Napa and Paso trip recap

I’m starting to type this up during our final night in Napa. Here’s a quick highlight of all the places we visited/tasted with over the past 4 days:

Day 1: MACDONALD, Realm, Odette

Day 2: Herman Story, Nicora, Top, Booker, Epoch

Day 3: Outpost, Mending Wall, Rivers Marie, Failla

Day 4: Enfield, Myriad/Quivet/Carter

Day 1:

MACDONALD:
Others have done a much better job than I could at summarizing the experience you get when you visit MACDONALD. I’ll just say that if you make your way to Napa make it a priority to visit the property. The 3 hours we were there flew by as we walked and talked our way around the vineyard and we were sad to leave. The 2014 MACDONALD was tasting great and I will certainly be refreshing like crazy the day of release to secure my allocation (Even though that’s no longer necessary). Retrospectively (and I think I knew this at the time as well) this was the highlight of the entire trip.

Realm:
Going from MACDONALD to Realm was quite the juxtaposition, their new estate sits like a castle on the hill and their caves are impressive. Tons of work going on when we showed up and it sounds like that will continue for the next two years until their expansion is fully done. It will be something to behold when everything is finished.
We initially tasted through the ’14 Bard, ’10 Farella and ’08 Dr Crane. These were all in a great place and drinking well right now. Our host disappeared for a bit and apparently made some magic happen as she reappeared with some additional wines to taste. The ’15 Bard, ’15 Farella, ’15 Moonracer and a ’16 Dr Crane barrel sample. In my head I thought “Now we’re talking!”. For those of you who’ve had the ’12 or ’13 Bard the ’15 is right on par with those bad boys (I’ll be going deep on the upcoming release). The ’15 Farella was a noticeable step up from the Bard which was actually surprising to me. The Moonracer changed in the glass so much that I couldn’t pin it down but it was obviously an extremely well made wine. The barrel sample Dr Crane was also a tough one to pin down and I’ll hold my comments on that one.
Overall a really professional experience at Realm and we really appreciated the above and beyond attitude from our host to secure those additional wines for our tasting.

Odette:
We briefly stopped by Odette after Realm and did a quick tasting. The ’14 Adaptation Cabernet stood out as quite the value at around $50, a really well made bottle of wine.

Great notes. Some of my favorites and when planning my next trip would include many of those.
Just a quick question-How were you able to pull off Paso 4 hours away and still get in a full day of tastings and do the same in Napa the following? All my trips were a few days in Paso followed by a few days in Napa.


I am on the MacDonald list since the beginning so hope I can arrange a visit when I go. Love Realm (are they and Bevan still at Boswell?) Like Odette as well. Did they charge a fee to taste?
Thanks

I’ll admit the single day trek to Paso was aggressive but we left at about 7am, got in at 11 and started tasting. We had an early dinner and left around 5pm to return to Napa at 9. I think it was worthwhile! I’ll post notes for those visits soon as well.

Realm is now located at the old Hartwell Estate (right across the road from Odette actually).

Odette was $30 per person for a 6 wine tasting.

I was wondering the same thing re: Paso on Day 2: that’s a strong commitment!

Will keep an eye on the thread to read the forthcoming notes. Thanks, Jake.

Bevan will be making wine at the new Tench Winery.

Day 2:

Herman Story:
Thursday morning started with an 11am tasting at Herman Story. It was bottling day and they had the music blasting in the barrel room. The vibe was exactly what I expected based on the mailing list emails I receive. They were pouring some current release wines as well as some older vintages. The current Rose is just liquid candy and I have no idea how they manage to get no noticeable heat at ~16% abv but they do. The two standouts were the ’13 On the Road Grenache and the ’14 Bien Nacido Syrah. Both jam packed with flavor and right on the edge of being too much but they managed to stay in control. We cruised through the lineup and got a visit from Russell who had us busting a gut during his brief appearance.

Nicora:
We headed over to Nicora for our tasting with Stanley Barrios and his Top wines. We were way early so the Nicora host offered to taste us on their wines as they had just had a tasting cancellation (quite fortuitous!). We’ve actually had Nick’s wines before and definitely enjoyed them. I believe we still have a few of his single vineyard Syrahs in our cellar. We tasted through a few blends and single vineyard wines. Our favorite was his 100% Grenache, the ’14 Euphoric. It was a great and pure representation of the varietal that we both thoroughly enjoyed.

Top:
After Nicora we took the short walk back to their barrel room to meet with Stanley and taste 3 of his Top wines. He’s making Paso wines in a style that’s all his own, they are very pure and light on their feet but still have that awesome Paso density. We tried a Roussane, Grenache and Syrah all of which were some of the best wines from our day of tasting. We ended up buying a bottle of his ’14 Precession Grenache to bring to dinner that evening. I am certainly looking forward to seeing what Stanley will do going forward; he’s off to a great start with his inaugural vintage.

Booker:
From Nicora we took a relatively short drive over to Booker. They were gearing up for a big dinner on Friday but accommodated us for a short tasting. This was our first time tasting their wines and I was certainly impressed with the winemaking style and quality. Interestingly their Petite Mensang sweet wine was my favorite and unfortunately (if I’m remembering correctly) those vines have been pulled so we may have tasted one of their last vintages of that wine.

Epoch:
Our final stop in Paso was at Epoch in their new tasting room. The only wine of theirs we had tasted prior was the Rose which is an annual buy for us. By this time palate fatigue was starting to set in (the tastings were clustered pretty close together time-wise) but my favorite was their Block B Syrah.

I got palette fatigue reading about Day 2 myself…and with Herman Story first, i’m sure that blew your hair back pretty quick. Nice line up - Epoch & Booker are among my favorites in all of CA.

Also, i’m on the Macdonald list since day 1, too - was it relatively easy to set up something there? Love to get by there for a visit before everyone in the valley “discovers” these guys.

We set up our MACDONALD appointment all the way back in January so I’m not really sure if logistics get more tricky as plans get more last minute.

Day 3:

Outpost:
Friday morning we made our way up the winding Howell Mountain road to Outpost. GPS was spotty and the roads were narrow but the view alone was worth the effort. We tasted through two vintages of their Zinfandel as well as the ’14 Estate Cabernet while we made our way through the Zin vines and facility in general. Quite a bit of wine is made in the facility so it was fun to walk through the barrel rooms and see all the equipment that they were getting ready for harvest. I would definitely recommend visiting this property if you are in Napa.

Mending Wall:
Around 10:30 we drove back down the mountain to Outpost’s “sister” facility, Mending Wall. This is a relatively new property and everything is state of the art. The tasting room was well decorated and we sat at the outdoor patio for our tasting. We’ve had Mending Wall wines before and enjoyed them, particularly the Petite Sirah. They tasted us on their white blend, the ’13 and ’14 Cabs and the Petite. My personal favorite was the ’14 Cab but all the wines were enjoyable. It was a nice relaxing tasting and it didn’t hurt that it was a beautiful morning.

Rivers Marie:
There was a short interim after our MW tasting before Will Segui met us at our table and brought over some Rivers Marie wines to try. Will is such a great guy and this experience just added on to the growing list of favorable interactions I’ve had with him. We tasted a SV Pinot (for the life of me I can’t remember which one) as well as the 3 SV ’15 Cabs. The Panek stood out to me as being the most approachable and delicious at our time of tasting but I suspect the Lore will come into its own more and be something special. Great wines and great conversation, this was a really fun tasting.

Failla:
Our final tasting of the day was a few hours later (a really good thing too, we badly needed some food after the morning we had!) at Failla. We signed up for the spotlight tour so we were given a brief tour of the property before heading into their caves for our tasting. Their caves are really expansive and it provided a great atmosphere for tasting through 6 of their wines. This was our first experience with Failla and I think we were both impressed. All the pinots we had had a great brightness/freshness to them and my favorite was their Keefer SV. The Syrahs we tried had some really nice Northern Rhone characteristics and I favored the Hudson over the Estate.

Dinner (Fine Disregard):
For dinner we headed over to Mike and Kara Schieffer’s house. Mike is the assistant winemaker at Turley as well as the winemaker for their own label, Fine Disregard. We bought their inaugural release and stayed in contact after that so it was fun to meet them in person. It was a great dinner with a bunch of great wines being poured. The standout for me was a barrel sample from their upcoming Grenache and I will definitely be pulling the trigger on it when it’s released. The aromatics were bonkers!

Great report, Jake!

Day 4:

Apologies for the long delay before this last day of notes. I was trying to confirm with John Lockwood exactly what we tasted but I am sure he is harvest madness at this point. I am 90% the wines below are accurate (100% sure of the varietal).

Enfield:
We visited John around noon at his home in St Helena, he’s got a great place overlooking a few vineyards and it made for a great backdrop as we tasted on his patio. He let us taste through a number of bottles that should be in the upcoming fall release. First was his Haynes(?) Chardonnay which had a great minerality to it. Very bright with great acidity and freshness this is not a typical Napa Chard. Next was the 2015 Pretty Horses Tempranillo. We’ve had at least half a case of the ’14 and I actually think the new vintage might be a step up. Nice soft tannins and a marshmallow component that I really liked. This was followed by his 2015 Haynes Syrah, which again I think is a step up from the ’14. Drinking awesome out of the gate it has a candied red fruit taste and nose to it that was really enjoyable. John pulled an audible after the Haynes and popped open one of his just bottled 2016 Pinots. I swear he said it was from Heron vineyard but I’m not totally sure on that. It showed really well for just being bottled and I think it will be released next spring. Our final wine was the 2015 Fort Ross Cab. Great freshness but certainly a candidate for longer term aging this is a damn fine wine.

Envy Cellars (Myriad/Quivet/Carter):
Our final formal tasting of the entire trip was with Mike Smith at Envy Cellars in the barrel room. We were joined for the tasting by a gaggle of women on a Napa girl’s trip (one of the women knows Leah from their sorority days in college) so it was a really fun and refreshingly informal atmosphere. I didn’t do a great job of taking mental notes but we tasted through a Myriad Semillon, ’15 Myriad Sangiacomo Syrah, ’15 Quivet Las Madres Syrah, ’15 Carter Carter Cab, ’15 Carter Weitz Cab, ’15 Quivet Kenefick Cab and the ’15 Myriad Cab. This was our first experience with Carter wines and they were certainly impressive but I was even more impressed at how well the Myriad Napa stood up to the other Cabs. Consistently an overperformer this has got to be close to the top for Napa QPR’s. We ended up meeting Leah and Mike for dinner at Cook in St Helena later that evening where Mike brought a ’14 12C G3. Another first experience with one of Mike’s projects and another impressive showing.

Great notes, Jake—both on the wines and on your impressions of each visit. Very well done and thanks for sharing.

Kwa Heri

Mike

Will the Macdonalds meet with you even if you’re only on the wait list?