Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 8:03 AM
Subject: Wine at Orangewood Consulting - 17
To our Wine Aficionados,
Good News – the foal arrived 2 ½ weeks ago and
is just amazing. She is a half Arabian, pinto filly. Her barn name
is Jazzy. Pictures and some video clips are available at http://richard.corles.home.att.net/
The proposed wine tasting is scheduled for Thursday
May 9. I have invited Tom Hamilton from Wine Supply, in case anyone
has the urge to buy some wine, rather than just try the wine, munch cheese and
shoot the breeze.
The remaining content of this newsletter is as
follows:
Sales
Events
Wine Tasting (details)
Scottsdale Culinary Festival - Feedback
Wine Bars
Cave
Creek Coffee Company
Restaurants
Territorial Bar and Grill
Tarbell’s
Portfolio
Marinda Park
Feedback
BIO’s
Vino Noceto
RustRidge Ranch and Winery
Sales
Events
Wine Tasting
This event is a low
key wine tasting at our house. In the last newsletter we wrote “…we
are wondering about doing a private tasting of a few of our wines at our
house. We would invite you all as well as Tom Hamilton. Tom
would be able to take and perhaps deliver orders right there. If this
would be of interest to you, please let us know.” So with no feedback
on this one, we ran into one of you (that would be Alison), who asked when the
wine tasting was going to be. I said we had received no feedback so no
schedule. Given this massive encouragement, I spoke to Tom and he is willing
to be here on Thursday, May 9th from 5:30 to 7:30. We will open four of
our wines and will entertain pleas for tastes of others. My usual hunk o’
cheese and loaf of bread approach to supplementary sustenance will also be
available. Our address is 7334 North Central Avenue, Phoenix.
We are on the Southwest corner of Central Avenue and Orangewood Avenue.
We look forward to seeing you.
Scottsdale Culinary
Festival
This year’s festival
has come and gone. Vino Noceto and RustRidge Wines were present at
two events. The wines were well received. Adding to the excitement
was the arrival of Jazzy after the second of 5 courses of the dinner
event. Jim Gullett from Vino Noceto and Susan Meyer from RustRidge got to
see a large mare prior to birth (Sunday afternoon) and a thinner mare and a
brand new foal 2 hours after she was born on Sunday night.
Overall the event was
a learning experience – from figuring out how to deliver wine to the Hyatt
Regency at Gainey Ranch (The valet parking people pointed me to an alternate
entrance that lead to an alternate universe) to menu planning (Patrick Poblete
of Lon’s had to figure out which wine went with which course) to spontaneous
creativity (discussing the business of bread making with the lady sitting next
to me at dinner). Next year I hope that we see some of you at one or more
of these events.
The “bio’s” for Vino
Noceto and RustRidge Ranch, as they appeared in the Festival magazine, are
included at the end of this newsletter.
Wine Bars
Cave Creek Coffee
Company
One of our readers
told us that they had visited this wine bar and enjoyed the Noceto Sangiovese
so much that they visited Territorial to have some of the Riserva with
dinner. Thank you for the support, Mary and Wayne.
Restaurants
Territorial Bar and
Grill
The ownership of this
restaurant has changed again, but they continue to be a leading seller of
Noceto Sangiovese. The menu has expanded from the focused Italian
orientation to an expanded more inclusive one.
Tarbell’s
Last night Laurie and
I decided to go off our diets once again and visited this fine restaurant. It’s
somewhat hidden, in between Sportsman’s Fine Wines and Tomaso’s on the SE
corner of Camelback and 32nd Street. Of course we ordered the
RustRidge Zinfandel, and we made sure that our waiter understood why – we gave
him a taste. We tried the mussels cooked in beer appetizer – excellent;
pasta with chicken – very tasty; and the profiteroles – they should be
illegal. It was good that we split these items. We met Mark Tarbell
on the way out. He is a friendly guy with a sense of humor – he told us
he had fired himself as chef for poor performance, missing shifts. (He
still oversees the food preparation and presentation at both the Tarbell’s and
nearby Barmouche.) A nice place - we recommend it!
Portfolio
Marinda Park
Yesterday I got an
email saying the wine was shipping to the docks and will be heading to LA
shortly. I am guessing that it will be here in early June. Be
warned, though, that only the Chardonnay is ready to drink. The Pinot
Noir will take a few more months in the bottle and the Merlot another
year. We are getting some of all three.
Feedback
I continue to enjoy
your emails. Don’t be bashful about expressing your
opinions or sharing your insights.
Richard and Laurie
BIO’s
Vino Noceto
Vino Noceto is a family-run vineyard and wine business founded by Suzy and Jim Gullett of Shenandoah Valley, Plymouth, California. They are Sangiovese specialists, currently producing 4,000 annual cases of Sangiovese from estate and nearby small vineyards and 500 cases of a Frizzante Moscato Blanco. They have twenty-two acres of Sangiovese and one acre of Syrah.
In 1984, Jim and Suzy began pursuit of their dream with a vague, but well-researched, idea of growing grapes. They purchased 21 acres in Amador County’s Shenandoah Valley, in the Sierra foothills gold country. They added another 18.5 adjacent acres with a 107-year old ranch house several years later. Their objective became to grow a "noble" grape variety and make it into a distinctive, accessible table wine. After a lot of research they choose Sangiovese. In September 1985, they spent two weeks in Tuscany researching at several wine estates.
Beginning with their first, 1990 vintage, Noceto wines have been 100% Sangiovese, targeted at a Chianti Classico style. This style emphasizes the delicate and complex fruitiness of the Sangiovese grape. The soil and climate has enabled their wines to display these unique attributes while achieving a medium or slightly fuller wine. Neutral and large format oak aging allows a slow, gentle maturing of the young wine and adds a little spice to an already intriguing wine. The last key step is bottle aging - they endeavor to bottle the wine at least six months before release. At this point its various flavor components are coming together, leading to a distinctive red wine which complements a wide range of foods and represents good value for the consumer. Noceto is often recognized for its successful efforts at producing a California Sangiovese that is true to its Tuscan roots.
Noceto has grown steadily from the first vintage of 110 cases to over 4,000 cases of production. The winemaker is Rusty Folena, who grew up in the wine business at Renwood/Santino. Stacey Gregersen, formerly winemaker at Meridian, is their consulting enologist.
Where does the name Noceto come from. Noceto means walnut grove in Italian. The ranch house sits amidst 80 walnut trees. Noceto is also the sister city of Walnut Creek, Suzy’s home town.
RustRidge Ranch and Winery
Originally a large thoroughbred horse and Black Angus cattle ranch, RustRidge was purchased by the Meyer family in 1972. Fruit from the vineyard, which was planted in 1975, was originally sold to other wineries. The RustRidge winery, housed in a renovated cattle barn, was bonded in 1985. In 1990 Susan Meyer, with her husband, Jim Fresquez, took over the operation which by that time also included a fledgling Bed & Breakfast and a thoroughbred racehorse breeding and training facility. Susan runs the B&B and is in charge of the winemaking while Jim tends to the Vineyard and the Horses.
RustRidge wines are handcrafted with the help of consulting winemaker Kent Rosenblum. The grapes are organically grown and dry-farmed. Approximately 90% of the grapes are still sold to other wine producers, including Rosenblum Cellars, Newlan Winery and Miner Family. Susan and Kent use the remaining grapes to produce limited quantities of award winning Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc wines. The total annual production of RustRidge is under 2000 cases.
The RustRidge winery and vineyard are located in a sub-appellation of the Napa Valley know as the Chiles Valley, it is the smallest AVA in Napa Valley. The region's unique microclimate is integral to the character of RustRidge Wines. The Chiles Valley is at a 1000 foot elevation, within a very narrow valley facing Northwest to Southeast. This creates an open funnel for the prevailing northwesterly winds, resulting in cooler morning and evening temperatures and creating a lower average day temperature than much of the Napa Valley. The moderate temperatures allow for longer hang time giving the grapes the opportunity to develop more complex flavors.