Casa Nuestra (4.38)



Open: 10:00am-4:30pm

Appt required? Yes, but we walked in without one

Last barlinwine.com visit: 2012

Directions:

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Tasting:
Because our Phelps tasting wrapped up quickly, we had time to kill before our next appointment at Chateau Boswell. In the spirit of revisiting places I hadn’t been in years, I decided to give Casa Nuestra another try. My first trip there had been a disaster. I went on my second or third visit to Napa, and it was one of the first appointments I’d ever booked. Walking in with two other friends in our twenties, the person pouring made a snap judgment that we knew nothing about wine or had no intention of buying wine or both. When he espoused the virtues of what I thought was a pretty average Cabernet, he told me I just didn’t know how to appreciate a wine that would get better with age. Can you blame me for never going back?

I decided I’d enter with an open mind, and it’s good I did. The atmosphere was the complete opposite of my first visit. Despite not having a reservation, they were happy to squeeze us in, and the two gents pouring were relaxed, friendly, and completely unpretentious. Things had changed at Casa Nuestra for the better.

We started off the tasting with their Chenin Blanc, a refreshing white that was decent but nothing that had me reaching for my wallet. We then moved on to a Charbono – also decent – before the tasting took a turn in the right direction. Our next wine was a delicious Cab Franc, which we then followed with Casa Nuestra’s Meritage. Both of these wines were well-structured and solid offerings, and ended up being my favorites of the visit.

We weren’t close to being done, though. Casa Nuestra makes two “Tinto” wines, or field blends – one from their Oakville vineyard and one that is an overall Napa Valley blend. Meredith particularly liked these, especially the Napa Valley Tinto. I thought they were good, but a step back from the Meritage. We ended the tasting with a very good Cabernet Sauvignon.

Overall, the guys pouring couldn’t have been more accommodating. They didn’t roll their eyes (at least not where I could see) when Meredith wanted to do a photo shoot with the dancing Elvis clock or when we had to interrupt the flow of our tasting for a quick bathroom break. When we purchased a few bottles they didn’t charge us for the tasting, and I left with a completely different impression of Casa Nuestra than the black mark it had left several years ago. This is now a stop I can recommend with confidence.


Recommended wine: Most of the reds were pretty good, with the Meritage and Cab Franc standing out as my favorites.

Ratings (out of 5):


WINE
4.50
TASTING ROOM
4.00

ATMOSPHERE
4.50
VALUE
4.50

OVERALL
4.38

St. Supéry (4.06)



Open: 10:00am-5:00pm

Appt required? No

Last barlinwine.com visit: 2012 (May 17, 2012 Itinerary)

Directions:

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Tasting:
I pulled in to the St. Supéry parking lot to find several signs stating “Pardon Our Dust” and directing visitors over to the large wraparound porch of a house on the property. Having never been there before, I didn’t know what their typical tasting experience was, but this was a great replacement.

I was seated at a table on the cool shaded porch and presented a menu of 6 wines, from which I could choose four. I chose to skip the two whites they offered (shocking, I know) and taste through four red wines: the 2007 Estate Cabernet, 2009 Rutherford Estate Vineyard Merlot, 2007 Estate Elu, and 2007 Rutherford Estate Vineyard Cabernet.

The 2007 Estate Cabernet was decent, and a pretty good value at $30, but nothing overly special. My hostess Laurie presented the next wine, the 2009 Merlot, as possessing a lot of depth. I thought it was good, but contrary to the description I thought it actually lacked depth and was fairly straightforward and thin. The next wine, the 2007 Elu, is St. Supéry’s Bordeaux blend, sporting a breakdown of 66% Cabernet, 22% Merlot, with the remaining 12% spread among the other three Bordeaux grapes. Laurie described the Elu as a “velvet hammer”, to which I still have to roll my eyes every time I think about hearing it. It was not overly velvety or hammery, and certainly not worth the $65 price tag. My final wine, the 2007 Rutherford Estate Cabernet, was good, tannic, and possessed a long finish. Not amazing, and not worth the $85 price tag.

Preparing to wrap things up and make it to my next appointment at Swanson, Laurie came back with a surprise: “I have the 2007 Dollarhide Cabernet open if you’d like to try it.” Well of course I would, and if it made me a few minutes late to Swanson, so be it. It turned out to be pretty good, but unfortunately not $85 good, and I ended the tasting bottleless and late for my next appointment.

Overall, the porch atmosphere was great and the wine was pretty good. But at $85/bottle for the big Cabs, I found myself asking "Is this as good as Larkmead Solari?" to which the answer was an easy "Not even close." Perhaps that's not a fair comparison, given the Solari is among my favorite wines and well undervalued by today's market standards, but a dollar is a dollar.

Given no need for reservations, St. Supéry isn’t a terrible spot to drop in, but there are others nearby (Sequoia Grove, for example) that I think I would suggest hitting first. I've heard good things about their standard tasting room and experience, so I'll at least make a point to stop back in once the renovations are completed.


Recommended wine: The Cabernets were okay but overpriced compared to the competition in Napa.

Ratings (out of 5):


WINE
3.75
TASTING ROOM
4.75

ATMOSPHERE
4.25
VALUE
3.50

OVERALL
4.06

Chateau Boswell (4.69)



Open: By appointment

Appt required? Yes

Last barlinwine.com visit: 2014

Directions:

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Tasting:
I came across Chateau Boswell the old fashioned way: by scouring the Napa Map. At this point I’ve been to well over half of the wineries on the main highways, and so I’m constantly looking for interesting places that are either off the beaten path or that have eluded me on previous trips. I took a glance at Chateau Boswell’s website and it looked like a good fit, and so I called to make an appointment.

According to the website, people interested in visiting should contact Matt Simpson. Wait a second…I know that name! Matt used to work at Larkmead several years ago around the time I first became a wine club member, and he was always great to taste with. I booked the appointment and let Matt know I thought I knew him. Sure enough, it was the same guy.

Meredith and I arrived for our 12:30pm tasting and were greeted in the parking lot by Matt. He gave us a brief history of the property and walked us through the production area into a domed circular room inside their cave used for tastings. Matt talks fast, knows a ton about wine and more about French wine than the average Californian, and he had plenty to talk to us about regarding the wines and the winery.

Chateau Boswell has two lines of wine – those under the Chateau Boswell label and those under their Jacquelynn label. It was with a Jacquelynn wine that we started. The Jacquelynn Cuvee White was a well-made refreshing wine as summer approached in Napa, and one that both Meredith and I thought was good but not amazing. We then moved on to a side-by-side tasting of two fantastic Chardonnays: the 2009 Dutton Ranch Sebastopol Vineyard Chard and the 2009 “The Voyage” Chardonnay. Both came from the Russian River Valley and the same vintage, but each presented a different approach to Chardonnay.

Matt posed a question before we tried the wines, something along the lines of “Do you prefer a hearty opulence or a refined elegance?” He presented the Sebastopol as a bigger, meatier Chardonnay and The Voyage as a softer, more elegant version. Where Sebastopol is a single vineyard Chard, The Voyage is a blend of five Russian River vineyards from which Chateau Boswell sources fruit: Dutton Ranch House Block, Morelli, Rued, Ritchie and Sebastopol. To be honest, I thought both wines were excellent, with my preference barely swaying toward The Voyage. However, given a different food pairing or mood, I could definitely see myself choosing the Sebastopol. The easy solution? Just buy both!

Meredith at work following the tasting
There was just one more wine to try, but it was stellar: the 2009 Chateau Boswell Estate Reserve Cabernet. One of the better Cabernets I had on my visit to wine country in May, I loved this wine and expect it to age well for years. At $125, it’s not cheap, but I think it’s worth it. Although they are extremely low-production (only 102 cases of Estate Reserve Cab produced, for example), Chateau Boswell did have some library vintages available for purchase as well. It’s well documented on this site how much I love 2007 Napa Cab (although 2009 I’m finding to be close behind). Matt waffled, but it didn’t take much convincing for him to round me up a couple of bottles of the ’07 to go with my ’09.

Overall, really high quality wine and an enjoyable tasting experience at Chateua Boswell. According to their website, they charge a steep $40 tasting fee, but they do it the right way – if you purchase any wine, the entire fee is waived. No limits to hit, no awkward extra charges to leave a bad taste in your mouth. The tasting experience is used to sell wine, as it should be. This final expression of doing things right sealed their position in the upper echelon of tasting rooms I’ve been to. Well done, Matt, and well done Chateua Boswell!


Recommended wine: Both Chardonnays we tried and the Reserve Cab were all top notch.

Ratings (out of 5):


WINE
5.00
TASTING ROOM
4.75

ATMOSPHERE
5.00
VALUE
4.00

OVERALL
4.69

Joseph Phelps (4.06)



Open: 10:00am-3:30pm (last tasting appointment is 2:30pm on weekends)

Appt required? Yes

Last barlinwine.com visit: 2012

Directions:


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Tasting:
One of the goals of my last-minute Napa trip in May was to hit some of my old favorites long before there was a barlinwine.com and see what I thought of them now. After a disappointing trip to Homewood, I was a little apprehensive to return to Joseph Phelps. They were one of the first premium wineries I truly began to enjoy, and in the early 2000s their Le Mistral blend was my go-to best value wine and their Cabernet a special splurge. Then came 2005, and Phelps’ 2002 Insignia was ranked the #1 Wine of the Year by Wine Spectator. Overnight, prices on all wines jumped 20% (and the Insignia went from a pricey $125 to an out-of-range $200). They priced me out as a customer and I hadn’t had their wines in quite some time.

However, I remembered Phelps having a great view and a relaxed tasting experience to complement their excellent wine, and I was interested to compare the current experience having visited literally hundreds of wineries since my last trip there. So I returned, price-aware and with a singular goal: enjoy the tasting for what it is.

Back when many tastings were free, Joseph Phelps was charging a whopping $20 to taste. Like the prices of their wines, the tasting fee had gone up as well, to $30. To be more precise, $30 was the entry point. I reminded myself that the pours used to be pretty heavy and $30 got you a healthy pour of Insignia along with other Phelps favorites. But now there was another wrinkle -- if you were feeling adventurous, you could add a taste of a second Insignia (2005) plus their Eisrebe ice wine for a whopping $60. Well, I didn’t fly all the way to California to stand on the sidelines and count my pennies. One $60 tasting coming up!

Tastings are conducted on Phelps’s terrace patio facing west and overlooking the vineyards and a good portion of the Napa Valley. The view and setting is great for wine, and the tasting is conducted in a relaxed “come to the bar when you’re ready for your next wine” style. It was particularly windy which made things a tad more difficult with tasting sheets blowing around, but overall the setting was as I remembered it. We got started with our tasting (Meredith joined me for this one), which was really broken into four sections: two white wines, two Pinot Noirs, the Cabernet plus the Insignias, and the dessert wine.

For the two white wines, we tried the Joseph Phelps Sauvignon Blanc and the 2009 Freestone Vineyards Chardonnay. Phelps purchased Freestone Vineyards in 1999 and began planting and producing Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from the Sonoma Coast, to complement their Cabernet and Syrah from Napa Valley. The Sauvignon Blanc was good, but not $32/bottle good. I’m not much of a fan of the Freestone Vineyard wines (you can read my review of my visit to their facility here), and drinking the Chardonnay from Phelps’s lovely patio didn’t make it taste any better.

For our next batch of wines, we tried the 2009 Freestone Vineyards Pinot Noir (not great, see above) and a very good 2009 Pinot Noir from the Quarter Moon Vineyard in Sonoma Coast. The tasting notes advertised this as “the perfect wine for grilled lamb kabobs”, and I’d have to agree. But with a $75 price tag attached, was it better than, say, the Williams Selyem Rochioli Vineyard Pinot? Nope.

On to the section of the tasting I was most excited about: the Cabernets! Phelps still makes a very good entry point Cabernet. When it used to come in at around $40, it was a great value; now at $58, it’s still a good wine and one I would buy, but this is also a wine that I can get at Binny’s. Our palates prepped, we moved on to the Insignia’s, and procured a second glass to allow us to try the 2008 and the 2005 Insignia side-by-side. I do still really love this wine. The $200 retail price is a bit ridiculous, but both years were great, with the 2005 edging the 2008 for me.


We closed with the dessert Eiswine, which was good but did not distinguish itself from other dessert wines for me, and especially not at $50 for 375ml. A few pictures later we were done with the return to Phelps in 30 minutes or less.

Overall, not much has changed with the Phelps tasting experience in the last 10 years, other than an increase in prices across the board. The setting remains the same, they still collect tasting fees independent of purchase, and while the pours may have been slightly smaller, they were sufficient to allow two of us to share a tasting and get a good sense of the wines. They still make really good wine – I just wish prices were still what they were in 2002.


Recommended wine: The Insignia is consistently fantastic. The Joseph Phelps Cabernet is still a decent bargain at under $60.

Ratings (out of 5):


WINE
4.50
TASTING ROOM
4.75

ATMOSPHERE
3.75
VALUE
3.25

OVERALL
4.06

Homewood (3.56)



Open: 10:00am-4:00pm

Appt required? No

Last barlinwine.com visit: 2012 (May 17, 2012 Itinerary)

Directions:


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Tasting:
On my very first trip to Napa (not counting a stopover on a family drive through California in the early ‘90s), I decided it would be a brilliant idea to do a bike tour through Napa Valley. While that idea turned out to be so-so, one of our stops was an instant favorite: Homewood Winery. The people were friendly, the tastings were free, and the wines were accessible and reasonably priced. Dave Homewood was the first winemaker I met and had a conversation with. I went back a few times in the early 2000s and enjoyed knowing about a place that wasn’t widely distributed or known.

After a good 6 or 7 year hiatus and hundreds of wine samples later, I decided I’d give the old friend another try. I stopped in on a Thursday morning and immediately was concerned. They had erected a separate tasting area akin to an open-air island beach bar outside and posted a big sign branding it the “REDDER da BETTER LOUNGE” with a smaller supporting sign reading “LIMO PARKING”. Ugh…my old secret winery was now catering to limos? Well, at least they built them a separate area. And they still had good wine at affordable prices, right?

Half of that statement was true. Prices were still incredibly affordable, but after this tasting I would realize why. I started my tasting inside in the tiny original tasting room with a forgettable 2010 Pinot Gris, followed by a more forgettable 2009 Pinot Noir. I next tried the 2009 “Flying Wizzbangers” Red Wine (on special for $100/CASE) which I really wanted to like given the extreme affordability, but it was almost undrinkable. I then had side-by-side the 2007 and 2009 Hoskins Vineyard Zinfandel. I slightly preferred the 2007, but neither was very good. I finished with the 2008 Cabernet, a tannic 2009 Petite Sirah that was immediately dumped after the first sip, and the one redeeming wine of the visit, the 2008 Zinfandel Port. I ended up purchasing a bottle of the Port out of pity, and left just as a limousine bus was pulling in.

The folks at Homewood have always been friendly, and this still held true, but unfortunately their wine no longer made visiting worthwhile. I don’t know if it’s that my palate is more refined or their quality has deteriorated (or possibly both), but this was a disheartening trip that left me feeling gut-punched the way I did when I heard Ryan Braun was accused (falsely!) of using steroids. I’d held Homewood up as the poster child for a small winery with friendly people, good prices, and good wine since my wine “infancy”, and an empty hole was created in me when I recognized that either I had outgrown their wine or something had happened to negatively impact the quality of their wine. In either case, that will probably be my last trip to Homewood. Farewell, old friend!


Recommended wine: The Port was the only drinkable wine, but sadly I wouldn't recommend it.

Ratings (out of 5):


WINE
2.00
TASTING ROOM
3.75

ATMOSPHERE
4.50
VALUE
4.25

OVERALL
3.56