2012 Alsace Festival Toulouse Open House

Hundreds of attendees turned out on Sunday, February 19th for the Toulouse Vineyards Alsace Festival Open House in Philo,California, despite that the weather report called for rain. As it was, Sunday was beautiful and sunny all day. The palate development and food & wine pairing workshop was conducted out of doors on the crush pad until chilly winds in the late afternoon forced us to move our venue indoors for the last few hours of the Open House (see photo above).

Attendees tasted the 2011 Pinot Gris, 2011 Rosé of Pinot Noir, newly released 2012 Gewürztraminer, and the three 2008 Pinot Noirs: the Lautrec, the Anderson Valley and the Estate. The line up for the day's pairing menu was as follows:

Lemongrass Ginger Coconut Reduction on Roasted Mussels on the Half Shell

2011 Toulouse Vineyards Pinot Gris

Silver Goat Cheese on Belgian Endive with Moroccan Preserved Lemon

and Fennel Fronds

2011 Toulouse Vineyards Rosé of Pinot Noir 

Abbaye de Bellocq Cheese on Grilled Bovolo Bacon Bread

2008 Lautrec, Anderson Valley and Estate Pinot Noirs

I recognized so many repeat attendees from the Pinot Noir Festival Open Houses as well as previous Alsace Festival Open Houses. All in the all, the mood was infectious as guests enthusiastically worked their way through the two tasting boxes of eight profile elements and three sample pairings. 

As always, I feel singularly fortunate to have the honor of working with Vern and Maxine Boltz's lovely wines. I am particularly excited about the 2012 Gewurztraminer. I hope their devout following learns from the 2009 vintage and jumps on cases of the 2012 Gewurz. I am still kicking myself not to have cellared a few of the 2009. Apparently, a notable speaker at the technical conference referred to that vintage as being of particular quality and perfection.

Finally, at 6pm, tired but happy, we shut down the workshop and said our goodbyes to this year's Alsace Festival...until next year.

2011 Pinot Noir Festival Toulouse Open House

On a day that originally called for showers, we half anticipated a reduced number of attendees to the annual Toulouse Vineyards Open House on the third day of the annual 2011 Anderson Valley Pinot Noir Festival. We were....wrong. It never did rain and although Toulouse has always enjoyed a huge turnout to their annual event, this year, the word must have really gotten around because THIS year, attendance was massive.

At the end of the day, the staff estimated over 700 visitors to the winery. I was running the palate development and pairing theory station and never even lifted my head up to look at the crowds until 4:30pm. My entire staff had arrived that morning at 9AM to set up and to prep for our maximum best guesstimate of 650. We weren't too far off. Not a staff member ever even stopped once until 4:30. At that point, we were on the downhill to the 5pm finish line for the event and so...we just kept on going until the last guests departed.

This year, we had a tasting profile box of elements for the 2010 Rosé, a box that straddled the 2008 Anderson Valley Pinot, 2008 Estate Pinot AND the blockbuster 2009 Anderson Valley Pinot Noir. The third box was geared to the intriguing 2008 Lautrec. The pairing menu was as follows:

Fresh Goat Cheese on Belgian Endive garnished with Moroccan Preserved Lemon, Fennel Fronds
 2010 Toulouse Vineyards Rosé of Pinot Noir

Fra'Mani Soppressata on Grilled Baguette Crostini

2008 Anderson Valley Pinot Noir

Roasted Leg of Lamb dipped in Cortas Pomegranate Molasses

2008 Estate Pinot Noir and 2009 Anderson Valley Pinot Noir

Thanks again and again and again to Maxine and Vern Boltz of Toulouse Vineyards for affording me the wines, platform and pleasure to help the public pair food and wine for themselves!

Smoke and Mirrors for Anderson Valley

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, the entire 2008 vintage of Anderson Valley grapes was pretty much panned as the title, "Sipping These Wines Is Like Smoking And Drinking at the Same Time" indicates. It's not clear if the article started out to be a piece of sensationalist journalism about the 2008 fires that swept through Northern California, (including Anderson Valley as well as Sonoma and Napa) however, no mention is made of any other affected wine growing region.  The article is unjustly skewed toward the negative that Mary Elke's comment, "I'm proud of the wine I ended up producing," is quite lost in the hubbub. Five winegrowers were interviewed. What about the rest of the 2008 wines from Anderson Valley? Did the whites and rosés suffer as well?

There are 26 wineries and 25 winegrowers listed as members of the Anderson Valley Winegrowers Association.  Each one represents a community of people whose livelihoods are already at the mercy of nature. Farming of any sort is one continuous gamble year after year. Rather than bulk dump their grapes, I have nothing but admiration for those winemakers, who had everything to lose, but instead, chose to take the risk and to make their wines to the best of their abilities. In my book, those are the real winemakers we should celebrate. I'm very curious to know if the reporter, Ben Worthen, tasted the 2008 wines, or at the very least, if he conducted a comprehensive tasting of the wines made by his interviewees.

You may ask yourself, "WHY is she going on and on and on about the 2008 Anderson Valley vintage?" Because. I recently blind tasted over twenty-five of the 2008 vintage and only two! of them showed any detectable smoke taint. Some were a little stripped from filtering and reverse osmosis than others, but being that pinot noir IS a medium bodied red wine, I thought they were all well within their varietal characteristics. In fact, there were quite a few that showed extremely well -- with the typically powerful palate profiles from their region. I was pleasantly surprised. And then, I started thinking....heeeeey! I have to say, I'm bothered by all the misleading bad press that Anderson Valley has been shouldering. (What ABOUT those fires in Napa and Sonoma?) I'm MORE than disappointed that a notable news source, the caliber of the Wall Street Journal, would be so irresponsible as to publish such a poorly researched, one sided article. The slow death of newspapers is not reason enough for this trespass.

The annual Anderson Valley Pinot Noir Festival is coming up on May 14-16. I'm throwing down the gauntlet to  all of you Pinot Noir lovers to come check out the wines for yourselves before you mistakenly write off the entire vintage. Come support the winemakers whose work you've enjoyed for years, and prepare to be pleasantly surprised.

Anderson Valley Pinot Noir Festival

Now that the frenzy has died down, I've had a chance to sort through all that happened at this year's Pinor Noir Festival. Thanks to Toulouse Vineyards, this year, I was a guest at the grand tasting and actually TASTED THE WINES (yay!)! In years past, I've always been too busy working on some part of the festival to even consider taking the Saturday off to taste.

There were so many wines I've been curious to taste in depth...Woodenhead, Copain, Black Kite, Jim Ball, Littorai, new Harmonique, etc. It was a luxury and a treat to have them all in one place -- to be able to taste one against the other. But the one that stood out for me among all of the fruit forward, New World style pinots (and oh yes, there were many) was Mary Elke's of Elke Vineyards. Such an elegant, perfectly balanced Burgundian style I have been missing for some time now.

The Toulouse Vineyards Open House on Sunday was gloriously sunny, non-stop crazy busy fun and wildly successful. We estimated over 300 guests visited that day. Inside, the tasting room staff poured bottles and bottles of the 2008 Rosé of Pinot Noir, the 2006 Estate Pinot Noir and the 2007 Anderson Valley Pinot Noir. Outside, I taught an all day palate development and pairing theory workshop for the wines. Hundreds of guests learned about their own palate, the principles of similarity pairing and walked away with a custom pairing idea. I'm always thrilled with the response to our pairing workshops. Watching people get turned on to how they taste and what they like never fails to inspire me.

What is it about the energy of that place that is such a magnet for the public? Even with the drizzle and cold during the Alsace Festival , Toulouse's tasting room (actually the production floor) was packed all day long. There is a constant stream and righteous buzz of wine lovers that tend to taste and hang out for hours. Pinot Noir Festival was no different except we had the great outdoors to spread out into. Everywhere you looked, groups of tasters with wine glasses in hand were avidly tasting and talking about the wines, participating in the workshop and trying the pairings. If I could just bottle up whatever that is that draws wine enthusiasts to Toulouse, I could retire this very minute.

This year, we offered two pairing samples to taste. I'm ecstatic with the Lemon Rose Panna Cotta with Ruby Grapefruit and Tarragon pairing for the Rosé. It was the Rosé infoodcarnate. The earthy aspects of the 2007 AV Pinot Noir came into focus with an intensely tasty, umami riddled (thank you coconut vinegar) Philippino Beef Adobo with crispy shallot rings. From the moment the gates opened at 11AM, I did not stop talking once until 5PM. Needless to say, a grand time was had by all. Recipes and tasting profiles are available from the winery.