March 3rd Winemaker Dinner

Due to an overwhelming response, our March 3rd Winemaker Dinner, is already sold out and has a substantial waiting list. This is an event where we will taste our new release wines with an intimate group of special guests over dinner, and pair them with food, with owner/winemaker Michael Muscardini hosting the dinner. This dinner is especially exciting as we will be releasing our first white wine and our first cabernet sauvignon.

Good news for you if you would like to have dinner with Michael Muscardini and Muscardini Cellars wines but missed this event! We will be holding a small winemaker dinner at one of Michael’s  favorite restaurant in San Francisco in April. Stay tuned for the date and details……  my mouth is watering already…!….

Bottling Week!

This week we are bottling our 2011 Rosato di Sangiovese, as well as a brand new wine for us: Pinot Grigio!  This 2010 Pinot Grigio  (kept in Neutral oak to round it out and add to fullness without adding oaky flavors…) from Santo Giordano Vineyards in Sonoma Valley is a delicious new addition, and  is our only white wine

After barrel tasting the wines a few weeks ago with Michael before their cold stabilization and bottling, here are some tasting notes that we put together for these wines:

2010 Pinot Grigio: Fragrant aromas of fresh spring flowers, ripe melon, and tropical fruits. Rich and exotic flavors of fresh cut lemongrass, white peach, tropical fruits, and Asian pear.  A nice, crisp, yet lush wine that is perfect for foods like seafood, salads, and Asian dishes. I’m already thinking of it with my favorite spicy Thai chicken and basil dish…

2011 Rosato di Sangiovese: Lively aromas of fresh rose petals, wild strawberry and red licorice. On the palate, the flavor profile is loaded with notes of wild berries, ripe watermelon, tangy citrus and subtle hints of red apple skins and fresh anise. The finish is crisp, clean and very refreshing.  I love this wine with Caprese Salads (mozzarella, tomato, and basil), grilled fish (particularly salmon) and cheese/salumi platters

I’m so looking forward to grabbing the first available sample bottles and tasting them with our restaurant and wine bar friends.   They won’t be released til a little later this month but keep an eye out, because with only 200 cases made, this wine likely won’t be around for long-

Cheers!

Aren’t February and March ‘Slow’ Season?

Not at Muscardini Cellars! In comparing notes this week in the office and looking at our calendars for the next two months, we realized we will be seriously slammed during ‘slow’ season. Where will we be?

Better question is where won’t we be? Starting with a meet the winemaker evening at the Fairmont in SF, the big Chronicle Wine Competition Event in SF, and our wine club pick up party in mid-February we are full-speed ahead through Spring with a winemaker dinner (where brand new wines for us will be released and tasted), Muscardini tasting events all over the Bay Area (Sonoma, SF, and the East Bay) and even LA (where we will taste our wines with some great sommeliers in the warmer half of our fair state).

Are you missing us and wishing you could taste our wines, but won’t be in Sonoma? Check out a few of our upcoming events here:
http://muscardinicellars.com/events.html

Hollywood and Wine

Over the past decade in the wine industry,we’ve seen a huge shift in the age range, knowledge level, demographics, etc  of our consumers. There was a time, not too long ago, where it wasn’t uncommon to be in a tasting room and hear things like ‘Peenut-new- are’, ‘Mer-lot’, or ‘Cab-er-net Saaavig- non’ uttered by customers requesting a tasting. In addition the most common requests I remember getting for wines was for Chardonnay, Cabernet or Merlot and….gasp…yes the occasional white zinfandel or blush.  Then came the sudden popularization of wine starting with Hollywood, exposing a much wider audience than the typical wine consumers, to  romantic, comedic, and inspiring stories of wine and the wine industry (Sideways in 2004, ‘a Good Year‘  in 2006, Bottleshock in 2008).  Television and Reality television shows soon followed suit.

What inspires you to drink a certain type of wine (or…not to drink a certain type of wine)? Has a movie, TV show or personality,  commercial, or advertisement, ever led you to a particular wine?  If not, have they taught you anything about wine you didn’t know before, that you have found helpful?

And just for fun-here’s one of my favorite wine scenes (not just bordering on the ridiculous…it’s ridiculous):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VXdKPEF16Q

Do you have a favorite wine scene? Or one that makes you cringe?

The Beauty of Wine Country in Winter

Winter Vineyards

With the holidays come and gone, and the leaves fallen from the vines, there is a quiet serenity that exists in wine country during the winter months. It’s the least hectic time of year in the vineyards (as the vines go dormant and rest before Spring) as well as the wineries and tasting rooms.

Depending on what type of traveler/tourist you are, the Winter months in Sonoma County can be the best time of year to venture up here.  There will be fewer events, smaller staffs, and less need for a dinner reservation, and this works to the savvy traveler’s advantage.

Winter hotel and B&B specials abound, house rental rates become negotiable, winery staff have more time to give individualized attention, and special ‘locals’ or winter pre-fixe special menus abound.  Not to mention, that with fewer cars on the road, travel times are shortened with less time spent in sluggish traffic allowing even more time for the more important things

We love the Winter in Sonoma at Muscardini Cellars. The calmness, the time to stop and think about the year to come, to plan our Spring Events, bottle wines………..

Here are some great winter deals I’ve seen, on lodging nearby (Sonoma, Kenwood, Glen Ellen):

The ‘Leap into the New Year’ Special at the Birmingham B&B

Special low Winter rates on rooms Sun-Thurs at the Sonoma Hotel

At the Swiss Hotel (right smack in the middle of the Sonoma Plaza) winter rates are $40-$60 lower per night from April through November

and for a bit more luxury, the El Dorado Hotel

Winter Food and Wine

When I arrived in Sonoma County, at 21 years old, I’d never had a cranberry sauce made from real cranberries, a brussel sprout that wasn’t overcooked, a ‘free-range’ or ‘organic’ anything, and champagne to me was anything alcoholic with bubbles… Oh how times have changed and thankfully! These days, one of my favorite times of year to eat (and cook) is the holiday season, when there are so many reasons to celebrate, and so much amazing winter produce to make use of.

Two of the best meals I’ve had lately:

Locavore Restaurant’s lamb dish prepared by Chef Jonathan or Perbacco Restaurant’s Capicollo Arrosto (roasted pork shoulder) prepared by Chef Steffan, paired with our 09 Muscardini Unti Vineyards Syrah is perfection!

Locavore’s dish (locavoreca.com/): braised lamb, whole grain mustard spaetzle, caramelized brussel sprouts, parsnip

Perbacco’s dish (perbaccosf.com) : slow roasted pork shoulder with lentils, baby turnips, and cherry mostarda (a fruit condiment with mustard syrup or essence)

So simple yet so perfect this time of year. The only way a brussel sprout is making it into my mouth these days is if it is pan fried, or caramelized. Who knew these veggies, the instruments of so much childhood torture at the dinner table, could be so amazing, when cooked properly? Turnips and parsnips make hearty and pliable side dishes (they complement the other elements of the dish without overpowering anything), And Our earthy yet fruit forward syrah with it’s  deep, dark finish complemented the pork and lamb particularly well.

I’ll re-create these dishes with my own twist at home this month as the ingredients are all available in the local market or easily substituted, and luckily I know where I can find a stash of the our Syrah for pairing…

The skinny on wine lists

Do you ever find yourself staring at the wine list at your favorite local restaurant or wine bar and wondering how they selected those wines? Is it a great list….one you look forward to choosing something new from each time you visit? Or is it lacking in the selection or types of wines you’d like to see?

What do you care about when ordering a wine in a restaurant or wine bar? Is it simply the price and the varietal, or do you like to constantly try different things and depend upon the recommendations of the staff or owners to aid you in your decision? Do you go with the tried and true,  or do you search out lesser known brands and take pleasure in discovering something new?

Most often, the wines on most restaurant and wine lists out there have been shown to the owner or manager at some point by a distributor (an organization that represents and sells many different brands of wine) representative and purchased based on the following qualities (sometimes some of these qualities more than others): price, varietal, quality, how well those types of wines fit their cuisine, clientele preferences, etc.  There are many different distributors in CA, of all sizes but the few largest ones provide the majority of the wines most people see on most wine lists these days, and this is why we see a lot of the same brands over and over again wherever we go.

In some cases, the wines may have been brought to the business, directly from the winery, by way of a direct employee or brand manager, the winemaker/owner, etc.  If purchased, the wines get shipped straight from the vineyard or winery to the business, without going through a middle-man (the distributor).

In still other cases, in CA, there are ‘brokers’, who act like a distributor (represent more than one brand, and act as the middle man between the winery and the business) but are much smaller and generally have a more specific product focus (ex: small boutique CA wineries from Sonoma/Napa, etc).

What are your favorite wines, the ones you go back to again and again, and why?  Is there a wine you had once at a restaurant or tasting, but have been unable to find and purchase in your area afterwards?

What’s in a name?

When it comes to vineyards, a name sometimes carries with it an expectation of exceptional quality.  Particularly if they’ve got a lot of history and have made a name for themselves by turning out amazing wines that display characteristics unique to their vineyards.

The Monte Rosso Vineyards in Sonoma are some of the oldest and most prestigious vineyards in Sonoma County. Planted back in the 1800s, these vines not only carry a lot of history,  but the fruit itself exhibits undeniably unique characteristics that show themselves in the wines that have been turned out of these vineyards over the years.

While historically (1880)  having been planted with zinfandel and cabernet sauvignon and becoming known for rich, full bodied versions of these wines these vineyards now hold small plantings of other grapes such as sangiovese which few people are aware of, and which we are lucky enough to be able to purchase for our Muscardini Monte Rosso Sangiovese. We also get some of the coveted zinfandel for our Muscardini Monte Rosso Zin.

Each harvest, at Muscardini Cellars we first crush the Sangiovese grapes at Monte Rosso that we intend for our Rosato di Sangiovese. A little later, we pick and crush the Sangiovese grapes that we use for our red Sangiovese wine…and still yet a little later, we pick the almighty Zinfandel.

Each time I visit the Monte Rosso Vineyards, or participate in crush with Michael (Muscardini), I am reminded of just what I, and so many others, love about this fruit.  There is a perfume that the soil and the grapes up there exude……….that is tantalizing… I am always reminded of lavender, dark chocolate, and blackberries.

Barrel that, Bottle that, and put it in a glass and you see exactly what the fuss is about Monte Rosso….

Raise a glass and toast to the end of the 2011 Crush!

With a difficult 2011 harvest at it’s close at Muscardini Cellars, we begin to settle down to enjoy the brief end of Autumn colors in the vineyards, and slight lull before the storm that is holiday season in Sonoma

Having had a cool summer, and harvest rains this was a tough vintage.  2011 will be remembered as a year where a lot of people left fruit on the vines and took a much lower yield to the press.

What did we take away from this vintage, on the positive side? We had fantastic syrah this year, both our Gracie Creek and Unti Vineyards fruit remained untouched and came in beautifully.  Our Sangiovese was also soon enough to avoid any major loss.  Michael (Muscardini) made new relationships with local growers as we searched out additional fruit sources to supplement some of our barbera and zinfandel losses and came away with what we expect to be some amazing new wines and long term friendships. The smaller yields we did get on our Monte Rosso vineyards zinfandel and Pauli Ranch barbera, will be excellent quality that will show itself in the bottle in 2013, upon release.

We also added, for the first time, a white wine: Pinot Grigio! I can’t wait for this wine to be bottled and released this Spring……it will be great alongside our Rosato di Sangiovese when the warm weather starts up again

Now that we’ve finished the crush season, we look forward to the holidays and all of the parties we’ll be having with winery guests, friends, and family….Check out our calendar of events which will keep expanding…..