Wednesday's Wines: Shafer Vineyards and Stone Cottage Cellars

Preface: The Napa Valley and the entire world lost two pillars of the wine community this week. Donn Chappellet and Molly Shafer both passed away recently. Both were instrumental in establishing the Napa Valley as the United States' preeminent wine region over the past half decade. Their family names are now firmly entrenched with American wine history. Their families and the greater wine community will no doubt miss them dearly.

Chardonnay often gets a bad rap. Sure, white Burgundy is said to be some of the finest wine in the world, but some of the Californian examples of the grape has also been labeled Cougar Juice. The cultivar has also given rise to the ABC – Anything But Chardonnay – crowd.

Share 2013 Red Shoulder Ranch

I'm not the world's biggest fan of Chardonnay because I find more pleasure in exploring other varieties – and Chardonnay is too often uninteresting. However, when produced with purpose and care. A few weeks ago, in celebration of Mothers' Day, we celebrated with a prime example of such a Chardonnay. Shafer Vineyards 2013 Red Shoulder Ranch Chardonnay (14.9% abv, Sample $52) is often cited as one of the top Napa Valley Chardonnays. It straddles the line of litheness and voluptuousness like few Chardonnay can. There is no doubt this is a rich wine from the nose. The aromas of baked apples, mango, and shortbread are complemented with flavors of pineapples, vanilla and smoke. The high alcohol comes through, but is not a distraction. Ample acidity balances the richness. This is a great wine for those that like big, rich California Chardonnays, but also enjoy a steely version of the grape.

Stone Cottage 2013 Chardonnay

Still in somewhat of a Chardonnay mood, the following night I decided to open a Colorado rendition of the grape. Stone Cottage Cellars' 2013 Chardonnay (14% abv, Purchased $22) is grown at 6300 feet about sea level in the West Elks AVA overlooking the quaint hamlet of Paonia. When I first opened it, the nose struck me as non-Chardonnay-like. It starts coy with steely aromas of lemon and limes. After being open for a while, the wine just blossoms and I like it more with each sniff and sip. The Chardonnay characteristics start to come to the forefront as the aromas and flavors build with baked apples, pears, brioche and a touch of cinnamon. The flavors and finish kept building all night until the bottle was gone and the wine could evolve no more. The acidity is so lovely and amazingly at about a pH of 3.1! I actually prefer this to the Shafer. At only $22 for a 25 case production, this is a screaming value and I'd suggest this would favorably out-compete with Grand Cru Chablis that cost more than 10 times what this humble little Colorado Chardonnay costs. Simply put: this is an amazing wine.

Wednesday's Wines: Segura Viudas, Under the Wire, and Shafer Vineyards

New Year's Eve probably sees the most sparkling wine consumed when compared to any other day of the year. Sparkling wine is associated with celebration and luxury that originates from the parties of the royal courts and aristocracy of Europe beginning in the 18th century. The popping of the cork and the bubbly effervescent can be very symbolic of abundance, joy and a good time. Though the idea of going out and partying like we did years ago has been replaced with putting the kids to bed, curling up on the couch, and then going to sleep before the clock strikes midnight, the sparkling wine still found its way into our wine glasses this New Year's Eve and New Year's Day!

Initial comments on Premiere Napa Valley 2014

As usual, the weather in Napa this past weekend was almost perfect and the results from the 18th annual Premiere Napa Valley wine auction shattered the previous record. Seventy three bidders spent more than three hours purchasing 225 different lots of wine for a total of $5.9 million. That total was almost as much as the two previous auctions (now the second and third largest results) combined! The most expensive lot was a 60-bottle lot collaboration from Scarecrow that brought in an astounding $260,000. That lot was more than double the previous record for a single lot and comes to $4,333 per bottle. What makes this even more mind-blowing is that more than a dozen other lots sold for less than $10,000, including a few that sold for just $5,000 total. That's almost the price for just one bottle of the Scarecrow! Other six-digit lots included Schrader Cellars' 2012 Double Diamond Rocky's Row,  Shafer Vineyards' 2012 Sunspot Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon and ZD Wines' Non-Vintage Petit Abacus all selling for $100,000 for five cases.

How to sell wine before it's finished and alienate people

There are so many ways to sell wine it can make a vintner's head spin. Finding the easiest and most efficient way is the goal of every winery. Case in point: en primeur. Every spring, the châteaux of Bordeaux invite the wine world to come taste the wines that are sitting in barrel from the previous harvest. En primeur is a method for selling wine while it is still in barrel. It is often referred to as "wine futures." Payment is made 12-18 months before the finished wines are bottled. The idea behind the system is that wines may be cheaper during en primeur than when they are released on the open market. Though, with the exorbitant prices the top châteaux now charge (Mouton Rothschild, Château Margaux and Haut-Brion released their 2012 wines at €240 per bottle ex-negociant, and that was roughly 33% less than the release price of the 2011 vintage!), investment opportunities are not going to be as easy to come by as they were in the early 1980s.

Many wineries around the world offer future wines for sale, but the producers of Bordeaux have been fine tuning their system for what seems like eternity. The system has been in place in Bordeaux for centuries. Why do they do this and why do other producers attempt to do the same? Well, producers benefit from the early cash flow. They also often sell their entire inventory before the finished wines are released. Pretty good deal, huh? It's almost like printing money. Or at least painting your own masterpiece...

A Good Wine Seldom Mentioned Is Soon Forgotten

As I begin to read Doug Shafer's A Vineyard in Napa, a motto he attributes to his father, John, and founder of the renowned Shafer Vineyards made me think of the current debate about the state of wine criticism. "A good wine seldom mentioned is soon forgotten." To me, this maxim speaks volumes to me about how both we as writers/critics and consumers talk about wine.