Last year, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of Bonny Doon’s Le Cigare Volant, Randall Grahm’s great Rhone Valley blend that has contributed so much to California’s wine palette. More importantly, we celebrated Randall’s newest adventure–his latest efforts in reinventing the way he makes wine.

Here’s some background on what he’s up to.

As for this coming Monday night, it’s pretty casual.  Randall will be in the dining room to say hello to, or engage in conversation.

We’ll be pouring Le Cigare Volant ‘07 “en foudre” and Le Cigare Volant ‘07 “en demi-muid”. En foudre is a 10,000 liter standup wood tank, and en demi-muid is a 600 liter barrel, over twice the size of tradition barrique. These are alternative barrels not as commonly used for aging wine. Randall will tell us what he was trying to do and what he learned from the process.

And, if your looking for a spectacular outdoor adventure this Sunday, I believe there are a few spots still open at Bonny Doon’s annual ‘DAY OF THE DOON”. For the first time, it’s will take place at the newest vineyard site in San Juan Bautista. There’s a membership involved, perhaps a secret handshake, but it is bound to be pure fun.

We’ll be featuring Randall Grahm’s Bonny Doon wines for this year’s Oceanic Dinners because duh, we really them!   But also because Randall has always been ahead of the pack on the transparency front and in that regard, his commitment to tell-all labels makes a fine compliment to our well-linked menu.   Always an amusing teller of tales, we asked Randall if he would write something about the wines we’re pouring. Here’s what he had to say about them:

2010 Vin Gris de Cigare (Blend of Grenache, Grenache Blanc and Roussanne) In our Long March toward full transparency, I began to look closely at everything we were doing that was perhaps less than fully transparent.[1] Oddly enough, one of those things was the nomenclature of this wine. I began making “Vin Gris” in 1982, but until three years ago, the wine was in fact not a true “vin gris,” but rather a vin rosé.[2] Very simply, we called it “Vin Gris” from the beginning because in those dark days to call a wine a rosé was to doom (doon?) it to a fatal association with unspeakably sweet and confected industrial plonk. Further, then I had my own set of insecurities about our flagship red wine. I wanted Le Cigare Volant to be more concentrated, or at least I imagined that if it were more concentrated, the critics would give it higher point scores. In recent years, by working more closely with our growers, we’ve been able to achieve sufficient flavor concentration in our red grapes, and no longer (for the most part) have the need nor desire to bleed our red tanks.[3]

But here is the most extraordinary thing: I worried (unnecessarily it turned out) that the pink wine needed to be overtly fruity for people to continue to buy it, that it needed to be a certain rich color for customers to find it attractive. All of this turns out not to be true. When you make a true vin gris – you press it directly rather than allow it any skin contact – the wine is in fact way more elegant. It is pale in color but retains better acidity and has more articulate definition and complexity.[4]  Neither do you find the confected fruitiness that one often gets in rosé. This is a real instance of less being more; what you end up with is a stronger sense of minerality (what I live for) as well as vinosity – we achieve this in part by the inclusion of the white varieties in the blend and by extended time sur lie with bâtonage. This is a complex, real wine, perfect with the Provençal palate, viz. shellfish. I’m particularly happy with this particular vintage, very likely the best Vin Gris we have made to date.[5]

2009 Viñho Griñho. (60% Loureiro, 40% Albariño, Ca’ del Solo Vineyard) Forgive the slightly silly name; this is an allusion to the wine’s Iberian antecedents. I planted Albariño in our former vineyard in Soledad,[6] for the reason that we had also grown Riesling in the same spot with very good results, and since Albariño was believed by some to be a long lost relation of Riesling[7] – the vines and clusters themselves certainly look very much alike – I thought perhaps Albariño would fare well there. A number of years ago I had a brief consulting job in Rias Baixas, and was utterly knocked out both by the Albariño I tasted as well as by the region itself. While the climate was totally different – it rained all the time in Galicia, and hardly ever in the Salinas Valley, the granitic soils were not too dissimilar. But what struck me about Rias Baixas was the fact that one could smell the sea air in the vineyards.[8] Now, as you may know, the Salinas Valley is not called “Salinas” for nothing – the giant Salinas River (an underground river) is slightly saline. Since one is compelled to irrigate grapes in most parts of the Salinas Valley – the area is pretty much a dessert – I thought that maybe Albariño, if not halophilic (a longshot for vinifera species), might be slightly salt tolerant. Since I was packing a large suitcase in Rias Baixas, I thought perhaps to bring some Loureiro along for the ride. One never knows about a new variety in a new region, and having some blending options is always a good idea.

So, it turns out that Albariño does well in Soledad where it crops modestly at about 2 ½ tons/acre. Keeping the yield low, the grape expresses a wonderful citrus character – tangerine and grapefruit, with wonderful acidity. But the genius grape at least in the Ca’ del Solo Vineyard is in fact, Loureiro. It took us a while to figure this out – we were overcropping it for a few years and it struggled to ripen – the cluster weighs almost twice as much as does the Albariño one. But if you get it ripe, the wine will have a fabulous savory aspect, partially herbal (said to recall bay leaf), partially peachy, and maintain a delightfully screeching acidity. Our commercial release of Albariño is 75% of that grape, but in this bottling we reversed the percentages and made Loureiro the dominant one. This wine is absolutely perfect with oysters, especially of the slightly brinier persuasion.

2009 Cinsault (Ca’ del Solo Vineyard, Woock Vineyard) I am likely doomed in this lifetime never to produce the Pinot Noir of my dreams, and as a result I chase after various surrogates – elegant, fruity, delicately oxidative cépages.[9] Cinsault is known primarily as a blending grape of the Rhône, as well as a table grape; it is almost never made on its own.[10] It’s a large grape, perfectly spherical, not quite as big as a golf ball, but fairly ginormous. Typically, it’s crushed and then bled very significantly, (maybe 2/3 of the juice is drawn off), at which point, another red, typically Syrah, is crushed on top, and the two are co-fermented.

We use Cinsault of course as a component in our flagship wine, Le Cigare Volant, but decided to reserve a portion of it as a special bottling for our wine club, D.E.W.N. (There were a few cases unsold, which we are sharing with our dearest friends.) In this case, we were working with Cinsault from two vineyards – our own in Soledad, a relatively young planting, as well as the extraordinary head-trained, dry-farmed Woock Vineyard in Lodi, which may well be the oldest vineyard in California – believed to be about 140 years old. Yes, we bled them a bit, but left them unblended with other varieties. The Soledad Vineyard is a relatively cool site for Cinsault, but the roots are not as deep. We achieved better acidity from this component and a sense of freshness; the Lodi Cinsault, harvested riper, contributed much more depth of flavor and structure to the wine. (This is the magisterial authority of old vines.) Cinsault has relatively little tannin, relatively little color (the bleeding helps), but has the most extraordinary fragrance – that of kirsch cherries; it is grace note that works so well in blends.[11] We aged the wine in neutral 500 liter puncheons for six months, topping religiously to protect from oxidation and to preserve its delicacy. It ain’t grand cru Burgundy, but shows that elegance is possible even in Lodi.

“Querry” (Apple/Pear/Quince Cider) Sometime mid-last summer, David Kinch, the owner of Manresa Restaurant in Los Gatos, friend and neighbor of mine in Santa Cruz, very innocently asked me, “So, Randall, y’know the Eric Bordelet cider that we both love so much?” [12, 13] Do you imagine you could make a product that tasted a bit like that, i.e. something low in alcohol, elegant, refreshing and complex with a nice degree of minerality?” [14]“No problem, David,” I replied instantly, mentally calculating as the words came out of my mouth, how much fun it would be to try to reverse engineer some of the cooler aspects of the cider, reasoning, more accurately, rationalizing to myself that even if it didn’t come out exactly like Bordelet’s,[15] if I expended a crazy amount of attention on the project – something I was for my own internal reasons absolutely prepared to do – I could just will it to come out great. The major problem, of course, as I learned, was that the proper sort of pears for this product just don’t exist in California, indeed anywhere at all in the U.S.[16] Ripe Bartlett pears (especially those that are dry-farmed) taste very “peary” of course – that’s good – but they have essentially no acidity, nor tannin. This is bad news, very bad news for making a lively cider. Further, you can’t really press Bartletts when they’re dead ripe and flavorful; they turn to mush and foul the screens of the press. And under-ripe, they just don’t have any flavor. I called virtually every small to mid-sized cider press in California and no one would touch them with a barge (or Bartlett) pole.[17]

Of course there has to be a way, I thought. I’ll just reformulate the problem and not make pear cider pear se, but something vaguely pearish. I’ll get the acid from the apples and the tannin from let’s say, quince, which is quite astringent. Apples and quince have a different kind of cellular structure compared to pears that allows them to easily be pressed. Maybe if we just press them all together we can get some clear juice to come out rather than just mush. (This actually worked.) An enormous amount of effort was spent in the next month trying to find oddball high acid cider apples and quince and eventually we found a bit, got our cold storage arrangements organized so that everything could come out at the same time.

The actual production of the cider from the fermentation in tank to the fermentation in the bottle was an unalloyed disaster. Primary fermentation, undertaken with wild yeast, even at low temperature, went way too rapidly and stank up the entire winery.[18, 19] I made a grievous procedural error in believing that the secondary fermentation in the bottle would arrest itself upon attaining a certain degree of pressure. The secondary fermentation just marched right through six atmospheres of pressure and ended up fermenting all of the residual sugar, effectively creating little apple/pear/quince cider time bombs. So for the bottles that did not explode (maybe 70% of them), we had to don essentially bomb detonation gear and disgorge them, losing approximately 60% of the contents in the process.[20] They were then refilled and recapped, tidied up and put to bed.[21, 22]

The cider is bone-dry, I think a little too dry. For this reason, I recommend that you add about 15% verjus to it. The added sweetness balances the acidity and also seems to brighten the fruit. This little project was the biggest pain in the neck of any winemaking undertaking in my experience. And yet in the end, the trauma and horror of it all has largely faded from memory, and the cider itself is really quite nice. With a little verjus, even better. Next season, I will undoubtedly make slightly different mistakes.

Thanks Randall!

ALSO: Lance Winters at St. George Spirits fixed up a little Kombu seaweed vodka so our California Coast Oceanic dinners will include Oyster Shooters, garnished with pickled cucumbers.

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[1] Obviously the real biggie is the name of the winery, “Bonny Doon Vineyard.” Neither the winery nor our vineyards are located in Bonny Doon, an incorporated area of the Santa Cruz Mountains; this causes me untold psychic pain on a daily basis. Will fix, just not immediately.

[2] The difference between a rosé and a vin gris is that a rosé is typically made by crushing grapes (often destined for red wine), allowing a reasonable period of skin-contact – up to perhaps 24 hours in some instance, and then “bleeding” (saigner) the tank. This is done to achieve a deep color in the rosé, enhance the fruitiness of the wine, and of course to concentrate the skin to juice ratio in the tank of red wine that had been bled.

[3]The other part of the equation is that grapes for full-bodied red wine are harvested at higher sugar levels than those for a delicate, pink wine. Because the saigner juice will give you a higher potential alcohol wine than you desire (white or pink fermentations also yield a higher sugar/alcohol conversion because they are typically conducted at lower temperature in a closed tank, hence less evaporation of alcohol), you are obliged to take action to lower to potential alcohol in the resultant wine. This is done either by adding water to the juice (aka “Jesus Units” in the parlance of the wine biz, and in fact a licit addition if you don’t overdo it), or taking the resulting wine for a spin in the “spinning cone,” a high-tech device for dealcoholizing wine. Either option is a very odious and totally unpalatable to me at this point.

[4] Time on the skins increases the absorption of potassium ions, leading to a loss of acidity through the precipitation of potassium bitartrate.

[5] It was a very crazy vintage; for one thing, all of the pinks and whites spontaneously underwent malolactic fermentation during their primary fermentation, something that has never happened before chez Doon.  This can be extremely vexatious to a winemaker, who fears that the primary fermentation will not complete, owing to microbial competition, leading to sweet wine, and even more, horribly sweet wine with a very high volatile acidity.  We ended up putting large quartz crystals underneath the fermenters, investing them with the intention of a reinvigorated ferment.  Yes, I know this is unspeakably New Agey but it seemed to have worked.  For the record, wine actually does seem to possess a rudimentary consciousness.

[6] Vineyard was sold last year for financial reasons.

[7] Even the name itself seems to suggest “white Rhine,” but I’m afraid that this may really just be a wistful fantasy, or alternatively, as I believe, there is a connection, just on a non-material plane.

[8] The vineyards – all tiny little parcels (owing to the inheritance laws of the area) – were all planted on pergola, i.e. overhead trellises, to allow the clusters to dry out from the tremendous amount of rain and fog the area received.  The stakes and endposts that supported the pergola were all made from granite, as both steel and wood stakes would both rot out in short time, in virtue of the degree of ambient humidity.

[9] It is the fragrant top note of these grapes that triggers the Pavlovian response.

[10] In Châteauneuf-du-Pape I am told that Cinsault grapes are never planted adjacent to highways, as passersby will typically stop and harvest them for fresh eating.

[11] Malvasia nera, used as a blending variety in Chianti, is believed to be identical to Cinsault.

[12] David knows I’m insanely head-over-heels about Bordelet’s products, especially his Poiré “Granite,” a cider made from a 300+ year old pear trees.  His “Granite” is arguably among the greatest artisanal products in the entire universe.

[13] Bordelet himself came to visit our winery a number of years ago along with his friend, the late Didier Daguineau and his importer, Michael Sullivan of Berkeley.  A rather amazing visit with an amusing episode at a local Chinese restaurant involving a $100 bet between Daguineau and (the non-anglophonic) Bordelet, an attractive young woman from the area, and a tee shirt.

[14] The soil characteristics of Bordelet’s cider are so impressive, you might even want to call it “pearoir.”

[15] It didn’t.

[16] You can find “perry” pears throughout England, Wales and France, but interest in pears for cider U.S. is very recent and still rather modest.

[17] It is (mostly) fortunate that I have inherited the stubbornness gene from my mother, the absolute refusal to fully grasp the concept of “it can’t be done.”

[18] This was fixed by the addition of a discreet amount of copper sulfate.

[19] I am still not sure whether the stinkiness of the fermentation was due to an excessive degree of solids or to an inadequate nutritional status of the must.  While there was reasonable tannin in the wine, thanks to the quince, maybe there was still not enough to settle the must well enough. I don’t know if all of these questions would be answered by a visit to Normandy but that wouldn’t be a bad place to start.

[20] Geyserville.

[21] One can imagine that anything close to a break-even proposition for this product had gone out the window upon its initiation.  There might even be some Werner Herzog-like comparisons to be drawn.

[22] At this point it would have been great to have given them a final dosage of sweetness (ideally from fruit juice), but of course I did not have the foresight to have arranged this.

Six weeks earlier:

Twelve weeks earlier, the story of the 2010 Produttori vintage begins:

We think these timelines (more to come) may be an interesting way to think about wines the way winemakers think about them.  We’ll continue to post videos as Aldo sends them, so check back at the Oliveto Wine Journal for updates.

Over the years, Aldo has given me access to his life and friends and allowed me to get closer to his community, which I’ve taken as fundamental lessons in enjoying traditional wines.  As background, here is a thirteen-minute introduction to Aldo’s Barbaresco community:

And for the hard-core:  this is a long, somewhat dry, but to a few, extraordinary interview with Aldo’s father about the history of fine wine in Barbaresco:

At Oliveto, we’re just now offering the 2005 Single vineyard Barbaresco, along with Produttori’s Nebbiolo, and a substantial selection of their aged vintages can be found on our Wine In Time menu.

There is always something fun and interesting in the bag when Keven from Farm Wine Imports stops by. Today, as usual, he brought an assortment of great wines, but the one that stood out as the most unique and truly memorable was a red wine from the island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.

As you can see from the picture above, this special place is one of the most picturesque grape-growing regions in the world. Each individual vine is planted in crater-like holes in the black volcanic soil and surrounded by a semi-circle stone wall to protect it from the wind. Not exactly the vineyard scene most people who have visited Tuscany or Napa Valley might expect, but grapes have been grown here for centuries and it is a true oenological and ecological treasure.

The tiny Bodega Los Bermejos was founded in 2001 and produces only 500 cases of wine annually. This particular cuveé, made from an indigenous grape called Listan Negro, has both fantastic complexity and a delightful freshness. Pure, bright cherry and strawberry fruit (accentuated by the use of carbonic maceration) are complimented by a fantastic herbal note and a distinctive smoky, ashy tone surely derived from the unique soils mentioned above. Light-bodied, but with nice intensity and a great, long finish, this will be fantastic heading into the warmer weather and will be on the menu starting next week and featured during the 2010 Oceanic Dinners in June!

For more tasting notes visit the Oliveto Wine Journal

Wednesday December 9, 2009
Dinner, wine tasting, book party and chat

Tasting: 2007 Le Cigare Volant (puncheon), ‘07 Cigare (upright), ‘08 Cigare Volant (normale), ‘08 Cigare Volant (glass carboy).

Dinner: 2008 Ca’ del Solo Albariño, ‘04 Le Cigare Blanc, ‘01, ‘03, ‘05 Le Cigare Volant, Large format bottle of Cigare (older vintage), ‘07 Le Vol des Anges

Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyard is currently all over the national wine press after the recent release of his book, “Been Doon So Long: A Randall Grahm Vinthology,” (University of California Press).  Randall is variously described as a genius, wine’s bad boy, compulsive punster, dreamer, provocateur and the Willy Wonka of the wine world.  We find him also to be generous, endlessly interesting, totally original and a good friend.  And, while he has already accomplished great things in his life, he is now beginning his greatest adventure.

Having learned many lessons in the wine world, Randall has come to believe that the most important pursuit for a winemaker is to make a wine that truly represents a sense of place.  The French use the word “terroir” to describe the unique qualities of a wine that derive from this sense of place.  While Randall freely acknowledges that his wines are not yet vins de terroir (for one thing, they are often blends from multiple terroirs), he feels that the wines he is currently producing are deeply imbued with a vitality or life-force.  He is deeply committed to the discovery of terroir in the wines that he is yet to produce*.

We will be following Randall as he talks about his great adventure – the highly complex history of his company, Bonny Doon Vineyard, his personal journey to attempt to become more congruent with his deepest ideals (soaring music here), his discovery of biodynamic farming practices, his commitment to the demystification of winemaking and to transparent business practices, particularly in the realm of ingredient labeling.  More to the point, he is an entertaining and generally very humorous person.

On Wednesday, December 9th, we’ll celebrate the publication of his book with a special dinner prepared by Chef Canales paired with Bonny Doon wines, including some older vintages.   We’ll hear about the preparations for his adventure, and wish him well.

Dinner, wines and your own copy of “Been Doon So Long: A Randall Grahm Vinthology,”(an excellent Xmas gift)–$125.00 plus tax and gratuity. 7:00PM

Pre-dinner talk and tasting will begin at 5:45 PM

Reserve by phone: 510-547-5356

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*The notion of producing an authentic vin de terroir de novo Randall feels is incredibly challenging.  Apart from the brevity of a human lifetime and the difficulty of identifying a site with distinctive geology and aspect, the crucial question is the felicity or congruence between the selected grape varieties, rootstock and the site itself, as well as of course all of the details of the farming practice.  Randall feels strongly that the way forward likely is the way back – embracing “old-fangled” vineyard practices of promiscuous culture, head-trained vines and above all, dry-farming, as potentiators of the expression of terroir.

Tasting & Dinner with Roberto Stucchi Prinetti,
from Badia a Coltibuono

Friday, October 16th, beginning at 6:30 PM

This evening will be somewhat casual, certainly impromptu, but we hope interesting, worthwhile, and delicious.   Roberto is one of the most informed and thoughtful people we know in the wine world.  And now, with the wine business in considerable disarray, we thought it a fine time to consider how it may be evolving as we work our way back towards normalcy, and perhaps a bit about how we would hope it could evolve.   We’ll have a simple dinner in the Siena Room, a selection of Badia a Coltibuono wines, and conversation.

Chef Paul Canales will offer us a very fine four-course menu, allowing for several choices in appetizers and entrees

$75.00

There will be two Coltibuono wine flights available for $25.00 and $40.00

Seating will be limited to 24 persons.

510-547-5356

for reservations

June 25th and June 26th

Essential to the Oliveto Wine in Time project is Aldo Vacca, Director of Produttori del Barbaresco. Beginning in 1998, he has helped shape our ideas about wine, introduced us to many other fine producers, found old wine for our list, been a great host and friend, and helped us acquire hours of video tape about the region. On June 25th and 26th, Chef Canales will offer a Piedmontese menu for Produttori del Barbaresco wines. Available are twelve vintages and single vineyards including a very elegant 1979 Ovello. We’ll be serving many of these wines by the glass, half-glass and taste.

Aldo Vacca & Chef Marco Forneris

And over the years, on our annual (truffle) trips to the Piedmont, we dine at Osteria Lalibera in Alba. Osteria Lalibera and Chef Marco Forneris’ food are stylish, genuine, and delicious. Marco will be giving a master class for our kitchen staff this next week, the results of which will be reflected on the menu. We’ll report to you on the details by email before the dinners.

Also on this menu will be some very special young adult beef, vitellone, from our Potter Valley rancher, Mac Magruder. These animals have been hanging in our meat locker for several weeks and will be at their optimum point for these dinners (see video). We will feature the rib eyes and loins, and the chuck eye rolls will make a fine Brasato al Barbaresco.

Here are some of the highlights of what Marco and Paul have planned for us:

Chicche alla crema al parmigiano
Truly lovely gnocchi from Valle Maira in the north. This dish of Marco’s grandmother’s is quite different from our usual smaller, more dense gnocchi. Marco taught the dish to our kitchen staff at a class held last Saturday.

Carpaccio of Niman Ranch beef tenderloin bagna cauda
This bagna cauda is the classic Piedmontese two-day preparation, served with meat only for very special occasions.

Brasato al Barbaresco of Magruder Ranch milk- and grass-fed vitellone chuck eye
This young adult beef, vitellone, from our Potter Valley rancher, Mac Magruder, will have been marinating in Produttori del Barbaresco nebbiolo for five days. The meat has been hanging in our meat locker for several weeks and will be at its optimum.

Aldo Vacca and Chef Marco Forneris will be in the restaurant on Thursday night only, so if you’d like to say hello, or chat, please reserve for the June 25th.

call 510-547-5356

or reserve online

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

There are few winemakers who are as well respected as Giovanni Manetti from Fontodi in Panzano, the heart of the Chianti Classico region.  He is known for his encyclopedic knowledge of wine as well as for his warmth and charm.  While we’ve tended to present more traditionally made wines (Fontodi is considered somewhat modern in style), Fontodi wines are exceptionally well made, from one of Chianti’s oldest and finest wine valleys.

We’ll arrange tables so that we’ll be able to chat, dine and taste with Giovanni Manetti.  The standard of “modern wine style” has evolved in recent years, and we’ll have a chance to hear about how he sees this changing profile.

We will be tasting the following Fontodi wines:

2005 Chianti Classico DOCG

2003 Syrah

1998 Flaccianello della Pieve

1999 Vigna del Sorbo

Chef Canales will offer a special prix fixe menu:

Bitter greens and Tuscan-style pigeon liver crostino

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Polenta with rabbit ragù

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Charcoal-grilled wild fennel, olive, and pork belly sausage braised with chestnut honey

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Vin santo and biscotti for dessert

$120

prix fixe, with wine flight

For reservations please call 510-547-5356 or reserve online

We’ve just learned that this Tuesday evening, February 17th, Giovanni Pasquero-Elia of Sori Paitin in Barbaresco will be coming to Oliveto.  We’re big fans of his wines (and have been able to acquire a good number of bottles of his great 1990 vintage), so we thought we’d let you know of the visit.  Giovanni, with his father and his brother, runs the estate that their ancestor, Benedetto Elia, purchased in the 18th century.  The Barbaresco estate, situated entirely in Serraboella south and east of Neive, has been selling wine labeled Barbaresco since 1893.

We’ll be tasting a range of Sori Paitin wines and offering them all by the glass, half glass, and in flights, including a 1990 Barbaresco, 2004 Barbaresco, 2007 Arneis, 2007 Barbera, and 2007 Dolcetto.

Giovanni will be making the rounds through the dining room to share his wines and to talk and taste with interested diners.  (With such short notice we were unable to organize a lecture/dinner-at-the-table-of-the-winemaker event.)  We’re looking forward to experiencing some excellent wines and engaging in some enlightening conversations.  Please join us.

A Visitor from Montalcino

Saturday, January 23rd, 2008

Traditional-style Brunello producer Francesco Ripaccioli, of the small, very fine estate Canalicchio di Sopra, will spend the evening with us.  Whereas his wines will be available throughout the dining room, we are also offering limited seating with Francesco where guests will dine with him, taste his wine, and talk about Brunellos in general and Canalicchio in particular.

At the winemaker’s table we’ll taste:

-the current release 2004 Rosso di Montalcino

-tastes of two great Brunello riservas: 1995 and 1999

-two excellent Brunello normales: 1998 and 1999

-and finally, we’ll taste the 2001 Brunello riserva along side the 2001 normale

Chef Canales has just begun to marinate Magruder grass fed beef in Canaliccho Rosso di Montalcino as a featured dish for our dinner tonight.

About the family: peasant sharecroppers until the 1950s, the family acquired a small property, began to make their own wines, helped establish the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino in 1967, and is now one of a very few traditional-style Brunello makers remaining.  Their wines are quite wonderful.

There’s a very sweet story about the winery on their website.