Hardware Grill – June, 2010

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Wine notes by Wad Brintnell

2005 Roederer Brut Rose
Fruity, elegant and delicate (red fruits) with generosity and rich unctuosity.
ELABORATION:
70% Pinot noir - 30% Chardonnay - 20% of the wines vinified in oak barrels with weekly
batonnage. ( hand stirring the lees ) No malolactic fermentation. To create Rosé champagnes, Louis Roederer still uses the saignée method after cold maceration that can last 5 to 8 days in the liquid phase. ( The Saignee = to bleed , means they bleed off the juice from the tank after it reaches the desired colour.

2008 Far Niente Chardonnay
Vineyard Notes:
Far Niente Chardonnay is a blend of Napa Valley vineyards, many of which are located in a little-known area called Coombsville, a cool growing region nestled in the rolling countryside and protected by the hills east of the city of Napa. Coombsville offers the characteristic climate of Carneros, with less wind, along with deeper, well-drained gravelly loam and volcanic ash soils.
Harvest Notes:
Fermentation: 100% barrel; No ML
Aging: 10 months sur lie in French oak (68% new, 32% once-used)

2005 Guy Amiot Chassagne Montrachet Les Champgains
Guy Amiot is a 4th generation operator of a family estate that dates back to 1920. Taking over in 1985, Guy tends 11 Hectares of vineyards , including a small holding in the prestigious Montrachet vineyard. Wines are made in a traditional way, with minimal intervention. Racking is done once for the Premier Cru's and twice for the Grand Cru. Barrels are a blend of 3 french oaks.

I was at the Domaine in 2005 and Thierry Amiot told me that "2005 is an excellent vintage and it's rare to have such uniform quality in both red and white. It's comparable to 2002, 1990 and 1985 and while there was hail in Chassagne and Santenay, it fell early enough to remain a quantity rather than quality issue for us as we lost between 15 and 20%.

Justino’s 10 year old Reserve Madiera
The islands of Madeira have a long winemaking history dating back to the Age of Exploration when Madeira was a standard port of call for ships heading to the New World or East Indies. To prevent the wine from spoiling, neutral grape spirits were added. On the long sea voyages, the wines would be exposed to excessive heat and movement which transformed the flavor of the wine as the wine producers of Madeira found out when an unsold shipment of wine returned to the islands after a round trip. Today, Madeira is noted for its unique winemaking process which involves heating the wine up to temperatures as high as 60˚C (140˚F) for an extended period of time and deliberately exposing the wine to some levels of oxidation. Due to this unique process, Madeira is a very robust wine that can be quite long lived even after being opened.
Justino’s Old Reserve Madeiras are created from a mix of local red grape varieties, predominantly that of Tinta Negra. The blend is made of a number of wines that have showed excellent promise when young, and which have spent at least 10 years in oak casks before being bottled. They are generically classified according to the level of sweetness in the wine and sold as four different types: Dry, Medium Dry, Medium Sweet, and Sweet.
1997 Kalin Cuvee DD Pinot Noir

The grape source is Demostene Ranch located in the Alexander Valley. The vineyard is the oldest Pinot Noir plantation in this region, and was established with a clone which produces small berries and low yields. The soil is a mixture of clay, silt and limestone. The vineyard is dry farmed and within one mile of the Russian River.

Winemaking and Cellar Practices:
grapes were hand-picked, sorted, and crushed. The must was fermented on the skins in wooden cuves for three weeks. The cap was punched down by hand three to four times each day. The must was pressed, settled and transferred to fifty percent new French oak barrels. Following the completion of malolactic fermentation, the wine bottled without racking, fining or filtration in April 1998. This is their Current release

2006 Pahlmeyer Merlot
Composition: 89% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Sauvignon

The grape clusters are hand-sorted, and once de-stemmed, the berries are hand-sorted again on the way to the tank. This is followed by a four to five day cold soak, depending on flavor extraction. The fruit is then allowed to ferment with 100% native
wild yeast in small open-top fermentors for two to three weeks.

Near the end of fermentation, the must is gently pressed and the wine is moved to barrels where it finishes its primary as well as secondary fermentations. Ageing continues in 80% new French oak – a combination of Taransaud, St. Martin and Cadus barrels for close to 18 months. The wine is bottled unfined and unfiltered.

2004 Dolce
Italian for Sweet. Dolce is produced from grapes affected with Noble rot which is the ages-old term for botrytis cinerea, a mold that provides the near mystical richness, texture and complexity that sets Dolce apart.

Noble rot needs ideal and very specific, naturally occurring conditions to develop. The Dolce vineyard is situated where the still, morning air and the low-lying fog promote noble rot. Years of experience in the vineyard have taught them to tend the vines in a manner that encourages this fickle process.