Wines and Makers is very pleased to be able to represent and sell MoniClaire Vineyards wines. Peter and Mary Beth Smiderle’s home and vineyards set on 10 acres of beautiful benchland just off of Lytton Springs Road in the Dry Creek Valley. For the most part, their vineyards are sloping west which, some suggest, lends itself to a certain voluptuousness-big ripe fruit-characteristic in the wine. This certainly proved true after tasting the MoniClaire Petite Sirah-this wine has great fruit and spice nuances and is not, in my opinion, overly tannic. Peter and Mary Beth also produce a classic, ageworthy Dry Creek Zinfandel and a crisp, citrus nuanced Sauvignon Blanc (sold out). Total production for these three wines is around 300 cases. The Smiderles have all the passion in the world for MoniClaire (named for their two daughters, Monica and Claire) and it shows in their wines. Peter has been around winemaking all his life and is now fulfilling a dream, while Mary Beth’s eyes sparkle whenever she is speaking of MoniClaire.

See our MoniClaire wines here

I have been putting together the menu for our Christmas party next week and have been researching and scouring my old recipes and looking for inspiration in my many cooking magazines. I came across an oldy but a goody that always impresses and wanted it to share it with you all.

Here is the link:

Cream of Mushroom Soup served in Baby Potatoes

If you are short on time just buy already made cream of mushroom soup and viola no one will know and be equally impressed.

This recipe is great because you can pair it with chardonnay (not to oaky, any of our chardonnays would work great) or a Pinot Noir (again all of our Pinot’s would be great, but I would say the Balletto would be the best).

For more Appetizer recipe and wine pairings check out our recipe page.

By the way if any of you are in town next week, we would love to see you at our Christmas Party, so please come!

Recently Andrea and I visited Iron Horse Vineyards located in the Green Valley appellation of the Russian River Valley here in Sonoma County. We were greeted by Winemaker David Munksgard and Corral Club Director Kevin Vanderhoff. Given a tour of the vineyards we settled on a beautiful knoll overlooking the winery to visit with David about his experiences making wine dating back to his college days at California State University, Fresno. I hope you enjoy the video as much as we did shooting it. While David’s demeanor is easy going, he and his team at Iron Horse are meticulous in all phases of making world-class Sparkling, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The sweeping rolling hills of the 300 acre ranch (160 to vine), the outdoor tasting room (Shirley has been pouring wines since the seventies and is a great host) and the outstanding wines make Iron Horse a must visit on any winery tour. There is even a chance, on an occasional Friday, you will find David passing through the tasting room and he may take you on your own vineyard tour. An unforgettable experience!

After my last wine-tasting fest—where I opened three bottles on the same evening—I was left with three half-full bottles of wine. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but the next night I came down with a cold. I reached for one of the Zins anyway, but my wife quickly ran interference, putting a glass of orange juice in my hand instead. This made me worry that my delicious wines might go bad by the time I could enjoy them, so I contacted Kevin on the red phone at WAM’s headquarters.

“What’s the shelf-life for an opened bottle of red wine?” I asked.

“Heck, you can drink them three or four days later and they’ll be fine,” he said. “But if you’re worried about it, just cork them and stick ‘em in the fridge. Some red wines hold their flavor for over a week that way.”

My jaw dropped. “Red wine? In the refrigerator? Isn’t there a law against that in California? Don’t tell me you drink them cold…”

“Oh, no,” Kevin answered. “Just pull it out a few minutes before you want to drink it, pour it and let it warm up in the glass. It doesn’t take long.”

With that, I grabbed my Zins and stuck them on a shelf in the fridge next to the orange juice and chicken broth.  Five days later, when the cold was almost gone, I pulled them back out and tasted each. They were as good as the first day. Too bad I didn’t have anything left to test after a week!

Okay, sorry to punish you with yet another Zinfandel pun, but it’s not often that I get to open three wines on the same night—at the same time… so … you know … forgive my zins.

Tonight we played a little game I call “Wine Taster Shout-out” where everybody at the table takes a mouthful of the same wine, swishes it around, swallows, and then has to quickly state the first flavor, or flavors, that come to mind. The three Zinfandels that we popped were the 2005 St. Amant (Old Vine), the 2005 Martin (Old Vine), and the 2006 MoniClaire. The participants were my mom, dad, wife and best friend.

And without further ado, here are our shout-outs:

ST. AMANT
“Vanilla!”
“Black cherry.”
“Caramel!”
“Chocolate!”
“Tobacco.”
“Grape Jolly Rancher.”
“A giant pomegranate seed, squeezed into my mouth.”

Read the rest of this entry »

John Hawley moved to Healdsburg, California in 1980 after graduating from UC Davis. Recently I went for a drive through the beautiful Dry Creek Valley and drove in the direction of Bradford Mountain on my way to John Hawleys Winery. Driving up the hillside I got a sense that I was in a very special place. Arriving at the winery I found that it is a totally unpretentious, functional, practical, and ecologically balanced estate. In all ways, in my opinion, a reflection of John Hawley himself. Here is a man who has had a huge impact on making the fine wine industry what it is today, overseeing the production of millions of cases of wine, and now appears perfectly content making a few thousand cases of quality fine wine. John is extremely knowledgeable in the science of grape growing and the art of winemaking and it shows in each bottle of wine he produces. Johns two sons, Paul and Austin, are now working to carry on the tradition started by their father. They could not have a better teacher.

See our Hawley Wines

I recently had the chance to taste two tempranillos side by side, and enjoyed them with my 90-year-old Italian Grammie’s famous spicy meatballs. The first one I opened was the Obra 2006 Joven, a lovely rioja from the Ribera del Duero region of Spain. It’s a very smooth-drinking wine that brought to mind the flavor of berries when it first crossed my tastebuds. I would take a bite of a meatball, soaked in spicy red sauce, then follow it with a sip of the wine, which complimented the tomato and garlic-y ground beef nicely. I asked my grandmother (who doesn’t drink) to smell the wine and tell me what she thought it reminded her of, and after taking a big whiff, she deadpanned, “Smells like wine.”

In contrast, the second bottle I popped, the Bodegas Luis Gurpegui Muga 2005 Tinto Primi, tasted slightly more peppery. The flavor of fruit was still there, but it was veiled delicately in a spiciness that precluded the black cherry finish. This wine is darker in color and more oaky, with more obvious and defined “legs” running in streaks down the inside of the glass. Again, I put this one in front of my red-headed Grammie and asked her what it smelled like. Upon inhaling deeply from the glass, she looked up and announced: “Winey!”

I really enjoyed both wines for different reasons. Where the Obra was rounder and easier to get right into, the Muga prickled the palate, playing off the red peppers buried in the meat. As the Muga sat on the table over the course of an hour, it opened up more, mellowing out and revealing a softer side.

The wines seemed to have very distinctive personalities and I ventured to compare them to women — perhaps two redheads at a bar. The Obra was voluptuous, curvy and quite friendly from the first taste. One could go as far as calling her “easy.” The Muga, on the other hand, started out a little sassy, almost playing hard to get. The complexity was enjoyable and memorable because of the way it changed throughout the meal, finally giving way to a mouthwatering roundness. When I mentioned this to my family as we finished our Sunday dinner, I joked, “Look, they even both have nice legs!” To that, my grandmother just rolled her eyes.

Nice to meet you! My name is Rick. I’m the guy in the photo above with Wines and Makers owner Andrea Godard. This picture is significant because it’s a candid shot from the first time Andrea took me to wine country.

Wait. I should back up a little. Andrea and I have been dear friends since middle school, when I thought she looked like Elizabeth Shue in Karate Kid . Throughout the years we’ve been in art classes together, listened to the Smiths in her vintage Falcon, snuck each other into bars, and lived together in San Francisco. She organized my wedding. I go fishing with her dad. And she took me to Sonoma for the first time ten years ago to taste wine.

When I heard she was starting this online wine community with her husband Kevin–who we actually met in a tasting room on that same wine trip above–I was thrilled because I know Andrea and Kevin are passionate about wine and the lifestyle surrounding its enjoyment. Andrea is a brilliant cook and hostess and Kevin has a wisdom about wine-making that comes with years spent in the business.

When Andrea asked me to write a blog about wine, I was a little intimidated, actually. Unlike Kevin, I’m no expert on the subject. My only qualifications for doing this are that I’m an experienced web-logger and that I do love to open a nice bottle in the evening. But Andrea put me at ease by explaining that she wanted this wine community to be different than most. My somewhat pedestrian experience with wine is exactly what she’s looking for, because that puts me in the same company as 75% of wine drinkers out there. I have a few different styles of wine that I enjoy regularly, I know how to swirl and sniff a glass, but I’m interested in learning more. To that end, we’re all in this together on the Wines and Makers blog.

This is the space on Wines and Makers where anything goes. I’m going to taste and review some of the wines you’ll find here, Andrea is going to post some of her musings and amazing recipes to go with the bottles she’s offering–hell, we may even get Kevin to chime in. We want this dialog to be open. I expect to be corrected, directed, and hopefully commended every once in a while for my observations as my own palette “matures.” Don’t hesitate to comment about recipes, add your own reviews, or recommend a bottle from an interesting wine producer that we may be sleeping on. We love hearing from people!

So with all that in mind, here’s to the start of a great party. Let’s slow things down and savor the flavors and experiences that go along with wine drinking.

Cheers!