Wine in the Valley

Just One of the Challenges

2011-06-28T15:35:00.000-07:00

As I sit here typing, it's just started to rain in Livermore. It's June 28th...Summer...warm growing area...and it's freakin' raining. Looking at the Mercury News website today, and it notes that the1/4" of rain expected in the South Bay on June 28 may be a "once-in-a-lifetime" experience for people. I don't want any more experiences like that.

Anyway, this post is not about the challenges of weather, which are ubiquitous and ever-present for farmers; it is about the pests that can ravage a vineyard, taking an investment worth millions of dollars and slowly strangling it.

Leaf Roll virus is becoming a major problem in California vineyards again. Transmitted by a couple different types of mealy bug which can live under the outer layers of the trunks of vines, Leaf Roll turns the leaves red later in the growing season thereby interfering with photosynthesis and the ripening of fruit. Once a vineyard is infected, there is no cure expect pulling the vineyard out and replanting. When one considers that it can cost more than $30,000 per acre to plant a vineyard and experts advise leaving an infected vineyard fallow for up to 10 years after an infestation, the presence of these bugs and their viruses can be devastating.

There are only a few things that can be done to slow the spread of the pests and most are of a prophylactic nature: making sure that equipment that is used in one vineyard is thoroughly cleaned before it is used in yours; making sure you have completely virus-free vines going into your site, etc. Another method currently being employed in the vineyard uses pheremones of female mealy bugs to make it more difficult for the male of the species to find the female. The tag is affixed to every tenth vine or so and has shown promise in our own vineyards.

"When Should I Drink This Wine?" - Club Releases

2011-02-25T11:18:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month, I posted a blog about the difficulty of recommending when wines should be drunk. Wine that are meant to be consumed in the short term don't offer the same difficulties. Most the wines we produce for our Collector's Circle and Future Release Program clubs are meant to have a relatively short drinking window; these wines are significantly more fruit-forward than our Cabernets and are particularly good when paired with food.

To find out recommendations on drinking times and to see which varieties (and in which percentages) make up our club blends, we have just updated our Drinkability charts. You can find the Collector's Circle wines here and the Future Release program wines here.

2004 Merrillie - Paired with Asparagus and Yellow Squash and Pesto Pasta

2011-02-01T20:27:00.000-08:00

I'm not really good at pairing wine with food...I'll leave that to the experts. After a pre-dinner Negroni (necessitated by too little Hendrick's for a full martini) and putting a pasta sauce together with onions, garlic, yellow squash, asparagus, and pesto...red wine wasn't going to do the trick.

In my cellar, I found one bottle of 2004 Merrillie (unfiltered) and it seemed like a potential match. I've always felt that our Chardonnay was better with significant bottle age. The 2004 proved me right. Just a beautiful wine...wonderful fresh lemon and pear notes, gorgeous underlay of leesy, nutty qualities from the sur lie aging and malolactic fermentation adding layers of complexity; finishing acidity that has rounded out with bottle age but which still girds the wine's substantial fruit and creates length and a mouthwatering finish.

Steven Kent & La Rochelle - What's Going on at the Winery in January

2011-01-26T06:03:00.000-08:00

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January 2011 - Around the Winery

La Rochelle Winery, located in the historic Livermore Valley, and owned by Steven Kent Mirassou, sixth-generation of America's oldest winemaking family, specializes in producing small volumes of world-class Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

We just wanted to share with you (here and here) what other people are saying about new releases of our wines. Some of these wines are still available through our store, some are available to restaurants and wine shops as well. Click the links for more information about our vineyard partners, to view videos about the 2010 vintage, and to check in with what's going on at the Winery.

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For those that sell our wines to restaurants and wine shops, there is a wealth of information in the "For the Trade" section of our website including tech sheets, reviews, and release schedules. Here are links to technical information on current wines:

2008 Pinot Noir, Sleepy Hollow Vineyard
2009 Pinot Gris, Mark's Vineyard
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90 POINTS - 2009 Pinot Gris, Mark' Vineyard (Arroyo Seco) "Brilliant, mouthwatering acidity marks this refreshingly clean wine. It's very ripe, showing pineapple and lemon sour candy, papaya, green melon and vanilla spice flavors. Straddles the border between bone dry and just off-dry, although the honeyed sweetness might not show up officially. Great with Thai, Vietnamese and Asian-fusion fare." (Wine Enthusiast 02/11 - SH)

90 POINTS - 2008 Pinot Noir, Sleepy Hollow Vineyard (Santa Lucia Highlands)
"A big, muscular Pinot, in the manner of this vineyard. It's dry but sweetly rich and dense in cherries, black raspberries, mulberries, cola and cedar, with thick tannins. The silky texture and bright acidity make it drinkable now, yet it should develop in the bottle over the next six years." (Wine Enthusiast 02/11 - SH)

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Home Ranch Perfume - I'd Know You in the Dark

2011-01-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

The French invented the notion of terroir. Terroir is the "it-ness" of the place. The weather, the stuff that makes up the dirt, the direction of the line rows, the amount of sunlight the vineyard gets, the amount of wind are all aspects of the terroir of the vineyard. A more modern definition of the term would include the philosophy of the wine maker, the philosophy of the vineyard manager, the existence of other plants and animals, etc. as part of the whole of the site.

There are many who argue the existence or importance of this overarching site concept, but there are few who would argue that certain sites have something special about them. We believe that our Home Ranch Vineyard is just one of those special places.

We have done many tastings involving all of the Cabernets that we produce, and even when those tastings are done blind, it is impossible to miss the Cabernets produced from Home Ranch fruit. While these wines share a richness with Ghielmetti Vineyard Cabernet and a structure with Smith Ranch Cabernet, what they don't share with any other wine produced in the Livermore Valley is the exotic perfume of pepper and mint and menthol that one associates with the oil from wind-break trees.

As the winds blow in from San Francisco Bay each afternoon they come charging through the Livermore Valley from West to East. Right next door to our Home Ranch Vineyard is a stand of trees - pepper trees and eucalyptus trees - whose essential oils are blown on to the grape skins of the Cabernet that resides right next door. These essential oils become an essential part of all our Home Ranch wines. Being red wines, the skins of the grapes that make them are exceedingly important. There is no way to separate the oils from the trees from the skins of the grapes themselves. Consequently, these aromatic additions become part of the finished wines. In a true sense, the terroir of the Home Ranch Vineyard includes this perfume; a Home Ranch wine that did not have this note, however subtle, could not be said to be a true product of this particular site.

I have come to love and appreciate this quirk of location, this happy accident of arboreal fortune. For without this particular aspect of "it-ness," the Home Ranch would be a much diminished thing indeed.

"When Should I Drink This Wine?"

2011-01-24T08:51:00.000-08:00

The question most often asked by wine lovers is also a question that doesn't have a straightforward answer. The answer to When should I drink this wine? has as much to do with the personal preferences of the wine drinker as it does to the relative drinkability of a wine.

I have a love of big, tannic red wines. For my palate, the ability of the wine to age is secondary to the wine's youthful structure and integration. This is purely a personal thing, though. My dad, who was weaned on Bordeaux, prefers his Cabernets with some age on them; he wants to experience the secondary flavors and aromas that come about through the mysterious calculus of bottle + oxygen + time.

But because this question deserves a considered - if somewhat hedged - answer, we have developed a "Drinkability Matrix" that provides a great deal of information regarding the origin of our wines and a range for drinking the wines at their peak.

Take a look at the Matrix and tell us whether the information was useful and if there is anything else that you would like to know that would improve your experience with our wines. The updated Cabernet chart is available on our website now. The Future Release Program and Collector's Circle charts will be up this week.

A Tale of Two Vinnies

2011-01-23T09:47:00.000-08:00

One of our most consistently popular wines has been Vincere. This super-Tuscan style wine, a blend of Sangiovese and Cabernet grown on our Home Ranch, has always been predominantly Sangiovese. We have 1.1 acres of this grape planted on the home ranch, and it is the main grape in the Chianti region in Italy. Since 2000, when I made the first blend of this wine for a restaurant friend in South Florida, we have prized Sangiovese for its ability to give this blend its acid structure, its red fruit, and much of its length.

The Cabernet portion of Vincere is there to provide weight and structure and darker fruit notes to the wine. And because of the singular terroir of the Home Ranch, with its "Home Ranch Perfume," a wonderfully complex matrix of aromatic tree oils, the Cabernet from this site serves as a very obvious complexing agent in the blend.

In the nine previous releases of Vincere, Sangiovese has played a dominant role. In 2008, however, we ran short of this grape in our vineyard. After making a number of mock blends, we decided that the Cabernet-dominant wine that is the 2008 vintage was still Vincere; it still retained a spirit of the super-Tuscan style wine we were attempting to make. In fact, it has been the quality of the wine and not a recipe that has guided the blending of Vincere from the very first vintage.

After recently tasting the 2008 and 2007 wines side-by-side, a number of really interesting things became apparent. Though the wines were different in structure and different in the sense of which variety was most dominant, they were very similar in tone. Vincere is a rich wine that's meant to be explosive aromatically; it's meant to be viscous in the mouth and to provide a foundation for a wide variety of foods with which you might choose to pair it. Both of these wines passed this test.

They were both very true to their vintage also. 2007 was a classic vintage in California. Nearly every wine we made that year had an opulence and a richness and a dark-hued fruit palate that surpassed nearly every vintage prior to that. 2008, on the other hand, was a vintage of structure. The fruit palate was more about cherries than the black raspberry and cassis that we see in 2007. The 2008 wines have a mid-palate shape to them that is very intriguing; this is a vintage that should age dramatically well. Again, both of these wines passed that vintage specificity test.

Finally, for all of their differences, these two wines share one thing in common: as with most of our wines, they were significantly better the second day. The tightness and shy fruit that one has seen in the Steven Kent wines when they are first opened is present here also. Aerating the wines, or decanting them for a couple of hours prior to drinking, really helps to open up the wines both aromatically and from a structural standpoint.

For those people who have come to enjoy this wine, we believe that you will like the 2008 wine as much as any other previous release. The reasons may be different, but that's what great wine is supposed to be. It's supposed to be a reflection of a vineyard site, a given year of weather, and a winemaking philosophy.

The 2008 Vincere is made exclusively for members of our Future Release Program. For more information about joining our club and getting your allocation of Vincere, click this link.

What It's Not

2011-01-17T19:49:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it's easier to see what a wine is when it's in a group of wines that it's not. Even a wine you know well can have different sides of it shown.

I was calling on a friend, Greg Bardakos, the wine director at a great restaurant in Los Gatos called Steamers, and decided to have a glass of wine and a bite to eat. Greg has been pouring the Steven Kent for quite a while, and this day he also had it in a flight with two other cabs from two different appellations.

I've always felt that one of the primary differences between Livermore Valley Cabernet and Napa Valley Cabernet is the tannin content in the wine. Livermore Cabs tend to have real dense, rich, fruit upfront and a tannic structure that one perceives mostly on the finish. Contrast this with Napa Cabs which usually display tannin running all the way through the wine but not nearly as much fruit as Livermore.

It intrigued me then, when I tasted the 2007 Steven Kent alongside the 2007 Robert Hall Cabernet from Paso Robles and the 2007 Mount Veeder Winery Cabernet from Napa Valley. One would expect the mountain fruit in Napa to be tannic and have a limited amount of fruit. And as a gross generalization that's how I perceived the wine. More specifically though, the Mount Veeder had beautiful, if muted, fruit. It was more red cherry than cassis and had significant tannin all the way through the wine especially on the finish. But there was more fruit there than I thought there'd be before I tasted the wine.

The Hall Cabernet was a beautiful wine also. This wine, I think, showed a bit more dark fruit than the Mt. Veeder wine and had a plushness on entry that neither of the other two wines had.

It was my old wine, though, that was most surprising. This Livermore Valley offering is one of the best we've made so far. One of its defining characteristics is its tannin level (when compared to previous vintages), tasted alongside these other two wines, however, it showed significantly darker fruit (black even), and a tannic structure on the finish that nearly rivaled that of the Mount Veeder.

Tasting as many wines of my own as I do (especially in comparative flights) has revealed that the context and order in which the wines are tasted dramatically affects how one perceives tannin and structure in the wines. Still, it was very gratifying to see that the Livermore stood up quite well in both richness and tannin to the other two wines.

Greg does a wonderful job with the wine program at Steamers. Steamers is a Los Gatos landmark and is highly recommended for both the wine and the food.

Man, the only reason to be in the wine business is to make something great...

2011-01-16T09:09:00.000-08:00

Man, the only reason to be in the wine business is to make something great. It is to produce something that makes the wine lover, and those new to wine, pause a moment, think...and feel...and respond. The world is FULL of well-made wine that is well-priced and perfectly adequate. Perfectly adequate has no place at Steven Kent.

Anyone, whether they be wine reviewer, writer, winemaker, widget manufacturer...if they aren't working everyday to make something memorable, something truly worth remembering, they're wasting everyone's time. So too for the wine lover. if you are not demanding a great wine drinking experience then you're shortchanging yourself. In 2011 we are dedicated to continuing to provide a great wine drinking experience, the opportunity to see and drink the best that Livermore Valley has to offer. We look forward to sharing those experiences with you.

First Red Grapes Arrive at Steven Kent

2010-10-19T11:46:00.000-07:00

Sangiovese being Harvested

The red harvest has finally begun at Steven Kent. Normally the first red grape to come to the Winery, we harvested our Home Ranch Sangiovese this morning, 20 days later than we did last year; volumes were almost 50% lower this year as well.

Sangiovese is the primary grape in Chianti and we use it for a 100% varietal offering for members of our Collector's Circle wine club as well as in a blend with Cabernet, as Vincere, for members of our Future Release Program. With 4.225 tons, we should have a very small total of only 250 or so cases.

Sangiovese at the Crushpad

A long-time favorite wine for guests and members, the Sangiovese fruit tasted beautiful at the crushpad today; plenty of sugar and great acid.

Sangiovese is typified by gorgeous aromas of black cherry compote, five spice powder; a supple mid-palate, and great acidity. It is the perfect wine to pair with a roasted pork loin, veal, and chicken.

We have found, too, that our Sanigovese-based wines will age quite beautifully for 7-10 years. Our first Sangiovese, Cherry Blossoms, a 2001 vintage, is still holding on well.

The Sound of Wine

2010-10-12T16:53:00.000-07:00

Fruit's coming in everyday now, and some - which came previously - is doing its wine thing.

Our 2010 Steven Kent Chardonnay - Livermore Valley is fermenting away in barrels...making quite a mess of it as you can see in these photos. And to hear what fermentation sounds like, click the link here.

Premier Cabernet Collection Preview - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 337

2010-10-02T20:55:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful turnout last week for the release of our Premier Cabernet Collection - Clone 30 offering. This wine, fewer than 100 cases of which were produced, was one of two releases we felt was of great enough quality to be accorded our highest quality designation.

In conjunction with this release, we previewed the first of the 2008 Premier Cabernet wines...the Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 337. For this wine fewer than 50 cases will be available. Consistently producing a wine with very rich red and dark fruit notes, the 2008 Clone 337 was the first vintage that this clone stepped it up a notch and yielded a wine, not only with the richness we prize, but also with a structure that portends ageability.

This is a wine that Cabernet lovers should have in their collection. Elegant, complex, and delicious, this wine is extremely limited and will not be around long. Click here to be among the first to reserve your three-pack of Clone 337. Tasting notes are below:

In the nose, aromas of black cherry and cassis liqueur dominate while underpinnings of licorice, cocoa powder, and subtle tobacco enhance the wine's aromatic complexity. On entry, lush dark fruit flavors come to the fore first, but as the wine aerates, fruit gives way to licorice and caramel and the subtle oak and tobacco aromatics become more forceful flavors. Wines of this distinction tend to show their true quality after time in bottle or glass. So too with this wine. After several hours in the decanter, all aspects of this wine blossom: fruit gains more intensity, mid-pa;ate shows more depth, and the chewy finishing tannins presage the capacity to age. This Cabernet will benefit from several years of bottle age, beginning to show all of its grandeur in 2014. With care, this wine should age effortlessly through 2020. Fewer than 150 three-packs and a small number of magnums were produced in this vintage.

Friday Snippets

2010-09-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

Cloudy Weather at Ghielmetti

The 2010 Harvest is beginning to take on a little shape, finally. Walking through the Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon blocks this week, the flavors in the SB are really wonderful. Seriously considering picking a couple of tons early in the week (about 22 sugar) and then a couple more about a week to ten day later (depending on weather) to get closer to the sugars we have had in the past (about 24). Check out the video for more observations.

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Our Sales Manager, Gregory Peebles, made his first Southern California tour for Steven Kent and found a very enthusiastic audience. In the next couple of weeks, Southlanders will be able to find the wines at K&L Wine Merchants in Hollywood, the Wine Exchange in Orange, and at Ozumo Restaurant in Santa Monica.

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The latest in our series of Premier Cabernet Collection wines made its debut this past week. The 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 337 was poured for those who purchased the 2007 Clone 30. This is the first time the 337 has made the top tier in quality. This wine is wonderfully integrated already and boasts notes of black and red cherry, tobacco, black plum and terrific structuring tannin on the lengthy finish. Only 150 three-packs are available in this release...only half as much as the previous year! Click here to order your three-pack before they are gone.

Hen of the Woods - 2007 Petite Sirah - Release Celebration Saturday

2010-09-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

One of Livermore Valley's superstar varieties will be on display at Steven Kent Winery on Saturday when we release the newest offering for members of the Collector's Circle wine club...Hen of the Woods...a 2007 100% Petite Sirah from the Ghielmetti Vineyard.

Label photograph by Tracey Hoff

Tracing an origin back to the Rhone Valley, where it was mistaken for a small-berried clone of Syrah (hence the name Petite Sirah), this variety has been grown in the Livermore Valley to great acclaim for decades. I chose the finest 6 barrels from a larger lot of PS for this release.
In the nose, one get abundant notes of characteristic lavender and violet floral essences, licorice and black fruits. Supporting the fruit and flowers is a nice toasty American oak underlayment. The wood is carried into the mouth where it turns from toasty to subtle caramel and cinnamon. As the wine gets some air the varietally correct chalky tannins and undifferentiated black fruit become a silkily structured wine highlighted by blackberry and black cherry flavors.
This wine will age beautifully for the next 5 years and could use another 6-12 months before you start drinking it. Hen of the Woods was made exclusively for members of the Collector's Circle.

What a Day Was #Cabernet Day

2010-09-03T14:30:00.000-07:00

Even this Chicken showed up for Cab Day

Celebrated around the world on September 2nd was the first "Cabernet Day." The brainchild of Rick Bakas of St. Supery Winery, Cabernet Day was created to celebrate both the noblest of red grapes and the rapidly growing community of folks who take to the various social media outlets to share their wine experiences.

From what I've heard, Cab Day was the largest on-line tasting ever, with tens of thousands of people all around the world joining in the fun. If you google #Cabernet Day, you get over 1.8 MILLION hits...a pretty good indication of the number of people participating.

At Steven Kent we turned over the Barrel Room to four new extremely-limited Cabernet Releases and welcomed more than 4 times the average number of guests for a Thursday.

What Cabernet Day meant for us was a chance to show off what we think is a gloriously good Cabernet growing area, and the breadth and depth of our offerings was indication that the Livermore Valley is not only capable of making a great Cabernet; it's capable of making many of them.

For those who didn't get a chance to join us, small quantities of the single-vineyard Cabernets are available. Click the Home Ranch, Smith Ranch, Ghielmetti Vineyard, and "Estate Grown" links to be taken to the on-line store to order before the wines are gone.

For video tasting notes click Home Ranch, Smith Ranch, Ghielmetti Vineyard, and "Estate Grown."

Honoring a Great Wine Institution

2010-08-30T08:29:00.000-07:00

Multi-generational businesses (especially in wine) are rarer and rarer these days. Rarer still, are businesses in which the people on the selling end are treated with great respect and kindness. Just a couple of reasons why it was such an honor to be invited to Joseph George's 70th anniversary tasting for his best customers at Villa Montalvo in Saratoga yesterday.

Back in 1966, my family started distribution of its wines in California, and Joseph George was our first. Over the years, we've maintained contact with the George family, especially with Bert George (pictured, right) who opened the family wine shop in San Jose in 1997. Bert George is one of those legends in Bay Area wine, and his wine shop is home to the rarest and best wines from California.

Under normal circumstances, getting owners (especially those from Napa) to attend tastings is extremely rare, but on Sunday there were many wine stars present pouring their wines. Though, I didn't get to taste as many wines as I wanted, a couple that stood out for me were the 2006 Lewis Cellars Cabernet and 2006 Portfolio (made by Genevieve Janssens).

We had the great fortune of having tables for La Rochelle and Steven Kent, and we poured, among others, the 2008 Sleepy Hollow Pinot Noir and 2007 Clone 4 and Clone 30 Cabs (Gregory Peebles, our Sales Manager pictured, left).

The evening was terrific: a beautiful venue, great wines, and a great family. Here's to another 70 years!

Friday's Snippets

2010-08-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

From the department of "be careful what you wish for" came this weather forecast from the center of the Earth:
Monday - 99
Tuesday - 107
Wednesday - 105

Luckily for all of us, and the grapes...it was much cooler later in the week 75 and wind gusts like the remake of Mary Poppins on Friday.

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Check out videos on Block 30 Cabernet here, the variability of Veraison here and Ghielmetti Vineyard here. If I seem out of breath in some of these...I was. It was about 105 degrees, and I'm out of shape! Hopefully the content is interesting.

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Writing the notes right now for Fratello, our annual Tasting Room team blend put together to benefit breast cancer research. This year, we focus attention on men who have the disease...in honor of one of our own recovering team members, Domenic.

This wine is a blend of Barbera, Petit Verdot and Merlot and was put together by members of our Tasting Room team. Fratello will be available starting September 2, 2010. Help us to help breast cancer research...and get a great wine as a thank you.

Did someone say Cab?

2010-08-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

Last night at our winemaker's pairing, Chef Neil Marquis dazzled 30 guests with his cuisine which he paired with our La Rochelle 2009 Pinot Gris, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, Home Ranch Vineyard, and two soon to be released Single Vineyard Cabernets for Steven Kent; 2007 Smith Ranch and 2007 Ghielmetti Vineyard. The pairing was wonderful and we enjoyed another evening of fine food, wine and friends. Pictures are up on our Facebook page if you're interested!

If you didn't get a chance to sip on these wonderful Cabernets, we invite you to come out to the winery on Thursday, September 2nd from 12-4:30 for #Cabernet Day! This day is devoted to the King of all Grapes and lover's of this varietal will be tweeting and status updating for 24 hours singing it's praises! In honor of the day we're offering a special one day menu in the Barrel Room with the three Cabernets from our pairing as well as another new release for us, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, Livermore Valley.

Click Here for the deets

Hope to see you at the winery!
Tracey

Friday's Snippets

2010-08-20T08:09:00.000-07:00

Just bottled the 2008 Premier Cabernet Collection - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 337. Due for March 2011 release, this is the first time this clone has ascended to the top of the Cabernet mountain. Beautiful fruit on entry, mid viscosity, and focused tannin on the finish, this wine will be a favorite. Available to order in September, only two barrels this time around. A few three-packs of the spectacular Clone 30 are still available. Reserve one before it's too late!

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Traveled to Atlanta earlier this week to meet with a great retailer in the metro area, Chris Hinton, whose store - Hinton's Wine Shop, is noted for having one of the best selections of high-end wines in the area. Chris and his crew (Keith, Richard, and Cory) liked the wines and will hopefully become a flagship location for Steven Kent in the near future.

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For those wondering about the lateness of the growing season, given all the rain we had in the winter and spring, and the cool temps so far in summer...ripening is not just about heat, it's also about the amount of solar radiation, or sunshine, the grapes get. Cooler temperatures generally mean less smog hanging around and clear skies means more sunshine. Steve Heimoff notes this in a recent blog post. The cool growing season has many people optimistic, however.

'Cabernet Day!'

2010-08-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

'Cabernet Day!'
Click on the link to read about our special Cabernet Day menu at Steven Kent on Thursday, September 2nd!!

If it's Saturday, It Must be Blending Day...

2010-08-14T20:52:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have tuned in to my Blog or Facebook, you know, I'm sure, that the time spent blending in the cellar is nearly as good as it gets.

Saturdays before and after harvest are the perfect time to go through barrels, talk to myself, whoop (when the barrel is whoop-worthy) and generally celebrate all things vinous. I'm alone, I have 800 barrels of wine in various states of readiness and a list of wines I want to put together.

Today, the attention was focused on 2009 Sangiovese...the 100% offering that goes to our Collector's Circle members, the blend of Sangi and Cab (Vincere) that's for the Future Release Program and the Single Vineyard Series Cabernet Sauvignon - Home Ranch that is for everyone who loves great wine!

After tasting through 22 barrels of Sangiovese and 17 barrels of Cab, I messed around with specific barrels until I got what I wanted for three different wines. The 2009 vintage of Home Ranch Cab and Sangiovese are lovely. The SVS Cab is outstanding, very lush, very black-fruited, and with another year in barrel, the wine will be rounded out, ageable and delicious.

The Sangiovese was a little more difficult. I thought the newer barrels showed barrel than the second-use did. There is enough fruit in the wine to compensate for the more obvious wood notes... in fact, the new French oak barrels highlighted the fruit, adding structure along the way.

I am very excited about the wines...2009 Vincere, 2009 Sangiovese, and 2009 Single Vineyard Series Cabernet - Home Ranch Vineyard...and hopefully over the next two release years, you'll be as excited as I am!

Radius 5 - What Our Club Members Thought

2010-08-10T14:06:00.000-07:00

Radius 5, a blend of 75% Cabernet and 25% Syrah was released last weekend to our Future Release Program club members. Looking for feedback and an interesting way of sharing comments, we asked members to jot down words to describe their reaction to their new wine. Thanks to everyone who played along.

To the right, you'll find a wordle of those comments. The wordle assigns weight to the font based upon how many times a word is used. As you can see "smooth" and "sexy" were repeated a number of times. "Mo-better" and "yum-mo" were used less frequently but with every bit as much panache.

Single words work better for this exercise, but we want to leave you with a few comments about Radius 5:

"If I took it to dinner...we'd make out."
"It is so good it makes me want to cry." And, finally,
"I joined the club. Need I say more?"

Click here to learn more about Steven Kent's wine clubs.

The First Hints of Color

2010-08-06T15:32:00.000-07:00

The first hints of color in the Home Ranch vineyard are a very welcome sight. Due to a very rainy and cool early Spring and current temperatures hovering in the high 70's, this growing season is off to a very slow start.

If this were Bordeaux where harvest-time rains are a common occurrence, being at least 2 weeks behind would be cause for much hair-pulling and Gallic consternation. But this is California, land of sunshine and perpetual optimism (only way to survive in the wine business!), and more than likely late August and September heat will rapidly decrease the gap between where we are and where we should be.

The photo above on the left is Sangiovese, the first grape to be harvested from the Home Ranch. You can see many more berries on this bunch are beginning to go through veraison, the time of year where the grape skins turn from green to red, berries soften up, and the cells of berries begin to size up.

Below to the right is Cabernet. Only the row along the side of the drive shows any color at this point, due probably to the fact that more light (and consequent higher temperatures) can penetrate to the fruit zone on the road side. Cabernet will be picked last from the site in a normal year.

Thus far, the season looks to be a good one. Volumes are about average and there appears to be far less shatter among our blocks most prone to this problem (Merlot, for instance). There are reports of fairly widespread mildew challenges in some Livermore vineyards. Thankfully, Ghielmetti and Home don't show any signs of it.

As the season progresses, look to our blog for more updates.

Smile at the Cellar Door

2010-02-27T08:19:00.000-08:00

A recent blog post by wine critic, Steve Heimoff, leads me to this thought:

if you are lucky enough to live in or near wine country, get to know the wines and the people behind those wines. Letting a a numerical score (which implies an objectivity that doesn't exist) substitute for relationships seems like a recipe for a stunted, reductive experience.

Remember wine is all about relationships, the relationship of the grower with the vines, the winemaker with fruit, the Tasting Room team with its customers, and the customer to the experience. No purported exactitude can ever take the place of a smile at the cellar door.

Evolution's the Thing

2010-02-22T15:06:00.001-08:00

Back when my dad started selling wine, there were only a handful of premium wineries in California, and the only model for world-class Cabernet was the wine from Bordeaux. Those wines were significantly lower in alcohol and less fruit-filled than their California counterparts. They were also very tannic, nearly undrinkable wines when they were young.

The concept of laying Cabernet down before you drank it and for ascribing inherent quality to a wine that can (or needs to) age before it is drunk is directly related to the Bordeaux experience. California wineries trying to make exceptional Cabernet emulated Bordeaux even when the viticultural conditions in their home state blessed them with a completely different kind of wine.

To my mind, the biggest, brawniest Cab in the room is not the prettiest pig at the Fair. Often, these huge monsters are so out of balance that by the time the tannins have softened with age, the piddling fruit that had started the journey was long gone when the wine was finally opened.

I love big, BALANCED wines. Cabernet is a grape that has tannin, and even more tannin is imparted to the wine when it is aged in newer barrels. Cabernet shouldn't apologize for having structure, but it also shouldn't haughtily beat its chest for having way more tannin than the rest of its constituent parts can elegantly support.

All wines will age. Tannins will soften out. Some wines will, no doubt, age better than others. What is important is not the wine's ability to age, it is the wine's ability to evolve into something worth waiting for. Great wines give you something substantially new each time you drink them...some new palette of secondary aromas, the dramatic debut of a heretofore shy mix of flavors, the effortless marriage of fruit, wood, and structure.

Great wines are like great books. No matter how long or short, each time you open them they always have something new to teach.

Silver Lining

2010-02-18T13:58:00.000-08:00

When business is off for one part of an industry, the negative ramifications are usually felt up and down the chain. Sales for high-end wines have been hit the hardest in the current economic downturn. The total volume of wine is right where it was in 2008, but price points tend to drop as disposable income diminishes.

Where the silver lining lies is in new opportunities for purchasing fruit. La Rochelle Winery will be getting a couple of tons of Pinot Noir from a new site in the Santa Lucia Highland called Soberanes Vineyard. This site was planted and is being farmed by the same people behind Garys', Pisoni, and Rosella's vineyards...three of the best sites in the world.

On the Chardonnay front, Merrillie will now be getting fruit from Rosella's Vineyard (pictured right) one of the top Chardonnay sites in the Santa Lucia Highlands. Coupled with the Sleepy Hollow Vineyard fruit from which we made wine for the first time in 2009, Merrillie is poised to begin her new life as a Chardonnay-only brand in 2011 with a stable of some of the top Chardonnay vineyards in the state.

Steven Kent's First Malbec to Debut

2010-02-01T09:32:00.000-08:00

Members of our Future Release Program have come to love the Bordeaux-variety blends we make exclusively for them. Until now, we have not had a Malbec to share. With our February release, however, the last of the five classic varieties will make its debut.

Aromatic notes of dried cherry, brambly berry, and spice join seamlessly with a viscous mid-palate and substantial finishing tannin to create a supremely interesting and delicious wine. 86% Malbec and 14% Cabernet Franc, this wine will be at its peak from 2011-2015. Fewer than 200 cases were produced.

2010: Looking Forward

2010-01-02T07:57:00.000-08:00

As 2010 dawns, a new year of wonderful wines await. But first a few words about 2009:

The last couple of years, especially 2009, have been difficult for many people. On behalf of all of us at Steven Kent Winery, I just want to thank everyone for their very generous support. We are honored by your continued commitment to our mission to create world-class wines from the Livermore Valley.

2010 will see:

Not only our first Malbec (a blend for members of the Future Release Program in February; and a 100% Small Lot Offering in May) but also our ninth vintage of Sangiovese for Collector's Circle members in March.

The Premier Cabernet Collection returns with two spectacular wines: 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 4 in March and Clone 30 in September. Fewer than 100 cases of each of these wines (our highest quality Cabernets) were produced.

Radius, a blend that has morphed from predominantly Barbera to a mix of Bordeaux varieties, will be a Cabernet Sauvignon/Syrah blend starting with its fifth incarnation.

Our Second Open House event will take place on May 15th and will feature the release of our Small Lot Offering Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and Malbec among others.

There are a number of Wine Dinners on the calendar as well. We'll let you know, soon, when the first dinner is scheduled.

We look forward to sharing these wonderful wines and occasions with you in the coming year. Cheers to a great 2010!

07 Cabs Finally Arrive!

2009-09-16T08:24:00.001-07:00

2007 is one of those vintages that we will be talking about 20 years from now. It is opulent, complex, and age-worthy. And I have been waiting for 2 years to share it!

The first of the vintage to be available is also one of our best: the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 4 is the first of our two Premier Cabernet Collection wines to debut.

The Premier Cabernet Collection is comprised of the best expressions of 100% Cabernet that the Steven Kent Winery produces. In this vintage only 8 barrels out a total of 127 (6.3%) were deemed of great enough quality to earn the Premier Cabernet Collection classification.

Just 4 barrels each (roughly 90 cases of each wine, packaged in 3-packs) were produced. Based upon the response to the 2006 vintage, these wines will not last long. Click Here to Order this Wine before it's gone!

Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 4 Notes:

This powerhouse wine emphasizes aromatic notes of semi-sweet chocolate, graphite, mocha, cassis, and black cherry liqueur. On entry, rich and viscous flavors of dark fruit, licorice, and cocoa unfurl slowly (much more organoleptic complexity and clarity of structure come through after several hours of decanting) leading to a broadening of tannins through the mid-palate. On the finish, the full tannic scope of the wine comes through as the flavors show lengthy persistence. The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, Clone 4 is less herbaceous than it was in 2006, trading in a subtle exotic wood for more power and age-worthiness. This Cabernet will benefit from several years of bottle age, beginning to show all of its grandeur in 2014. With care, this wine should age effortlessly through 2020.

This is no time for tasting. I will be drinking my wine tonight.

2009-09-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

This is no time for tasting. I will be drinking my wine tonight.

There are times when the shadows are long and soft in the evening, and the city is laid out before you so clearly each building shines, and the trees sough as if the ocean breezes are caught up in their crowns, and the day leading up to this, broke so green it hurt your eyes, and the grapes hang, dew-covered and rampant as the rows proceed to the horizon; and you realize you are in Northern California, in wine country, and it is a balm. And you don't think cases to be sold, or distributor problems in the mid-west or the effects of recession or over-supply...you think how perfect this Cabernet tastes, how its fruit and tannin and texture and finish are each perfect, and their aggregation is perfect, and the wine (it doesn't matter which one, really...just that you are drinking it now, in this perfect spot, in this perfect time) is perfect.

That's what today felt like. And that's why I drink tonight. I drink (an act of feeling, no thinking tonight) to that ineffable perfection that was the Livermore Valley today...to the fruit coming in that will be wine in two years, to the caring touch of our winemaking team, to all of you for whom Steven Kent and La Rochelle are a part of your wine drinking life.

This is no time for tasting. I will be drinking my wine tonight.

2006 Single Vineyard Series Cabernets - A Preview

2009-08-29T16:26:00.000-07:00

There's nothing like being able to taste our trio of Single Vineyard Series Cabs side-by-side to demonstrate how singular each is, and how profound.

Two traits cut through the myriad differences of flavor and aroma in these three wines: intensity of fruit and richness of structure. Each wine displays that hallmark of great Livermore Valley Cabernet (deep dark/rich fruit on entry) very clearly. The rich fruit entry is where Livermore sets itself apart from the more austere, less opulent Napa Valley wines.

Along with the fruit comes toasty oak, chocolate and mint notes in the Home Ranch. This wine is dramatically complex in the nose...cassis, black cherry, raspberry, chocolate, mint; after sitting open for about 2 hours, the chocolate has morphed into less sweet cocoa powder, the fruit notes are darker and the tannins have blossomed to show both greater breadth and more edge than when the wine was first open.

The Smith Ranch is the most austere of the three wines. Structure is the watchword with this wine. Newly opened, the wine shows notes of "Liquid Smoke," toasty oak, and black fruits. There is a gorgeous, focused streak of tannin that runs through this wine in a straight line, all the way to a lengthy finish. Black fruit notes begin to show themselves after the wine sat, and a structural earthiness and tobacco notes were also evident.

The Ghielmetti Vineyard (a blend of three different clones) was the wine that showed the most dramatic change. Early, the wine showed intensity of red and black fruits, graphite, and milk chocolate in the nose. The medium tannins were confined to the mid-palate, and the wine didn't have the length of finish that it has shown before. With time, though, this wine became much bigger: red fruit turned black, chocolate took on a much less sweet aspect, and most significantly, the tannins opened up, becoming harder and longer.

All three wines share a depth and breadth of tannin that will allow them to age 10 years; each wine is very individual, and each wine writes the continuing story of world-class Cabernet from the Livermore Valley.

Fewer than 30 cases remain of the Home Ranch Cabernet. Smith and Ghielmetti will make their debut at The Table in the second half of September and will be available to purchase then. Only 50 cases of the Smith and 100 cases of the Ghielmetti Cab were produced.

Premier Cabernet Collection - 2007 Ghielmetti Vineyard - Clone 4

2009-08-13T08:48:00.000-07:00

The 2007 vintage of Cabernets is the best we have yet produced.

While this growing year offered that extremely rare combination of world-class quality and higher-than-average volume for California as a whole, for the Steven Kent Winery, this vintage will once and for all dispel any doubts of the Livermore Valley's ability to grow Cabernet equal in quality to any other growing area.

The two Premier Cabernet Collection wines that will be released in 2010 achieve a level of richness and complexity that we not seen yet.

The Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 4 is significantly denser in fruit with a broader mid-palate and lengthier tannins than the 2006 PCC release. The richness and dark fruit on entry and in the mid-palate in 2006 is magnified substantially in 07. There are more non-fruit aromatics at play in the new wine, and there is significantly more structural tannin on the finish to balance out the viscosity of the wine's front end and to insure great longevity.

Only 240 three-packs and a small number of magnums were produced in this vintage. First priority for ordering is given to those who purchased last year's wine. The next priority is reserved for those who have signed up on our INTEREST LIST. The ordering period will begin on September 17th for those on the Interest List.

20 years from now, we'll still be talking about this vintage. Don't miss out.

If You Look Hard Enough You Can See the Wine

2009-07-21T20:23:00.001-07:00

Practically everything related to the making of wine is anticipatory. The grapes are picked and crushed and fermenting and you anticipate what the wines will taste like. You have a favorite wine in the cellar awaiting that special meal or special someone and you hope that the wine will match the picture you have of it in your head.

This time of year, if you look hard enough you can see the next wines. We are a way off for Bordeaux varieties, but the Sangiovese in the Home Ranch vineyard is just beginning Veraison, that time when grapes turn color, skins get softer, and the growing of fruit is moving toward the end point (ripeness and balance between sugar and acid) having overcome the hump of its incipience.

In about 60 days, assuming the weather cooperates, we should be harvesting Sangiovese and anticipating the next great vintage of Vincere.

Greatest Meal Ever

2009-07-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

As I've written many time before, the best glass of wine I have ever had is inextricably tied to the people with whom I was sharing it. Same goes for the best meal. And when I can share the best food I have had in a very long time with one of my kids, the "special-ness" of the occasion increases exponentially.

On our family vacation in Las Vegas last week, my son, Aidan, and I ate at Bar Charlie on our second-to-last night. Bar Charlie is owned by Charlie Trotter and is a smaller venue inside Restaurant Charlie. The Bar specializes in kaiseki style of Japanese cuisine, think Asian tapas...small plates of exquisitely prepared food, mostly fish, some raw.

Aidan works Saturdays in the La Rochelle tasting room and is a big fan of sushi...Kawa Sushi in Livermore is one of our frequent haunts. I promised Aidan we'd devote a night in Vegas to the pursuit of raw fish and I'd heard good things about Bar Charlie.

I can't speak highly enough of the level of service and the deliciousness of the meal. We splurged and had the 14-course meal. I also had the beverage pairing accompanying each dish.

To simply list the dishes would do a disservice to the greatness of it all, but here are a few highlights:

Hawaiian Big Eye Tuna with Umeboshi and Seawater - (Aidan's favorite) a raw preparation of tuna, one section of which was wrapped around a cake of Umeboshi (a salted Japanese plum).

Tasmanian Ocean Trout with Pearled Barley & Miso - each part of the trout was used from the skin (cooked as a chip and put into Trout ice cream...really delicious!) to the roe.

Diver Sea Scallop with Chocolate & Bloomsdale Spinach - (my favorite) puree of Spinach sauce, Coffee oil (unbelievable!), and chocolate ganache cut into strips brought out the sweetness of the perfectly cooked scallop.

I admire any company that sets very high standards and that works hard to meet them. Restaurant Charlie certainly fits into this category. There's a graciousness and elegance to the way they approach food and service that is both testament to their philosophy as well as an inspiration to those of us who want to be able to provide the seemless, unparalleled, Extraordinary Experience to all who visit us.

2008 Wine X - Step 2

2009-06-21T08:01:00.000-07:00

I described in an earlier post the first step in the process of creating our flagship wine - Wine X - a blend of the 5 classic grapes from Bordeaux. Continuing in that vein, below is a bit more about how the other grapes get incorporated into the Cabernet Sauvignon base.

Over the last several weeks, I systematically went through each lot of wine making notes regarding the aromatic and gustatory qualities of each barrel then assigning a grade and a possible disposition for each barrel. If it was of great enough quality, perhaps it might make the SVS (Single Vineyard Series) level or even the PCC (Premiere Cabernet Collection). And if it was truly special, it might be destined for Wine X level.

After tasting through 118 barrels of the five varieties, I narrowed down the contenders to just a couple per variety. On Friday, I siphoned 375ml samples of each of the varieties (if there were multiple contending barrels for a variety, part of each such barrel went into the sample). After making notes on the wines, including a sample of the base Cabernet Sauvignon I created in Step 1, I went about blending the five samples together.

I am looking for greatness in this wine. I am looking for a wine with power, elegance, complexity of aroma and flavor, and an over-arching structure that holds all the pieces together and that will allow for age. In short, Wine X is supposed to be the greatest red wine from Livermore.

The first sample I made was in the same percentages as in the first Wine X. Then I made samples on either side, a bit more Cabernet Sauvignon and a little less CS. With each blend, I am trying to home in on just that one wine that expresses all of the grapes - the rusticity and mid-palate heft of Malbec, the color and tannin of Petit Verdot, the wistful aromatics of Cabernet Franc and a hint of her acidity - but does so in a unified way.

Generally, I make a series of samples, 5-7 or so, and let them sit for a while before I taste them for the first time. You want to give the wines a chance to sort things out some before you attach an impression to early.

So far, the wine that made the most favorable impression, the one that has the most power, grace, and ageability, contained 80% CS, 10% Cabernet Franc, 5% Petit Verdot, 3% Malbec, and 2% Merlot. This, of course, is not necessarily where the the final blend will reside.

Now that I have a firmer idea about the percentages, I go back to determine what those percentages mean in terms of needed gallons of each wine to make the number of cases I want to produce. When I know that, I will remake the blends with only the best barrel or two (depending upon the gallons needed) from each lot. I will remake a series of blends with different percentages of CS again and determine my favorite. Then the process gets really interesting... More in Step 3.

Groovy Boobies Prevail

2009-06-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

Each year our Tasting Room Team splits up into smaller groups to compete with each other to make a blend for release at the Livermore Valley Harvest Festival. Proceeds from each of the wines we have made (this year marks our fourth) have gone to support breast cancer research. last year's label is on the right.

Each team had samples of Zinfandel, Grenache, Syrah, Mourverdre, and Petite Syrah to work with. The wine had to contain at least 3 grapes, couldn't be more than 50% of any one grape, and had to be at least 16% of each grape included.

Team Groovy Boobies (Janice Fisher, Jessica Fisher, and Sharyn Bell) combined 16% Grenache, 30% Syrah, 34% Mourvedre, and 20% Zinfandel to narrowly defeat a blend made by Team X.

Their wine was wonderfully rich, with black fruit aromatics and flavors, silky mid-palate, and significant finishing tannins. Approximately, 150 cases of the wine will be released on September 6th. If you want a terrific wine and to support a great cause look for this wine (it will be named shortly) in our store in September.

Tasting Note: 2007 Mourvedre

2009-06-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

We will be releasing Sommaro, a Mourvedre blend to members of our Collector's Circle wine club in July. This wine is our third such blend of Rhone varieties.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Jennifer Fazio, our Director of Operations and Cheese Monger to the Stars, and Cindy Turchino, our Tasting Room Manager, to taste and talk about the last two vintages of Mourvedre.

Mourvedre is not a well-known variety in America. It appears in Southern French blends and more recently in GSM (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre) blends from Australia. I think Mourvedre is one of those quintessentially "just drink it, it goes great with food kind of wines."

There is a rusticity, and leathery texture (more prominent in Stairway our 2006 release than in '07) to go along with dark plum fruit, wild strawberry notes, and nice tannin. Jennifer commented on the dramatic black pepper-quality in the nose ("a snootful of pepper" were her exact words). "You'll think it's white," she said to me, "but it's black pepper." Just for the record...it is white pepper! Cindy got "hints of fresh cut herbs on the nose" and a "smooth flow of blackberries from the tip of [her] tongue through mid palate and a finish that is velvety soft."

Surprisingly, for our resident white wine and Pinot Noir gal, Jennifer, described the structure of the Sommaro as having only a "hint of tannin on the finish." I think the wine is more tannic than that...though the '06 is significantly more tannic and acidic than the the rounder '07. Cindy thought the tannins "make a nice showing but don't overpower the palate."

The 2006 Mourvedre (Stairway) is showing very pretty integration of fruit and wood. The delineated fruit of youth (plum, strawberry) is now an amalgam of silky black fruit aromas and flavors. The punch of acid and tannin that made the wine a potentially long-term ager is still significantly present. This quality, I think, allows for some neat food pairing options.

As far as '07 and food go, Cindy recommends a pecan crusted Rack of Lamb and roasted Rosemary Red Potatoes (that does sound good); Jennifer's thoughts turned to cheese. The picture to the right shows some of the cheeses we tried with the wine (Lenora, Jasper Hill Winnemere, Grayson, and Tomme de Montagne from 9 o' clock to 6 o' clock). I think this wine would go with meaty fish, chicken with lentils, BBQ ribs, sausages, charcuterie, just about anything.

Let us know what you think of the Mourvedre when it comes out, or any of our other wines.

2008 Wine X - Step 1

2009-06-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

I took the first step, yesterday, in creating the second vintage of our new flagship wine...Wine X (I am waiting on the trademark office for approval before we announce the real name of the wine...I think it is much more meaningful if not as dramatic as its stand-in).

My vision for this wine is simple...it is meant to be the greatest red wine from the Livermore Valley.

I look at it as the wine my father and I sought to create when we first started Steven Kent Winery and the wine prior generations of the Mirassou family didn't make; hopefully, you will find it a testament to the Livermore Valley's world-class quality, to a wine mission 155 years in the making, and to one hell of a great wine.

You'll learn much more about Wine X over the next several months. The 2007 vintage will be released in October 2010, and the one I am working on now will follow the next year.

The First Child Still Shines

2009-06-12T09:14:00.000-07:00

One of my biggest regrets in the wine business was not realizing how important our new Steven Kent history was going to be to our company. You probably know that my family is the oldest winemaking family in the country, having made wine continuously since 1854. And while this history means a great deal to me, it is necessarily distant as my involvement in creating it was minimal.

Not so with Steven Kent. My dad and I started the brand with an idea that the Livermore Valley could grow world class Cabernet, and we set about to prove it. I still am...and hopefully will for many years.

We spent about a year tasting our 1996 Cabernet from barrel frequently, trying to determine if that particular wine was good enough to launch not only the brand, but our winemaking philosophy, and our Mission. We decided, finally, that it was. That wine was inky dark, had great dark fruit and chocolate and wood notes, and was very well received by our first customers. It was so well received, in fact, that nearly every bottle was sold. And that is where the regret comes in.

We didn't keep enough of it in our Library so that we could see how the wine progresses over a very long time-frame.

I had the opportunity to taste the 1996 again a few days ago as part of an auction lot that we donated. The wine was still youthful: showing somewhat more dark cherry notes than I remember, but still having that great mid-palate structure, tannins on the finish, and indescribable notes that 10 years in bottle bring.

Everything is terrific with the 1996; it has many more years of life ahead of it, it tastes wonderfully now; it warms the emotional cockles of my heart. Oh, one bad thing...we don't have enough of it left.

Tasting Note: 2001 Single Vineyard Series Cabernets

2009-06-08T11:35:00.000-07:00

The Steven Kent team had a great experience last Saturday with two older wines. Being a young company with only about 10 vintages behind us, we still don't really know how long-lived our wines can be. So when we taste a wine that is eight years old and is only now beginning to drink the way it should, we get pretty excited.

The 2001 vintage was one of the best recent vintages for California Cabernet, and we released a trio of wines from three different sites under our Single Vineyard Series program. The best barrels from the Folkendt, Home Ranch, and Block D vineyards were chosen for our inaugural offering.

After our Release Celebration for Radius IV, we opened the 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon - Folkendt Vineyard and Home Ranch Vineyard wines. The Folkendt (much as I remember) was huge, with very rich aromas of black fruit, graphite, spicy oak, and semi-sweet chocolate. In the mouth, the wine had tannin from entry forward, a wonderfully viscous mid-palate with coffee and chocolate flavors predominating. On the extremely long finish, the black fruit, non-fruit flavors, and tannin all conspired to produce a very delicious, very youthful effect.

The Importance of Richness

One of the most significant characteristics a Steven Kent Cabernet can possess is a sense of richness. More important than tannin by itself, the richness (or viscosity) of the wine signals, to me, the capacity for the wine to evolve positively over the course of its life. Tannins, without the mid-palate richness that the best Steven Kent cabs have, will only age out to thinness, becoming strident in their maturity.

The 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon - Home Ranch was also a revelation. Showing less of the characteristic mintiness that the new Home Ranch release contains, the wine had an opulent nose of black raspberry, cassis, milk chocolate, and nicely integrated wood. Similar to the Folkendt, this wine's mid-palate was gorgeously round with an emphasis on slightly less dark fruit and only a hint of the graphite that defines the Folkendt. This wine, too, finished with terrific structural tannins enveloped in ripe fruit.

If you were able to get one of the 100 six-packs we produced in this vintage, there is no need to choose favorites; enjoy them all. I won't choose either. Both wines showed great youth and even greater promise for 7-10 years of additional growth.

Just an addendum...We had the occasion today to open the third wine of the triumvirate...the Steven Kent Vineyard, D Block. Again, a very big wine up front. Intense earthy aromas with Kalamata olives and baked bread notes. In the mouth the wine's fruit was redder than in the other two wines while also picking up a little brandied quality that usually signifies age. The tannins are abundant and the finish is long, but this wine is not holding up as well as the other two. I would drink this wine now.

2008 Vintage: A Look Forward

2009-06-02T10:46:00.000-07:00

We just put the finishing touches on our first serious taste through all the lots of the 2008 vintage Bordeaux varieties (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec, and Petit Verdot). We tasted 14 distinct lots comprised of 118 separate barrels and while 2008 is not as round a vintage as 2007 at this point, there are a number of potentially outstanding wines aging away gracefully in the cellar.

2008 was a significantly smaller harvest for us than 2007. Yields in some of our Cabernet blocks (including clone 191 and clone 4) were down by more than 20% compared to the previous year.

At this point in time, my general observation is that 2008 will be seen as a more structured vintage than 2007; it reminds me of the 2000 vintage in which fruit did not show overtly, but there was great depth and "blackness" to the aromatics and flavors. 2008 has that same depth of dark fruit and an austerity in mid-palate structure where exuberance was the calling card for 2007.

The wines are very young, and too many times I have been fooled into thinking that a wine would be less than what it turned out to be. During this 10 days of tasting (we'll revisit the wines in about 3 months), clone 337 from the Ghielmetti Vineyard is the clear Cabernet star (the adjectives: black fruit, tobacco, big tannin, dark chocolate, chewy tannin, good length came up repeatedly in my blind tasting notes). In the past I have loved this clone for its grapey, dark fruit aspects, and it is even more expressly tannic than it was in 2007. This head-turning wine is a front runner for Premier Cabernet Collection status.

Consistent favorites: clones 4, 30, and 191 are also showing very well though they seem to be a bit behind in their development compared to the last vintage.

A new clone of Petit Verdot - The Forman clone - which was grafted over from Sauvignon Blanc in 2006, is showing beautifully. Dense dark plum and floral notes abound and the mid-palate silkiness portends a wonderfully complex drinking experience in 2011.

For those who can't wait to get their hands and palates around a new Cabernet, the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon - Home Ranch is now available. Long a favorite of Steven Kent Cab fans, this gorgeous wine expresses the mint/chocolate/dark fruit matrix of our home site better than any wine since 2003. Only 120 cases were produced. Get it before it's gone.

small lot, BIG Quality

2009-04-11T11:42:00.001-07:00

For the first time, we have been able to figure out our release schedule so that 10 new, small-lot wines will be available to taste at one time...with your own Riedel glass...and lunch!

Our first Spring Open House will take place on May 17th from Noon to 4pm, the Steven Kent/La Rochelle site will be world-class wine Central. We will be pouring the 2006 Steven Kent Cabernet Sauvignon - Home Ranch (120 cases), 2006 Cabernet Franc (19 cases), 2006 Merlot (19 cases); 2006 La Rochelle Pinot Noir - Garys' Vineyard (120 cases), 2007 Pinot Noir - Mission Ranch, Pommard Clone in French oak (20 cases) and in American oak (20 cases) among others.

Join us for this spectacular event. $20 per person if you are a Steven Kent or La Rochelle club member and $30 per person if you are not. Only a small number of tickets are available. We look forward to seeing you.

What Makes a Region World-Class?

2009-03-31T07:13:00.000-07:00

If the weather is similar (including the gradient in temperature from day to night and one side of the appellation to the other) and the soils are varied and the same variety (Cabernet, in this case) is planted (with the same quality clones, etc.) what makes Napa "world-class" and Livermore an afterthought?

Please, let me know.

Barrel Tasting in Livermore

2009-03-30T08:22:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, the Livermore Valley Wine Growers Association sponsored the first annual Barrel Tasting event in which 22 wineries rolled out wines still in barrel for wine lovers to taste.

The practice of tasting wine from barrel is something wine makers get to do everyday...you can't meaningfully gauge how far along your wine is, how much wood influence is being imparted to the wine if you are not tasting them from barrels on a consistent basis. An earlier post talks more about this.

Implicit in this practice is the concept of "process." Wine is a living thing; it is born in ferment, goes through adolescence and puberty in barrel (a whole lotta change happening here!); matures and eventually dies in bottle. Any sip of wine is only a single frame in a much longer movie, and while tasting from barrel - especially for the non-winemaker out there - is a lot of fun (you know, it's a whole lot of fun for the winemaker too!), it only tells a very small part of the story.

Over 1600 visitors bought tickets for this first Barrel Tasting event. We poured the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 191, and I thought the wine was showing exactly why this particular block of Cabernet is one of the finest in the Valley. Thanks to all those who tasted the wine and bought Futures. The wine will be released in May 2010. Only 40-45 cases will be produced.

We hope to be able to do more events like this. Opening up the wine making process makes it more understandable, and in revealing some of the mysteries of wine, makes them even more wonderful.

This Is What the 2006 Vintage "Tastes" Like

2009-03-23T14:49:00.001-07:00

Check out what the 2006 Vintage "tastes" like according to Wordle, a cool program that creates word clouds out of text.

I plugged in the text from six or seven 2006 vintage tasting notes to see how often words were used. In Wordle, the more often words are used the larger they are in relation to other words.

It's not unusual that flavors or fruit or aromas should come up. But it's nice to see that delicious and integrated and abundance also make their presence known.

Give it a try. Show us how Steven Kent tastes to you. Make a wordle and we'll post the most delicious ones in a future blog post.

Petit Verdot: Can It Stand on Its Own?

2009-03-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

Being a late ripening variety, the Bordelais (owing to their fickle weather) have consigned Petit Verdot to the fringes of their Cabernet-dominant blends. In their good years, you may find this big, beautiful wine blended to bump up color and tannin levels in some Left Bank wines.

In California, where the streets are lined with gold and the weather is always perfect, we believe that Petit Verdot can be much more than just a blender. On our estate vineyard we have two blocks of PV producing very purple, very big, very aromatic and flavorful wine.

This variety has made its way into Future Release Program blends in the past. But for the first time we are releasing a 100% Petit Verdot available only at The Table in the Steven Kent Barrel Room.

The 2006 Petit Verdot - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Livermore Valley is a huge wine. From the aromas and flavors of dark berry, coffee, licorice, violet, and chocolate-wrapped fruit to the mouth-coating viscosity to the significant finishing tannins, this wine WILL NOT BE IGNORED.

For this first release, we chose only the best barrel from a larger lot. The second-use barrel (2003 Demptos, Allier, Medium+) added just enough wood to hold the rampant qualities of the wine in check without being too obtrusive. Only 19 cases of the wine were produced. $55 per bottle. Because of the extremely limited nature of this release, please call our Barrel Room at 925-243-6440 or email winesales@stevenkent.com for more information.

A New Take on the Aroma Wheel

2009-03-17T09:21:00.000-07:00

Describing what something smells like (and being understood) can be a difficult thing. UC Davis professor, Ann Noble designed the first wheel to help people understand and communicate what they were smelling in wine.

Alder Yarrow at his Vinography.com blog has re-imagined the wheel in a shape that is a bit more intuitive. He offers this useful tool in a variety of languages including English, Italian, and Japanese.

Finding Our Wine

2009-03-16T14:45:00.000-07:00

We have very consciously decided that we want to stay small...and that we want to sell wine to our friends.

Though most of our wine is sold at the Winery to members of our wine clubs, we do sell a small percentage to fine restaurants and wine shops, mostly in California (they're our friends too!)

Click on the link to see an evolving map of the fine folks all around California who sell our wine.

Teaching Your Kids About Wine - They'll Be Happier, Healthier, and Will Probably Thank You Later

2009-03-16T10:32:00.000-07:00

In a piece on the Wine Spectator website, we learn that the French have just passed a series of laws raising the drinking age and making it more difficult to buy wine.

While wine consumption is dramatically down in France over the last several years, there has been a big uptick in incidents of binge drinking among teenagers. I would argue that these two phenomena are related.

Any time a potentially dangerous activity or product is shrouded in mystery or cloaked in an "adults" only prohibition, curious teens will find a way to not only experience them but also to abuse them.

Alcohol consumption is serious business; no one is advocating its irresponsible use. Treated with respect, though, wine offers a world of enjoyment, a myriad of flavors and aromas, and a linchpin around which our social and family lives can more memorably spin.

I would never throw my 16-year old child into a car and expect him to drive without great risk to lives and property. I don't understand why, as a country, we would think that turning 21 automatically conveys maturity and responsible behavior on a young person in respect to how to enjoy wine.

I am not talking about learning about the 1855 Bordeaux classification or how pyrazine levels in Cabernet diminish with fruit maturity. I am referring to bringing wine into the conversation with your kids and allowing them to smell and taste the wines you are having for dinner. I know with my own kids that the "big deal" of the first drink is a much smaller deal because they have already responsibily experienced it.

The French are seeing it now: they have said no to their National drink, and the kids are much worse off for it.

Clone 191...Best for Last?

2009-03-15T10:29:00.000-07:00

One of the most exciting things about wine for me is that it is a living thing, constantly changing (for both good and bad), different from the first sip to the last, from the first bottle to the final one in the case.

When I was choosing barrels for our Premier Cabernet Collection wines from the 2006 vintage, the Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 191 was my second or third favorite of the grouping. It had the best structure for long-term aging, but it was also slightly monolithic in its flavors and aromas at that time.

It is 18 months later, and we are now pouring this new wine in the Barrel Room. What was largely a tannic wine with dark (if undifferentiated) fruit, is now showing that same great, broadly tannic structure - especially from the mid-palate back - but with layers of fruit aromatics and flavors that are terrifically complex.

The dark fruit has become black cherry, cassis, and raspberry; the non-fruit aromatics are now tobacco, cedar and semi-sweet chocolate. This wine has become a very beautiful example of how good Cabernet from the Livermore Valley can be.

Only 192 three-packs were produced, and only 80 remain. Click here to order this wonderful wine before it is gone. $300/three-pack.

Barrel Surfing should be an Olympic Sport

2009-03-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

One of the most enjoyable times for me is the opportunity I get to work with our barrels. At any given time we might have 300-400 barrels of wine (of various vintages) aging in the cellar.

The barrels are segregated by wine lot, and I am usually focused enough to pick a lot or two to taste through at one time. The tools of my trade: a tape recorder, a glass, a thief, chalk, and a big bucket.

Generally, each oak growing region has its own set of characteristics of aroma and flavor; the amount of wood tannin it will contribute to the wine, and how quickly it will impart it. Toast levels, toasted heads/non-toasted heads, older oak, heads from one country and staves from another...all add a further level of complexity to the evaluation of wines and to the finished product.

What tasting through barrels teaches you rapidly is that each barrel is so unique that it is its own wine. So if there are 10 barrels of wine in a lot of Ghielmetti Vineyard Cabernet, I am actually trying to make sense of 10 different wines and how each might go together, which wines might work in the final blend, and which one(s) might be singularly great enough for the Premier Cabernet Collection, for example.

After recording the date, barrel grouping, and barrel number in my recorder, I will thief a little wine into the glass and record my impressions of the wine's aromas; then I'll take a sip, spit in my big bucket then talk about the flavors, and structure. I take the recordings and transcribe the details into an excel file so that I can "see" the wine again down the road when it comes time to put the blends together.

I repeat anywhere from 6-50 times depending on the size of the wine lots. There's usually a lot of used wine in the bucket and a fair amount on my clothes too. But I generally come away with a pretty good understanding of the progress the specific lots of wine are making, which barrels are the most outstanding, and what the blends will taste like when they are released.

More specifically, though, I come away with a greater understanding of my blending strengths and weaknesses, the style of wines I like, and I how I can be as easily influenced as any novice wine drinker by preconceptions and assumptions.

Not only is there a practical purpose for surfing barrels, but it is the best education a wine lover can get. It is exciting and humbling at the same time.

Ghielmetti Vineyard - The Bordeaux Varieties

2009-03-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

The Ghielmetti Vineyard, our estate site, is rapidly showing itself to be the best site in the Livermore Valley for Cabernet Sauvignon and the other classic Bordeaux varieties. Planted in 2001-2002, with grafting of several blocks done in 2006, the site is supplying nearly all the fruit for the Steven Kent Winery estate project.

Over the next two years, we will have released wines in each of the levels of our "Cabernet Pyramid" (more detail in a future post), and each of them will have been made from the great fruit from this site. Click on this link to see a Google map of the actual vineyard. Click on the colored blocks for more detail about the grapes planted there.

The picture to the right is of Mourvedre before harvest.

Tasting Monte Bello

2009-03-08T22:08:00.000-07:00

Ridge Winery's flagship wine, Monte Bello, has consistently been one of the great Cabernet-based wines made in California. In many ways it is an inspiration for me as we embark on producing our own Bordeaux blend. Ridge has proven that you don't need be in Napa to make world-class wine, and you don't necessarily need to be the darling of the mainstream wine press to succeed.

Monte Bello is definitely "of a style." In tasting through their lots of Merlot, Cabernet, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot (some of which will make it into the final 2008 Monte Bello blend), I was continually surprised by the modest alcohol levels in the wines.

Their wines are absolutely appropriate for their site (high elevation, older vineyards, etc.) so alcohol levels of under 13% are intuitively understandable. The Livermore Valley just won't produce that kind of fruit...and there is nothing wrong with that. The fine-wine world needs wines like Monte Bello: very tight when young, not particularly fruit-forward, but with amazing tannin and incredible ageability. And it needs a wine like our upcoming Bordeaux blend too: fantastic complexity, great mouthfeel and length, significant tannin...the finest wine we have yet made.

The Table - Tasting Like It Ought To Be

2009-02-23T16:41:00.001-08:00

On February 28, 2009, The Table debuts in the Steven Kent Barrel Room. Created to shine a spotlight on Library selection and small-lot offerings, The Table is the next step in the evolution of world-class wines and wine presentation.

Available on weekends by reservation only, up to six guests at a time will enjoy a one-hour guided tour of four spectacular wines paired specifically with artisanal cheeses and charcuterie.

Just a few openings remain for our first weekend. Please call Tracey Morretta at 925-243-6448 or tracey@stevenkent.com to reserve your place.

The menu for February 28-March 31 is below.

***

Wines and cheeses are arranged in suggested order & pairing. Please feel free to mix and match to come up with your own pairings.

2000 Cabernet Sauvignon, Livermore Valley

This wine yields up base aromas of cassis, bittersweet chocolate, and the dark stone fruits, and top notes of toasty oak, tobacco, and newly-turned earth. The wine has a seductive unctuousness in the mouth and balancing acidity that carries the multiple flavors throughout the extremely long finish.

Black Diamond Cheddar- Canada

Rich, full flavor and a pleasant sharpness developed through careful and natural aging by one of Canada's most acclaimed cheese producers. This cheese is aged two years.

***

2001 Cabernet Sauvignon, Livermore Valley

The wine is inky purple, very opaque with bright edge. Aromatically, this Cabernet exhibits aspects ranging from cassis, tobacco and sweet oak to bittersweet chocolate, mint, and freshly-tuned earth. While heady now, time will only serve to open aromas up and frame the brazen force of youth. In the mouth, the wine is highly tannic and profoundly rich. Flavors of dark fruits and oak greet one up-front and persist on a long finish

Cave Aged Gruyere-Switzerland

Aged in natural caves where the air and natural bacteria endow the cheese with deep complexity, this cheese matures for at least a year. This cheese is smooth in texture and has rich, beefy flavors that are tempered by hints of apples and pears.

***

2002 Cabernet Sauvignon, Livermore Valley

For centuries, the Bordelais have used Petit Verdot in the blend to provide their wines with darker color and mor tannin. This wine is a perfect demonstration of how well the two varieties work together. This vintage is prfoundly dark purple with a core verging on the black. In the nose, one detects intense aromas of black plum and cassis fruit, underpinned by a layer of non-fruit aromatics: pencil shavings, wetted earth, creme brulee oakiness, dark chocolate, and subtle lavender perfume.

Chatelain Camembert-France

Camembert is an AOC (or name-protected) cow's milk cheese from the Normandy region in northern France. It has a soft, white, bloomy rind; luxurios ivory paste; and buttery, grassy flavor. The taste of a ripe Camembert is reminiscent of wild mushrooms.

***

2006 Premiere Cabernet Collection Cabernet Sauvignon, Clone 30, Ghielmetti Vineyard, Livermore Valley

The Premier Cabernet Collection represents the pinnacle of our 100% Cabernet winemaking each vintage. Meant to show the excellence of the Livermor Valley The 2-3 best barrels of a larger lot were choosen for this wine. Clone 30 is also called "See" clone, named for Harry See of (See's Candy family), sourced from his Napa Valley vineyard. Bottled without filtration or fining.

Ader Kase Reserve Blue- Seymour Dairy, Wisconsin

A higher fat blue that brings back memories of great blues from Germany such aas Cambozola and Montagnolo. Boasting a melt in your mouth texture with hints of earthy mushroom flavors, this is definitely not your average blue cheese.

Bresaola, Salumeria Biellese

Want something leaner or just a little break from pork? Then Salumeria Biellese's Bresaola is the thing. Humanely raised beef is rubbed with salt and spices and dry cured to a shockingly red finish. The flavor is incredibly delicate, with strong notes of clove, and get this, a floral finish. It amy sound weird for meat but it's elegant and smooth AND a perfect accompaniment to Cabernet.

Norman Love - Cru Sauvage Chocolate - Cocoa Mass: 68% Origin: Bolivia
The world's first chocolate made from beans harvested from wild cacao trees growing in the beni region of northeastern Bolivia. This harmonious chocolate possesses fresh lemon and grapefruit notes, an intense dried plum bouquet, and an exquisite hint of vanilla.

Sometimes the Claims are True

2009-02-02T16:08:00.000-08:00

When I started back in the business in 1996, I though I knew what I was doing (so wrong!) and thought I had the "magic bullets" figured out.

A wine glass that make your wine taste better...? and even more...a different shaped glass for each major variety? Come on..."I was born at night..." etc. All it took was one taste from a Riedel glass and we switched all of the old glasses out of the tasting room. We've been using Riedel exclusively since 1999.

In the next few weeks you'll see major changes in Steven Kent (more on that later!) including an upgrade to the Riedel Vinum Extreme glass pictured on the far right above. With its huge bowl this glass allows our Cabernets to taste more "open" at a younger age and showcases the structure of the wines much more dramatically than the smaller Ouverture glass did.

Though not a cheap proposition, providing our guests with a great glass to taste out of can only improve the wine drinking experience.

After all, if the experience and the wines aren't extraordinary, what's the sense in doing it?

Radius 4 - Last Wine of the Vintage

2009-01-27T10:21:00.000-08:00

The wine making calendar is an odd one. On one hand there is the grape growing side of things...the annual harvest which has been set by Nature from time immemorial, and hasn't differed dramatically in the 5,000 years wine has been made.

On the wine making ledger, though, the calendar is really 3 years long for us. And now, I have finally reached the 2006 vintage's December 31st.

As I noted in the previous post, our 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon has been put together, and the last wine...Radius IV followed suit yesterday.

I will post tasting notes on the wine when it is released in June to members of our Future Release Program, but the vital statistics are: 70% Cabernet Sauvignon (40% McGrail Vyd, Clone 15, 20% Home Ranch, Clone 7, 10% McGrail Vyd, Clone 8); 10% each Ghielmetti Vineyard Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Petit Verdot.

Over time the Radius release has evolved from a Cabernet, Syrah, Barbera blend to a more traditional Bordeaux blend. Concomitant with this evolution is a wine with more tannic heft, darker fruit, and a longer consumption arc. Given the quality of Bordeaux-variety fruit coming from our estate vineyards, this blend model (always subject to the vagaries of the vintage, of course) seems to be the right one for members of the Future Release Program.

2007 beckons. Hmmm, when exactly am I now?

2006 Cabernet Rounds Into Form

2009-01-20T07:15:00.001-08:00

The last wine of the 2006 vintage has finally taken shape. With a renewed emphasis on our Cabernet heritage our small-production wines such as the Premier Cabernet Collection and Single Vineyard Series take precedence. Our largest production wine, the Cabernet Sauvignon - Livermore Valley, had to wait.

Numbering now at about 1,000 cases, the 2006 vintage of Cabernet will be released in April or May of this year. What began in my head as an 80%+ Cabernet blend (a little bit of Cab Franc, Merlot, and Petit Verdot in there to get to 100%) ended up in my glass as a 100% Cab comprised of six different clones from four different vineyards.

I drew samples from nine different barrel groups, taking wine from 2-4 barrels from each group depending upon how barrels are available. I then taste each grouping separately making notes about the wines. Next, I put together a representative blend of just the Cabernets as that wine would be the foundation for whatever other Bordeaux varieties might make the cut.

First impressions are important but hardly conclusive. I have made blends that I loved and got them home to taste them later and couldn't imagine what I liked in the wine. The same on the other pole. After making the Cab blends, I made a blend with the other varieties and let them sit while I went to get my son lunch.

Under the best of circumstances, I will have more than one blend that I like a lot. Then the questions become those of volume and the fate of the barrels that don't make this blend. Some of the folks on our hospitality team tasted the two wines that came out of this session, and the 100% Cabernet ended up being the unanimous favorite.

Right around the beginning of Spring, you'll be able to taste the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon - Livermore Valley and tell me whether I got it right.

When to Drink Our Wines...One Person's Opinion

2009-01-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

We often get asked when is the best time to drink a certain wine. This question is more complicated than it seems on the surface. What style of wine do you like? Do you like older wines? Do you like wine young with a lot of tannin? There really is no one answer.

We have updated our Drinkability Index to provide a little bit of guidance. Remember, though, that the best palate is your own.

Click Collector's Circle and Future Release Program for the wines of those clubs and Cabernet for info about our general release wines.

Liquid Amber - 2006 Barbera

2009-01-05T09:20:00.000-08:00

Guess which wine was being produced in the northwest corner of Italy 400 years before the first Cabernet...go ahead, guess.

The grape, from which this wine is produced, is more widely planted in the old country than Sangiovese. It also makes up about 12% of the red wine produced in California. Know what it is yet?

When grown right, allowed to hang long enough to take the edge off its considerable acidity, it produces a wine with the wonderful aromatic mix of ripe plum, dark cherry, leather, and brown spice.

In the mouth, rich fruit abounds, and its silky mid-palate is framed by both balancing acid and fine-grained tannin.

Planted originally in the San Joaquin Valley, the grape's abundant acid was only employed to add a little bit of zing to otherwise flabby, overheated red wine. It is in the Livermore Valley on Block 3 of the Home Ranch Vineyard, though, that this often over-looked, under-appreciated variety shows true delicious character, presence of mind viz. a whole variety of foods, and courage in the face of mid-term aging.

Well??

One more clue...it also makes up 100% of Liquid Amber, the first release of 2009 for the Collector's Circle wine program. You got it now? Huh, do ya?

Oh, wait. This is embarassing. You see, I was giving all these clues: mostly a blending grape, high acid, not many 100% versions of the wine made, etc. etc. And it was right there in the title of this post all along...wow...really embarassing.

Anyway, the 2006 Barbera, one of the Collector's Circle's favorite wines, will be released at the Winery on January 10th. Only 192 cases were produced exclusively for members of the program. There are a few cases extra and a few spots left if you want to get this wonderful wine.

With Good Wine, There's Always Hope

2008-12-30T08:07:00.000-08:00

So, the year ends on a gloomy economic note, with even more gloom being offered for 2009 by most of the experts. Remaining sanguine, as a small business owner, in times like these is not easy but from a wine-quality standpoint, times have never been better.

There is much to be thankful for and excited about. On a personal note, the family got through another year healthy and happy (relatively!). I am surrounded by an immensely talented and caring team of wine professionals that gets better every year. Our wines are better than ever.

Aging is seldom met with positive feelings unless we are talking about vineyards. Our two estate sites, Ghielmetti Vineyard and HRV (Home Ranch Vineyard) are just now beginning to show how great their fruit can be and our wine making team is making strides as well.

All the joy I get doing what I do would not be possible without the enthusiasm and support of our club members and guests. Thank you for all that you have given us in 2008. We look forward to sharing many great wines with you in 2009!

Finding a New Direction in the Old

2008-12-25T12:32:00.000-08:00

Steven Kent began life with one mission and one wine.

Our mission to create world-class wine hasn't changed since the first day, but our lineup of wines has grown dramatically. 2009 will mark a return to our first love: Cabernet.

With three distinct, potentially world-class vineyard sites now in full production, we have the vinous pieces in place to match our mission to reality. We will be offering seven different Cabernets in the coming year; wines separated by relative quality and production levels. Each of these wonderful wines is complete unto itself and reflects the best of site, clone, and vintage.

Our top tier of Cabernet, the Premier Cabernet Collection is composed of two 2009 release wines: 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 30 and 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 191. Each of these wines is available in 3-pack boxes and will be released in March and September respectively. Only 192 3-packs of each wine were produced. The Clone 30 wine is one of the finest wines we have yet made and is a beautiful example of classic Cabernet flavors and structure.

Three wines make up the 2009 Single Vineyard Series lineup: 2006 Cabernet Sauvigon - HRV; 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon - Smith Ranch; and 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard. These wines are made in extremely small supply, and each represents the finest few barrels chosen from the larger lot of wine. Only 125, 50, and 75 cases of these wines were produced.

Our 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon - Livermore Valley is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon from three different vineyards and is the only wine we produce that is available, at this time, in stores and restaurants. This wine displays great richness of texture and complexity of aromas and flavors and will be released in April 2009.

The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon made exclusively for members of our Future Release Program rounds out our 2009 releases.

2009 marks a year of renewal for the Steven Kent Winery. For those who love Cabernet as much as I do, it is going to be a great year.

It's Soy Good...

2008-12-03T12:19:00.000-08:00

Soy. Not a descriptor I would normally attach to a wine. Sushi maybe, wine no. I've seen this word used before to describe wine and as a matter of fact I have heard Steven refer to it several times with some of our pinots in La Rochelle. I never could quite get the soy. I just chalked it up to my amateur palate. Then I opened a bottle of the 2003 Garys' Vineyard Pinot Noir which was created especially for the Steven Kent Future Release Program. One sip and I was hit with a soy bomb. Yes, a soy bomb! It was unbelievable. Not only was the flavor amazing, but the mouthfeel was silky and coated my tongue like a cashmere jacket in autumn. It was perfect. How could I have missed this?

I thought back and remembered when we released this wine in 2005. We had never done a pinot before and I was not familiar with the grape. Sure, I had pinot noir prior to this but it was a casual acquaintance, not a varietal I could appreciate. I remember tasting the 2003 and enjoying it, but thinking I enjoyed cabernet more. Since its release I have had the honor of tasting many more pinots, whether our own at La Rochelle or those we bring in for tasting to compare and contrast with our own. While I still enjoy my cabernet, I have come to appreciate what pinot noir has to offer. I enjoy opening each bottle, wondering what flavor awaits me…will it be earthy…dark fruit…perhaps cardamom - a favorite of mine, or another spice??? Or maybe this time it's soy.

Grab a bottle of pinot and open it up…what do you taste???

2002 Vincere - We Meet Again

2008-11-26T12:55:00.000-08:00

Vincere, our estate-grown homage to super-Tuscan style wine, started life as an accompaniment to Osso Buco that my friend, Marcello Fiorentino, was making for a dinner we were doing at his great restaurant, La Sirena. The first vintage, 2000, was a blend of 60% Sangiovese and 40% Cabernet.

We named the wine after Marcello at first. "Marcellaia" labels had label approval, were printed even, when we got the call from Engulf & Devour Winery (not its real name) threathening a lawsuit if we continued using this name (in their mind, close to the spelling - but not the pronunciation - of one of their wines) after the first vintage. We decided to change the name...Vincere means to overcome, to win, to be the best...a really good name, I think.

Anyway, to the wine...the 2002 vintage was one of our best overall harvests. The year was fairly cool and fruit hung a long time, gaining complexity and great flavors while sugar levels rose slowly. After making many mock blends, I decided on a 60%/40% Sangiovese/Cabernet mix.

Until yesterday, I had not had this vintage for several years. I have always advocated drinking our red wines younger than older so that all the wonderful fruit and structure can still be enjoyed. With a preponderance of Sangovese, a grape with great acidity but fairly mild tannin, I was even more vociferous in my early-drinking suggestion.

Well, shows how much I know. The 2002 was a revelation. The nose was full of dried cherry fruit, dried rose-petals, tar, leather. In the mouth, the wine had a wonderful, silky mouth-feel, still-evident tannin and beautiful acid. The fruit was gorgeous and very complex. In fact, I think this wine has several more years ahead of it.

Re-visiting an Old Friend

2008-10-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

For those who graciously spend some of their time reading my blog, I apologize for the scarcity of posts lately. We are in the midst of harvest time from our estate vineyard (finally!) and my attention has been focused praying to the gods of warm weather and ripe fruit. More on the progress at Ghielmetti Vineyard soon, but while I was writing tasting notes on a couple of new releases, I had the occasion to re-taste (for the first time in a long while) our 2002 Livermore Valley Cabernet.

This wine was a blend of Cabernet and Petit Verdot and is only the second vintage in which the wine was not 100% Cab. I always liked the wine and was very curious to see how it was holding up.

In a word, delicious! The wine has beautiful chocolately, black fruit notes, wonderfully viscous mid-palate mouthfeel and a long sufficiently-tannic finish to reward 5-7 more years of aging.

It is nice to see an old friend in fine health.

New Premier Cabernet Collection Debut

2008-10-09T13:08:00.000-07:00

Our Mission at the Steven Kent Winery has always been to make Cabernet Sauvignon that equals in quality Cabernet made in any other appellation. Hailing from the too-little-esteemed Livermore Valley, we have had to work harder to prove that we belong.

After 10 years of making Cabernet here, I am even more sure now than I was back in the beginning (with that first blush of youthful excitement) that the Livermore Valley is capable of growing the kind of fruit we need to see our Mission through. And with the release of our first Premier Cabernet Collection wines, I think we are beginning to show the promise of the Valley.

On November 1st we will debut the third wine in the series (the first two having sold out quickly), the Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 30.

This wine is a study in the tension and balance between power and elegance. Displaying very intense dark berry, cassis, cigar box, and toasty oaks aromas, the wine is wonderfully big and defined in the nose. While some wines have very broad tannins that bleed off quickly, this Cabernet has very focused, substantial tannins from entry all the way through a long finish. Though the elements of ageability are present in abundance, the wine has a hefty silkiness in the mid-palate that sets up well in opposition to the tannins so that overall, the feeling is one of elegance and restraint.

This wine is perhaps the greatest that we have yet made. Only 180 three-packs (fewer than 50 cases!) were produced. It is available only in three-packs and the limit is 2 packs per person. The price is $300 per pack.

The Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 30 will be available for purchase starting November 1, 2008 and will be released in March 2009. Join our Interest List to have the opportunity of ordering this wine and for more information.

We will do our best to fully fill your order; please accept our apologies if we are unable to do so due to demand.

Wine and Charity

2008-09-16T20:45:00.000-07:00

For the third year in a row, we have developed a small-lot wine a portion of whose price goes toward breast cancer research.

Barnburner, is a blend of Syrah, Barbera, Petite Sirah, and Mourvedre that was put together by members of our Tasting Room staff. The winning team, Jane Randolph, Catie Nielson, Patty Ising, and Cindy Hawken, have achieved eternal glory, bragging rights (Craig, first loser is better than nothing, I guess!), and their proud likenesses carved from week-old ricotta cheese. Breast cancer research will gain $2 from every bottle sold.

Patty Ising, one of the winning team, talks about Barnburner in this video.

When to Screwcap

2008-09-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

Our first priority is always to produce the highest quality wine we can. The most frustrating production issue we face is when we do everything right in the cellar, but the finished product has this skunky, mildewy aroma when the cork is pulled.

Screwcaps in place of corks solves this very real problem with TCA (a molecule that is created in 5-8% of corks by the interaction of bacteria and chlorine used in their processing), but history is still short when we think about using screwcaps for those wines that are meant to age.

We are at an interesting juncture in the history and stylistic preferences of American winedrinkers. Most wine purchased in America is drunk almost immediately. Producers recognize this and have been making wine that emphasizes fruit-forwardness and softer tannins. Whether the style came before the purchase, or the other way around, the growing popularity of a closure that helps to reinforce the fruit and structure prevalent in many of today's wines has made it a truly viable alternative to corks.

The chief advantage of cork is its ability to let air pass through into the wine and from the bottle outward. The wine's dance with oxygen is one of the many chemical reactions that occur in wine, and it is very important in the wine's long-term maturation. One can modify the plastic liner that sits between the metal and glass of the bottle to allow more air in but the effects are not those, yet, of cork. So, for those wines (such as our bigger Cabernets) that benefit by slow aging, we'll stick use the humble bark plug.

For more on screwcaps, take a look at this video.

2006 Merrillie - Unfiltered Chardonnay Tasting Note

2008-09-10T18:44:00.000-07:00

The 2006 Chardonnay, Merrillie, Livermore Valley is an unfiltered and unfined wine made from fruit grown on two Livermore Valley vineyards: the Ernest Wente Ranch and the Wisner Vineyard. Boasting complex flavors of pineapple, guava, melon, and apple, this wine has a beautiful and broad mid-palate just now beginning to show the textures, aromas, and flavors of sur lie aging and barrel fermentation. Only 800 cases of this wine were produced in this vintage. Click HERE to purchase the wine and HERE for a video detailing the nuances of the wine.

Lunch With My Daughter - Part 2

2008-08-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

Though I don't succeed as well as I would like to in creating a special and individual time with each of my 4 kids, I keep soldiering on. My oldest daughter, April, is making it easier on me, though, by graciously accepting her dad's invitation for lunch a couple of time a month.

As I noted in an earlier post, April is studying Hospitality Management at San Francisco State, and being only a few minutes from one of the great restaurant towns in the world is a convenient way to indulge in dad-daughter time...great wine...and great food.

On Wednesday, we had lunch at the Slanted Door in the Ferry Building. April is a vegetarian so I figured that this well regarded Vietnamese restaurant would have be right up her alley. It was...and the food was ridiculous.

I asked our server, Johnny, what's the one dish I should have and he told this great story about how the yellow tail collarbone had been discarded as unusable until the chef started making it for the staff meal. The staff raved so much about it that they put it on the menu...no more collarbone for the staff!

The collarbone (before and after pictures below) is flash fried then grilled and arrives on the table with just a dipping sauce. Oh my! Crispy crust, meat so tender it is almost criminal, white flaky meat...so tender....

This is one of those dishes that I will order again even in the midst of an abundance of wonderful sounding food. The two of us shared a dry muscat from Spain that had a bit of fizz to it...very nice and an Oregon Pinot, very typical. The wine list was well put together, favoring more fruit forward and less tannic wines that pair nicely with the cuisine.

The nicest moment for me came when I spied my daughter from across the room with the absolutely perfect day (and the Bay Bridge) shining in from the window behind her holding her wine glass up and contemplating what she was tasting....the cockles of my heart were warmed!

Part 3 in a couple of weeks.

Harvest Festival - True to Its Name

2008-08-27T06:24:00.000-07:00

Every Labor Day weekend for the last 27 years, the Livermore Valley wineries have celebrated the grape harvest with thousands of wine lovers. The wineries pull out all the stops: partnering with local restaurants to serve food, set up stages for bands to play, and pulling out a large selection of wines for those oenophiles to taste.

In the preceding 12 years, though, the one thing we had not done at Steven Kent was actually have any fruit come in. 2008 will mark the first time we will have harvested fruit prior to Labor Day weekend. On Friday, we will bring in the Sauvignon Blanc from blocks 8 and 10 at our estate ranch, the Ghielmetti Vineyard.

The Livermore Valley Harvest Festival is the premier event for the Valley's vintners and growers. It is the one true occasion each year in which we get to showcase the natural beauty and world-class quality of our appellation. And with 43 wineries in the Valley now (there were 17 back in 1996 when we started), there is more energy and commitment to quality than ever.

On the Steven Kent and La Rochelle site the crowd favorite, Bacchus Brothers, will be performing, and there will be great BBQ to go along with a wide selection of wines including our Barn Burner, a blend made by our Tasting Room team especially for the Festival.

Join us Sunday and Monday for a great time and great wines.

What's the Big Deal with Aged Wine?

2008-08-19T21:57:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I am a troglodyte, in a camp of one, on the outside, not part of the mainstream, etc. But I don't get all the fuss about aged wines.

Tasting with really knowledgeable and experienced wine drinkers often, there hasn't been a time when someone questioned whether the wine was too young, too old; lamented "infanticide" of a recent vintage, harkened longingly back to that dusty old Bordeaux .

One of the most amazing aspects of wine is its constantly mutable character. The first sip is different than the last; the last bottle of the case showing immense differences from the first. But often, these changes aren't for the better. I am an unabashed lover of young wine. There, I said it!

My father's model was Bordeaux. Growing conditions and winemaking culture necessitated long-term aging before those wines revealed any of their charms. "Charms" is used loosely here. For those wines, to me, have great intellectual interest and curiosity, but little gustatory gusto.

I appreciate the effects that time have on wine, the polished curves, the brandied aromas, soft tannins, melding of fruit and wood. But give me the corners and the over-reaching; the impertinence of youth.

I think critics are on the wrong track in factoring ageability into the matrix for quality. What is a 20-year California Cabernet, but a circus freak? Gone is the exuberance of fruit, the astringency of tannin, the mouth-coating wonderfulness of that glorious richness. Ageability is a vestige of a paradigm that has nothing to do with California...a vinous appendix. Let the Bordelais celebrate their aged and dimmed wines. Raise your glass to impetuosity.

What do you think? How important is a wine's ageability in assessing its quality? Am I just a heathen, or am I on to something here?

Are There Cracks in Napa's Glass...And Can We Make Them Bigger?

2008-08-16T07:45:00.000-07:00

There was an interesting article in the Napa Valley Register yesterday, warning Napa Valley producers that they are not the only game in town anymore. If Napa is to continue its hegemonic position in the wine world, the article's author writes, it needs to refocus its attention on what it does best.

The author points to a new high-end restaurant in Oakland that doesn't have a single Napa Valley wine on its list as proof that Napa is beginning to take for granted its place in the wine world. And while I don't think that there will ever be a time when Napa isn't the dominant wine region in the US, other regions, like the Livermore Valley, need to do more to bring their wines to a larger restaurant and wine shop audience.

I am deeply conflicted about selling wine through the three-tier system. First, the system only benefits the smallest subset of participants: namely the large distributors, mega brands, and the politicians who receive enormous contributions from the distributors. Small brands are not going to succeed long term presenting their wines this way. They do not have the marketing muscle, case volume, profit potential, or visibility that the mega-brands do. Most distributor sales reps are paid on commission, and when it comes to putting bread on the table, it is the order and not the brand building that takes priority. Secondly, I prefer to know what those who consume my wine think of it. Through direct sale at the winery and through our wine clubs, I have the honor of talking with a great many people who tell me exactly what they think. The gratification and responsibility is immediate.

The conflict comes, though, from the fact that looking askance at an opportunity to tell my story, to pour my wine for someone who hasn't tasted yet, is too important to pass up, no matter how it comes about. If a wine region, like Napa did starting in the 1970s, bands together to show the larger world what it can do, and it continually produces better and better wine, it has a chance
to succeed as a group in this incredibly competitive business.

What do you think? Do you search wine lists for Livermore Valley wines? Are you seeing more good wines coming from Livermore today than 5 years ago? What can we do better?

How Wine and Soccer are Exactly the Same

2008-08-12T11:26:00.000-07:00

If you get into the wine business, you are in for the long haul. There aren't any shortcuts to planting your vineyard, farming it for three years before you get a usable crop, making your wine and putting it in barrel for two years; then putting it in bottle for a year before finally selling it.

This same long build applies to soccer too. Unlike most American sports that put a premium on scoring, a successful game of soccer is a succession of feints and flurries, an accumulation of foreign territory until finally (if it comes at all), the ball finds the back of the net.

Anticipation is huge when it comes to wine...you've been storing this special bottle for years for just the right occasion; you take out your finest glassware, cook that perfect meal, pop the cork, pour, and then you're overwhelmed by vinous goodness. This exact same quality is what makes soccer the great sport it is. The paucity of scoring is what adds such value to the goal when it finally comes...90-minutes of flat-out running, headers, slide tackles, the beautiful synchronicity of the wall pass and give-and-go, all in service to that one moment of fulfillment.

I could also mention the historic, relative lack of enthusiasm (until recently) for wine and soccer in America and the perceived dominance of Europe vs. America in wine and soccer (again, until recently), but the point is made.

Now either I'm right about this or I've been watching too many of my daughters' soccer games. I guess the real point is that, at least with wine and soccer, often much time must pass before the real special richness of each is obvious.

New Wines Soon

2008-08-09T07:48:00.000-07:00

I spent a very enjoyable last couple of days culling through our 2006 Ghielmetti Vineyard Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot lots. I take a glass and a plastic cup and a wine thief and my clip board to the barrel stacks and a taste a sample from each barrel, write notes and grade each wine. Depending upon how far along in their lives the wines are, I am looking for different things.

At this point with the 2006 vintage, I am tasting wines that are pretty close to being where we want them for release. And boy did I find some spectacular wines, too. In part because of the success of the La Rochelle project (with its multitude of small lot wines), but mostly because we now have the right vineyard bearing a wide variety of wonderful fruit, we will be releasing very small lots of wine for all of guests that particularly display varietal typicity, deliciousness, interest, and world-class quality.

I have had the growing sense lately that the decisions I have made regarding, especially, the amount of time some of our Bordeaux varieties spend in wood, need to be revised. Generally, we use a fairly high percentage of new barrels, and it has been our practice to keep Cabernet in barrel a full two years. For the first vintage or so of the other Bordeaux, the practice has been the same. After tasting through these lots, however, I have found some wonderful fruit characteristics showing through at 18 months in barrel that may not be there at 24.

Though we have wine making protocols, they are not recipes. Each vintage is different and requires modified thought processes to make successful wines from them. I think it may play out, however, that we see a more general move to reducing time in barrel (or a higher percentage of older barrels) for more of our wines. Later this year expect a single barrel each of Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Petit Verdot in the Barrel Room in both 750ml and magnum formats.

Lunch with my Daughter

2008-08-06T19:28:00.000-07:00

Sometimes parents (ok, I'm talking about myself, here), make assumptions about what their children are going to like or what they might do when they get out of college. My father (5th generation) never talked to me about going into the family business, probably because I made no bones about my desire to do something else. Well, life took the turns it does, and I wound up back in the family business (can't imagine anything else now!). This is where my kids come into play.

It really isn't my nature to let things just happen, and, though I am trying to show enough of the business to them to get them really excited about the thing their dad does, I try to do it in as subtle a fashion as possible.

Good food is an important part of our lives, personally and professionally. And the opportunities I get to have a meal with one of my kids always end up being a wonderful time. My oldest child, April, who is studying Hospitality Management (concentration in Event Planning) is going to school at San Francisco State, and today we had lunch at one of our favorite City restaurants, Rose Pistola in North Beach (try the house cured sardines and summer truffle raviolos with sweet corn, pictures below).

April turned 21 a few months ago, and the wine education is now beginning in force. I can get excited when talking about wine and April and I talked about appellations in Europe vs. California, what grapes go into Chianti, Barbera in Piemonte vs. ours from Livermore...it was really fun (for me, anyway). The chance to express the wonder of wine to one of my kids is just an amazing experience.

Where this intersects with the larger wine world is in the personal-ness of the experience. It doesn't have to be one of my children, I feel a similar jolt every time I have the occasion to talk to someone who shares this passion that I have. I think what underlines everything we do at the Steven Kent Winery is the attempt to make a connection...the desire to make personal what so often is nameless and faceless. We have tried to make sure that all of our club members and guests feel, at least for a short time while they are at the Winery, that they are part of the family. We hope you feel this too.

Tasting the 2002 Smith Ranch Cabernet

2008-08-05T07:41:00.000-07:00

Play the video for an update on the 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon, Smith Ranch

Are We Losing a Generation of Wine Lovers?

2008-08-02T22:39:00.001-07:00

Steve Heimoff, a very thoughtful, and talented wine writer with Wine Enthusiast magazine posted a new entry on his blog questioning the interest "millenials" (those folks under 30) have in wine. The conclusions he cites don't make the winemaker's heart sing.

Those cited claim that colorful cocktails have taken the place and the dollar that wine had 5 years ago. Our recent experience at Steven Kent belies this, however.

I have absolutely no evidence for this except for my own, often bleary, anecdotal observations, but I think the number of young people who have visited us in the last year or so has increased dramatically.

And I think the chief reason for this is the same reason that gives me hope that we are building a true, wine-loving culture in California: wine isn't that big a deal any more.

By no big deal, I mean this new group of people ( I hate those generational labels!) is the first that has seen wine as a regular part of their every day experience. Mom and Dad weren't celebrating an anniversary, they were celebrating surviving the day. They knew that the wine they chose would not only ease the cares but also make the food they were eating taste better. A shared bottle of wine was the vehicle for re-connnection, for new-memory making.

In this case, familiarity breeds comfort. As the under-30's (sorry!) find the beginnings of their careers and the income that goes with it, the natural consequence, it seems to me, is that they begin to find their wine legs. The underpinnings have been erected; now they place their own favorites on this framework.

Welcome to wine and to Steven Kent!

Back to the Beginning

2008-07-31T16:03:00.000-07:00

To find the killer of his father, Inigo Montoya follows the advice of fellow n'er do well, Vizini, and "goes back to the beginning."

To reclaim our Cabernet soul, we are going back to our original mission of focusing our attention on producing world-class, small-lot Cabernets that tell a story about a special place. While our production has never been large compared to more well-known brands, we will be concentrating a lot more energy in sucking the marrow from our Cabernet sites to provide the biggest small "wow" we can.

Beginning with the sold-out releases of our first two Premier Cabernet Collection wines (Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 4 and Smith Ranch, Clone 8) in November, our goal is to produce 4-5 Cabernets per year that our indelibly linked to a site and philosophy of winemaking. While the first two wines released this year number fewer than 30 cases in production, the PCC wines released next year will be in the 50-case range.

Smallness has its advantages. We strongly believe in a business model that favors the face-to-face transaction: we like to know who is drinking our wine and whether we succeeded in its production. We can't know this if we are producing thousands of cases of wine. We also like to be able to offer our club members and winery guests something unique and new each time they come to visit. Most importantly, though, is the ability to control more of the things that bear directly on quality.

Our goal has always been to produce Cabernet as great as any in the world. Going back to this original impulse, this first commandment, will give us the opportunity to succeed or fail.

Is California "First-Growth" Worthy?

2008-07-23T16:10:00.000-07:00

The Wine Spectator's, Jim Laube, had an interesting take on the recent sale of venerable Napa winery, Chateau Montelena. After detailing some of the difficulties this particular brand has had (made even more glaring after all their early success), he concludes that many of the old superstar wines such as Mondavi Reserve Cabernet, Stag's Leap's Cask 23, Montelena's Cab, have seen their best days, and that, by implication, restoring their former glory is next to impossible.

In the past, there have been calls - mostly by wine writers - to create a classification system in California modeled after the 1855 classification in Bordeaux. The four wines that were originally rewarded with "first growth" status were the most expensive (equated, then, with quality) Bordeaux wines made. In the intervening sesquicentennial, only one change has been made to the the first growth rank: Ch. Mouton-Rothschild was moved from second to first in 1973.

Whether Ch. Montelena's (and Mondavi, and Stag's Leap) "fall" is a symptom of America's seemingly insatiable appetite for the next new thing, our still-young wine culture, or an indication of French inflexibility, it is hard to imagine a California brand achieving the consistent highest level of quality for as long as the French wines have.

One of the benefits of the American search for the new is the ability for a wine region like the Livermore Valley to be lifted, through the efforts of the truly dedicated growers and winemakers, to the highest levels of quality. America reinvents itself constantly. What was accepted wisdom for one generation is the peculiar footnote for the next.

The Making of Radius 3

2008-05-05T10:26:00.000-07:00

Because of their adventurousness, our wine club members provide me the great opportunity to focus less on what the typical retailer/restaurateur might need from a wine and let my wine blending imagination go a little bit off the beaten track.

Many of our members have been with us for years so I keep one eye on reproduce-ability (if members liked a particular blend in the past, I want to be able to keep the option of doing it again as long as wine quality is maintained). I also keep one eye on putting together new blends so that we don't give our long-time members a reason for being bored.

So there are two eyes: one more eye on the small lot varieties that are available from our collection of wines at any given time, one eye on the required volume of any one variety to make just enough for the club's needs; four eyes on overall quality, and three more on my responsibility to make wines that exceed our members' expectations. And so we have Radius 3. The picture below shows my work table during one blending session, and the picture below that is of my notebook which hopefully captures a little of what goes through my mind as I am putting the wines together.

After 8 different blends, No. G was the wine that best expressed itself in terms of flavor, aroma, structure, and "aliveness." In August members of our Future Release Program will receive Radius 3, a blend of Cabernet (from 3 different sites/clones), Merlot (from 2 different sites), Cabernet Franc, and Syrah.

If you want to get in on the fun, please join the club.

Quality, Critics, and Wines for Those Who Know

2008-04-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

A couple of fascinating articles and blog posts I read this morning have reverberated around in my head, knocking loose again these bedeviling personal questions.

What is Quality? How does the notion of a standard (with its implied underpinning of the "objective") of quality affect my business when the method of constructing that standard relies on mostly subjective inputs? How is the wine critic important to me and to those who love our wines?

My goal has always been to make wines from the Livermore Valley that are the equal in quality to wines made from any other appellation. The longer I make wine though, the more I come up against the ineffable, if not illusory, nature of the goal itself. In the larger world of wine, the standard for a variety's excellence is, at best, a confederation of opinions; the most important being that of the critic with the largest bullhorn at any given time. The bullhorn changes hands occasionally, and as it does, a new set of criteria for excellence seeps into the wine arena. Should our notion of quality then change too?

With experience and the coming to terms with what is really important in this adventure, the questions above become a bit more rhetorical. For the Steven Kent Winery, the only definition of quality, by necessity, has to be my own. Ultimately, every wine we release is the physical manifestation of a collection of decisions made by the Steven Kent Winery...everything from picking date to press date to yeast used to bottle chosen to artwork on label employed to how the wines are presented in our tasting rooms. The finished product is something we are proud of, that displays the maximum quality possible for that wine, that year. If we find enough people who feel that same way about it and the other wines we make, as we do, we might have a successful business.

Ultimately, I think this is the only kind of trade I want to be involved in...our efforts as a group
to make wine that hews as closely as possible to the personal vision we have of excellence in exchange for the passionate "yes" from those who respond the same way.

The real goal then becomes passionately making our wines as well as we possibly can for those wine lovers of like mind and heart. We'll leave it up to them to tell us if we've succeeded.

Child-like Awe

2008-04-10T06:17:00.000-07:00

Every year it happens. Centuries have gone by, hundreds of vintages, thousands...you know it will happen, you even know about when it will happen, but still...there's a moment (when the first buds break and infuse your dormant vineyard with a living energy) of child-like awe.

Well, here it is.

On March 26th, bud break occurred on our HRV Sangiovese block, and was followed a couple of days later by Barbera and Cabernet. Though there really isn't any first step in this circle of life (cue the music!), bud break is generally acknowledged as the beginning of the growing season. From the buds come the shoots that serve as the nutrient bearing architecture for the fruit that will set in another month or so (depending upon the variety, of course).

In the next six to seven months fruit will set, shoots become canes; we will drop unripe fruit, thin leaves and canes, take numerous fruit samples testing for acid and sugar levels; we will move wires, harvest fruit, press and ferment. All these things, we've done before; they've been done for millenia...but it starts now, and it is inspiring.

Better Driveways Make Better Wines

2008-04-09T06:38:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it is the little things that can have the largest and most important impact. And while the addition of a couple of thousand square feet of concrete doesn't make the world safe for democracy, it sure can improve the overall experience our guests can have.

Years of waxing and waning potholes led us to pave the entrance and part of the exit to our two tasting rooms. We hope that over the course of the next couple of years the entire roundabout will be similarly beautified.

Being a small company requires constant choices in how we spend our very limited resources. I think we finally have a handle on barrels and fruit sources (more important to the wine making process perhaps, but only a part of the entire equation), and it came time to make another quality statement.

From the very beginning, I have believed that ALL aspects of our winemaking and winetasting regimen need to be as perfect as possible to create the best possible experience. And though our wines have made a lot of friends, the entrance to our facility set the absolutely wrong tone for what was to come. Too often it takes too long to set the wrongs right. We've made a first step.

Magic in Every Bottle

2008-02-18T10:02:00.000-08:00

Mike Steinberger has an interesting post on Slate.com about his experience with the 1947 Cheval Blanc, seen by many as one of the greatest wines ever made.

I asked my father, an industry vet with 40 years of Bordeaux-drinking experience, if he had ever had this wine, and he recounts this story:

In 1969, my first trip to France with Dick Buck, Tom Keating and Sid Canal, Sid and I ended out trip in Bordeaux where he had set up some tours. We spent most of the day with Michael Broadbent at Mouton tasting 27 vintages of Mouton from the '29 on up. We left about 3PM starving, and drove to St Emilion. We were sitting outside at this little restaurant on the top of this knoll and tried to get something to eat. The restaurant was not yet open for dinner but the proprietor agreed to get us some cheese and meats. We asked for the wine list and there was a '47 Cheval. It was, however, $20 a bottle and we were on a very strict budget. After agonizing we decided , what the hell, at that setting we had to order it. In hind sight I doubt that there could have been a better time or place to have the first '47. The day, for a wine drinker, could not have been better and the '47 was very interesting. A big giant wine much like today's Cabs. but not seen back then. It was very controversial back then for it's difference.
It was never my favorite as I grew up with standards like the '45 Mouton but it was fascinating. We had the wine maybe a dozen times since that day. it was always extremely interesting, delicious and unique but never my favorite, except for that one day in St Emilion.

My dad's story of that first bottle confirms one wine-related truth (perhaps the only one!) It's rarely ever really about the wine. It's about the experience...the people you are with, the setting, the moment in time seen through a prism of green, bottle-shaped glass.

Wine has the power to evoke; like Proust's madeleine, to bring back the past. There is potential magic in every bottle of wine, then. Not just a Cheval Blanc, but the most ordinary of village wines, too.

Mushrooms and Feet...

2008-02-04T12:58:00.000-08:00

I had the good fortune recently to be invited by Kathleen Ventura and Dennis Lapuyade of Bar Cesar restaurant in Oakland to taste a selection of Burgundies for potential inclusion on their wine list. I brought along a couple of Pinots from our sister brand - La Rochelle - for kicks.

The tasting was fascinating for a couple of reasons; the most obvious of which is that I don't really anything about Old World wines. I commented to one of my partners, Phil Tagami, that the Burgundies (representing a number of Domaines and the 1991 - 2003 vintages) required a whole different vocabulary than CA and OR wines do.

My notes included comments such as mushroom custard, crab bisque, mint jelly, feet.... Even more to the point, these French Pinots have a shape to them that is very different from our own wines...much more austerity when young, a wonderful bracing acid that runs completely through the wine, and an emphasis on non-fruit aromas and flavors.

I enjoyed the wines, didn't love them, not like I love Pinot from the Santa Lucia Highlands or the Umpqua Valley of Oregon. Our wines (I mean New World here) have a vibrancy and exuberance to them that is missing from Burgundy. The French wines may have been more interesting in an intellectual sense (it's more fun than you think to separate the feet from the crabs) but they were not nearly as viscerally satisfying as the younger, more opulent Cali wines.

Thanks Dennis and Kathleen for letting me learn a lot more about the other wine world and for sharing the fantastic food at Cesar (which includes, at their Berkeley location, the greatest french fry I have ever had). BTW, my favorite Burgundy of the night was the 2001 Nuits St. Georges, Clos des Corvees Pagets, Robert Arnoux.

Purity vs. Accessibility

2008-01-21T13:14:00.000-08:00

I was at the Winery last week putting the final touches on the blend for a Grenache release for our club members later in the year (the wine will be called Symmetry, the label for which is at right and was created by Emma Alexander). I had gone into it thinking that I would probably add a bit of Syrah to the blend to round the wine out some, give it a touch more softness and a bit more fruit.

As I tasted through the 10 barrels of Grenache and picked the 7 or 8 I liked the best (I carry a little tape recorder with me and voice my notes on each barrel then transfer the info to an Excel spreadsheet...each barrel gets an A-F grade as well), the issue of varietal purity vs. a wine's accessibility made for lively conversation between me, Claude Bobba, and Brad Buehler (two winemakers at Wente Vineyards).

The 8-barrel composite blend of 100% Grenache (this is the first one we have produced) made a wonderful wine...delicious upfront notes of vanilla-tinged berry and citrus, a long, well-balanced finish. What made the wine unusual, apart from its unique fruit palette, were the quite obvious and sturdy tannins that came on like gangbusters on entry and persisted throughout the wine.

The addition of 12.5% Syrah softened the early tannins and rounded the mid-palate as I thought it would. This wine was also wonderful.

So here we are...two very different wines, both delicious; one more singular than the other, and requiring more open-mindedness perhaps...the other, still varietal, more likeable, but less interesting, maybe.

We have made our decision regarding the final blend, but I don't know if it's the right one.

What's more important to you...exposure to NEW wines that are interesting and delicious but may be a little too different or a wine that prizes comfort over differentness?

Does it Suck Getting Old?

2008-01-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

The Wine Spectator's James Laube posted a conversation (subscription needed) with Bill Harlan of Harlan Estate on his blog recently that had to do with the ageability of his wine.

Many of the commentors on the blog seemed offended that a wine as expensive as Harlan, with the kinds of ratings it has received, was not necessarily made to age.

Notwithstanding my personal feelings about the quality of the Harlan wines, the comments made me revisit the question of a wine's ageability. Below is the comment I made:

The question of ageability fascinates me. When did a wine's ability to age become so closely related to its inherent quality?
It would first seem that enough wine drinkers had to accept that the qualities of older Cabernet-based wines were "better" than those of the "younger" wines for that criterion to attain its level of importance.
Then it would seem that this group of wine drinkers would have to agree that the same criterion for quality that is appropriate for Bordeaux should be used for California Cab, which, to me, is more unlike Bordeaux than it is like it.
Bordeaux, I understand. The wines were lower in alcohol/higher in acid, more tannic, less defined by fruit than California when young so their charms needed time to be revealed...I get that.
But using a Bordeaux paradigm to qualitatively describe California doesn't seem particularly useful to me. Nor does being beholden to this arbitrary criterion for quality. There is nothing objectively fine about aged wine; this is a "truth," which like most things wine-related, is a function of fashion.
Then again, maybe I am just hopelessly obtuse and am trying to re-capture my own fleeing youth in each glass of fruit-bombish Cali Cab.

Am I hopelessly obtuse? Or on the right track? Let me know what you think.

Getting to Know You...

2008-01-14T08:54:00.000-08:00

My greatest fantasy, still, is riding the 1 line in New York and seeing someone reading my novel and being able to ask if she liked it.

At this rate the book will be done in about 25 years and I'll be too old to get down the subway stairs, but I do have the honor of learning pretty immediately whether we are doing a good wine job or not.

This past Saturday we released Fiore della Vita, an estate-grown Barbera to members of our Collector's Circle wine club at a party to commemorate the wine's debut. 177 club members joined us and I got a lot of valuable feedback.

Our Club members are truly the foundation of our business. For a small winery like ours, there is too little love in the wholesale end of the business...and I mean that literally. One of the most valuable things we can know is if we are creating the right kind of experience for those most enthusiastic about our wines. In the "broad market" the only real indication of "success" is getting another order from your distributor, but even then, you don't have any real sense of how the wine drinker feels about the wine...what pleasure, if any, it gave him.

Every day our club members and guests to the winery teach us more. Every day we get the opportunity to take the bad with the good, face-to-face...and do better the next time. And in a business setting, where real connections are hard to make, this is best kind of interaction we can have.

So, keep it up, make us better...let us know how we can provide an extraordinary experience for you.

Death of the Twinkly Grapes

2008-01-05T15:45:00.000-08:00

Twinkly Grapes
Aug. 2005 - Jan. 2007

January 4, 2008 marked the end of the twinkly grapes out on the Steven Kent Patio. Done in by wind gusts that neared 50 mph, our hardy twinkly grape lights twinkle no more. Twinkly grape lights...we hardly know ye...

The first major storm of the year dumped 2.6 inches of rain from January 3 -5 on our estate vineyard, uprooted trees, and destroyed the tent that covers our patio. Livermore averages about 11 inches of rain a year (our weather station recorded a total of 5.36 inches in our vineyard), getting half of last year's rain in one three-day period is pretty awesome (in the inspiring awe sense).

In a larger sense, the change agents are everywhere. In this case it was Mother Nature who caring not a whit about our goings-on, had an action plan of her own. It might be the economy, changing wine tastes, a bad review...a good review; whatever the cause, for small businesses like ours, limberness in the face of mutability is no vice.

Honest Right Back Atcha!

2008-01-03T14:00:00.000-08:00

Probably, this should have been part of our first post...but if we do this blog-thing right, we will be able to give you more clarity about the wine-wise progress of our Valley, some of the behind-the-cellar-door stuff, some of what makes this such a great biz; and you'll tell us when it's good, and -more importantly- when it's not. And if we do it even better...this thing will morph into something completely different and even more interesting.

So, let us know what you think; what you like and don't like about our wines, wine in general, your experience at Steven Kent...whatever's on your mind. We'll be honest right back atcha!

What It has to do with Wine

2008-01-03T13:22:00.000-08:00

In December, among other things, we sold the following items from our Tasting Room...

Bling Tee - Long Sleeve (1)
Bling Hat (1)
Hot choc-Creamy (1)
New Tree Big Bar (1)

I don't have any idea what a "New Tree Big Bar" does or what flavors it comes in or what need it fills...and that's the point. It is really hard to predict what part of what we do is going to resonate. Everyone's taste is different...everyone will get something a little different from his or her experience here at the Winery. Though we may have intended a right turn and got a left instead, hopefully you get out of it something a little bit better or a little more meaningful than the right turn down the road.

By the way, this is a "New Tree Big Bar" ------------->
...yummy!

The Perfect Pillow

2007-12-30T12:37:00.000-08:00

Just saw a great movie last night, an Irish film called Once. Small budget, made with great passion, and if you like music...incredible soundtrack. The acting was done by amateurs (both leads are musicians), there were no special effects, the performances were not actor-ly (but just what was called for!). What struck me right about the movie, and I felt this way about Lost in Translation the first time I saw it, was the absolute perfection of the tone of the movie.

There was a feeling about the movie that was just so authentic and natural and proportionate that to tweak any part of it would have been like drawing a mole on the Mona Lisa. Knowing when to leave well enough alone is one of the hardest things, though.

I fret a lot about this viz. the tasting experience we try to give our guests. It's not just the wine or just the staff or just the sign out front or the glassware...it is ALL of these things in a balanced, appropriate mix.

We strive to have just the right pillow in the chair (in a figurative sense, of course) for everyone who comes to visit. We don't want any discordant tone to interfere with the stories we are trying to tell through the wines we make.

What is most important to you in a Tasting Room experience? What is your perfect pillow?

What is the Price of Acceptance?

2007-12-28T17:25:00.000-08:00

With apologies to Seth Godin, who is much better at this than I am, his recent post inspired my New Year's promise:

If you work in the wine business and read and believe what the major wine press says about the Livermore Valley, it would be easy to be discouraged. It would be comforting, in a perverse way, to accept that we will always be second-rate. It would allow us to stop competing with the larger world, to only pick off the low-lying fruit that are the folks who already know and are satisfied with what they have right outside their door. We wouldn't have to worry about trying to be as good as Napa or Bordeaux; we would be comfortable being cute...a local wine region whose grasp can't exceed its reach because it doesn't stretch for anything.

We have always thought of our Valley differently. Knowing what we know about the conditions needed to grow great fruit and having a firm idea about what great wine is (hey, our palate is only ours!), we have always known that greatness is possible in the Livermore Valley. It will take a lot of effort certainly. It will take a long time, too. It will take dedication to farming for quality, not for a small profit. It will take the desire to compete with the big boys...the need to prove to everyone that all our ascendancy took was time because we put into place all the other vital things.

It will also take not just an acceptance of risk, but a welcoming of it. We are a podunk wine region in most afficionados' eyes; we must push the envelope and stretch our arms out farther; we must strive to make statements, to make foolish(?) boasts and to work really hard to back them up. The only true glory comes in hanging your ass out over the line and seeing it pay off. This is what the Livermore Valley really could be. We know it...and welcome it.

That ass you see hanging out will be Steven Kent's.

Wine For Those Who Know

2007-12-27T14:12:00.000-08:00

We have never thought of ourselves as outsiders (outside of Napa, in this case), but rather as missionaries. We know what kind of quality our home is capable of delivering, and we figure if we tell the story often and well enough, our audience will eventually find us.

If you are competing against the best in the world, there comes a time when you have to put it in the glass. The "underdog" points you get from producing wine in the Livermore Valley get used up quickly when the discussion turns to world-class Cabernet.

January 1, 2008 marks the date that our career-long aspirations finally run head-on into reality. On the first day of the New Year, our finest Cabernets to date will become available to order.

Our Premier Cabernet Collection represents our highest winemaking achievement of the vintage...2006 yielded six spectacular, singular examples of Cab...all sharing a wonderful depth of flavor and ageability, and each made in extremely small quantities.

I'll be blogging about the genesis of this program, what goes into our evaluation of the wines, and why we think they are worthy of passion, as we move forward.

Piemonte in the Livemore Valley

2007-12-19T12:29:00.001-08:00

Exciting and frustrating at the same time was the New World's predilection to plant everything in the same place. A whole new world of potential offerings was available, but you didn't know what you were going to get for several vintages, and a lot of expenditure.

At Steven Kent (and before that under the Ivan Tamas name), we have been producing California-Italian varietals since 1991. Though Trebbiano has gone by the way side, Barbera has thrived.

From our 1.5 acre HRV vineyard in Livermore, we produce a Barbera (grown mostly in the Piemonte region of Italy) for one of our wine clubs that exudes rich aromas of black plum, leather, soy, and subtle citrus notes. And while 5 vintages isn't long history, there is no reason to believe that the grape isn't suited just right for our Region 3 climate.

Called Fiore della Vita in honor of the artwork (above right) created by Thom Roberts (the handsome guy, also above right) one of our Barrel Room staffers, this wine is available to taste for the next 60 days in our Livermore tasting room.

Size Matters?

2007-12-18T08:17:00.000-08:00

This article from the San Francisco Chronicle points out the difficulty in storing half-drunk bottles of wine.

Maybe the answer is a smaller bottle?

All Wine is Local

2007-12-17T12:58:00.000-08:00

A story in the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat yesterday caught my eye. The largest wine company in the world, Constellation Brands just bought 5 more wineries for nearly $600 million. This same company, which produces 110 million cases of wine a year, bought the Mondavi group of brands a year or so ago for $1.5 billion.

While the gigantic getting more gigantic makes selling wine to stores and restaurants much harder for wineries like Steven Kent and La Rochelle, it underscores again what we have come to learn...the best part of wine is local.

Being local is not the same thing as being close to home, not in the wine business. In the last several years, with the Supreme Court decision in 2005, being local means being able to send a bit more of the winery across more state lines to those who want our small-production wines. It also means, at least for us, that most new relationships we create come about face-to-face.

You come to the Winery, taste our wines, hopefully like them and the experience we shared together, and we get to continue to tell our story to you through each new release. This way of sharing can't be done by the mega-wineries.

All wineries lost shelf space today to Constellation, but a real and true and LOCAL relationship just got that much harder for them.

Past, Present, Future

2007-12-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

For those who drink wine regularly it seems as if California wine, in its present state of world-class quality, has been around forever. The truth is, though, that it wasn't really until the late 1970s, early 1980s that California wine earned the "but, of course" status when high quality was the issue. And California wine as an industry is only nearing its 100th birthday. Compared to Europe, our wine industry and culture are still in their infancy.

A few decades can seem like forever and when a strong moment of inertia meets a critical ossification of thought, a sense of inevitability is the end product. All truthful winery owners (me included) would love to have the built-in "Napa premium" that our neighbors to the north enjoy when it comes to the critics and to the wine shop owners. Plenty of great wine is made in Napa, and no region has done anywhere near as good a job at telling its story than them.

And while this is true, it does not mean anything else but that. The fact is that there are more good wine regions than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio. The difference is that they are in the process of living up to their natural gifts and being discovered.

My appellation - the Livermore Valley - is just this sort of area. One of the oldest wine growing regions in California, blessed with warm days and cool evenings (there's your ripe fruit and acid retention), a wide variety of soil types, a bunch of micro-climates, etc. All the things that one needs to grow great fruit. What Livermore is discovering now is the real hard work of making really good wine..the slavish attention to detail in the vineyards, the farming for small yields, the buying of the best barrels, etc. This is a work in progress, and the progress is picking up pace every year.

Napa Valley produces great wine. And it will never produce anything surprising or exciting again. It has had its time. Areas like Livermore, Paso Robles, Santa Lucia Highlands, these are the areas where the excitement will be created. Our growing number of visitors each year are getting it. Some day the wine press may too.