Friday, January 28, 2011

Flying high with Sinatra


Sinatra Family Estates is a newly established winery in the never ending story of Napa Valley. It’s owned by Frank Sinatra’s children Nancy, Tina and Frank Jr, as well as John Schwarz and Danielle Price who run the business. There is just over two hectares of estate vineyard south of the town Calistoga, planted to Bordeaux varietals on a gentle slope with soils composed of volcanic clay, sand, gravel and cobbles. Winemaker is Kent Jarman, but he is assisted by well known Heidi Peterson-Barrett (winemaker at Screaming Eagle until 2005, now at Revana, Amuse Bouche, Au Sommet and her own label La Sirena).
The Sinatra family also owns 1.20 hectares in Tuscany, where they with Bibi Graetz make a blend of Sangiovese and Colorino called La Voce.

2007 Cabernet Sauvignon “Come Fly With Me” / 92-94 p
This inaugural vintage is made of 90 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, seven percent Cabernet Franc and three percent of Petit Verdot from the family vineyard in Calistoga. The upbringing took place in brand new French oak barrels from coopers Taransaud, Seguin-Moreau and Saury for 22 months, a quite common recipe in the cellars of Napa Valley.
I really couldn’t keep my fingers from popping the cork on this wine, although I knew it was too early to drink it. I was too curious for that. So I pulled the cork, poured the wine into a decanter, and let it sit there for two hours. As all young Napa Valley cabernets, it was dark and concentrated, at first a bit closed but intense and somehow spicy. The nose is loaded with dark berries, you’ll find cherries, blackberries and cassis, but also some sweetish vanilla and slightly roasted notes from the oak. Based on my experience of Calistoga wines, I expected the taste to be more tannic. Of course the structure is huge, but I found the tannins to be ripe and perfectly well integrated in the rich, ripe, intense, a bit lush (but not sweet) and therefore silky body. This is a beauty, as very fine tuned wine with great concentration and length, and the high scores are based on the overall balance and finesse. The only thing I miss now is a bit more complexity – and that will come with bottle age.
It’s recommended to decant the wine at least one but rather two hours prior to serving it – it opened up just beautifully with air and continued to evolve in the decanter throughout the meal.
Drink it 2012-2022.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

2005 Syrah from Zaca Mesa Winery


Already in 1978, Syrah was planted for the first time in the vineyards of the young Zaca Mesa Winery in Santa Ynez Valley. Zaca Mesa was founded in 1972 and vineyards were planted the year after. At that time, Syrah was a rare grape – less than 20 hectares of it existed and pioneers were Joseph Phelps Vineyards in Napa Valley and Gary Eberle in Paso Robles. Little did they know that Syrah 30 years later would be the fifth most planted red grape in California (7 641 hectares in 2008, of which 567 hectares lies within Santa Barbara County). Although winemerchants and wine growers says it’s difficult to sell wines of Syrah, is highly popular amongst so called “Rhône Rangers”, and quality can sometimes be very good to outstanding. It’s no doubt that Santa Ynez Valley is a great region for Syrah, and at Zaca Mesa Winery, they now farm nine different clones on 36.40 hectares of this fine grape.
It wasn’t until the early 90s that the new owners, twin brothers John and Lou Cushman, realized that they should focus on the Rhône varietals. They replanted most of their vineyards with Roussanne, Viognier, Grenache, Mourvèdre and more Syrah (they still have some 1.41 hectares of Syrah in the original Black Bear Block), and that was the rebirth of Zaca Mesa Winery. Today they produces some 35 000 cases per year, of which 10 000 cases is made from Syrah.

2005 Zaca Mesa Syrah / 90 p
Up to four percent of Viognier is normally co-fermented with Syrah in this fine wine. All grapes comes from their own vineyards - at Zaca Mesa Winery, no grapes are bought in – and they are normally harvested (by hand) in mid October. Vinfication was traditional, with total destemming and fermentation in small open top fermenters followed by malolactic fermentation and 18 months of ageing in small French oak barrels, of which 25 percent were new. It’s something very French over this wine, and I really like it, but not for just that reason. If offers a dark and quite intense fruit with ripe and sweet scented blueberries, blackberries as well as a dash of black currants, but what gives it that French attitude, is the spicy notes of licorice, the floral parfumes of violets and apricots (from the Viognier) and the complex addition of charcuteries and dried meat. You may well consider small notes of Brettanomyces, or at least some earthiness reminiscent of that, but if so, it’s at the level that makes the wine a just bit more interesting.
On the palate, it is medium bodied, ripe and quite rich, yet elegant and classic. Tannins are important, but ripe and therefore well suited for the good but not fresh acidity and the slightly sweetish fruit, and everything seems to hold up quite well in the long finish. Since I’ve been trying and drinking the syrahs från Zaca Mesa for almost 15 years now, I knew that this wine would develope very well with decanting, so I gave it a good hour before I retasted it, and another two hours before serving it on California wine seminar. It’s still young, but I wouldn’t mind having a case in my cellar for the coming years. It will develop into something more complex over the years.
Drink it 2011-2019

Saturday, January 15, 2011

2006 Cemetary by Erna Schein

Although the Erna Schein winery is young – it was founded in 2005 – the people behind it are no newcomers. Already in 1993, Les Behrens and his wife Lisa Drinkward and their friends Bob and Lily Hitchcock, started to make wines. Their wine company, Behrens & Hitchcock, soon gained a great reputation for their very serious wines. All grapes were purchased, but over the years growers with great vineyards offered them to buy grapes. The wine became better, and better. “In the end, we made some 20 different wines every year”, Les says and added that it must have been quite confusing for the consumers.
Les and Lisa, who were restaurateurs, sold their restaurant in 1997 to focus full time on the Behrens & Hitchcok label. They bought a property on the top of Spring Mountain and built a small winery. In the early 2000s, things changed. Bob and Lily wanted to retire, and in 2004 they sold their share of the company to Les and Lisa. Since there were no more Hitchcocks in the new company, they changed the name to Erna Schein, the mother of Les Behrens.
Although Lisa Drinward is a winemaker (she have her own label with the well known winemaker Françoise Peschon of Araujo), it’s Les Berhens who makes the wines, with Mark Porembowski as assistant winemaker. A dozen wines, 3 000 cases anualy, are now produced.
This is a fantastic small boutique operation!

2006 Cemetary/ 93-95 p
This is a cuvée of approximately 75-80 percent Cabernet Sauvignon with the balance of mostly Merlot and some Petite Verdot, all grapes purchased from two very famous but not official stated vineyards in St Helena (I guess I promised not to reveal which these vineyards are, so I’ll keep my mouth shut). “We have an understanding with the owners not to mention the vineyards on our labels”, Les Behrens said to me when I asked him a few years ago. Well, the source may be a secret, but there’s no secret at all that this is a stunning wine! Already on the nose, the great quality reveals itself – this is not just fermented and oak aged grape juice – this is a good example of a wine driven by its terroir.
There’s something sauvage about the nose, a kind of forest floor quality that adds complexity to the dark, ripe but very elegant fruit. I find the combination of a typical Californian cabernet and classic clarets of Bordeaux to be very interesting, and seductive. Around 90 percent of the French oak barrels are new – still the oak flavors are very well integrated. The classic notes and structure dominates the taste, which today is a bit too young and not completely developed to offer its full potential. After two hours in the decanter …
Drink it 2012-2026.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

2006 Lucia Abreu Vineyard from Aubert Wines


Mark Aubert was born in Napa Valley, so working with wine came natural for him. After working in the cellars at Rutherford Hill Vineyards and Monticello Cellars in the 1980s, he met Helen Turley and her husband John Wetlaufer in 1990, the same year they started their own label Marcassin. At the time Helen was the winemaker at Peter Michael Winery in Knights Valley, and she offered Mark Aubert to work with her as assistant winemaker there. Of course he took the job. Later on, when Helen Turley left, Mark Aubert became the head winemaker. He stayed at Peter Michael Winery until 2000, when he made his first wines (of Chardonnay) under his own label Aubert Wines. Mark continued to make wines for other wineries over a number of years, among them Colgin Cellars up on Pritchard Hill where he was the winemaker from 1999 (again, he took over after Helen Turley) until 2007.

His own wines were always made at the custom crush facility at Laird Family Vineyards in Oak Knoll. But in 2010, Teresa and Mark Aubert bought a small winery next to Silverado Trail in Calistoga, and production has now moved there.
“It’s great, for eleven years we have dreamed of having a winery of our own, and to give a home for our wines”, Mark says.
The total production is now around 2 500 cases per year, of which the Chardonnay Ritchie’s Vineyard counts for approximately a third.

2006 Lucia Abreu Vineyard Howell Mountain Red Wine / 90-92 p
This second vintage of this wine is a blend of approximately 50 percent Merlot, 30 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 20 percent Cabernet Franc, all grapes from the Lucia Abreu Vineyard up in Howell Mountain (adjacent to the famous La Jota Ranch) which is owned and planted by the well known viticulturist David Abreu.
After almost 40 days of maceration, the wine is transferred into new French oak barrels from coopers Taransaud and Sylvain, to undergo malolactic fermentation and 18 months of ageing. Mark Aubert is known for making big and ripe wines, and there’s no change from that philosophy here – the wine boasts of super ripe, intense, sweet and lush fruit and an alcohol level of 15.8 percent. Is it too much? Well, many wine drinkers would say so, and I may agree with them, at least when the alcohol overwelms the fruit and burns. However, this wine it’s quite delicious, at least if serving it to a rich dish. At this stage, it's a bit closed, much due to the high proportion of firm tannins. There’s also a slight greenish bitterness (it taste like it comes from the oak), it doesn’t show too much of a mid palate and the oak is a bit to upfront. Since it was the first time I tasted this wine, and I had high hopes for it – one should have, it’s a David Abreu and Mark Aubert wines – I was at first a bit disappointed. I wanted it to give me more pleasure.
So, I left it in the decanter for almost four hours, and by then it had turned into something much more elegant and complex, but still without being so great I wished for. The final verdict at this young stage is that it is a good to very good wine, but taking into consideration where it’s from, who grows the grapes and who makes the wine, I ask for a little bit more than this. However, I look forward to taste future vintages, since I suspect things will be better over time.
Drink it 2012-2018.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

No oak please!


Chardonnay is by far the most popular white wine in California, so it’s no surprise that it’s the most widely planted green grape variety in the state. However, it wasn’t in the past – few grape growers planted this variety in the 1960s, and those who did, were recommended not to. The change came in the 1970s, and even more in the 1980s, when Chardonnay took its first steps to its present glory. Over the years, the oak fermented wine from Chardonnay had become the most typical California white wine. Also, the style changed into something very different from what was found in the rest of the world from this classic variety. The American winemakers had finally defined their own style for the beloved Chardonnay. The wines were now riper (most of them were often harvested at high Brix levels), richer and seasoned with sweetish and toasted oak. At first, everybody seemed to like them, and sales skyrocketed.
In the early 90s, a change came – a movement known as ABC, Anything But Chardonnay, came. More and more, consumers had enough of the sweetish, overly ripe and rich, and oaky chardonnays. In Australia some winemakers started to ferment Chardonnay in stainless steel tanks and labeled the wines as “Unoaked Chardonnay”, a style that over the years gained popularity. In the mid 90s, dry and crisp wines of aromatic grape varieties such as Riesling, Grüner Veltliner and Albariño came in fashion just because they were crisp and always unoaked. More than the ABC movement, this new trend “forced” winemakers of Chardonnay to change their philosophies.
Since then, I’ve seen this change at almost all wineries I have visited. In a long term perspective, vineyards have been planted in cooler areas than in the past to get grapes of this new, more elegant quality. But equally important, grapes are now harvested at lower Brix to retain a fresh natural acidity (and avoid acidification), to get lower alcohol levels, keep more bright fruit flavors and more floral notes, and to give an overall better balance. In the wine cellars, some winemakers started to work with cold soak to extract more aromatic compounds from the grape skins, but more important, the use of vessels for fermentation changed dramatically.
From using one hundred percent oak, and a high proportion of that would be new oak, winemakers moved into more neutral oak (one to five year old barrels) and larger barrels, or even into stainless steel tanks, smaller steel drums or cement eggs. At first, this was only done for wines in moderate price levels, but in the early 2000s, more and more high end unoaked chardonnays (20 dollars, and above) were introduced on the market. At Melville Estate in Santa Rita Hills, winemaker Greg Brewer started to make a very crisp Chardonnay Cuvée Inox, which inspired him to make a series of chardonnays fermented in steel and neutral oak under his own label Diatom. In Russian River Valley, Marimar Torres started to make her Chardonnay Acero, fully fermented in stainless steel. These pioneer wines, and many more with them, are now just part of what is widely seen on the market – fresh, crisp and aromatic chardonnays with no or just little oak.

2008 Chardonnay from Rivino Winery / 88 p
From the 80 hectares Schrader Ranch located between US 101 and Russian River in Redwood Valley in the heartland of Mendocino, Jason McConnell and his wife Susanne Jahnke-McConnell started to make small amount of wine in 2008. The ranch was bought in 1993 by Gordon Jahnke, a law professor from British Columbia in Canada, but he had no intention to make wine. Instead grapes were sold to other wineries, among them Kendall-Jackson. Still around 95 percent of the grapes are sold, but under the stewardship of Jason McConnell, who started to make some wine for fun in 2005, there’s now a tiny production of around 1 300 cases per year.
The grapes, only Dijon clones from Block 2 close to the river, were harvested at 24 Brix, and whole cluster pressed. The juice was then cold settled at 8 degrees Celsius for a few days before it was fermented for almost a month at low temperatures in a small stainless steel tank. There were no malolactic fermentation and no bâtonnage during the ageing, and the acidity feels a bit higher than the 5.6 grams per liter there is. This first vintage is a wonderful effort, it’s totally dry, fresh and ultra pure with notes of brownish-green pears (just like you’ll find in white burgundies), lemon and almonds as well as the steel itself. It's a very attractive wine.
Drink it 2011-2014.

2007 Chardonnay from Roederer Estate / 87 p
No wonder Roederer Estate in the cooler northern part of Anderson Valley is one of the best sparkling producers outside of Champagne. The climate is considered cool by Californian standards, but not as cold as in Champagne, still this wine shows a quite European structure and fruit flavor. Grapes are all estate grown, harvested at low Brix in mid September and then pressed in whole bunches. After débourbage, the juice is transferred into stainless steel tanks (80 percent) and neutral French oak barrels to ferment. The latter fraction goes through malolactic fermentation, the stainless steel one not. Tasted completely blind, one would never put this wine in California – unless you have tasted a Californian wine like this before. It’s more like the wines of Mâconnais in the southern part of Burgundy, well, not totally. It doesn’t have that kind of minerality. There’s not a single note of oak, just that fine texture that the ageing in oak, on lees, results in. It’s delicious, light and fresh, a bit short, but very elegant. The only sad thing is that production is only 200 cases, and that the wine only is sold in the tasting room at Roederer Estate in Anderson Valley. And when you are there, take the opportunity to buy some of their great sparkling wines!
Drink it 2011-2014.

2008 Chardonnay Del Lago from Ceago Vinegarden / 87 p
Ceago Vinegarden is the new home for Jim Fetzer, past president and co-owner of Fezter Vineyards before the family sold it to Browne-Forman. In 2001 he bought a 66 hectare walnut ranch close to Clear Lake in Lake County. Here he cleared land to plant 20.25 hectares of vines and made his first wine (a Cabernet Sauvignon) in 2005. This is Sauvignon Blanc and red wine country, but this wine is proof of the potential of Chardonnay. Grapes are whole cluster pressed, and the juice is the completely fermented in stainless steel tanks, but left on the lees for some months to gain texture. It’s a lovely unoaked chardonnay – very pure, crisp and fresh with notes of lemon (almost sweetish lemons) and Granny Smith, it has that typical steely character, but also some complex notes of almonds that don’t come from oak – it’s either terroir or the effect of the lees. The finish is long, and very elegant.
Drink it 2011-2013.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Greg LaFollette renaissance

WINEMAKER OF THE YEAR 2010


It’s an honor to name Greg LaFollette the California Wine Report Winemaker of the Year 2010. Greg is very skilled and a well respected winemaker who has worked in the business for two decades. With degrees in biology, chemistry and food science, he left UC Davis in 1991 to work with research in the laboratory at Beaulieu Vineyards. Here he got the opportunity to meet and work with the legendary wine consultant André Tchelistcheff.
Winemaking led him to Australia, where he worked at Yarra Ridge for a while. After that he came back to Napa Valley and Beaulieu Vineyard, then Jarvis and later on Kendall-Jackson. Greg’s main focus were now Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and he was very close to break through on his own with these varieties, when he was appointed as the winemaker at the newly established Flowers Vineyards out in the true Sonoma Coast in 1996.
Over the coming years, Flowers gained a cult status, and Greg LaFollette was now a name to watch. It was during these years, the idea of making wines under an own label came. In 2001, Greg LaFollette and his friend Greg Bjornstad founded their own label Tandem. With contracts in some of the finest vineyards in Sonoma, they started to craft some very interesting wines out of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, as well as tiny amounts of Pinot Meunier and Sangiovese (which was a very good wine!).
While making his own wines at a custom crush winery in Sebastopol, he was also hired by the new owners of De Loach Vineyards in Russian River Valley to introduce natural farming and biodynamical techniques, as well as restore and improve the quality if their wines. He didn’t only bring his skills to De Loach Vineyards, he also introduced a wide range of exciting single vineyard wines in their portfolio. By then, De Loach Vineyard was, more than in the past, a winery to count on.
A few years ago he left De Loach Vineyards to focus more on his own label, as well as consultant for other wineries. One of them was Quivera Vineyards in Dry Creek Valley, where he introduced biodynamical principles in their farming. This also resulted in big a step forward for Greg LaFollette when the owners or Quivira Vineyards, Pete and Terri Kight, bought Greg’s label Tandem in 2008 and reorganized it to LaFollette Wines. “For me it was great”, Greg told me. “Now I can focus on the vineyards and the wines – I don’t have to take care of either administration or sales”.
The new LaFollette portfolio is based on the same first class vineyards in Sonoma that Greg worked with in the past, but the wines seems to be a bit more distinct. It’s truly a renaissance for Greg LaFollette.




2009 Chardonnay Lorenzo Vineyard / 94 p
This is a great expression of 100 percent Chardonnay from the renowned 4.05 hectare Lorenzo vineyard, which was planted with (today) not specified clones back in 1974 and 1975. The vineyard itself is great, but wouldn’t have been well known unless Helen Turley made it famous under her prestigious label Marcassin in the 90s. This wine, though, is much better and far more complex. With a pH of 3.31, and no adjustment of acidity, the wine has sufficient amount of acidity to balance out any bitterness there may be from the 40 percent new French oak used for the upbringing of this wine.
Color is, of course by the young age of the wine, very pale, but clear and bright. There are a lot of things this Californian chardonnay isn’t – like big, sweet, oaky and overly alcoholic. No, this wine combines the finest of California terroir with the wise hands and skills of a smart winemaker. Greg really knows what he’s doing, and in this bottling his skills transform the grapes into something extremely lovely, and complex. The nose reveals a pure, cool and not too ripe fruit quality, but with “not too ripe” I actually mean – the nose is exceptional in its cooler style, with lemon peels, citrus, golden apples and crunchy pears. To be very honest without bragging about my frequent trips to the greatest estates in Burgundy two to three times per year, I find this wine to be quite burgundian like! However, there’s no chalky mineral aroma or flavor, but there’s enough structure in the wine for it to be described as very classic! The oak, in this wine very well integrated, is also a bit more spicy than in its burgundian counterparts.
Drink it 2010-2019.

2009 Chardonnay Manchester Ridge / 91-92 p
Located 600 meters above sea level on the first ridge from the Ocean in Mendocino, is really a challenge to work with. It ripens very late – in this vintage Greg harvested the grapes November 4, at 20.8 Brix! It covers 12.15 hectares and is planted various clones of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and in this wine there’s only the Clone 809, which is also called Chardonay Musqué. And you can tell, it adds floral and spicy notes to the wine. What Greg does, is to use a certain yeast strain to break down the linalool, the ester that give this floral note, and therefore it’s not as floral as it would have been. However, he let the juice cold soak with the skins for 32 hours during the press to extract that aroma as well as structure, and you’ll find some very fine and gentle tannins in the wine.
It’s a very interesting and elegant and highly aromatic wine with the expected floral notes as well as citrus and just a texture rather than flavor of the oak (it’s fermented and kept in neutral French oak). On the palate, its medium bodied, very fresh and lively with just a touch of tannins, and the same floral notes and fresh citrus flavors as on the nose, and the aftertaste lingers for a while. It’s good, very good, but it’s nothing for those who enjoy big, ripe, buttery and oaky American chardonnays.
Drink it 2011-2017.

2009 Pinot Noir Van der Camp Vineyard / 92-93 p
Originally planted as a sparkling wine vineyard, the Van de Kamp vineyard has turned out to be an outstanding source of Pinot Noir for still red wine. This wine is a true example to that. Color is medium high and at first the nose is a bit closed. After a few minutes in the glass, it starts to open up, and reveals a medium high intensity with a very sophisticated fruit that combines darker sweet and sour cherries with sweet raspberries. There’s also a very fine earthy note that adds complexity, and overall it’s more European in style that typical Californian – not that this is always preferred or regarded as better – after all, the wine comes from California – it’s just the impression I’d like to share. And, to be very honest, it’s just lovely. As always the wines from Van der Kamp Vineyard has a good structure of tannins and lively acidity (which is a good asset when making sparkling wines), so the wine benefit from a few years of cellaring. I kept the open bottle and tasted the wine over a period of four days, and it was just in the fourth day it lost its brightness and intensity. Day two, it actually tasted better and more complex than it did a first!
Drink it 2011-2025.

2008 Pinot Noir DuNah Vineyard / 92 p
As a consulting winemaker, Greg made wine for many wineries and families. One of them was Rick and Diane DuNah between 2003 and 2008. Their vineyard, just about four hectares in size, is situated in the cool southern eastern area of Sonoma Coast of Petaluma Gap, overlooking Cotati and San Francisco (on a clear day). It was planted in 1998 with Pinot Noir of Dijon 115, 667 and 777 clones and some Chardonnay, and prior to making their own wine all grapes were sold off to Flowers. The 2008 vintage marked the last vintage under their own label, but Greg continued to make wine from their grapes, under the LaFollette label.
“Compared to what Rick and Diane wanted, I harvest my grapes almost ten days earlier at lower Brix and pH, therefore my wine is a bit brighter and more elegant, and I also use less new oak on this wine, approximately e third compared to 40 or sometimes ever 50 percent”, Grey says. This has resulted in a much more elegant and perfumed wine.
The nose is very elegant but intense, absolutely pure with fine notes of red berries, rhubarb and blood orange, and there’s also a touch of charcuteries that adds spice and complexity. The oak is well integrated and supple, acidity as fresh and lively as expected, and the aftertaste light and elegant without any sweetness, alcohol or oak bitterness. It’s a truly lovely wine to be enjoyed by those who prefer elegance to power.
Drink it 2011-2018.

2009 Pinot Noir Sangiacomo Vineyard / 91-92 p
As for the chardonnay, the grapes for this Sangiacomo bottling, comes from the cooler western part of the vineyard, and it’s made from the clones Swan, Dijon 777 and just a little bit of Dijon 114. Vinification is the same as for the other pinots. On the nose, the wine offers a wide range of red berries, also a slight red floral note, just a slight spiciness of the oak, and a kind of wild earthiness that Greg often refer to as “sauvage”, and that might derive from the Dijon 14 clone (if I’m correct), which adds an interesting energy to the wine. On the palate, there is a fine sweetness (I often find it in the wine from this site) which is perfectly well balanced with a lively acidity, the texture of the oak, and a good but ripe and well balanced tannic structure that will help this wine to age.
Drink it 2011-2019.

2009 Pinot Meunier Van der Kamp Vineyard / 90 p
The Pinot Meunier section in this vineyard was planted in 1959 and 1960, and these are the oldest vine of that champagne variety in California. I find it very interesting and exciting that Greg actually makes a varietal wine out of it – it’s rarely seen elsewhere on Planet Wine. The grapes are whole cluster fermented in closed stainless steel tanks (almost the maceration carbonique method) with its natural yeast. It’s a fine wine for sure, but it doesn’t offer the same complexity as the pinots, still you’ll find floral notes, raspberries, strawberries, a good acidity, just a hint of earthy notes (from the stems, I guess) and a fine tannic structure in your tasting notes. In this vintage, Greg made just 48 cases. It’s a fun wine to pour in a blind tasting, but I’d rather finish it with a roasted chicken or some veal with mushrooms. Serve it as the pinots, at 15-16 degrees Celsius in a burgundy glass.
Drink it 2011-2017.