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MORE CALIFORNIA CABERNETS
NIEBAUM-COPPOLA
2004 Niebaum-Coppola "Rubicon" SALE $125.99 (last bottles)-
Claret Sale $15.99
 The Niebaum here is from Mr. Gustave Niebaum, the founder of Inglenook
back in 1879. Coppola is Francis Ford, famous movie producer.
Founded in 1978, Coppola purchased the Niebaum residence and some vineyards.
Adjacent to this property he purchased some 120 acres of vineyards. In 1995 he
bought the Inglenook property, across the street from Beaulieu Vineyards. This was
owned by Heublein and came with another 70+ acres of vineyards. Also part of
the package was a bunch of wine.
The original wine made here goes by the name "Rubicon." A South
African winery also makes "Rubicon," by the way. Rubicon has been a
Cabernet-based blend. The first vintage was 1978, though Coppola didn't release this
until the mid-1980s. It was a bit rustic and astringent. People bought it
anyway, curious to taste what Coppola could produce in the vinous world.
Over the 1980s the wines continued to be of this somewhat rustic, harsh,
more-tannin-than-fruit style. I remember tasting a whole line-up of these when they
were about 10-15 years old and finding them to be somewhat dried out and short on fruit.
I suppose Mr. Coppola felt a need to improve and he hired Tony Soter (Spottswoode,
Viader, Etude, etc.) some time ago. Bingo! Instant improvement.
Soter helped craft the wine to have much better balance and significantly more fruit.
These also show a nice sweet oak note.
His fingerprints remain, though I am not certain Soter still is affiliated with
Niebaum-Coppola.
The 2004 is a medium-full bodied Cabernet, showing some ripe tones and a
whiff of wood. It's drinkable now and should remain in good condition
for another 5 to 10 years.
The winery offers a bunch of wines with the Coppola name on them. We
have found these to be fairly commercial and of little interest. As we
get requests for something with the Coppola label, we carry a red wine
called Claret. It's a decent bottle, but hardly spectacular wine.
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- MARIO PERELLI-MINETTI WINERY
2007 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon SALE
$18.99
2001 "MIRIAM" Napa Valley
CABERNET (Was $75) Sold Out
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 The winery has a small sign out in front noting "American Owned".
Old Uncle Mario's family had been in the California wine business for years.
Look in any book covering the wine scene in the early part of the 1900s. The history
is fascinating.
Mario, who passed away at the age of a hundred-and-something in late 2010, lived up the street from the shop and
he'd had a small cellar
in Napa making Cabernet. It's 100% varietal.
Oak is not a
big part of his wines. They feature the grape. The quality is good and the
pricing is imminently fair.
Mario was a friendly old fellow who was even more of a
dinosaur than are we!
His wines are not going to win tastings, but enough
restaurants around here have his Cabernet on their wine list that the wine is rather
popular. People like the Cabernet because it tastes good with food and doesn't cost
a fortune.
The 2007 vintage is a medium-full bodied Cabernet and is drinkable now and should remain in good shape for 4-6 more years, maybe
more. It's showing nice, dark fruit notes and a bit of wood.
 Mario
made a reserve wine and named it in honor of his late wife, Miriam. I
think she was an avid swimmer and so there's a small icon representing her
on the label.
The wine is quite different than Mario's regular Cabernet. It was
matured for about two and a half years in French oak, all the cooperage
being brand new. The resulting wine is deep and dark. It's from
the 2001 vintage, so it's had considerable bottle aging.
The 2001 Miriam is now "history" and we thoroughly
enjoyed that wine...lovely work!
And we'll miss Uncle Mario...he was a character and a treasure.
- His grandson Andrew now runs the business and we hope he's
got big feet, because Mario had big shoes.
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- ONE ACRE
 One Acre just
about says it, no?
This is a small production Napa Cabernet from a little vineyard in Napa's
"Oak Knoll District." If it was a large production,
the brand might be 50 Acres. Or Back Acre.
This fellow grew up in Napa, his folks building a house there in 1971.
A lot has changed since those days when Napa was more of an agricultural
community rather than the enological "country club" it is today.
Dave Becker moved back to Napa with his wife and he uprooted the old fruit
trees on the property. He had no clue about grape growing, but a
friend had been grafting vines for someone and had quite a few extra, so
Dave got them. After they planted the vineyard, he enrolled in a
viticulture class at the local community college and today, lo and behold,
he's in the same league as the Rothschilds, Mondavi's and
Antinori's.
Well, with one acre, maybe not.
Becker says the winemaking is more a matter of being a
"janitor."
"You just have to keep everything clean and the wine will turn out
alright."
And did it ever!
I think he made eight barrels of "One Acre" Cabernet. It's
100% Cabernet Sauvignon, since that's the only variety his nursery friend
had.
The 2006 is dark in color and shows lots of red and some black fruit
notes. Oak is rather subdued and the wine is dry and not especially
tannic. It's a bit of a throwback to nice, classic Napa Cabernet
before people made sure to have 15% alcohol and a forest-full of oak on
their wines. -
- Currently in stock: 2006 ONE ACRE Napa "Oak Knoll"
CABERNET SAUVIGNON Sold Out
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- JOSEPH PHELPS VINEYARDS
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2006 Insignia SALE $189.99
 We were one of Mr. Phelps' first customers back when they released their 1973
vintage wines. Phelps owned a construction company and was a home-winemaker back in
Colorado. He purchased an old cattle ranch on Taplin Road near Heitz and promised
the owner he wouldn't wreck the place.
Riesling was a specialty, as the winemaker back then was of German origins. Early Cabernets were promising but not stellar.
They
launched something called Insignia back with the 1975 vintage.
The wine was going to represent the best barrels in the cellar and some
early vintages were predominantly Merlot and others were mostly Cabernet
Sauvignon.
These days it's a Cabernet-dominated blend. And it's now
established as a benchmark for Napa Valley Cabernets and Bordeaux-styled
blends. Insignia is a wine showing lots of dark fruit and plenty of
wood. Some vintages may even have a tiny bit of residual sugar.
The "regular" bottling of Phelps' Cabernets are perfectly
pleasant and typically of good quality.
Phelps has bought fruit from the Backus Vineyard since the 1977 vintage. When
the Backus family wanted to sell the entire vineyard site, Phelps stepped up to the plate.
This is a special vineyard in Oakville along the Silverado Trail. The
original vineyard covers less than seven acres, but Phelps says there are about 21 acres
which can (and are) being cultivated. Neighbors to this vineyard include
Screaming Eagle and Dalla Valle, amongst others.
We had a mid-1980s bottle of this
at the Vino Fino holiday dinner in December of 2000 and this was a sensational bottle of
wine! Very exotically-perfumed. The flavors were amazingly deep and lengthy.
It's been great to see this producer emerge in the past decade as a truly serious
quality winery.
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PETER MICHAEL WINERY
 Sir
Peter Michael is a royal subject of the Queen of England and he's got a nice
little winery and vineyard here in California. A venture capitalist,
this fellow has his fingers in the operation of radio stations around the
planet, along with a couple of luxury hotels (they refer to these as
"restaurants with a room"), a golf course and, oh, by the way, a
little winery in Sonoma.
The first winemaker here was Helen Turley. She's one who has strong
ideas about winemaking and viticulture. Typically she is affiliated
with a winery for several years and then moves on, leaving a disciple in her
stead. The Turley-ite here was Mark Aubert, who departed to start his
own winery, but has since returned on a consulting basis.
The winemaker today (they've had a bunch of people) is a French fellow,
Nicolas Morlet, whose family owns
vineyards and makes sparkling wine in the region of Champagne.
The Cabernet here is sold as a proprietary vineyard blend called "Les
Pavots." This vineyard site was dubbed "Les Pavots," by
Sir Pete's wife, Lady Maggie. This refers to the wild California
poppies growing around the vineyard. It comprises some 23 acres
and is predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon along with Cabernet Franc and
Merlot. We've long been fans of this wine (since before it acquired
its somewhat cult-like following).
The wines through the 1990s have been really good, but with 2001 and now
2002 the use of oak gives the wine a sweeter fragrance and flavor. It
scored a high numerical rating from various point-scoring critics and this
has increased the demand significantly. As a result, the winery has
raised its price in hopes of either separating "the men from the boys" or you
from your money.
The winery then decided that it needs to be even more profitable
that it already is (might they consider abiding by the laws in Sonoma and
reduce the amount of fines they're paying to the government there as a
result of doing some non-permitted development?).
As a result, the 2003 vintage brought a temporary end to retail wine shops
carrying Peter Michael wines.
Sir Peter issued a statement saying the winery would no longer
be selling wine to some of its original customers, in favor of selling
directly to consumers.
"For the present time," according to
the letter. If consumers don't flock to the winery to buy $150 bottles
of Les Pavots, Peter Michael may choose to stoop to selling wine to the likes of a
shop such as Weimax.
UPDATE: With the
release of the 2008 vintage coinciding with a 'down cycle' in the economy,
Sir Peter's wine once again became available to us. We may still have
a few bottles in the shop...it's a nice, big, robust,
not-for-the-faint-of-heart Cabernet.
Poor Sir Peter!
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- Currently in stock:
2008 Les Pavots Please inquire...
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PEZZI KING
 The
Pezzi King label has seen quite a rollercoaster ride in terms of its
presence in the wine market...
The brand was established in the early to mid-1990s by James Rowe who
named the place after his and his late wife's mother's names, Pezzi and
King. The early Zinfandels found fame and a measure of fortune when
they were first released and they skated on their new-found
notoriety. But you're only the new kid on the block for a brief time
period.
They hit a rough patch and had to start over in terms of establishing the
PK brand name. And this was a bit difficult and so several marketing
gurus came and went.
We had not paid much attention to their wines for a while...
...And then a fellow showed up with various samples of new Pezzi King
wines. We were especially pleased with a 2008 Dry Creek Cabernet
Sauvignon. Not only does the wine taste like good Cabernet, it
tastes like good Dry Creek Valley Cabernet.
And since the brand has been relatively under-the-radar for so many years,
they're trying to rebuild the Pezzi King name. To do so, the pricing
of their wines is such that savvy consumers should pay attention have a
look.
We've had the 2008 in the shop for a month and a half as I write these
paragraphs and can tell you numerous customers have made a bee-line back
to the shop to buy a second bottle (or a case) of this. One fellow,
in fact, who buys mostly $5-$10 wines, tried this and came back a day
later for a case! Now that's testimony to someone liking the wine.
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Currently in stock: 2008 PEZZI KING Dry Creek
CABERNET SAUVIGNON Special $17.99 (case discounts, too!)
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