Mollydooker. Among the exhibitors is Brian Pasch, blogger at weloveshiraz.com and representative of Mollydooker Wines. The Weekly Wine Pick has already reviewed Mollydooker’s the Boxer, and I covered the Scooter Merlot. Today, I had the opportunity to be among the few people to get an early tasting of the 2009 vintage, which is exceptional. These are very big, high-alcohol wines that are well balanced, extra rich, and silky smooth. Enjoy them with your summer grillings. Today, a personal favorite was the Blue Eyed Boy Shiraz, which is bursting with fruit and richness. There will be more coverage of Mollydooker wines at the live logging session latter.

Canoe Ridge. Next, I tasted some of the local wine from Walla Walla. Presented by the winemaker, Ned Morris, Canoe Ridge wines are made in an old world style. He offered an Alsatian-styled dry Riesling, a Merlot and a Cabernet Sauvignon. My favorite was the Cabernet, which offers rich cedar and delivers big, showing Walla Walla’s greatness.

Lake Chelan AVA Wines. Washington State’s newest American Viticultural Area–Lake Chelan–also hosted a table with more than a dozen fantastic wines. This region is a bit cooler than others in Washington State, and its Northern-facing slopes offer climates to grow some cool-climate grapes like Pinot Noir and Riesling. The wines were so good that it was hard to pick just a few to highlight! Among the most interesting was a small-production Pinot Noir made by Judy Phelps of Hard Row to Hoe winery (see the website for story behind this title). It was full of smoky oak yet retained a rich fruity flavor. There were no vegetal or off notes on this one. It was delicious. It’s a home run, particularly given it is the first Pinot produced by this winery! Production is small for this yet-to-be released wine, but check the website to see if you can eventually get your hands on one.

The Chelan table also featured Vin du Lac wines, presented by the winemaker, Dreux Dillingham. Among their offerings is a perfect, fresh summer sipper–a dry and refreshing Riesling. Like the Hard to Hoe Pinot, it is grown on Northern-facing slopes, which are cooler, ensuring a crisp and refreshing quality. Vin Du Lac also had a fantastic red table, which is a blend of a number of grapes. It delivers big for a moderate price and is available around the nation. Keep an eye out for these Chelan AVA wines or search for them on wine-searcher or at winery websites.

Steak time, and the next two wines had gone into the decanter right before Scott and Shannon arrived with the steaks and a back-up bottle of 2004 Turley Duarte Vineyard, just in case. I received these bottles of Emblem Oso Vineyard and Emblem Rutherford from the marketing rep, who suggested the wines would be great for Father’s day as they were made by the father-son team of Michael Mondavi and Robert Mondavi, Jr. They were definitely great for the Friday night before Father’s day. I served the wines simultaneously for comparison sake, and I think we all agreed immediately that these wines shared far more differences than similarities. The 2006 Emblem Oso Vineyard was inviting and approachable, with loads of bright red cherries and vanilla. The soft tannins provided a flexible structure that matched perfectly with both the steak and the cheesy potato gratin we were eating. The 2006 Emblem Rutherford was a much taller order. The deep dark fruit in this wine’s nose warned me that this wine was way too young to be opened now. It is dark, chewy and firm with a backbone crafted by fruit that is distinctly Rutherford style. While the Oso Vineyard was open to all senses, the Rutherford was still zipped up even after an hour in the decanter. Both wines were big, maybe even bigger than the sub-$50 price tag suggests. The Oso is ready now, and the Rutherford will pay dividends in 5-10 years.

Winemaker Aaron Pott notes:  ”This seductive rosé of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Franc exhibits a youthful, pink color.   On the nose, cherry and red currant aromas complement enticing notes of strawberry, peach, and pear.  The 2009 Arriviste displays a mid-palate that is rich and creamy and carries a bright acidity on to the lingering strawberry finish…”

The Balboa Bay Resort is the only waterfront resort in Newport Beach, featuring 160 guest rooms and award-winning fine dining.  The First Cabin Restaurant won Wine Spectator’s “Best of Award of Excellence” in 2009.

Not surprisingly, one of the state’s first wineries—the Williamsburg Winery–produces some of the state’s most exciting wines. The winery produces top quality because its founder, Patrick Duffeler, invests in top talent. In 2002, he brought on Napa Valley winemaker Mathew Meyer, whose credentials include studying oenology and viticulture school at the University of California-Davis. Meyers launched his career at Grgich Hills winery—the winery started by Napa pioneer winemaker Mike Grgich, who made the Chardonnay that shook the world when it won at the 1976 tasting of Paris.

Meyers then went on to make award winning wines at Heitz Cellar, which makes some exclusive wines near St. Helena in Napa Valley. Among them is the Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, which is a highly regarded premium Napa wine. In 1999, the Wine Spectator selected the 1974 vintage to be it as one of the Top 12 wines of the 20th Century.

Not surprisingly, the Williamsburg winery has been making some award winning wines on Meyer’s clock. Among them are awards from prestigious UK-based Decanter magazine, which dubbed the winery’s he 2006 Acte Chardonnay as among the “world’s best wines.” That is pretty substantial praise for one of Virginia’s humble wines! This wine region surely have come a long way. And this wine retails on the Winery website for just $16. Who says Virginia’s quality wines are not affordable?

So start tasting them. Meyer recently gave me a tasting of some his wonderful wines at the winery, and all were quite impressive! Among them were:

The Willamsburg Reserve Chardonnay, 2006. This wine is made fermented and aged in French oak and undergoes malolactic fermentation, resulting a wine with toasty and creamy qualities. The winery recommends serving it with “grilled swordfish, steak, grilled prawns, pheasant, and ‘duck a l‘orange.’” If you serve it with steak, make sure you include a nice creamy béarnaise sauce! Decanter awarded this wine as “commended” in 2009. It retails for just $24 a bottle on the winery website online.

Sir Samuel Argall Dry Riesling, 2007. The grapes from this wine come from all the way from Washington State, where Riesling thrives. As a result, it cannot be sold in inter-state commerce because of unfortunate wine regulations. But if you are lucky enough to see it at the retail level in Virginia or if you make you way to the winery, grab one—or more—bottles. This is a light, crisp dry wine with a lemony profile. It’s the perfect match for a light fish dish with lemon or something oily like fried chicken as it will cleanse the palate between bites. It’s a refreshing picnic or summer sipping wine. And it retails for just $10.50 a bottle.

Gabriel Archer Reserve, 2005. This Bordeaux (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc) blend combines only select wines each year from the best barrels of the vintage. It is only made in the better vintage years, ensuring it always meets a certain standard of quality. Like the other reds, it was rich with good acidity, and soft and smooth tannins. Decanter gave the 2006 Gabriel Archer Reserve a bronze metal, and gave the 2005 a “commended” award. It retails for $32 on the winery’s website.

The Virginia Trianon. This wine is the Winery’s Cabernet Franc, a grape that is doing quite well in Virginia. It has nice acidity and soft tannins, with red fruit flavors (cherry and raspberry). It retails for $32 a bottle.

Adagio, 2007. Last but not least was the Adagio, the winery’s most premium wine, carrying a price tag of $65. It is a rich blend of 40 percent Petite Verdot, 40 percent Merlot, and 20 percent Cabernet Franc. The Winery describes it as: “An initial hint of black cherries progresses into more mature dark fruits such as figs and dates. Mixed in with the fruit is a lovely note of fresh cocoa, along with a bit of soy and eucalyptus. Earthiness and minerality blend agreeably with the fruit.”

You can look for these around town, in Virginia wine shops, or shop online at the winery’s website. Another option is to drive a couple hours to the winery and enjoy them there!

Like me, they had the delight of visiting the winery. The Artesa facility itself is a sight to see, one of Napa’s most unique. Indeed, it is almost all located underground with a grass roof. The ultra modern interior includes original artwork of the artist in residence, and the tasting room staff and tour guides are unpretentious and friendly.

Artesa stands for “craftsman,” which is appropriate for a winery that crafts its wine with great care under the leadership of their winemaker, Mark Beringer. Artesa achieves a different, softer style because they do not crush any red grapes (they do crush white grapes releasing juice to be fermented without skins). They leave red wine grapes to begin fermentation inside the skins, which break open on their own and release juice. When making red wines most winemakers gently crush the grapes to release the juice. Crushing is perfectly fine and makes wonderful wines, but just a different style.

Aresta’s no-crush approach makes wines that are softer and fruitier because fewer bitter flavors from skins and seeds are released into the wines. Their wines are rich and velvety with a softer style than many “big” Napa Valley reds, yet they are still wonderfully flavorful and complex.

Artesa’s Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are grown in its Napa Valley Carneros-based winery, while some of the other red grapes are grown in warmer areas in Sonoma and Napa. Carneros has a surprisingly cooler climate than the rest of Napa. At a visit during one of the hottest  weeks this summer (while it was well over 100 degrees just an hour away in Sacramento), Carneros was down-right chilly by comparison, with cool breezes coming off the San Pablo Bay. Meanwhile, that week, unbearably hot weather plagued Pinot Noir grapes at Oregon vineyards, which are considered some of the best sites for Pinot Noir in the country because their usually cooler climate. Carneros is indeed a particularly unique place. In addition to cool breezes fog blankets vineyards in the morning, keeping grapes cool before it is burned off by bright sunlight. These factors produce good ripening of grapes with a relatively long-hang time on the vine.  They can then develop complex, fruity flavors and sugar, while maintaining enough acid to make balanced wines.

Not surprisingly, Artesa produces fantastic Pinot Noir wines, at all price points. Their value-priced Pinot Noir has a delicate profile–as Pinot Noir should–but it is still packed with fruit flavors and spice with complexity. You can get the 2006 Pinot Noir Carneros for $20-$25.

Artesa Chardonnay is a particularly nice, balanced wine, in contrast to other California Chardonnay wines that some say receive excessive oak or other treatments. Fifty percent of the wine is fermented in oak barrels, is aged with the yeast (aged “on its lees”), and receives malolactic fermentation. The other half is fermented in stainless steel and does not undergo malolactic fermentation. In addition, the French oak barrels are 34 percent new (which extracts more intense flavor) and 66 percent used (which exacts subtle if any flavor). French oak imparts flavors that are less intense than American oak, which is commonly used in California Chardonnay.

Also worth hunting down are Artesa Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot wines. If you visit you can taste some of them at the winery in Carneros, but the grapes are sourced from their vineyards in warmer areas—one in Napa’s Atlas Peak area and the other in Alexander Valley in Sonoma. These reds offer opulently rich and velvety flavor and texture with deep, dark fruit flavors. Try the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa/Sonoma made with 55 percent Napa grapes and 45 percent Sonoma-sourced grapes.  It is aged in French oak barrels for 24 months. It is available for $20-$25.  Total Wine has a Napa Valley only Cabernet for $29.99, worth trying.

If you have a bigger budget and are willing to do mail order, Aresta’s single vineyard and limited release wines are nothing short of fantastic. Artesa also markets wines under the label of Ridgeline, which are quite delicious. I recently mail-ordered from the winery half a case to enjoy this summer. You might also locate some on on Wine Searcher. Check out the others available on their website.

“But my two days of celebrations of Ridge’s half-century in California last week left me with, if anything, even more admiration for this distinctive producer of claret-style wines (and some increasingly impressive Chardonnay) and I have just published a set of tasting notes on many Ridge vintages on my Purple Pages.

“Here is a wine I think is a terrific price, especially in the US, where so many retailers are discounting like crazy, and one that is not too difficult to find at all.

“It is hardly original to claim that Ridge’s top Bordeaux blend Monte Bello is the equivalent of a first growth. The rerun of the Judgment of Paris established that. But Ridge Santa Cruz Mountains Estate 2006 is the equivalent of a particularly good first-growth second wine, except that it is, conveniently, much more forward than any 2006 first-growth second wine I know in Bordeaux. We also tasted the Santa Cruz Mountains 2007 last week. This is a very fine wine but is still pretty tight while the 2006 is almost ready to drink, tasting like a super-ripe, super-polished top-quality red Bordeaux. I gave it 17.5 points out of 20 (super-generous for me) and thought it would drink beautifully throughout the decade to come. This is very sophisticated wine by any measure.

“Thanks to Ridge’s blessedly explicit and apposite labels, I can tell you that this wine is 13.7% alcohol and is made up of 56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 42% Merlot and 2% the Petit Verdot that was planted way back at CEO Paul Draper’s instigation. After painstaking blind tasting and re-tasting of over 30 lots of wine made from old, some very old, vines high above the Pacific and Silicon Valley, the Ridge team decide what goes into the grand vin, Monte Bello. Most of the remaining lots, varying between 40 and 60% of the total, makes up this blend labeled simply Santa Cruz Mountains Estate.”

Find this wine at a retailer near you using Wine-Searcher.com.

Jancis Robinson

Danny’s selection for the Weekly Wine Pick is Argiano NC Confunditor 2007 Rosso Toscano, a Tuscan blend of 40 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 20 percent Merlot, 20 percent Sangiovese and 20 percent Syrah.

“[It’s] a balance of red fruits, smoke and meat with a full body and pronounced—but integrated—tannins and acidity,” he says. “This one has Syrah thrown into the blend which is different and cool.”

Rated 91 points by Wine Spectator, 89 points by The Wine Advocate and retailing for about $25, Danny says this young wine is already great drinking, but he also has cellared a few bottles and is interested in seeing how it ages. (We Define Wine suggests a lifespan through 2016.)

Its fruit and smoke make it a good match for a strong cheese, such as Gorgonzola or Livarot. Danny also suggests pairing it with a good ribeye or lamb.

“I like to call these types of wine ‘Baby Super Tuscans,’” he says.

This “Super Tuscan” comes from Argiano S.r.l. Società Agricola, located just southwest of Montalcino. Its vineyards cover about 120 acres and receive “year- round south exposure during midday.” Countess Noemi Marone Cinzano acquired the winery in 1992.

Distributed by Vias Imports Ltd., Argiano NC Confunditor 2007 Rosso Toscano is one of seven Argiano varieties available stateside.

On the 7th day...

Sunday evening normally ushers in two emotions.  One is the anxiety around waking up on Monday morning to face the week’s unkonwns.  The other is tension from whether a glasses of wine (or two) will clarify or cloud the judgment I need on Monday morning.

If you decide that Sunday night is one of the best nights of the week to crack open a bottle, regardless of the cuisine or company, you’re not alone.  I found myself facing multiple reasons to stay up past my bedtime last Sunday:  Celtics, Oscars and wife with a stomach bug.  I consulted Cor.kz for the wine in my basement that I could admit to drinking alone.   Despite being an off year, I wanted to save the ’97 Pontet Canet for a friend who is a fan of the property.   The next 4 on the list I had opened recently, so my choice was a Napa blend I had recently acquired from auction at a respectable discount.

The 2001 Merryvale Profile had appropriate color transparency and aromas of red fruit, cedar and chalk, which conjured memories of sailing an approach to the pacific northwest after a long year at sea.  Were I tasting blind, the first impression shortly after opening would have had me guessing 2005 vintage or later.  Fresh and fleshy with spongy tannins, the Bordeaux blend from St. Helena offered a hint of evergreen, olive, flint and other minerals.  At the end of the bottle the structure had softened a bit, and I was left wishing I had decanted for an hour.  This was one of a number of Napa reds I’ve had from the 2001 vintage that are running on all cylinders right now.

Though I woke up 20 minutes late the next morning, I was able to reflect on a great bottle while on my ride to the office.

Located in Australia’s Barossa Valley, the Colonial Estates winery is owned by British winemaker Jonathan Malthus, who established himself at his winery in Bordeaux in the 1990s. At that time, Maltus was dubbed a member of the “garage movement”—one of a number of winemakers in Saint Emillion making smaller-scale, modern style wines on relatively modest budgets compared to those of the Cru Classé estates in the area. At that time, he purchased then-run-down Saint Emillion’s Château Teyssier, which is modernized and restored, making great wines that embody both old and new world style. He has taken this success to the Colonial Estate vineyard in Australia as well as to his Napa Valley vineyard called World’s End.

Émigré prices range from $50 to more than $80 a bottle (the 2005 starts at $65 a bottle and other vintages at $49.00) on Winesearcher. If you are lucky enough to live near a Total Wine, you can pick one up for $50, which is a very good deal for this wine.

The wine for this pairing is Château Côte Montpezat 2000 from Côtes de Castillon in Bordeaux, which Cavanaugh featured at a recent tasting in Wegmans. For $14.99, at Wegmans, this wine is a “great value for a stellar vintage that is drinking very well,” Cavanaugh points out. Specifically, it offers “dark fruits, ripe cherry and chocolate flavors, silky smooth tannins and just a hint of mint on the finish.” The 2000 blend includes 70% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc, and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. Cavenaugh enjoyed it with Irish cheddar, another great match.

Adventure wine specializes in wine marketing/public relations and private, educational wine tasting events. As the owner and founder of this company, Cavanaugh’s credentials include certifications from the Windows on the World Wine Academy in New York, The Wine and Spirits Education Trust of London (WSET), The Court of Master Sommeliers, and Le Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux. Cavanaugh’s background also includes serving as former Director of Beverage and Sommelier for Ritz Carlton Hotels in New York City and Palm Beach, Fla.

Other wine pros apparently agree with Cavanaugh recommendation of this wine. Gary Vaynerchuk rates it 91-92, noting that it “rocked our socks” when he a colleague tried it. It was on sale at Wine Library for $18.98, but is now sold out. The Wine Spectator rates it 86, noting: “Pretty aromas and flavors of blackberries and spices. Medium-bodied, with firm tannins and a medium finish. Better than from barrel. Best after 2005.”