California Trip Day Three
Sorry for my terrible spelling yesterday. It probably won’t be any better today
Started out at the Benessere tasting room this morning. MILLS will be doing a Benessere tasting and feature when I return so I won’t spoil it all here.
I was quite impressed by their Italian varietals. I can’t think of a vineyard/winery doing any better in California these days with these varietals. Found out thhat this is the old Charles F Shaw property, purchased by the Benash family of Chicago in the late 1980′s. The whole tasting room experience was magnificent.
I was shocked to here who their “new” winemaker is, and I was thrilled to meet him. Jack stewart was the winemaker/GM at Silverado for 25 years. He retired 5 years ago. John Benash convinced him to come out of retirement to make the Benessere wines.
We got to tate their 1999 and 1998 Sangiovese. Guess what…..they have almost 25 cases left of these wines. I made them an offer and expect to find out if MILLS can get them. We’ll know within 10 days…….
Lots more in an EMail blast in a few weeks.
Drove out to the Russian River Valley to visit Hop Kiln. This is a tiny winery in a historic building that over the years has made a progression of simple blended wines. Times have changed!
The building, a real Hops Kiln was erected in 1905 and is remarkable. The winery and vineyard was purchased recently by Vero Westside a hospitality corporation that owns a wonderfull resort in California. They are upgrading this property and the wines like crazy. One must realize that their vineyards lie contiguous to Rochioli and Williams Seylem. They have some of the most incredible Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes in the region and NEVER made them into 100% varietal wines.
The Chardonnay is a classic Russian River wine. Their Pinot Noir is a fresh fruit monster the likes of which we rarely see. Interestingly this is the first release EVER of these wines from Hop Kiln in their new HKG label. A lot of the credit for these wines must be given to their new winemaker…..more later.
I found out that only 14 cases of Pinot Noir had been allocated to the Mid Atlantic USA. Guess what…..THEY ARE ALL COMING TO ANNAPOLIS…..EVERY SINGLE DROP! We will also get some of their Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, probably in Mid-September.
We all read 5 or 6 years ago that Cal Poly had instituted an oenology school. 25 year old Chuck Mansfield is the very first full graduate of this program and he is the winemaker at Hop Kiln. A tall kid, with a backwards baseball cap comes out to meet us. we go to his cellar and start tasting some of the wines he has made. You heard it here first…..This is a winemaking superstar in the making. Just wait till we get a chance to taste these wines.
Then it was on to Hartford Court. One of the jewels of the Kendall Jackson empire sort of. Don Hartford is Jess Jackson’s son in law, so they jointly own this Russian River property. The Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from this estate always gets great Parker scores and those I tasted will also score well.
I did get to taste a Russian River Old Vines Zinfandel that was excellent. MILLS will try to get some soon.
Two other interesting things happened today.
I was introduced to Napa Valley Royalty…..I can’t reveal the name yet…..he and two other very famous Napa Valley “celebrities” have come together to make less than 1000 cases of a very special wine. This first partner has offered the only MD/DC shipment to MILLS if we can figure out a way to get it to Annapolis. I can’t wait to work on this project.
Called an old friend, Keith Hargrove of Bennett Lane winery and asked if we could take him out to dinner. As many of you know this winery has been a real friend to MILLS. Many of you have tasted their MAXIMUS and some of you got to go to a MILLS TABLE dinner featuring Keith at Middleton Tavern last year. We went to Pacifico (Mexican restaurant) in Calistoga, had great food and got to listen to a mariachi band. Best news of all is that a new allocation of both Maximus and Turn 4 Cabernet will be released shortly.
Can’t believe there are 4 more days of this trip. Talk to everyone tomorrow
Peter