and changes with the food offerings. The restaurant recently brought on sommeliers Kelli White and Scott Brenner to manage the restaurant's collection of Napa wines.

On Wednesdays at the Press bar the Blue Plate special is just $10 and is first come, first serve. July 14 brings fried chicken, July 21 is spaghetti Puttanesca and July 28 will be fish tacos and mango salsa.

Tags: napa valley, napa valley restaurants, napa valley wine, press restaurant

Cakebread Cellars Dancing Bear Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

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.

Tags: cabernet sauvignon, Cakebread, Cakebread Cellars, napa valley wine, wine

St. Supery Vineyards & Winery: Benefiting from Generations of Winemaking Experience

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

St. Supery Vineyards & Winery, a family-owned estate winery in the heart of Napa Valley, is a Readers' Choice Award Nominee for Best Domestic White Wine.

St. Supery is owned by the Skalli family of France. While traveling to Napa Valley during the 1970's, Robert Skalli, who's family has made wine for several generations in the south of France, felt particularly at home in the Napa Valley. He returned to France with two dreams: improve the quality of wines coming from Southern France, and create a top quality wine from the Napa Valley. In 1982 he purchased Dollarhide,a 1,500 acre historic cattle and horse ranch nestled among the hills of Napa Valley, and planted a portion of it with the noble grape varieties of Bordeaux, France. A few years later, he purchased a second property in Rutherford, where he built the winery.

Gallery: St. Supery Vineyards & Winery

Robert Skalli and Michaela Rodeno with St. Supery CEO Emma Swain at the winery

Michael Scholz (left), Winemaker at St. Supery

Tags: awards-main, Luxist-Awards, Napa Valley, napa valley wine, St. Supery, St. Supery Vineyards Winery, wine

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Cakebread Cellars: Quality, Consistency and Continuity

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

Cakebread Cellars, in Rutherford, Ca., is a nominee for a Readers' Choice Award for Best Domestic White WIne.

The winery, renowned for its Chardonnay wines, is owned by the Cakebread family, who are known for being among the most creative and successful winemaking families in Napa Valley.

The winery has a reputation for producing world-class wines. Cakebread attributes its success to its focus on quality, consistency and continuity, characteristics which are applied to the grapes, its wines, its staff and the operation of the winery, itself.

Gallery: Cakebread Cellars

Cakebread's roots date back to trip Jack Cakebread made in the early 1970's when he came to photograph the Napa Valley and casually mentioned his interest in one day owning a vineyard to family friends who owned a ranch in Rutherford. When he returned home that afternoon, the phone rang---it was the friends offering to sell their property. Cakebread headed back up to the valley that same afternoon to make his best offer, and Cakebread Cellars was born. Today a team of seven Cakebread family members leads the winery.

Cakebread Cellars has vineyard properties located throughout Napa Valley in addition to a recently added parcel in the Anderson Valley. The winery owns 13 sites totaling 420 acres, 340 of which are currently planted. Unlike many other wineries, Cakebread feeds its white grapes directly to a press where the juice is gently extracted without crushing (called whole cluster pressing) and only the juice is fermented.

All tours and tastings are made by appointment. They are conducted in various venues around the winery--in barrel rooms, in the fermentation room and occasionally alongside the vineyard or on a patio when production schedule and weather permits. Call ahead to make appointments, as weekends and holidays book quickly.

Vote for the winemaker that you think is the best of breed. The voting period ends on June 30th, with winners announced on July 1, 2010.

Tags: awards-main, Cakebread, luxist-awards, napa valley, napa valley wine

Premiere Napa Valley Results Up

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine, Auctions

Earlier this month I mentioned that the returns on the Naples Wine Auction were up by around $3 million. More good news in the wine auction world comes from Napa where the Premiere Napa Valley results were up by one third over last year. The 14th annual Premiere Napa Valley auction brought in a total of $1.918 million which was 30 percent more than the previous year. The 2009 auction brought in $1.485 million which was far down from 2008's record-setting total of $2.2455 million.

The 200-lot event took place last weekend and saw a more positive tone than last year's event with bidders snapping up cases of the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon. Five cases of Shafer went to Winebid.com for $37,000. Another five case allotment from Ovid went to Capitol Cellars for $33,000 and Lewis Cellars sold five cases to Nakagawa Trading Company of Japan for $30,000. Nakagawa Trading for the second-to-the-top bidder spending $179,000 total on wines. Top honors went to Gary Fisch of Gary's Wine in New Jersey who spent $392,000 on 275 cases.

Tags: napa valley, napa valley wine, NapaValley, NapaValleyWine, ovid, premiere napa valley, PremiereNapaValley, shafer, ShaferVineyards, wine auction, WineAuction

2006 Blackbird Vineyards "Illustration" Proprietary Red Wine

by Laura Malesich (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

Touted in Vanity Fair, Robb Report's 'Best of 2008' and Travel + Leisure GOLF, Blackbird Vineyard's merlot-dominated wines may be the key to elevating the often overlooked grape to a higher perception among red wine lovers. The vineyard placed in the Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley demonstrates this elevation particularly well through "Illustration", a proprietary red wine which is a blend of 86% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Franc and 3% Cabernet Sauvignon. This great wine has been characterized with cocoa powder and cherries on the nose and tasting of bright cherry cola, chocolate and juicy bing cherries...mmm...sounds delicious! A little piece of wine trivia for you too -- did you know that merlot in French Patois translates to little blackbird? I sure didn't. ($90)

[via Vinography]

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Tags: blackbird vineyards, BlackbirdVineyards, Illustration, Illustration wine, IllustrationWine, Michael-Polenske, Napa Valley wine, NapaValleyWine

The Mondavi Legacy Continues With Continuum

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

The name Mondavi still has the power to generate excitement in the wine world. The latest Mondavi release comes from Tim Mondavi. Continuum is produced by Tim and his sister Marcia, with 94-year-old patriarch Robert and his wife Margrit and continuing the Mondavi tradition of making wine producing a family affair, Tim's five children are also playing a role in the production. Tim Mondavi has some high aspirations for his wine, he told Decanter, his goal is to have to have the wine be a little like the pricey Opus One. For the first release just over 1,000 cases have been produced. The 2005 vintge is a blend of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. It sells for $130 and will be released next month.

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Tags: cabernet sauvignon, CabernetSauvignon, continuum, mondavi, napa valley wine, NapaValleyWine, tim mondavi, wine

Rutherford Appellation Wine Passport Weekend

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine, Events

The Rutherford appellation in Napa Valley is looking for a little respect. In an effort to help educate consumers about the region the Rutherford Appellation Wineries have created their first Passport weekend on December 1-2. A $50 passport gets you access to 13 participating wineries which will offer special pourings, tastings and entertainment. The list of destinations includes the Swanson Salon, Peju, Beaulieu and Grgich Hills. Each winery is organizing unique offerings such as Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s at Beaulieu Vineyard, exclusive access to Alpha Omega's state-of-the-art tank room and artisan cheese and antipasto with your wine at Honig Vineyard & Winery. Profits from the event got to the Rutherford Dust Restoration Team, a group of vintners and growers working to improve the health of the Napa River as it passes through the Rutherford AVA.

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Tags: california wine, napa, napa valley, napa valley wine, rutherford appellation, RutherfordAppellation, wine events

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