Welcome to your Friday Follies for the week. This week let’s go international with two all-time favorites from California wine country and two a little more off the beaten path. This quartet was chosen in honor of our ‘Around the World’ tasting this evening with good friend Emily Kaplan. Can’t make it?
Here is the same pricing we’ll offer tonight…
15% off on six bottles or more, shipping included.
Mix and match as you please to get the best price.
2023 AXR Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley
Regular Price $34.00, Friday Follies Special $29.99
with 15% on six bottles $25.49
Those of us of a certain age remember the wonderful Napa Valley Sauv Blancs of yore- Cakebread, Whitehall Lane, Spottswoode, Honig, Duckhorn and others are just some that come immediately to mind. These are all beautiful, exciting wines that manage to balance the variety’s native pungency with copious fruit flavors and, often, just a touch of oak to add texture and roundness to the palate. Recently a relatively new interloper has found its way onto our shelves- a Sauvignon that positively shimmers with bright enticing aromatics, lovely jasmine tea-infused fruit and the kind of finish that demands you go back for another sip. And it’s priced right too! Winemaker Jean Hoefliger, already a blossoming superstar with a reputation for making elegant, much-acclaimed reds, clearly has a way with SB too. Perfect for your late summer sipping, it’s delicious on its own, though we think a warm goat cheese and fresh herb salad would make for the perfect pairing. But how about a classic sole Meunier? Swoon-worthy, for sure! It was a great surprise to discover AXR, a Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc that hits all the high notes at a price we think that’s as refreshing as the fruit. The brand-spanking-fresh 2023 vintage has just arrived. Get it while it’s coooool!
2018 Hanzell Vineyards Chardonnay, Sonoma Valley Estate
Regular Price $75.00,
FRIDAY FOLLIES PRICE $47.99
with 15% on six bottles $40.79
The great Hanzell Vineyard is as much an institution as it is a winery. This iconic estate has been making some of the most succulent, longest-lived Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs ever created in the United States since its first vintage back in 1961 with a history that goes back ever further. Originally the property of Ambassador to Europe and Bay Area entrepreneur James Zellerbach (the Zell in Hanzell- the Han was his wife Hannah), the vines here go back to the fifties and their reputation as producing some of the most European-styled wines made in America goes back just as far. In fact, for a winery so committed to Old World sensibilities ( Zellerbach designed the original winery after Burgundy’s Clos Vougeot), Hanzell was surprisingly ahead of its time. Under Zellerbach’s guidance, Hanzell was the first winery in America to use temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks to ferment their grapes and the first to allow a controlled malolactic fermentation to soften the high levels of acidity with which his mountain-grown Chardonnay was blessed. These are remarkably structured, complex wines with the inherent richness to show well when young while lasting decades in the cellar should you want that to be the case. And not much has changed over the past decades. Current winemaker Jason Jardine (only the fourth full-time winemaker in Hanzell’s history) is a student of the winery’s history and has many years’ track record working with its organically-farmed grapes. The 2018 Estate Chardonnay is a classic Hanzell top to bottom- a wine of presence and persistence with a complex, savory nose of toasted grain- skinned hazelnut, Asian pear, Meyer lemon and apricot. Broad and rich on the palate, it’s the wine’s Burgundy-like acidity and the site’s inherent minerality that help make it the perfect amalgam of Old World and New. The best news of all, besides the special price, is that, at six years past the vintage, you have the opportunity to taste a perfectly-aged Hanzell Chard at the peak of its powers. It’s truly a wonderful experience that will remind you that Chardonnay, under the best conditions, can be a very, very complex and extraordinary wine. Very highly recommended!
James Suckling: Beautiful apple and crushed stone with white pepper and lemon curd on the nose. Full-bodied with layers of fruit and creamy, light yogurt undertones to the tangy dried-citrus aftertaste. Rich, lively and complex. Solid and structured. Very drinkable now, but better after 2024 and beyond. 95 points
Vinous: The 2018 Chardonnay is a magical, complex wine that really blossoms beautifully with a few hours of air. Layered and deep, with tons of nuance, the 2018 remains light on its feet and quite understated. Hints of apricot, tangerine, chamomile and dried flowers slowly open with a bit of coaxing. It's the sort of wine that requires several hours of undivided attention. 94 points
Wine Enthusiast: Structured and graceful from beginning to end, this white is floral and offers depth and length. From some vines still on St. George rootstock and fermented in both oak and stainless-steel, it retains lively acidity and vibrant layers of salty stone, Meyer lemon and green apple. 94 points
Wine Spectator: Svelte, with minerally snap to the pure-tasting McIntosh apple, Bosc pear and apricot tart flavors. The juicy finish offers hints of buttered toast and light spicy accents. Drink now through 2026. 94 points
Jancis Robinson: An historic name! Very rich-tasting initially but with great tension. A good wine to choose for friends who think only Burgundy produces fine Chardonnay. Very nuanced and one can easily see why it commands this price.
We’ve heard it said that Scarpa is the ‘best winery you’ve never heard of,’ but we think of it as a sensational source for terrific, mature, traditionally-produced pan-Piemontese wines at very reasonable prices.
*2020 Antica Casa Scarpa Nebbiolo d’Alba ‘Bric du Nota’
Regular Price $45.00, Friday Follies Special $39.99
with 15% on six bottles $33.99
A visit to Tenuta Scarpa’s (a.k.a. Antica Casa Scarpa) old semi-urban cantina on the outskirts of Nizza, about 25 kilometers southeast of Barolo, is like visiting a museum of the history of winemaking in Piemonte. This old property makes, or has made, over the past century just about every kind of wine the region has ever produced. In their cellar you’ll find racks packed with old bottles of unlabeled Barolo and Barbaresco, thirty year-old, still delicious Dolcetto d’Aqui, rare Brachetto Secco, Rucche and Freisa- all just as old, and, of course, lots and lots of wonderful Barbera. This is, after all, Nizza, ground zero for Barbera d’Asti and the Nizza DOCG. Walls and walls full of treasures! Even better is that Scarpa actually lets you try some of these old wines when you visit. All tastings here at the cantina include a smattering of oldies and, by tradition, always a fascinating blind tasting at the end. In my case, last time I visited, it was an eleven-year old bottle of Freisa that blew my mind! Additionally, Scarpa exports only the wines they think are mature to the USA and their once-annual container is always filled with fun wines. Some of the wines I tasted and ordered during my last visit have finally arrived. Here is one treasure you should definitely add to your own cellar. While many producers are already trotting out their 2022 or even 2023 Nebbiolos, Scarpa is giving us their 2020….a relative stripling in a cellar loaded with wines far older. But for all its (relative) youth, it’s drinking stunningly well. Bric du Nota is an old steeply-sloped single-vineyard Nebbiolo site not far from the town of Canale in Roero. It’s an older, very privileged hillside vineyard that Scarpa has been farming for many decades. The wine is vinified in cement fermenters and aged in old casks highlighting only the fierce individuality of the Nebbiolo grape and nothing else. The 2020 is at the very beginning of its ascent with its pure, ferrous-y, mineral-driven flavors cut in vivid relief. I could use it as a primer on the aromatics and flavors of Nebbiolo, right from its brick red color all the way through its deliciously spicy, umami-laden dried earth finish. Broad on the palate for a wine whose aromatics seem so focused, it strikes just the right balance between its ripe dried cherry fruit and very-Nebbiolo structure and finish. Drink it now or keep it for, well, how long do you have? Very highly recommended.
2020 Storm ‘Ignis’ Pinot Noir, Upper Hemel-en-Aarde, South Africa
Regular Price $66.00, Friday Follies Special $59.99
with 15% on six bottles $50.99
The story of Hannes Storm closely parallels the development of South Africa’s Hemel-en- Aarde (Heaven and Earth in Afrikaans) appellation, part of the larger Walker Bay zone on the Atlantic coast. Storm got his winemaking start with Sir Anthony Hamilton-Russell at the seminal Hamilton-Russell winery, the winery that put the Walker Bay appellation on the world map and continues to be its largest and best-loved address there. After twelve harvests at H-R, Storm found himself two vineyards of his own nearby and, with Hamilton-Russell’s blessing and support, began the process of creating his own winery. Just a bit earlier, Hemel-en-Aarde divided itself into three distinct zones or wards within the greater appellation, each with attributes unique enough to justify their independence and, after obtaining a third vineyard a few years later, Storm found himself in possession of a vineyard in each, the only Hemel-en-Aarde producer who can say that. These three wards,  Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, the Upper Valley and the Ridge run progressively northward from the ocean and the beautiful town of Hermanus with the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge being the furthest north, beginning some 13 kilometers from the town. The Pinot Noir vines here, at some 330 meters high, ripen later than further down the valley and create wines with more finesse and purity.
Storm places an enormous amount of attention to picking times, and ferments using mostly whole clusters in stainless steel before aging the wine in small Burgundy barriques for a year, about a quarter of which are new. They are released only after 15 months in bottle when they’ve had a proper amount of time to lose their baby fat and begin to show their stuff. The 2018 is a very pure, quite understated version of Pinot Noir with hints of wet earth, pine and spice in a compote of warm cherry fruit that runs from yellow to red. I found that this very focused, very austere style of Pinot really shows its best with a little air and, though we don’t normally recommend decanting Pinot Noir, this is one that might benefit from it. Play to its earthiness with dishes focused on wild mushrooms, dried or fresh herbs and something with enough richness for this wine to cut through. So pretty! So unique. |
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