The Best Wine & Food Tour Ever: The Beginning

by Frank Mangio
Three months before, the idea of a journey to the ultimate wine country, some Sonoma and mostly Napa Valley, came into the planning stage.

It was gong to be harvest time, a difficult time at best to get the attention of wine makers and managers of wineries, but critical to what I wanted:  access to the truth about this year’s harvest and what we could expect from 2015. The millions of bottles from the over 500 wineries, will start coming  to  market  next year.

In mid September I flew to the lovely little “Snoopy” airport, the Charles Schulz, just above Santa Rosa , an hour twenty flight from San Diego . A rental without wait quickly got me to the pristine village of Sonoma. After a Pinot Noir tasting at the cottage of Walt Wines in the Plaza that I’ll bring up in another issue, my destination in Sonoma was  the critically acclaimed  wine/food center of excellence, Carneros Bistro.

Executive Chef Joshua Murray, at the
Carneros Bistro with columnist Frank Mangio

This beautifully designed restaurant is centrally located in the Lodge at Sonoma , with hotel, restaurant, wine bar, spa and shops.  It offers many wine choices with reasonable pricing, collected by Sommelier  Joshua Betts who enjoys finding little-known but excellent wines like the Riesling from S.A.Prumm, in the Mosel area of Germany.  Equally lovely was the presentation of a bottle of Almus, a single vineyard cabernet from the Napa Valley Pritchard Hill district. It was a 2008 that had significant seasoning to soften tannins and add complexity.

Carneros Bistro is gem of a dining room.  It has a vast open kitchen and it was a delight to watch Executive Chef Joshua Murray mastermind the many meals being created with his team to present to an upbeat room.  I ordered from the menu, but Murray kept bringing us his personal specialty samplers, some of which I had not been familiar with.  After some reservation on my part, he explained the personal ingredients he had infused with such dishes as:  Wood Grilled Octopus, Sonoma Foie Gras and BBQ Pork Belly.  All were firsts for me and after sampling, I felt good making the great leap forward to exotic dining. Menu items favored were:  Farmers Market Salad with luscious figs, Wood grilled Ora King Salmon from Australia and Grilled Niman Ranch Steak with roasted fingerling potatoes, broccolini, cauliflower puree and cabernet syrup. Chef Joshua came from another favorite resort of mine, the Marriott Desert Springs in Palm Desert and insists on a farm to table style of menu.

The Renaissance Lodge at Sonoma Resort  & Spa is a member of the Marriott Group. To discover more, go to Marriott.com/sfols.

On to Napa Valley
On day two, all I could hear about was the wildfire that toasted a town in Lake County just north of the Napa Valley line and was taking out everything in front of it. Traffic was stopped at Calistoga, Napa Valley ’s northernmost town.

Bill Miller, Director of Wine Sales at Hill Family Estate in Napa Valley ,
expresses the Hill philosophy that ” if you want to dream in color, drink wine.”

I arrived after a 45 minute drive from Sonoma, across the Carneros district and up to Yountville, arriving at Hill Family Estate where I met the expressive Bill Miller, who guided me through the family garden that services fresh ingredients to most of the restaurants in the area.  Earlier in Hill’s history the family provided similar service for many wineries in Napa Valley.  They grew grapes from over a thousand acres, and sold them to some of the most prestigious wineries. Now, only the best are reserved for Hill Family Estate.  Look them up at hillfamilyestate.com.

On Wednesday, day three, the rains came and subdued the renegade fire; another miracle from the place of miracles, Napa Valley .

Part 2 of the Best Wine & Food Tour Ever will be seen in next week’s column.

Wine Bytes
Vittorio’s in Carmel Valley has a Tuscany Tour of wine and food Thurs. Oct. 29th starting at 6pm.  $49.50 ea.  RSVP at 858-538-5884.

Il Fornaio Coronado presents a Mondavi Wine Dinner Thurs. Oct. 29th at 6pm.  $65. per guest.  Reservations at 619-437-4911.

Justine Vineyards and Winery from Paso Robles will host a four course dinner with their wine Fri. Oct. 30th at 7:30pm in the underground wine cave at Pala Casino Spa & Resort.  $68. pp. Call 1-877-946-7252. Ask to “book the wine dinner on Oct. 30.”

The Worldly Wines of Washington State

by Frank Mangio
Intense and complex are the two descriptors I see most when describing the wines of Washington state. Washington is way up North, the most northern major wine growing area in the world. But before you start thinking that this wine country is a small group of cold weather winemakers, think again. Two global wine giants call Washington home:  Chateau St. Michelle and Columbia Crest, now joined at the hip for a collaboration to make the best wines in the region.

Founded in 1934, Chateau St Michelle is the oldest in Washington, known for its Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet. Its winery is 15 miles northeast of Seattle in Woodinville, but its grapes are grown way East in the Columbia Valley.  I have two favorites from this iconic wine maker.

Head Chateau St  Michelle winemaker Bob Bertheau with German Riesling expert Dr. Ernst Loosen

The first is the 2011 Eroica, a German style Riesling ($19.at North County Wine Company) exuding lime and orange rind flavors with subtle mineral notes. It’s a collaboration of Dr. Ernst Loosen, Germany’s most famous Riesling maker, and head winemaker of Chateau St. Michelle, Bob Bertheau.

The other worldly wine that I can’t get enough of is the Chateau St. Michelle Col Solare.  In 1995, Piero Antinori, Italy’s master winemaker and a founder of Tuscany’s “Super Tuscan” wines, came to St. Michelle and made Col Solare (means Shining Hill in Italian - $49.99 for the 2006 at Encinitas Wine Merchants; It’s also poured by the glass there.)

The Bordeaux style blending is 71% Cabernet, 25% Merlot and 4% Cabernet Franc. The ‘06 spent 27 months in oak barrels, and should mature from five to seven years, so it should be ready now.

Grapes from this regal red come from Red Mountain, a sub-appellation to the Columbia Valley. In the Columbia Valley as well as Walla Walla, Yakima and Puget Sound AVA’s,  Washington’s vast wine country is the #2 wine producer in the country, a distant 2nd to California. With its 17 hour summer sunshine, wine grapes fully develop rich flavors.

Columbia Crest  and its Horse Heaven Hills ( H3) is adjacent to the Columbia River with a rocky volcanic basalt and bedrock base.  The current  2010 Cabernet ($13. at North County Wine Company) delivers a balance of cherry blossoms and rose petals laced with earthy mineral flavors.

Other names to try include:  Quilceda Creek 2010 Cabernet, Leonetti Cellar 2011 Merlot and L’Ecole 2009 Cabernet. For more on our feature wineries, tap into www.ste-michelle.com and www.columbia-crest.com.

 Firefly Grill & Wine Bar on Fire
Jim Barrasso has cranked up the heat on his Firefly Grill & Wine Bar in Encinitas. He and Chef Justin have rolled out a new late summer menu  with many new items on board with the freshest meats, seafood and local seasonal produce.  Firefly was again honored with the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence, the 7th consecutive year, for  its extraordinary selection of world class wines. Barrasso keeps finding insider pricing for his customers to take home and savor at  50% or more reductions. This time around it’s the Kuleto Estate Meritage, “The Frog Prince” Napa Valley 2009.  At the winery, it’s $50. a bottle.  Barrasso has a few cases left at $19. a bottle at press time.  Call him at 760-635-1066.

Wine Bytes
A flight, full glass of wine and a flatbread starting at $15. is the big-bang combo at Seasons 52, daily til 6pm, at UTC in La Jolla. All wines are hand-selected by their master sommelier. Details at 858-450-1252.

An Around the World Tasting is offered by Bacchus Wine Market, downtown San Diego, Fri. Aug. 30 from 4 to 8:30pm.  For $20., sample seven wines from 7 countries. More at 619-236-0005.

The San Diego Wine Company in San Diego has an End of Summer Grillin’ Wine Tasting Sat. Aug. 31. from 11 to 4pm.  $10. pp.  Call 858-586-9463.

The Grape Day Wine & Craft Beer Festival at Grape Day Park in Escondido is Sat. Sept. 7 from 11 to 3pm. Tasting includes Orfila, Stone and many more.  $20. cost.  Call 760-839-4587.