Dominus Christian Moueix 2012 In the late 1960s, while attending the University of California at Davis, Christian Moueix fell in love with the Napa Valley and its wines. Son of Jean-Pierre Moueix, the famed wine merchant and producer from Libourne, France, Moueix returned home in 1970 to manage the family vineyards, including Chateaux Petrus, La Fleur-Petrus, Trotanoy in Pomerol and Magdelaine in Saint Emilion. His love of Napa Valley lingered and in 1981, he discovered the historic Napanook vineyard, a 124-acre site west of Yountville that had been the source of fruit for some of the finest Napa Valley wines of the 1940s and 1950s. In 1982, Moueix entered into…
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Amici Napa Cabernet Sauvignon 2013 In the 1990’s, a group of friends with a passion for good wine and fun times together crushed a few tons of grapes in the Napa Valley for their personal cellars. The resulting wine was so well-received that they started producing wine the very next year to share with the public. They chose to name the wine, appropriately, Amici (“friends” in Italian). Amici’s owners: John Harris, Bob and Celia Shepard, and Bart Woytowicz; are all great friends with a passion for making and enjoying great wine. I recently met Robert Emery, Amici’s General Manager and tasted a few of his wines, a wonderful Chardonnay from…
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Achaval Ferrer Quimera 2009 It began in 1998 when a group of Italian and Argentine friends came together to make a dream a reality, bringing Argentine wine to the global marketplace. Argentina is regarded as one of the dynamic regions in the world. Only 4 countries produce more wine than Argentina. Significant investments in technology have improved the winemaking production in the past several years, with many premium quality wines, Achaval Ferrer Quimera among some of the best. I had this gem at a restaurant on Cape Cod, and each October, the restaurant marks down all of their wines 50%, below retail! Dark red with aromas of dark red fruits,…
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Hall 2012 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon Kathryn Walt Hall is the proprietor of Hall Wines and has been involved in the California wine industry since her family first purchased a vineyard thirty years ago. She has had a distinguished career as a successful businesswoman, community activist, and most recently as the United States Ambassador to Austria. Kathryn Hall and her family have been grape growers in Mendocino County since 1972. The Walt family owns 63 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon, Gamay, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc in the Redwood Valley and has sold their grapes to such wineries as Fetzer, Parducci and Beringer. Kathryn managed the family vineyard from 1982…
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Batzella Bolgheri Tam 2009 Located in Bolgheri, on central coast Tuscany, the Batzella Winery Estate was founded in 2000 by Khanh Nguyen and Franco Batzella. The commitment of this husband-wife team is to make elegant and genuine wines, with a personality that expresses the best of their terroir. The Bolgheri area is enchanting, surrounded by soft rolling hills and by the Tyrrhenian sea. Its soils and micro climate are perfect for the Cabernet varietals, by now considered local to Bolgheri, to reach full maturation, resulting in wines that can be distinctively elegant. In this land, the Batzellas are pursuing their passion: to find that elusive harmony between elegance and power…
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Beringer 2010 Knights Valley Reserve Caberinet Sauvignon Beringer Vineyards roots date back about 140 years ago when Jacob Beringer sailed from his home in Mainz Germany to New York. After arriving in the “new world”, Jacob heard that the rocky hillside soil and fertile valley floor of Napa Valley resembled that of the vineyards back home in Germany. Jacob, and his brother Frederick, headed for Napa and purchased 215 acres of land in 1875, becoming one of the first wineries in Napa. A lot of time has passed and Beringer has perfected its craft of making fine wines, balancing time-tested traditions with modern technology, resulting in a portfolio of admired…
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Faust 2013 Napa Cabernet Sauvignon Interesting to learn that Faust, the wine, celebrates a legend which has inspired many great minds, among them the German poet Goethe, from whose masterpiece they draw inspiration. In Goethe’s most famous work, the aging scholar Dr. Faust barters his soul in the afterlife in exchange for another chance at youth. He gets his chance, yet ultimately his soul is saved by love. Faust is indeed the fruit of renewed passion for Agustin Huneeus, though Mephistopheles has not yet appeared to claim his soul. The underlying premise for all of the wines he has ever produced has been that great wines must be a reflection…
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Cakebread Cellars 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Cakebread Cellars was founded, in 1973, by Jack and Dolores Cakebread and they have an enduring commitment to quality, their belief is that life’s occasions are elevated by good people, good food, and good wine flows through everything they do. The 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley is a blend of Grapes: 84% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Merlot, and 6% Cabernet Franc and 4% Petit Verdot. In 2013, Cakebread Cellars celebrated their 40th wine harvest, and the second generation of winemaking. Today, the winery owns 13 sites totaling 982 acres, 460 of which are currently planted. The Cakebread Website is full of interesting information and loaded…
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Antinori Toscana Tignanello 2005 The Antinori family has been involved in the production of wine for over six centuries, ever since, in 1385, Giovanni di Piero Antinori entered as a member, the “Arte Fiorentina”, the Winemakers’ Guild of the city of Florence. During this entire long period, thorough twenty six generations, the family has always directly managed this work with courageous and, at times, innovative decisions, but always maintaining, unaltered, a fundamental respect for tradition and for the territory in which they have operated. Today the firm is run by Marquis Piero Antinori with the support of his three daugthers, Albiera, Allegra, and Alessia, directly involved in the work of…
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Robert Mondavi 2012 Napa Merlot Robert Mondavi Winery, located in Oakville, CA, makes a number of outstanding and consistent quality wines and established his winery in 1966 with a vision to have his Napa Valley wines to be among the world’s finest. Robert Mondavi also believed his wines should reflect its “roots” and be a signature creation from a combination of the soil, climate and production techniques, both new and old, which transforms the grapes into a fine wine. Opening a bottle of 2012 Napa Merlot, I noticed a dark red color, almost purple with blue and black fruit aromas. The wine is a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet…