I have a soft spot for the owner Jim Dierberg because he’s from Missouri (my home state), grew up on a farm and entered pig competitions at country fairs – just like my dad. Jim, his wife Mary, and winemaker Nick de Luca are also making some of the best wines in the entire valley.
When the Dierbergs bought their vineyard in 1996, everyone told them the land was too warm. So like most smart winemakers, they planted grape varietals that were best suited for the climate – and that meant Cabernet Sauvignon. Lucky for Jim because this was the grape varietal he had always dreamed of making. It only took 10 years until his first bottling.
We strolled into the
Dierberg tasting room around 11am – fresh from a 2 1/2 hour car ride. We’ve been here before and knew we needed to hit this winery early – not at the tail end of a day full of drinking (when our taste buds are shot and everything tastes great). The wines are all bright with fruit, flowerful noses, and lingering finishes – all with their own unique personalities.
Every time a new wine was poured, we immediately declared it our favorite until the grand finale – the ’05 Star Lane “Astral.” It’s a pretty powerful Cabernet and it no doubt ranks up there with the best we’ve tasted from Napa. The wine had a nice silky texture on the palatte and the taste was laced with red berries, vanilla and just the right amount of earthy tones.
I’m a pretty impatient person, but if I were the wine maker responsible for the
Astral ($80), I’d say it was worth the 10 years of waiting.
We also enjoyed spending time with Amy – the woman pouring our wine. Not just because she was responsible for giving us the Astral, but because she noticed Taylor’s
Little Barrel Purse Tote the moment we walked through the door. Her enthusiasm caught the attention of the entire room and we found ourselves talking up our company.
It’s definitely a blessing and a curse to start our day with such incredible wine.
-Andrew
We're HUGE fans of Tom Wark's "Fermentation" blog. He's a really good writer and our "go to" blogger for all things wine industry related. Every year he hosts the American Wine Blog Awards and people in the wine world take it very seriously. Tom has announced the 2009 finalists over at his site.
Good luck everybody!
Andrew’s friend Melissa of Boa in LA recommended we visit Melville Vineyards. We love their wines and had never been to the winery. Unfortunately, we arrived one month too early to try the really good stuff. Drat!
I have a soft spot for the owner Jim Dierberg because he’s from Missouri (my home state), grew up on a farm and entered pig competitions at country fairs – just like my dad. Jim, his wife Mary, and winemaker Nick de Luca are also making some of the best wines in the entire valley.
We strolled into the Dierberg tasting room around 11am – fresh from a 2 1/2 hour car ride. We’ve been here before and knew we needed to hit this winery early – not at the tail end of a day full of drinking (when our taste buds are shot and everything tastes great). The wines are all bright with fruit, flowerful noses, and lingering finishes – all with their own unique personalities.
We’re coming off a very exciting (and much needed) vacation in Santa Barbara and Paso Robles wine countries. I usually go a little “Clark Griswold” when mapping out my itineraries but, Little Barrel was slammed last week (in a good way!) and we decided to let other people’s recommendations guide our way. This weekend proved that there is always more to discover no matter how much you think you know about wine.
We were also fortunate enough to stay at our friend’s cabin that’s perched on a hill overlooking the Santa Ynez Mountains and the green foothills that roll across the valley. This has been home base to a couple Little Barrel photo shoots and we’ll name our first born after Eli – who keeps letting us indulge in his slice of the vineyard lifestyle.
Here’s a list of the wineries that we visited. Some are places we frequently visit and others were recommended by people we met along the way.
Recently, we crammed our friends into this little vintage 1940's Westcraft trailer. It's the new tasting "room" at the Behrens & Hitchcock Co-Op in Napa, way up on Spring Mountain. Not many wine lovers are really after that hole-in-the-wall experience when it comes to wine tasting. Especially in Napa. But we drank some of Napa's best bold reds right off the kitchen sink in this old movie studio trailer (bought off ebay).
Some of our favorites/purchases included:
Our “go to” guy.
Posts
