Please The Palate |

A very special bottle of wine: Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especial Blanco

This story originally appeared in the Napa Valley Register.

Count Dalmau Cebrián-Sagarriga, the owner of Marques de Murrieta, came to the U.S. recently to present his historical 1986 white Rioja from their estate Castillo Ygay.

When I was invited to taste the wine, I was intrigued but little did I know what I was about to experience. This was not just the tasting of a 1986 white Rioja but rather a white Rioja that has been in barrel for 26 1/2 years. That is not a typo. It was aged in a barrel for 319 months before being bottled.

Castillo Ygay is one of the labels under Marques de Murrieta, a family-owned business that dates to 1511. Marques de Murrieta’s original property is in Rias Baixes in the northwest of Spain. A small property that totals 75 acres, they produce albariño under two labels: Pazo Barrantes and Le Comtesse.

Then, 40 years ago, Dalmau Cebrián-Sagarriga’s father purchased the property in Rioja. This property consists of 750 contiguous acres in the Alta Rioja. This is the largest estate in Rioja and they are the only winery not purchasing any grapes. In Rioja, there are four labels: Marques de Murrieta, Capellania, Dalmau and Castillo Ygay.

30 December, 2016

Marco Pelletier and A New Vision of Bordeaux at Vin de Jardin

This story originally appeared in the Napa Valley Register.

If you drink wine, the wines of Bordeaux need little introduction. There are the First Growths that collectors clamor over and there are the AOC classified dry, medium-bodied red wines and white wines that are affordable but also somewhat generic.

At Vin de Jardin (Garden of Wine), the goal is to make a wine that is bright, fresh, easy to drink and does not taste like all the others. Winemaker Marco Pelletier and his partners Jean Terrade and Gérard Pantanacce wanted a wine that displays power but is balanced. With Vin de Jardin, they have done that.

Marco Pelletier was born in Canada. Working as a civil engineer, he came to France in 1997 where he first fell in love with wine. He took a sabbatical and worked harvest in Champagne. “Bit by the wine bug,” Pelletier decided that he no longer wanted to work as a civil engineer and applied to a sommelier program in Canada. Denied acceptance at first, Pelletier persevered, and when there was a cancellation, he took the spot. He may not have been a first choice at the school but subsequently he excelled and won a scholarship.

28 December, 2016

From Devo to Vino: Gerald Casale and The Fifty by Fifty

This story originally appeared in the Napa Valley Register.

If you grew up in the 1980s, as I did, you must know the song “Whip It” by Devo. Just hearing the name of the song, I start to sing: “When something’s going wrong you must whip it. Now whip it into shape. Shape it up. Get straight. Go forward. Move ahead. Try to detect it. It’s not too late to whip it. Whip it good.”

When I was invited to have lunch with Gerald Casale, one of the founding members of Devo, I could not get the song out of my head. While he is still a musician, Casale is now a winemaker as well with a small label called The 50 by 50.

Gerald Casale was a student in Ohio studying art and 20th century comparative literature when he and his brother, along with three others, started Devo. With the success of their band, they moved to Los Angeles in 1978, about the same time as the birth of California cuisine.

Coming from a blue-collar background, Casale was familiar with “bad wine and processed cheese.” But with some money and an innate curiosity, Casale soon became friends with chefs such as Wolfgang Puck, Michael McCarty and Bruce Marder, with whom he would drink Burgundy wines from their cellars.

14 December, 2016