A little delayed in this recap of our most recent trip to Napa over the MLK holiday weekend. Great time with amazing friends - hoping these notes help plan your next visit to Napa! Please comment if you’re curious about any other specifics I didn’t cover.
Day 1 – Calistoga
Venge Vineyards – Experience here is very laid back and we’re huge Kirk Venge fans, so it made for the natural starting point for our trip. They take really good care of you at Venge and I suggest for you to pace yourself, even two scheduled tastings on a day where Venge is on the schedule might be too much! The entire list of wines we tried were excellent – we tried the Silencieux right next to the Bone Ash Cab, while the Bone Ash was better with more complexity, it’s hard to justify it next to the price point of the Silencieux ($60 at the winery or $47 by the case pre-sale). The Brown Vineyard (Carneros) Chardonnay was delicious, we’re not huge white wine fans…but this was one of the highlights of the entire trip.
Wines we bought: We already bought our allocation of 17’ Silencieux, which I continue to believe is one of the best values in the valley. During our visit we bought the 1x Brown Vineyard Chard and 2x of the 2017 Kennefick Ranch Merlot.
Girard – Our friends are members at Girard, so we stopped by for a tasting with Will. He’s an incredibly smart guy to talk about wine with and we were pleasantly surprised by the wines. That being said, it was early on in our trip so we were trying to save room in the wine suitcase! Good values across the portfolio of wines here, but the Petite Syrah really stood out to us from the pack.
Wines we bought: Petite Syrah x 2, our palates were in a Petite Syrah mode this trip – either due to the cold/rainy weather or something!
Day 2 – Rutherford/Oakville/Stags Leap
Cakebread – Started off the day with Don at Cakebread, we recently attended a Howell Mountain event and were impressed by their Dancing Bear Howell Mountain Cab, so we decided to add them to this trip. The facilities have been recently updated and while somewhere sterile, it’s a nice visit. The stories about the Cakebread family (especially from Don) are worth the price of admission alone.
Wines were okay, nothing really impressed us. The Rose (Vin de Porch) was probably our least favorite of the trip. The merlot was solid and the 2016 Cabernet is a decent value at $65.
Wines we bought: none, with the broad availability of Cakebread it didn’t warrant space in the wine suitcase!
B Cellars – Long time members at B Cellars and we try to make it every time we visit Napa. If you haven’t been there, you should go – they do a great job from top to bottom. Beautiful facilities, great food pairings, amazing service (thank you Peter!) and even better wine. The wines vary by trip, but the highlights on the visit were their 2018 Blend 24, a Super Tuscan style blend that we tasted from the barrel. The 2016 Blend 27 – a right bank style blend that is one of our standard favorites, and the 2017 Star Vineyard Cabernet which is drinking so well even though it’s still just a baby. The food pairings included goose sausage, duck, etc…wow.
Wines we bought: 6x Blend 24 for our next club order.
Ilsley – This visit represented an increasingly rare experience in Napa, we tasted Ilsley wines on the dining table at Al and Sandy Isley’s home. If you’re not familiar with Ilsley, they sell a lot of fruit to Shafer – just to give you an idea of their terroir in Stags Leap. The Ilsley’s were incredibly gracious to us as we tasted their wines – all while the 49er’s game was on. A lot of delicious juice here, so we’ll be back to buy more – but the standouts were a Rose of Merlot that was just hitting the bottle and their Petite Syrah.
Wines we bought: 1x Rose 1x Petite Syrah…we’ll be back for more though!
Day 3 – Howell Mountain
Haber Family Wines – Another great experience, similar to Ilsley, where Ron and Sue-Marie Haber invited us into their home for an amazing experience. Sue-Marie was making some bites for us to enjoy along with the wine as we arrived and their house overlooking their Howell Mountain Estate vineyard is breathtaking. The wines all drank well, and especially their mountain cabs (both Diamond and Howell Mountain) are great now but will surely improve over time. The price point @ $155/bottle for both is a bit high in our opinion, but increasingly normal for this fruit. Side by side, we enjoyed the Diamond Mountain more than the Howell Mountain…I think that surprised the Haber’s, but true nonetheless! They also had a limited supply of their Foreplay Red Blend, which is a delicious crowd pleaser at $65/bottle.
Wines we bought: 1x Foreplay Red Blend & 1x Diamond Mountain Cabernet
Neal Family Vineyards – Our expectations for Neal Family were somewhat mixed, we had heard from others that Mark Neal didn’t exactly play well with his Howell Mountain neighbors, and many had never tried his wines or heard much about them – except that they were incredibly low priced. We were greeted at the winery by Jessica Neal – Mark’s oldest daughter and current director of sales/marketing. Jessica is likely in her early to mid 20’s and is incredibly passionate about what her father has built, that passion was contagious.
It’s evident as you hear the story that Neal Family Vineyards is a passion project, and the money maker is the Neal Family’s vineyard management company that works with some of the biggest brands in the valley. The wines were all excellent, especially for the price. We’re talking $45/bottle for 2016 Cabernet primarily from Howell Mountain fruit and $80/bottle for Howell Mountain Single Vineyard Cab. The comment was made that they typically don’t raise prices, which puts them at a strong advantage vs their peers locally.
Wines we bought: A case to be shipped, 2x 2017 Rutherford Zinfindel ($27), 2x 2014 Rutherford Petite Syrah ($30), 2x 2016 Napa Cabernet ($45) and 6x 2015 Howell Mountain Cabernet ($80)
Day 4 - St Helena/Coombsville
Mending Wall – We’re huge Thomas Rivers Brown fans and Mending Wall has been on our list to try for a bit. TRB collaborated with the founders of Outpost on Mending Wall – it’s a definitely must visit. The tasting was amazing (definitely schedule a tasting with Amy) and we enjoyed about everything we tasted. The 2016 Napa Cabernet at $85/bottle is in my opinion a great value for a ’16 vintage TRB Cab. They also had a Brown Vineyard Chard as well (like Venge) it had a similar taste profile and we really enjoyed it; I just think we liked Kirk’s version a bit better. The standout during our visit was the ’17 Oakville Ranch Cab – this wine is the epitome of glass staining with a length to it that seemed to go on forever. Easily our favorite wine of the trip ~$150/bottle.
Wines we bought: a case (6x ’16 Napa Cabernet and 6x ’17 Oakville Ranch Cabernet) to be shipped.
Covert Estate/Nicholson Jones – We ended our trip at Covert Estate in Coombsville and we were greeted by Emily, their new(ish) director of hospitality and Julien Fayard himself. Julien spent a bit of time with us and was a very engaging and down to earth guy, my wife didn’t even realize he was the winemaker until after Julien said his farewell to us. The lineup at Covert was both the Covert Estate line of wines and some of their Nicholson Jones line as well. Covert is on the higher end of the spectrum, but we still enjoyed quite a few of the NJ wines – including their Sleeping Lady Vineyard Cabernet and Proprietary Cuvee.
The tasting room at Covert has been described by others as a “Bond Villain’s lair”, which you can envision once you step inside, it’s part of the cave built into the hillside…it’s masculine and very well done. The wines were all spectacular, the floral characteristics that Julien has coaxed out of these wines is so rare in Napa and shows his French pedigree. The nose of these wines should be a perfume, literally something I could sit back all day and enjoy without even tasting the wines. The standout of our tasting was the Sage Cabernet, sourced from Pritchard Hill – just an amazing wine, one with tons of aging potential but drinking extremely well right now. It runs for $250/bottle, which is about standard for Pritchard Hill fruit anymore – but from a collector standpoint I think I’d prefer the 2016 Chappellet that you can typically buy for ~$250 or less. The Coombsville estate wines were all excellent as well, especially the Cabernet Franc which was so unique – it was like what you expect Cab Franc from outstanding vintage out of the Right Bank, not what you expect find to from Napa – it definitely peaked our interest for the potential of Cab Franc sourced out of Coombsville. The only issue I have with Covert was the pricing, the wines were great, and I encourage a visit for that experience.
Wines we bought: 1x Sage Cabernet ($250) and 1x Nicolson Jones Proprietary Cuvee ($65)
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