Posts Tagged ‘First Friday’

First Friday: Cookin’!

February 4, 2012

As noted in a previous post, I’ve a resolution for the year; I’m going to try and prepare at least one dish myself for every First Friday event here at Monte Bello. Best as I can tell, January’s endeavour went quite well, but February is a new month, and the chips were down again.

What to do, what to do?

When in doubt? White beans!

Cannellini Bean Crostini to be exact.

To begin? Tools of the trade …

Cuisinart & Panini Grill

 And much, much, much white beans …

White beans!

 After that, the “core” ingredients …

Garlic!

Olive Oil!

Wine!

 An entire bottle of 2009 Ridge Vineyards Chardonnay, sacrificed to the Lords of Crostini. The Gods were happy on Friday …

After that, much parsley …

Parsley!

 Hit the Cuisinart, and BAM!

Puree!

 Time now to work on the bread; a mixed assortment of sour and sweet baguettes …

Bread!

 A rough application of butter, and then on to the Panini grill …

Grill!

 Four or five minutes on high, and then BAM!

Grilled!

 After that, time to lay ‘em out, dab it on, and shake your parsley!

Done!

 Serve with the following …

The Menu!

And enjoy.

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Events & Photographs, Food & Wine Pairing, Geyserville, Monte Bello, Special Offerings, Tasting Flights, Tasting Notes, Tasting Rooms, Wine & Food Pairing | 6 Comments »

In Praise Of A First Friday Past: Oh, What A Time We Had!

January 7, 2012

It’s 2012 now.

Twelve months, twelve First Fridays.

One done, eleven to go.

It was a beautiful evening on the mountain …

And First Friday was nearly afoot …

The nibbles were nigh …

Including my 2006 Lytton Estate Grenache-infused Marinated Mushrooms and Mixed Olive Tapenade …

And the line-up …

…of wine …

… was ready.

All we needed, was you.

And then suddenly, there you were!

And we were very, very happy to see you!

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Events & Photographs, Food & Wine Pairing, Grenache, Monte Bello, Special Offerings, Tasting Flights, Tasting Rooms, Varietals & Blends, Wine & Food Pairing, Wine Clubs | 2 Comments »

2008 Carmichael: Typewriter Tasting Notes!

February 4, 2011

It’s First Friday this evening, and we’re going to be debuting the latest release from the absolutely interstellar 2011 ATP roster, the 2008 Ridge Vineyards Carmichael!

I tasted this wine not too long back, with Eric Baugher, in advance of the ZAP event, but I wanted to give it a re-visit in advance of tonight’s festivities (if you want to see the earlier notes for comparison’s sake, you can find them here), and in the spirit of Ginsbergian First-Word-Best-Word, I decided to pull out the ol’ typer, get the ol’ 8mm rollin’, and go free-style with my tasting notes …

Here, then, is the video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeFB_G0PwUc

And here, then, are the notes, just as you saw them going down live on the typer!

2008 Carmichael: Typewriter Tasting Notes!

 

And just in case you need a translation (I was getting a bit of a sticky key phenomenon there at the end …), here is a transcription:

2008 Ridge Vineyards Carmichael

Very brambly aromatics, fairly dense fruit concentration, quite plummy, but not cloyingly so; rather, just nice rich fruit … medium-weight legs that are surprisingly viscous as regards bowl adhesions … very blackish belly, with a gorgeous magenta limn … hints of some black herbs on the nose as well, perhaps even a hint of Panda licorice … super, super concentrated on the palate; juicy, but lively, strong with tannins, but bouncing with acidity … the petite sirah in the blend, even at 8%, lends a nice dark earthy layer to the mid-palate, and a reasonably approachable chalky-esque minerality …. pretty big overall, with a lot of lusciousness to spare, though it wears its 14.7% ABV well; it’s ripe, certainly, but not jammy, and the fruit profile is plum first, boysenberry second, with hints of Logan and Ollalieberry coming in third … I’m most impressed by the structure, as the architecture is really front and center; again, lots of tannin, good minerality, more than enough acidity, etc. … Overall, a rich, luxurious, concentrated, deeply flavorful zin that still manages the affectations of a lighter wine.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Events & Photographs, Tasting Notes, Varietals & Blends, Video, Viticultural Salmagundi, Zinfandel | Leave a Comment »

2006 Mazzoni Home Ranch Tasting Notes

October 2, 2010

I am happy to announce that we’ve just now rolled out a new ATP release; the much-anticipated 2006 Mazzoni Home Ranch!

2006 Mazzoni Home Ranch

It’s shipping out to ATP Members in about a week, and will come available in the tasting rooms in November, but since we had the opportunity to taste it at yesterday’s First Friday event, I thought I’d share some early tasting notes:

Deep, deep — smoke-on-the-water-deep — purple in the glass, with a glisteningly luminescent raspberry limn and an impenetrable, near baroque richness and depth showing in the belly of the bowl … Strong blueberry and cocoa powder notes dominate the aromatics, with hints hints of cedar and balsa wood, and a fresh, possibly carignane-derived sense of clear creek-water creeping in … Tremendously vibrant and expressive acidity immediately at point-of-entry, flaring up and flaring out firework style, leaving in its glittering wake a resoundingly chalky minerality coating the full range of the mid-palate … dark berry notes continue to prevail, though progressively giving way to a tarter, more cherry and yellow-flesh plum tanginess … the finish is both primarily acidity-driven, and preposterously lengthy; mostly structure-dominated, with flashes of fruit still shining through … Overall; complex, unique, saturated and and expressive, destined for success at table, and with years of maturation still to come …

Tags:, ,
Posted in Carignane, Tasting Notes, Varietals & Blends, Zinfandel | 1 Comment »

2007 Buchignani Ranch Zinfandel: Tasting Notes!

September 1, 2010

Here at Ridge, we’re literally counting down the days until the new ATP wine gets released; it’s the 2007 Buchignani Ranch Zinfandel, and I’ve just had the great pleasure of tasting it, and jotting down some notes.

2007 Buchignani Ranch Zinfandel

For those of you who are members of our ATP program, you’ll be getting this wine in the mail in about two weeks, or alternatively, you’ll be joining us for either First Friday (this Friday!), or at the ATP After-Hours on September 18th.

And of course, in about a month, this wine will be available in our Lytton Springs and Monte Bello tasting rooms.

And now, some tasting notes:

Right away, this wine presents nearly text-book Northern Sonoma zinfandel aromatics; perfectly ripe fruit, with loads of berries, briar, and spice … the spiciness intensifies on the palate, introducing wild carignane-derived acidity, and making for a lean yet vivid early mouthfeel … Predictably enough, given its youth, the movement from front to back of palate is still a little discordant; the wine is pleasantly and even surprisingly supple at point-of-entry, yet shows a tad angular on the back end … the finish is both elegant and muscular, in the way of an Olympic skater perhaps, the acidity flashing bright blades of flavor across the wide rink of your palate, a small yet powerful spectacle of beauty and athleticism … to carry the rink metaphor even further, my culinary zamboni, if you will (i.e. palate cleanser) was (unintentionally) in this case the seemingly inappropriate incongruity of rich Thai peanut sauce. Oddly enough though, the wine actually matched up quite well spice-for-spice, but in the end, the stridency of the acidity structure in the zin was a bit much for the dish in question … truth be told, despite its comparatively lighter mouthfeel, this is (at least currently) a wine seemingly destined for pairing with heartier, higher fat content pairings; I’m thinking a round of Redwood Hill Farms Camellia (a goat-milk camembert) would be wonderfully appropriate … hmmmm, I think I’ll have to have that very, very soon …

Redwood Hill Farms Camellia

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Carignane, Events & Photographs, Food & Wine Pairing, Tasting Notes, Varietals & Blends, Wine Clubs, Zinfandel | Leave a Comment »

First Friday Blind-Tasting: We Have A Winner!

August 9, 2010

For our First Friday event this past weekend, we hosted a rather unusual blind tasting for our guests. We poured three sets of two wines each side-by-side, and in each case, one wine was a Z-List wine, and one was an ATP wine, and there was a link between the two. The job of our tasters was to guess the vintage, the varietal, and the designation of each wine. To assist in this rather challenging task, we provided a hint for each pair. The first hint was “Alexander Valley,” the second was “Sub-Parcel Harvesting,” and the third was “Blend vs. Solo-Varietal.”

The first pair was the 2007 Carmichael Zinfandel and the 2007 Geyserville Zinfandel, with the link being that the vineyards are both located in Alexander Valley. The second pair was the 2006 Lytton Springs Zinfandel and the 2006 Lytton Estate Zinfandel, with the link being that the Lytton Estate offering is made up of just a few parcels from the larger Lytton Springs property (sub-parcel harvesting). The final pair was the 2006 York Creek and the 2006 Dynamite Hill Petite Sirah, with the  link being that the York Creek is a blend of zinfandel, and petite sirah from the Dynamite Hill block, and the Dynamite Hill itself is solo-varietal petite sirah (blend vs. solo-varietal).

So how did our guests do? Quite well actually, especially given the overall difficulty of blind tastings in general! There was a total of 21 points available, 1 point for each correct vintage, varietal, and designation, and 1 bonus point for getting both wines in the pair fully correct.

And here are the results:

Third Place: Nancy Hom and John Ronald (tie)

Second Place: Danielle Johnston, John Kirkwood, and David & Tracy McLaughlin (tie)

And all alone in first place, a hearty congratulations to:

Kathleen Dowling!!! You’re our First Friday Blind Tasting Winner!!!

Thanks to all our guests for participating, and to all our winners listed above we say, please come back and see us in the tasting rooms, we’d love the chance to honor you in person!

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Events & Photographs, Geyserville, Lytton Springs, Petite Sirah, Tasting Flights, Tasting Rooms, Varietals & Blends, Viticultural Salmagundi, Wine Clubs, Wine Tales, Zinfandel | 2 Comments »

Never-Before-Released Wine! Coming In April! (Hint: It’s Got Jimsomare On The Label!)

March 29, 2010

Have you heard the news? For the first time ever, Ridge will be releasing a VERY limited-production chardonnay from the famed and elusive Jimsomare designation!

 

Members of our ATP program will have first crack at this rarity throughout the month of April, and then, fates willing, it will come into the tasting rooms in May.

I tasted this wine on the 12th of March, and I offer you below my tasting notes, as well as winery notes from winemaker Eric Baugher, penned in September of 2009.

2008 Ridge Vineyards Jimsomare Chardonnay

 Pale straw-yellow tones in the glass, interwoven with warm gold highlights, and exhibiting both great clarity and rich viscosity. Hints of wheat and yeast on the nose, balanced by some citrus, a strong minerality, and a nice spread of multiple strains of pear (Bosc, Anjou, and especially Bartlett). Weighty on the palate, and even warmer and more viscous than the aromatics foreshadow; toasty, but not burnt, with compelling hints of warmed milk and crème fraiche.  The finish is long and chest-fillingly pleasant, balancing a savory toasted-honey character with a sparkling re-display of mountain minerality. (CW, 3.12.10)

–

2008 Chardonnay, Jimsomare, bottled 1/10

The vines awoke to an early spring, as a warm February pushed growth ahead of schedule. Two consecutive years of below-average rainfall, and the absence of any late-spring storms, caused water stress in the upper-elevation parcel. On September seventh, the fruit was hand-harvested and whole-cluster pressed. Next morning, the juice was aerated by pump-over, then moved to american oak barrels for natural primary fermentation. The cool cellar slowed progress toward dryness, but the uninoculated malolactic finished quickly-by early February. Aged on the lees for eleven months, the wine was stirred every two weeks and developed great texture. In late summer, when assemblage usually takes place, we confirmed that its unique set of flavors called for a separate bottling. Sweet fruit and supple balance suggest that this appealing chardonnay will be most enjoyable through 2011. 
EB (9/09)

–

As an extra perk, we’ll be doing a sneak preview of this wine at our April First Friday, just a few days away! For more on this event, please pursue the following link:

http://www.ridgewine.com/taf/calendar.taf?date=4/01/2010#227

Cheers!

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Chardonnay, Special Offerings, Tasting Notes, Tasting Rooms, Varietals & Blends, Viticultural Salmagundi, Winemaking | Leave a Comment »

First Friday Photos!

August 10, 2009

Were you here for our First Friday Jimsomare extravaganza? Then check the photos below to remind yourself of just how much fun it was! And if you weren’t here, check the photos below to sample the magic!

Tags:,
Posted in Events & Photographs, Wine Tales, Zinfandel | Leave a Comment »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 68 other followers