Eric brought the famous Streicker chardonnay that I've fallen in love with for its delicious minerality, white fruit, and flinty finish. I think the 2006 is drinking slightly better, in peak maturity, than the 2007 -- but these are both 90+pt wines that you should taste whenever & wherever you're lucky enough to find them.
Old-style Napa chardonnay, a mythic bottling from Chateau Montelena that helped put California on the map in France and England forty years ago. Plenty of buttery oak, but on top of acidic ripe fruit -- this is like a White Bordeaux without the minerality. 89 points
Quentin described this Roederer as "Kate Moss: lean, slight, and thin"! The flavor profiles are white fruit driven, and it is on the over-austere side of the spectrum. Thanks to Norm Page for bringing it. $38; 88 points
This is a big and heavy sparkler from Schramsberg, yeasty and full-bodied. Pinot noir fruit from North Coast vineyards. I prefer a lighter style... $80; 88 points
If you're looking for fun off-the-beaten-path places to taste in Napa Valley, stop in at Van Der Heyden. It's a true family winery; moreso than 95% of the labels that include "Family" in the name! You'll understand immediately when you dodge the Big-Wheels in the driveway and sign the guestbook in the tasting room! This Cab is one of my favorites from Napa year after year -- the blend is almost always with Cab Franc (25% or less) which adds a nice blueberry note to the deep rich fruit and French oak. $50 on release (near-impossible to find now); 92 points
The 1997 vintage in Napa was epic and the fruit that went into this baseline Cab bottling from Clos du Val was sourced from estate vines in the Stags Leap district and neighboring vineyards. One of the nice things about baseline (non-reserve) bottlings for me is they tend to have a slightly lower percentage of new oak so the fruit gets a better chance to shine. This wine is at peak maturity now, the nose is full of powerful black cassis which follows through on the palate and opens up to reveal blackberry, plum, and black raspberry. The body is tannic with lots of structure, and the wine threw a lot of sediment. I love these 375ml bottles -- but finding any 1997s are tough these days... $55 (750ml); 92 points.
1989 was a fantastic vintage in Bordeaux, and this Chateau Leoville Barton is one of my favorites. $120; 92 points
This is unofficially the first bottle of wine ever to have a silicon chip implanted on it -- appropriate because the owner of the label worked in Silicon Valley for years and clearly enjoys technology, although the whole crew at Clos de la Tech is committed to old fashioned winemaking. Dr. T.J. Rodgers is the CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, and this bottle has two 16 megabit SRAM (Static Random Access Memories) that contain 107 million transistors (the new bottling's chips contain over a billion)! $101.50
My buddy Stan Chudnovsky was born in Moscow in 1970 and as a boy he learned about Northern California through the writing of Jack London (who was allowed to be published in Russian because he was a Socialist). I try to steer California Cabs from 1970 to him whenever I can... I bought this bottle of classic BV at a Bonham & Butterfields's auction in 2002. $100
St. Innocent produces six single-vineyard pinot noir bottlings (and two blends) -- and I'm looking forward to trying all of them. Oregon's Willamette Valley is one of the best pinot noir growing regions in America, and wines like this one show why -- dreamy aromatics, high acids, playful red fruit with cola and black cherry notes followed by slight earth and spice on the finish. In a blind tasting I'd swear it was young burgundy. $21 (375ml bottle); 92 points
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