Michelle Locke: The wine world will miss you more than it knows

I just learned from Gawker that Michelle Locke, who has been at Associated Press for 24 years, was one of the casualties in Associated Press' nationwide layoffs yesterday.

This is a bad loss for the wine world. Locke was not on the top of many people's list of important wine writers, but she's the one who got news about wine into papers of all sizes around the country and the world.

I don't know Locke; we have never met. But I admire her work.

Most mainstream, multi-subject news reporters badly botch the subject of wine. They either giggle over the idea that they're drinking on duty, or put on their MADD cap and interview a gaggle of neo-Prohibitionists. They usually refuse to make any sensory value judgment themselves, often unwittingly turning into PR touts because they let the winery's marketing director describe how the wine tastes.

Locke didn't made those mistakes. She understood the business of wine, which was the main focus of her stories on it. But she also obviously understood wine. She didn't make value judgments -- that's not the AP way -- but she didn't allow her stories to become PR either. Locke wrote wine stories for papers without experts in the subject, but sometimes they were informative enough to run in papers with full-time wine writers.

One could argue that this means more openings for freelance wine writers, as even large newspapers will not easily be able to find stories about wine without paying extra for them.

Instead, I think newspapers will simply run less coverage of wine. That's not a good thing for anyone in the industry.

Good luck to you, Michelle. And thanks for the years of good work.

Beer Wars, wine and politics

Beer rules wine -- not in taste, but in distribution and regulation.

The documentary "Beer Wars" got me to thinking about this. It's not a great movie: director Anat Baron is allergic to alcohol and thinks she knows craft beer because she was general manager of Mike's Hard Lemonade (only in this film are those two italicized phrases used in the same sentence.) This is why she wastes lots of screen time on a small brewer trying to sell caffeinated beer, and doesn't understand why the audience for that product would be satisfied with a corporate version for half the price.

That said, seeing the scale of corporate domination of beer is shocking, and while wine is only mentioned in the film as beer's "rival," an unspoken truth is that politically, wine is beer's bitch.

Anheuser-Busch InBev controls more than half of the US beer market. MillerCoors controls about 30 percent. The US actually has more breweries -- over 1,400 -- than any other country. But they're fighting for a tiny share of the market, and it's difficult to find real microbrews (not corporate lookalikes like MillerCoors' Blue Moon or Anheuser-Busch InBev's Wild Hop) in most US stores.

Baron's voice is grating but her visual style is excellent, with snappy cuts among 50-year-old beer ads, amusing animated parts, and well-shot interviews. She lingers on shots of shelf space, with Anheuser-Busch InBev products stacked floor-to-ceiling. Do we really need Bud Light in 24 packs, 12 packs, 6 packs, mini cans, maxi cans, etc.? Of course not, but the strategy pushes competitors right off the shelves.

This strategy has implications for wine as well, and not just the open competition for young American throats.

Anheuser-Busch InBev is so powerful that in most states it has its own distributors who carry no other product. Stores have to kowtow to them, and beer gets more floor space than it might deserve, but that's not the only impact.

The really interesting part of "Beer Wars" for a wine drinker is political. Wine drinkers are used to viewing the three-tier distribution system (producers can't sell directly to stores, they have to sell through a distributor) through our own lens. But it's not wine that drives the unholy coalition of distributors and the religious right that keeps most Americans from being able to order wine from the Internet -- it's beer.

Almost every member of Congress, and many local politicians as well, get contributions from beer distributors who are seeking to preserve their legal non-competitive, easy money. Baron reports on the three-tier system, but she doesn't understand the implications because nobody would order Mike's Hard Lemonade from Amazon even if it were possible. Wine is another story -- wouldn't people in Michigan like to order whatever Napa Valley Cabernet they want? Of course they would.

My favorite scene from the film comes when Baron tracks down one Oregon congressman who took no contribution in his previous election. She asks him why not, and he says, "They didn't offer." Bingo, he got beer-distributor cash for the next election.

The upshot is, wine lovers trying to get state laws changed don't just run into opposition from the local wine and spirits distributor, powerful forces in their own right. They're also up against Anheuser-Busch InBev, which likes the system just fine the way it is, and its protection flank of paid-for politicians. A company that spends billions on advertising and promotion always has extra cash for local officials considering any change in the status quo.

Wine has no corporations anywhere near that powerful; it takes the top three combined to equal Anheuser-Busch InBev's market share.

Gallo holds about 21 percent of the US market. The Wine Group is up to 18 percent and Constellation is down to 15 percent after selling the Almaden, Inglenook and Paul Masson brands to the Wine Group. Moreover, the top 10 companies hold 76% of the US wine market, less than just the top two beer companies.

Unlike with beer, there's still room in the US wine market for small wineries to compete, usually by focusing their attention on just a few states. Actually changing the rules of the game to make nationwide competition possible isn't going to happen, though -- not while practically every successful politician in the country is getting a bit of the proceeds from the unstoppable sales of Bud Light.

10 guidelines for Thanksgiving wines

Every food magazine has to do a Wines with Thanksgiving piece this time of year, which means every wine writer has written one. I've done a few, trying each time to get some clever new angle, because that's the way to stand out in the print world.

Here, though, I'm writing for free, not trying to sell some editor, so I can just give you the straight dope. Here are 10 guidelines for enjoying wines with Thanksgiving, and they don't change much from year to year -- just like Thanksgiving dinner itself.

1) Thanksgiving is not a great meal for a superstar wine
When I have a really special wine, I want it to be the star of the meal. This is not going to happen on Thanksgiving. Moreover, if there are more than 6 wine drinkers, everybody will get less than one full glass to appreciate the superstar wine. That's fine for tasting, but Thanksgiving is not about sampling -- it's about consuming and enjoying.

2) Thanksgiving is not for dumping bad wines
I have disposed of many wines I don't want at pre-Christmas parties, because people will fill up their glass with anything. At Thanksgiving, your family and friends are going to sit down and drink that wine right in front of you. I don't want to spend $75 on a Thanksgiving wine, but I don't want to be embarrassed either. If you're bringing wine, consider spending $15 to $25 a bottle.

3) There are too many foods on the table to find one perfect wine
You want a great wine with turkey? I can find you one. Stuffing? Sure. But a great wine with turkey, stuffing, corn on the cob, sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce? Forget it. There is no one perfect choice, so don't obsess over finding it.

4) Whites, bubbles and pinks go with more Thanksgiving foods than reds
There's only one dish on most Thanksgiving tables that goes well with red wine: Mashed potatoes. Light-bodied red wine is also good with turkey and gravy, but it's not usually the best choice. If you really want to match the food, lean most heavily toward whites, bubbles and pinks.

5) People will drink red wine despite point 4
People who like red wine, like red wine. I'm not going to tell them not to. I try to bring lighter-bodied, lower-alcohol reds that will go a little better with the food. But some people want to drink Zinfandel for philosophical reasons (being thankful that Americans discovered this grape, almost extinct in its homeland of Croatia), and I'm not going to make them drink Chenin Blanc instead.
I had a commenter on another post say that he always opens aged Bordeaux on Thanksgiving because it's a special occasion. I want to come to his house -- if you open it, I'll surely drink it. That said, I would push my plate of slightly sweet food out of the way and enjoy a complex, elegant, special wine like that on its own.

6) If you put food on the sideboard, put the wine there too
This is how I serve wine at Thanksgiving: I open a dozen or more bottles of all different kinds of wines and let people pour for themselves. I encourage people to try more than one, and to be frank about likes and dislikes. My friends who aren't in the wine world are often excited to have this many choices, and the odds are good that you can please everyone this way. Very few people have formal dinner service at Thanksgiving. Why shouldn't your wine be served buffet-style as well?

7) Bubbly is a better aperitif than Jack Daniel's
People are going to drink and nibble before the meal. Why not make it festive, by chilling a few bottles of bubbly? I love greeting people with a glass of bubbly; there's no better way to say "welcome." And you might find family tension is eased when your uncles don't get into the whiskey until well after dinner.
You don't need Champagne for this: Schramsberg, Argyle, Iron Horse and Gruet all make excellent domestic bubbly.

8) Here's a short list of wines I really like at Thanksgiving
This is by no means comprehensive. I like to drink American wines at Thanksgiving -- it is our holiday. So I like New York Riesling, Oregon Pinot Gris, Clarksburg Chenin Blanc, California Sauvignon Blanc, Anderson Valley Gewurztraminer. My favorite American roses are usually made from Pinot Noir. For American red, it's almost always Pinot Noir (California or Oregon), though I also like Barbera.
I could tell you about all the foreign wines that go well with Thanksgiving, but you can read that elsewhere. Generally, it's lighter stuff, Old World style.
But consider buying American on this one day of the year. The grapegrowers will be thankful.

9) Here's a short list of wines I don't think go well with Thanksgiving dinner
People can and will drink what they want. That said, I personally save heavier, oakier wines for meals that aren't as problematic. I never have Cabernet with Thanksgiving, and rarely Merlot. I don't like Syrah much at this meal.
Everything else is in a gray area. Take Chardonnay -- it's good with turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing, but problematic with some of the sweeter and more vegetal side dishes. I usually bring it -- it's still America's most popular varietal, so I'm sure to please someone. If I'm in the mood or it's really yummy I drink it myself.

10) This is a great meal for dessert wines
Dessert can last hours at Thanksgiving. I like to bring a couple dessert wines to prolong the dining experience. Don't worry at all about what kind of dessert wine, because it's not going to be paired with anything specific. Just get something a wine shop you trust says is good -- which is good buying advice for the other 364 days of the year as well.

Beaujolais Nouveau: 2009 is a very good year

I'm not a fan of Beaujolais Nouveau. It's silly to see the world go nuts over an overpriced, overhyped barrel sample.

Nonetheless I have tried it almost every year for the last decade, frankly to confirm my prejudice against it as much as anything.

The importers of Georges Duboeuf don't pay close attention to which American wine writers like Beaujolais Nouveau. So they keep asking if I want samples, and I say yes every year, even though I've never written a single nice thing about it.

Until now. This year is an excellent year for Beaujolais Nouveau.

The reason is weather -- it was a warm, dry summer in most of France. Burgundy and Bordeaux vintners are both delighted over their vintage. Most people don't realize this, but Beaujolais is actually part of the Burgundy wine region, so it's no surprise Beaujolais had an excellent year.

The warmth translates into Beaujolais Nouveau that is a little riper than most years, and thus friendlier to American palates. I usually think Beaujolais Nouveau tastes like underripe, slightly sour plum juice. Not this year.

I think you can project from the surprisingly good Duboeuf wines to the entire spectrum of Beaujolais Nouveau producers. Duboeuf, the biggest name, buys the most grapes and thus actually has the least control over the final product. If its basic level Beaujolais Nouveau is this good, it really is a great year for the stuff. Duboeuf's Beaujolais-Villages Nouveau is really worth the extra $1; at $11, it's fantastic value, a good wine where normally I expect a gimmick.

I feel grudging saying this, because it's a big part of the US marketing campaign, but these really are great wines for Thanksgiving dinner. They're light-bodied, low in tannins and refreshing, and won't conflict badly with the menage of flavors on your plate. And philosophically, they're this year's harvest, so they're something to be thankful for.

Don't overpay, don't overrate, and don't overexpect. All of that said, I nearly finished an entire bottle of the Duboeuf Beaujolais-Villages Nouveau last night, and nothing I can write speaks as eloquently of my opinion as a lot of empty glasses.

Tasting notes

Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau 2009 ($10)

A fine year for this simple wine: crushed red plum flavors, a few tannins for textural interest. Simple but pleasant, it would go well with just about any foods, including turkey and all that other stuff. 87

Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais-Villages Nouveau 2009 ($11)

Surprisingly sophisticated for a nouveau, this is an elegant baby wine with crushed red plum flavor, notes of licorice and violet, and very mild tannins. I won't claim to be an expert on the genre, but this is the best Beaujolais Nouveau I've ever had; the score is a reflection of that, and arguably could be higher for that reason. 90

Dear FTC: I take freebies

I submitted the following op-ed to my former employer, The San Francisco Chronicle. They refused to run it.

By W. Blake Gray

I'm a blogger, and I take freebies.

The Federal Trade Commission considers that practice so wicked that it created a new rule. Soon, I will have to publicly pronounce that I take free samples; it's as if my blog contains trans fat. Well, you can't get much more public than this.

But are they planning to tell newspapers and magazines the same thing? If not, why not?

I spent much of my life working at newspapers, and while all have ethics policies, I've never heard of one that takes absolutely no freebies.

Example: Did you know The Chronicle has a wine cellar full of free samples? (Actually the cellar is being remodeled, so the free wines are sitting in boxes in the main newsroom building.) When I worked here, The Chronicle never sent back a sample of wine or liquor. We donated some excess bottles to charities, but we trusted ourselves to make ethical use of most of the hundreds of bottles of free wine and liquor that arrive every month. And while the wine industry knew we took samples -- because we sent them emails requesting freebies, sometimes with specific instructions and deadlines -- we rarely if ever announced it to the general public.

Now that I'm a blogger, I'm supposed to report every time somebody sends me a single bottle?

Don't get me wrong -- I strongly supported The Chronicle's sample policy for the three years that I worked here as a wine writer, and still do. I tasted more than 1000 bottles a year here without paying for them. There's no way, on journalists' salaries, that we could afford to compare 75 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons, or convince a struggling newspaper company to pay for those wines. I believe we provided a service to readers by blind tasting and reporting our favorites.

That said, how much harder is it for me, now, without a journalist's salary, to compare even 10 Napa Valley Cabs unless they're freebies? Samples make bloggers more professional, not less.

It's not just wine. How do you think movie reviews appear on the day the film is released? The critic either saw a free screening or was sent a DVD. How is that different from a blogger taking a free DVD?

Is The Chronicle going to be asked to print "The writer saw the game for free" on every sports story? Aren't 49ers tickets a significant freebie?

Moreover, the FTC is missing a more important point: it's not how you got the goods, but what you do with them.

The New York Times presumably isn't scalping its seats in the press box for Yankees playoff games. But the Times did recently run a profile of Gary Vaynerchuk, who has a popular online wine video blog, calling him a "critic." Vaynerchuk's family owns a wine shop, which means he can directly profit from wines that he praises. He's not alone: other retail websites run "reviews" by their employees, or the products' distributors. But the FTC is apparently unconcerned about this.

Mainly, it's a fairness issue. The Chronicle doesn't have to announce that it takes freebies, but I do. Or do I?

Currently I sell freelance articles about wine to newspapers and magazines. I blog. I tweet. I write a regular column for Wine Review Online. I wrote a book about wine in Japanese and might soon write another.

Much of that writing, from 140-character tweets to my book, is based on free samples. So tell me, FTC, do I have to divulge that I received freebies if I blog, but not if I manage to sell an article here, to my former employer? (Not so likely after this op-ed, I admit.)

Chronicle Wine Editor Jon Bonne writes a blog and a column in the Sunday paper -- both of which can be read online. Does he have to tell about free samples in one, but not the other?

I'm not sure what the FTC is trying to protect consumers from. Let's say Hershey's sends a bunch of bloggers free chocolate bars. Some of them tweet: "OMG Hershey's chocolate is awesome!!!" Does the FTC believe US consumers are so stupid that Valrhona chocolate lovers will immediately switch? Give us some credit, Washington. We grew up with media and we're used to filtering it.

Wine Spectator (which gets far more expensive freebies than The Chronicle), the New York Times, The Chronicle and other print publications earned their influence because many people respect their opinions, not because they were favored by government regulations. I don't believe the FTC should be in the business of deciding which critics are legitimate. You either trust us all -- 49ers pass-taking Chronicle columnists and over-enthusiastic Hershey's twitterers -- or you don't trust any of us.

The rule is scheduled to take effect Dec. 1. I call for all newspapers and magazines that accept samples of any kind -- CDs for review, sports playoff tickets, et al -- to join with the blogging and tweeting community in solidarity. We are all writers, regardless of our medium. Let's protest this unfair intrusion of the Federal Trade Commission into the marketplace of ideas.

A Chronicle wine writer from 2004 to 2007, W. Blake Gray now writes The Gray Market Report wine blog. And he takes freebies.

To my fellow bloggers: I also submitted a version of this to the New York Times. They also refused to run it, but they did run this editorial haughtily supporting the new rule for us and not them. The editorial concludes thus:

But disclosure is a reasonable demand to make in any medium. It protects consumers and bolsters the bonds of trust between writers and their audience.

Yet the Times doesn't think "disclosure" should apply to its writers; only to print advertorials. I guess the Times buys all those books they review, right?

Great fruit wines for an uninterested market

Would you pay $23 for the best passion fruit wine in the world?

No? Neither would most people, which is why Radee Wine owner Makiko Yamashita is having a hard time selling wine.

It's funny that while we often describe expensive Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc as tasting like passion fruit, nobody wants to order a dry table wine that really tastes like passion fruit.

Yamashita is trying, though, as a one-woman sales force for wines she has made in Thailand by a Canadian.

She's originally from Kobe, one of Japan's most international cities, and went to Kyoto University. She worked for five years at Tokyo Mitsubishi Bank in Chicago before deciding she wanted to help poor people help themselves.

So she went to Northwestern for an MBA focusing on economic development. As part of a school project, she went to western Kenya to try to help small farmers.

"Farmers there grow just enough to eat," Yamashita said. "They don't eat well. Their health is really bad. We wanted them to have better seeds and crops so they could be healthier and transition to growing cash crops."

The first plant Yamashita's group introduced was the passion fruit, and it was the first time she'd had them ("It was so delicious," she said). Another researcher had decided the tart fruit was appropriate for the soil. But the locals took some convincing. Only after a few people were able to sell passion fruits in Nairobi for profits did others start paying attention.

Yamashita spent four months in Kenya, sharing a house with other researchers. She likes backpacking off the beaten track, so the sporadic electricity, lack of hot water and constant attention from locals didn't bother her. She did get bored with eating the same food as the locals, who eat ugali -- made from maize -- every single meal.

"It's like polenta but more starchy and hard," she says. "It doesn't have much flavor. They eat beef stew when they have beef, and they have a green vegetable that's like kale, but mostly they eat ugali. At first I hated it, but I got addicted to it. After three months I gained 10 pounds. I didn't have a mirror so I didn't know."

After four months, Yamashita moved to Thailand, where passion fruit grows well. There she met Dominic Rivard, a Canadian who had made ice wine before moving to the tropics. Rivard was already making pineapple wine for tourist shops, and Yamashita, newly in love with passion fruit, thought she saw business potential.

Her Northwestern MBA group wrote a business plan for making quality fruit wines in Thailand and exporting them to the U.S. It got her a degree, but her partners weren't actually interested in following through.

Meanwhile, her fiance, a psychiatrist, was finishing his residency in Chicago and had a job in Sacramento. Yamashita moved there to be with him.

Market-wise, that might have been a good move. While its cuisine is sophisticated, Chicago is considered a conservative city wine-wise. Sacramento may not be the most culinarily open place in the world, but it does have Corti Bros. Darrell Corti, who will sell anything he thinks tastes good, became one of her first customers.

Corti's mark of approval has gotten Yamashita in the door at some Bay Area restaurants, but still only a few carry her wines: Cav, Ana Mandara, Local Kitchen & Wine Merchant, Tamarine (Palo Alto).

Yamashita originally made 2000 cases total of the three wines: passion fruit, mangosteen and pineapple. While mangosteen has two harvests a year, Rivard can make passion fruit and pineapple wine year-round -- but Yamashita has to sell more wine first.

"We've only sold 60 cases so far," Yamashita said in September. "This is more difficult than I thought it would be. But I still think there's a market."

I know her feeling. I thought this was a unique story, and I really like two of the wines (see below). But I couldn't interest wine editors in it, so I'm giving it away on the Internet for free. Yamashita has a similar strategy.

"I bring it to parties pretty often, and I would say once a week I drink a bottle," she says. Hmm, more than 20,000 bottles at one bottle per week -- if sales don't pick up, she could be drinking fruit wine for a long time. At least it's good.

Tasting notes (Note: These wines can be ordered online from Corti Bros.)

Radee Passionfruit Fruit Wine ($22.50/500 ml)
The best value of the three Radee wines. It's funny to write "passion fruit" as a descriptor, but that's what you smell, along with some pine resin and honey. Though there is sugar added before fermentation, because of passion fruit's intense acidity, it doesn't taste particularly sweet, though there are notes of honey. It's tight, pungent and refreshing. The passion fruit lingers throughout the long finish. It's medium-bodied, and you could fool someone into thinking it's a Spatlese Riesling, which is how I'd use it. Mouthfeel is a bit syrupy, and it's slightly hot on the finish; 12.0% alcohol. I had this bottle open for more than a week in the fridge and it not only held up; it got more complex with time.

Radee Mangosteen Ambrosia ($31.50/375 ml)
Both this and the pineapple wine are made by freezing fruit juice and removing the water to concentrate it before fermentation (the passion fruit is made from straight juice). All three are fermented in stainless steel tanks. This is the most complex and unusual of the three wines, and the least like its source fruit. It's an almost-orange color, not quite rose. It smells like wild strawberry and mango with a cedary note. On the palate, wild strawberry is the main flavor, with subtle citrus and a slight sweetness. The mouthfeel is slightly thick but not syrupy, with enough acidity to carry it. Also 12.0% alcohol, but it doesn't taste hot. The flavors evolve with air. I'd love to try this with Thai beef salad.

Radee Pineapple Ambrosia ($27/375 ml)
The mangosteen wine is very hard to describe. Not this one -- it smells and tastes like pineapple. There's also a green note of pineapple skin. The mouthfeel is soft and it's not as sweet as actual pineapple juice. At 11.0% alcohol, it doesn't taste hot. If you like pineapple juice, you'd probably like this. I found it too simple and it was the only bottle that, even in a week, I didn't finish.

Stags Leap District Cabernets 2005

Stags Leap District has long been perhaps my favorite Napa Valley subappellation for Cabernet. Made properly, Stags Leap Cabs tend to be more elegant than others from warmer parts of the valley.

Stags Leap is in the southern part of the valley, so it gets cool breezes from the Pacific Ocean, allowing grapes to develop ripe flavors with less sugar (and thus less potential alcohol) than a few miles north.

Driving through is much more pleasant than the Oakville - Rutherford - St. Helena wine circus on Highway 29. Stags Leap includes the gentle hills straddling the Silverado Trail from Clos Du Val at the south end to Robert Sinskey Vineyards at the north. It's easy to not notice the boundaries because Silverado Trail is so pretty.

Like the wines, the tourist experience is understated, but expensive. Pine Ridge, like Clos Du Val and Sinskey, is on the general tasting circuit. But most of the other dozen or so wineries are open only by appointment, typically for a wine-and-snacks experience that runs $25 to $75 per person.

Speaking of audacious pricing, once a year the local vintners group releases a gift box that Goldman Sachs probably hands out as party favors: a collection of one wine each from 17 different producers. This year it's the 2005 vintage, and the price is $1,375, not including shipping.

I tasted 16 of the 17 at, of all places, an expensive San Francisco gift and knickknack shop (one winery's rep didn't show). I was one of the very few media; most drinkers were on the wineries' mailing lists, or were regular customers of the store. That made for an odd tasting environment; people were leaning glasses of red wine over pricey upholstery.

With only 16 wines, I could blast through all before too many department store shoppers were horrified by a grown man spitting wine into a bucket (one woman asked if I was OK.)

While these are expensive wines, not all are the top of the line. Shafer sent its multi-vineyard One Point Five Cabernet Sauvignon, not its usually exquisite Hillside Select. Pine Ridge included its 3500 case, $80 Stags Leap District Cabernet, not its 380 case, $100 Epitome Stags Leap Cabernet.

Notable by its absence was the defining winery of the district: Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, founded by Warren Winiarski in 1970, and winner of the Judgment of Paris red wine tasting in 1976. Winiarski sold the winery in 2007 for $185 million to a partnership of Washington's Ste. Michelle Estate and Tuscany's Piero Antinori. But it's still not a Stags Leap tasting without Stag's Leap. (Note that it's different from Stags' Leap Winery, owned by the Australian beer group Foster's; there was a long legal battle over that apostrophe.)

Overall, I found the wines to be -- as expected -- fairly elegant. Tannins were well tamed all around, sometimes to the point of timidity. There were a few fruit bombs, and some alcohol levels over 15%. But there were also a surprising number of wines with alcohol under 14%, a rarity for Napa Cabs these days. Fruit was usually bright, not stewed or roasted. The wines were clean, not rustic, and most were drinkable now, although some seemed likely to reward 5 years or more in the cellar.

A few notes on my favorites:

Terlato Family Vineyards Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 (NA)
American wine importer Tony Terlato made his fortune by overcharging suckers for Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio, turning a flavorless but inoffensive wine into an unstoppable brand that's consistently the leading premium white wine choice in U.S. restaurants. The man does know wine and I find his less cynical domestic projects to generally be of the highest quality. This is no exception: This wine, from new plantings, is exactly what I want from Stags Leap -- elegant and balanced, with cherry and ripe red plum flavors and a nice current of minerality. A restrained 13.8% alcohol. In addition to being talented, head winemaker Doug Fletcher is married to the best cheese critic on the planet. 94

Clos du Val Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 ($70)
Co-founder Bernard Portet has always been a maker of French-style wines in the heart of California. This is a typical effort, combining the complexity and restraint of Bordeaux with the ripe cherry of Napa Valley. In addition to fruit, the nose has notes of leather, copper and dried herbs and flowers, which you also taste on the long finish. Chewy tannins at the end add another dimension. Europhiles may like this wine better than typical Napa Cab fans. 94

Robert Sinskey Vineyards SLD Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 ($90)
Robert Sinskey is one of the few openly organic, biodynamic farmers in a price category where most vintners still see such practices as a marketing negative. My theory is it's because Republicans eat steaks and buy pricey Cabernets, while Democrats eat line-caught wahoo and drink natural-yeast Pinot Noir. But anyway. Sinskey makes one of the widest ranges of wines in Stags Leap, and I often find one of his wines among my favorites in whatever category they're in. This is a lively wine with strong minerality, bright cherry fruit, notes of licorice and Christmas spices, well-managed tannins, focused acidity and a long finish. 94

Chimney Rock Winery Ganymede Vineyard Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 (NA)
Also owned by Tony Terlato (did I mention the guy knows wine?) Chimney Rock makes several single-vineyard Cabs -- as well as unusual single-clone Cabs -- that are only available at the winery. This is one of them. I hated the aroma at first; it was closed tight and covered by sulfur. But boy, is this nice on the palate. With its very gentle cherry fruit, this is one of the most delicate Cabs you'll ever have from Napa Valley. Just 13.5% alcohol. Eventually the nose should open up; I don't know how long the bottle was open before I tasted it. 92

Robinson Family Vineyards Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 ($56)
Is it worth extra points that this is one of the most beautiful labels I've ever seen -- a watercolor of the vineyards? Patriarch Norman Robinson bought land in Napa Valley after retiring from the U.S. Army in 1967 (good time to get out), and it turned out his neighbor was vineyard pioneer Nathan Fay. Though just 14.4% alcohol, this wine smells overripe -- like blueberry syrup -- so the ripping acidity on the palate is a surprise, along with the ripe red fruits (cherries and plums). The acidity gives it hope for a long life, and a future where the blueberry aromas and red fruit flavors coalesce. 91

Shafer Vineyards One Point Five Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 ($70)
Winemaker Elias Fernandez is one of the best in the world at achieving concentration and drink-now hedonistic wines without going over the edge into overripeness. This wine combines some hillside estate fruit with grapes from the Borderline vineyard purchased in 1999. As expected from Shafer, it's intense and concentrated, and the black cherry fruit tastes quite ripe, but the tannins are soft, it doesn't taste hot and there are some cola notes. If you like ripe fruit, you'll like this. 91

Hartwell Vineyards Estate Reserve Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon ($115)
Hartwell's vineyards are actually planted atop a volcano. Fortunately, it hasn't erupted in 4 million years. This wine is very ripe (15.2% alcohol) but it's complex, with notes of cherry, dried plum, allspice and clove, and has chewy tannins that give it presence in the mouth. I like the hints of spice on the finish. 91

Also good (85-89 points, not great value at these prices):
Stags' Leap Winery The Leap Estate Grown Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2005
Steltzner Vineyards Estate Reserve 40th Anniversary Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2005
Taylor Family Vineyards Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2005


I just didn't like:
Baldacci Family Vineyards Black Label Estate Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2005
Cliff Lede Vineyards Poetry Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2005
Ilsley Vineyards Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2005
Malk Family Vineyards Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2005
Pine Ridge Vineyards Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2005
Silverado Vineyards Solo Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2005