franandaj
I'm so happy, I could BOUNCE!
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2009
March 26
So our first day of wine tasting was on this day. We arrived a little bit early so we decided to try some more of the kiosks. The first one we tried was I heart artichokes.
We got the Fried Artichokes Carbonara
And the Grilled and Chilled Artichoke Hearts.
I liked both of these well enough, but I'll give you a spoiler alert, we didn't come back to this booth. We also got the artichoke cake pop.
I have to say this was disgusting.
I did take a picture of our nice view of the winery.
Our next stop was The Nuts About Cheese kiosk. My camera was definitely off that day as my pictures were coming out blurry
We got one of each item. This was a Baked Ham and Swiss Cheese Croque Monsieur Roll. It was pretty good, but it was packed full of ham and a little salty.
This was a Brie Toast with Fig & Mint, Roasted California Almond Crumble.
This one was Chevre Fromage Blanc Tartine infused with Rosemary and Honey.
The last two were really good! We also washed them down with a flight of wine.
We decided to try again for the Lemon Macaron.
This time we were successful. And there was a surprise of some jam in there!
I also couldn't resist another serving of the bacon mac n cheese.
We lined up for our first demo and it didn't take long for them to let us in to our seats.
They brought the wine to the table with a really cool apparatus.
This gentleman talked to us about the History of the Mondavi Family and the Winery.
He did talk a lot before we got to taste any wine. In fact I spied these people holding up signs so the speakers knew how much they had left.
By the time that he finished speaking, I was really happy that I had attended and even decided that I would like to visit the winery on an upcoming trip that is in the planning stages. To understand let me give you a little background about my life and feelings towards Mondavi Winery.
I moved to California in 1970 and my parents joined a wine group as soon as we moved here. Because we didn’t have any family in California, the folks in the Wine Group became our family. We spent Easter Sundays having Brunch and drinking wine. My first trip to Hawaii was with the group, and they drank a lot of wine. We went to a concert to hear Arthur Fiedler conduct while Ella Fitzgerald sang, they made crepes suzette in a field picnic situation, and drank a lot of wine. You get the idea. So I heard a lot of the discussions that these people had, and all I remember was hearing “Mondavi this, Mondavi that.” And I was like, “these people must be huge and dominate everything in the wine world.” I’ve always been a fan of the underdog, so when I reached an age and level of success where I could afford to travel to wine country and visit wineries, they weren’t even on my radar. I wanted to visit the small guys that weren’t dominating the market.
So back to the seminar and the guy telling us about Mondavi and their history. Robert Mondavi’s parents emigrated from Italy to the state of Minnesota, essentially they lived in the Little Italy area and it was a vibrant ethnic community. One very important part of life in the community was wine. When prohibition came along his family moved to Lodi, California and Mondavi Sr. established a successful fruit packing business. A provision of the Prohibition laws allowed families to make up to 200 gallons of fruit juice per year. He packaged up containers to ship back home to the community. They contained grapes and other fermentation supplies in a wooden crate labeled as such: Caution: mixing contents of this container and allowing them to remain in a sealed container, which allows CO2 to escape, could result in a liquid prohibited by the US Government. Or something to that effect. Basically he was selling a wine making kit with the directions printed on the outside. All you needed to do was do what it said not to do and you got wine!
After prohibition ended, Robert Mondavi graduated from Stanford University in 1937 with a degree in economics and business administration.
In the meantime Robert’s father had purchased the Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena and the family went into the business of creating jug wine, like all the other wineries in California. In 1943, Mondavi joined his father and brother Peter.
By the 1960s Robert saw incredible potential for wineries in the Napa Valley that they could produce wines that could rival that of the wine regions in France. In 1965, Robert Mondavi left the family winery after a feud with his younger brother Peter over the business direction of the Krug Winery. In 1966, he founded the Robert Mondavi Winery with his sons Michael and Tim Mondavi in the Napa Valley with the goal of producing wines that would compete with the finest wines from Europe. Michael Mondavi, the eldest, was in charge of the sales and marketing for Robert, while Tim was the winemaker. Robert Mondavi was the first major winery built in Napa Valley in the post-Prohibition era.
In 1968, Mondavi made a dry oak–aged Sauvignon blanc, an unpopular variety in California at the time, and labeled it "Fumé Blanc". The wine was a success and, in time, Fumé Blanc became accepted as a synonym for Sauvignon blanc.
Warren Winiarski became another of the the first Winemakers at Robert Mondavi Winery, another notable winemaker Mike Grgich was also employed at the Mondavi winery (among other wineries in the Valley). Why do we care? you ask? Well back in May of 1976, the 24th to be exact. An English wine merchant with a shop in Paris was looking to drum up business, so he staged a blind tasting. He chose the finest French wines, and invited a few of the California kids to come to the party.
Among those on the guest list were the wines of Warren Winiarski, founder of Stag’s Leap Winery and Mike Grgich winemaker at Chateau Montelena. It was such a “nonevent” that only one reporter showed up to the event. For the judges, nine of the most respected names in French gastronomy were selected for the job. They included sommeliers from the best French restaurants in Paris, the head of a highly regarded French vineyard, and the editor of the influential French Wine Review.
The panel did not know the order in which the wines would be served but the sole journalist did have the list. He heard one of the judges who sampled a white, smelled it, then he tasted it and he held it up again, and said, "Ah, back to France!”
Except it was a Napa Valley Chardonnay. At that point, the journalist thought, “I may have a story here!”
When the scores were tallied, the top honors went not to France's best vintners but to a California white and red — the 1973 chardonnay from Chateau Montelena and the 1973 cabernet sauvignon from Stag's Leap Wine Cellars. (A bottle of each now resides at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.)
The rest went down in history, French wines were overthrown and wineries all over the world were given the go ahead that they could make great wines. They didn’t have to come from France, but the California wineries were given such a boost that I realized that Robert Mondavi’s dream had been fulfilled and he really was the underdog who prevailed. His dream of putting California on the map came true. So on our next trip to Napa, I most definitely have to pay homage to this winemaker who brought California into the world stage.
As far as the wines we tasted, they were good, but I was more in awe of the story to really care about what we tasted. The bottles were quite expensive and very tasty, but not something that I would buy to try at home, I have enough already from my current clubs that I don’t need to buy extra.
After the tasting we were still hungry, so it was time to try some more booths.
It seems that I didn’t get a picture of the booth. I didn’t really want to try the Jackfruit Carnitas Bahn Mi Nachos, but Fran insisted. Don’t let the word Carnitas fool you, there is no meat in this dish and I didn’t like it. Fran ate a few bites and agreed with me, so we tossed it.
Actually I got ahead of myself, we ordered one of the Jalapeno Margaritas and as neither of us like Jalapenos, the first thing we did was remove all the offending peppers. This drink had a little bit of a kick, most likely from the Jalapenos being in there for a minute or so. The margarita was good though.
We also got an order of the Sweet Corn Nuggets with Beef Chili, Spring Onions and Sour Cream. This one was pretty good, I had it again during the festival, but it wasn’t my favorite.
We also got the Roasted Sweet Corn Custard Tart, this was really good. Corn works nicely for a dessert, better than sourdough.
It was time for our next demo, this was with Kate MacMurray of MacMurray Estates Winery. If you’re old enough or watch Nick at Night, you may be familiar with her father Fred MacMurray. He purchased the land in 1941 and farmed crops and raised prize-winning cattle. In 1996, five years after Fred MacMurray’s death, MacMurray Ranch was transformed into a world class vineyard.
Kate McMurray’s approach to the demo was much different, she would ask us to close our eyes, and she would describe a vision to us which was “her” experience in the mornings riding out on her horse through the vineyards.
Once we had the picture in our mind, she invited us to taste the first wine.
She talked a lot about soil, climate and how those factors affected the wines. She did a little more imagery before we tasted the last wine.
This was our last demo of the day, so we called it a night and headed back home.
So our first day of wine tasting was on this day. We arrived a little bit early so we decided to try some more of the kiosks. The first one we tried was I heart artichokes.
We got the Fried Artichokes Carbonara
And the Grilled and Chilled Artichoke Hearts.
I liked both of these well enough, but I'll give you a spoiler alert, we didn't come back to this booth. We also got the artichoke cake pop.
I have to say this was disgusting.
I did take a picture of our nice view of the winery.
Our next stop was The Nuts About Cheese kiosk. My camera was definitely off that day as my pictures were coming out blurry
We got one of each item. This was a Baked Ham and Swiss Cheese Croque Monsieur Roll. It was pretty good, but it was packed full of ham and a little salty.
This was a Brie Toast with Fig & Mint, Roasted California Almond Crumble.
This one was Chevre Fromage Blanc Tartine infused with Rosemary and Honey.
The last two were really good! We also washed them down with a flight of wine.
We decided to try again for the Lemon Macaron.
This time we were successful. And there was a surprise of some jam in there!
I also couldn't resist another serving of the bacon mac n cheese.
We lined up for our first demo and it didn't take long for them to let us in to our seats.
They brought the wine to the table with a really cool apparatus.
This gentleman talked to us about the History of the Mondavi Family and the Winery.
He did talk a lot before we got to taste any wine. In fact I spied these people holding up signs so the speakers knew how much they had left.
By the time that he finished speaking, I was really happy that I had attended and even decided that I would like to visit the winery on an upcoming trip that is in the planning stages. To understand let me give you a little background about my life and feelings towards Mondavi Winery.
I moved to California in 1970 and my parents joined a wine group as soon as we moved here. Because we didn’t have any family in California, the folks in the Wine Group became our family. We spent Easter Sundays having Brunch and drinking wine. My first trip to Hawaii was with the group, and they drank a lot of wine. We went to a concert to hear Arthur Fiedler conduct while Ella Fitzgerald sang, they made crepes suzette in a field picnic situation, and drank a lot of wine. You get the idea. So I heard a lot of the discussions that these people had, and all I remember was hearing “Mondavi this, Mondavi that.” And I was like, “these people must be huge and dominate everything in the wine world.” I’ve always been a fan of the underdog, so when I reached an age and level of success where I could afford to travel to wine country and visit wineries, they weren’t even on my radar. I wanted to visit the small guys that weren’t dominating the market.
So back to the seminar and the guy telling us about Mondavi and their history. Robert Mondavi’s parents emigrated from Italy to the state of Minnesota, essentially they lived in the Little Italy area and it was a vibrant ethnic community. One very important part of life in the community was wine. When prohibition came along his family moved to Lodi, California and Mondavi Sr. established a successful fruit packing business. A provision of the Prohibition laws allowed families to make up to 200 gallons of fruit juice per year. He packaged up containers to ship back home to the community. They contained grapes and other fermentation supplies in a wooden crate labeled as such: Caution: mixing contents of this container and allowing them to remain in a sealed container, which allows CO2 to escape, could result in a liquid prohibited by the US Government. Or something to that effect. Basically he was selling a wine making kit with the directions printed on the outside. All you needed to do was do what it said not to do and you got wine!
After prohibition ended, Robert Mondavi graduated from Stanford University in 1937 with a degree in economics and business administration.
In the meantime Robert’s father had purchased the Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena and the family went into the business of creating jug wine, like all the other wineries in California. In 1943, Mondavi joined his father and brother Peter.
By the 1960s Robert saw incredible potential for wineries in the Napa Valley that they could produce wines that could rival that of the wine regions in France. In 1965, Robert Mondavi left the family winery after a feud with his younger brother Peter over the business direction of the Krug Winery. In 1966, he founded the Robert Mondavi Winery with his sons Michael and Tim Mondavi in the Napa Valley with the goal of producing wines that would compete with the finest wines from Europe. Michael Mondavi, the eldest, was in charge of the sales and marketing for Robert, while Tim was the winemaker. Robert Mondavi was the first major winery built in Napa Valley in the post-Prohibition era.
In 1968, Mondavi made a dry oak–aged Sauvignon blanc, an unpopular variety in California at the time, and labeled it "Fumé Blanc". The wine was a success and, in time, Fumé Blanc became accepted as a synonym for Sauvignon blanc.
Warren Winiarski became another of the the first Winemakers at Robert Mondavi Winery, another notable winemaker Mike Grgich was also employed at the Mondavi winery (among other wineries in the Valley). Why do we care? you ask? Well back in May of 1976, the 24th to be exact. An English wine merchant with a shop in Paris was looking to drum up business, so he staged a blind tasting. He chose the finest French wines, and invited a few of the California kids to come to the party.
Among those on the guest list were the wines of Warren Winiarski, founder of Stag’s Leap Winery and Mike Grgich winemaker at Chateau Montelena. It was such a “nonevent” that only one reporter showed up to the event. For the judges, nine of the most respected names in French gastronomy were selected for the job. They included sommeliers from the best French restaurants in Paris, the head of a highly regarded French vineyard, and the editor of the influential French Wine Review.
The panel did not know the order in which the wines would be served but the sole journalist did have the list. He heard one of the judges who sampled a white, smelled it, then he tasted it and he held it up again, and said, "Ah, back to France!”
Except it was a Napa Valley Chardonnay. At that point, the journalist thought, “I may have a story here!”
When the scores were tallied, the top honors went not to France's best vintners but to a California white and red — the 1973 chardonnay from Chateau Montelena and the 1973 cabernet sauvignon from Stag's Leap Wine Cellars. (A bottle of each now resides at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.)
The rest went down in history, French wines were overthrown and wineries all over the world were given the go ahead that they could make great wines. They didn’t have to come from France, but the California wineries were given such a boost that I realized that Robert Mondavi’s dream had been fulfilled and he really was the underdog who prevailed. His dream of putting California on the map came true. So on our next trip to Napa, I most definitely have to pay homage to this winemaker who brought California into the world stage.
As far as the wines we tasted, they were good, but I was more in awe of the story to really care about what we tasted. The bottles were quite expensive and very tasty, but not something that I would buy to try at home, I have enough already from my current clubs that I don’t need to buy extra.
After the tasting we were still hungry, so it was time to try some more booths.
It seems that I didn’t get a picture of the booth. I didn’t really want to try the Jackfruit Carnitas Bahn Mi Nachos, but Fran insisted. Don’t let the word Carnitas fool you, there is no meat in this dish and I didn’t like it. Fran ate a few bites and agreed with me, so we tossed it.
Actually I got ahead of myself, we ordered one of the Jalapeno Margaritas and as neither of us like Jalapenos, the first thing we did was remove all the offending peppers. This drink had a little bit of a kick, most likely from the Jalapenos being in there for a minute or so. The margarita was good though.
We also got an order of the Sweet Corn Nuggets with Beef Chili, Spring Onions and Sour Cream. This one was pretty good, I had it again during the festival, but it wasn’t my favorite.
We also got the Roasted Sweet Corn Custard Tart, this was really good. Corn works nicely for a dessert, better than sourdough.
It was time for our next demo, this was with Kate MacMurray of MacMurray Estates Winery. If you’re old enough or watch Nick at Night, you may be familiar with her father Fred MacMurray. He purchased the land in 1941 and farmed crops and raised prize-winning cattle. In 1996, five years after Fred MacMurray’s death, MacMurray Ranch was transformed into a world class vineyard.
Kate McMurray’s approach to the demo was much different, she would ask us to close our eyes, and she would describe a vision to us which was “her” experience in the mornings riding out on her horse through the vineyards.
Once we had the picture in our mind, she invited us to taste the first wine.
She talked a lot about soil, climate and how those factors affected the wines. She did a little more imagery before we tasted the last wine.
This was our last demo of the day, so we called it a night and headed back home.
I haven't even gotten to that night!
