Auction Napa Valley 2013 is just a month away.  As Napa Vintners prepare to raise more money for the health and well-being of our Valley’s residents, it’s a great time to look back at how the $7 million from the 2012 auction was given away.  Click here to see the 2012 Auction Napa Valley grant recipients.

Bright sour cherry with just a touch of cedar and smoke. Still rather young and primary. Good but should get better and more complex. Hold on to it for 3+ years.

Tropical fruit with ripe melon… Not grassy. Very pretty. 89 points.

So good! Tobacco leaf, road tar, dark fruits, smoky. Both my wife and I said “Wow” on the first taste but it’s going to get even better within a few years. At least 93 points.

This is a proud papa posting the work of his son, the youngest member of the Match Vineyards family, who has released his first full length album.  Alec, aka DJ Speck, and his friend DK have been writing and recording music as The Acronyms for a few years.  The genre is hip-hop and a few of the lyrics are R Rated, but DK, who writes the rap, avoids the misogynistic, narcissistic, and violent themes of some in the genre and writes about his life and times in a thoughtful way.  DJ Speck writes or mixes, and records the music.

You can listen to their album on BandCamp.  It is also available as a name-your-price download.  Click Here.

Some of Alec’s other stuff can also be heard on SoundCloud.

Think Cherries Jubilee without the orange zest but with the vanilla ice cream. Big, bold and flavorful this is unapologetically a modern-style Napa Cab but not so over-the-top that it it exhausts the taste buds. 91 points with possibly another point with a little more age. It has been my experience that some 2007 vintage Napa Cabs are entering a dumb phase. Not this one.

Youthful color with aromas of grilled meat and pencil lead. Pretty raspberry flavors with leather and mushroom secondaries. This is a mature Bordeaux though not showing any evidence that there’s a rush to drink. Not decanted, but opened an hour before serving. 93 points.

If you’re on our mailing list, you should have received this via email. Repeat customers should have also received a coupon code.  If not, let us know.

Here is my brilliant prose from the email:

Summer is over.  Alec is off for his second year of college and Sasha and Randy (in a bout of empty-nester syndrome) had a baby.  A four-legged baby that is.  Alec and Odie now have a 13 week old baby “brother.”  Charlie is an adorable little fuzzy maltipoo.  We won’t bore you with pictures in this email.

In between middle-of-the-night trips carrying the puppy to the backyard, our thoughts are starting to turn to harvest.  It has been a terrific growing season in the Napa Valley and the crop at both of our vineyards is looking great.  Baconbrook should be ready in just a couple of weeks and Butterdragon will follow a week or two after.

But before we start getting our hands dirty in the vineyard and winery, it’s time to release some wine.  We are extremely excited to debut the 2009 Baconbrook Cabernet Sauvignon.

2009 marked the return to normalcy — if any year is normal in farming — after a challenging and low production 2008.  Mild temperatures and little rain throughout the Spring and early Summer had everything looking good and moving at a comfortably slow pace.  It warmed up just-in-time for veraison and the clusters colored quickly and evenly.  Continued mild weather throughout August and September gave the fruit plenty of time to get ripe.  Baconbrook, always the first ready to harvest, came in on September 23rd.  Butterdragon Hill continued its slow maturation into October until late season rains followed by cooler weather caused a more urgent ending to what had been a fairly mellow year.  We harvested Butterdragon in two picks on October 7th and October 21st.

Vintner’s Notes

Still very young, this wine already offers a delicious blend of cherry and raspberry flavors with currant, milk chocolate, crushed tea leaves, and sweet oak. Bold, with an extremely long finish, its polished, sweet tannins and focused acidity promise even greater days ahead. We’re incredibly proud of our 120 cases of 2009 Baconbrook.

Pricing for Baconbrook remains unchanged.

• 750ml bottles – $66
• 1.5L magnum bottles – $138
• 375ml bottles – $34
• We pay for ground shipping on orders of $400 or more.
• Orders of any size shipped to residential address will incur a $5/box surcharge assessed by the common carrier.
• Shipping should begin in mid to late October but we will hold your order until cool temperatures allow safe shipping.

Did you hear the news about our 2002 Butterdragon Hill?

In a recent blind tasting retrospective of the 2002 vintage, Wine Spectator magazine rated it among the top wines of the Napa Valley and said “this remains a voluptuous mouthful of Cabernet, even better with age.  Ripe, supple and plush, with tiers of plum, black cherry and dark berry flavors, this fairly glides along the finish, ending with melted black licorice, road tar, and mocha notes, turning to dark berry themes. (94 points)”

We only made 500 cases but did hold a few cases back to be available to you now.  For a wonderfully aged wine that rates among the top Napa Valley wines of the vintage, order here.

Thank you so much for allowing our wines to be part of your family’s table.

Warmly,
The Match Vineyards Family

A nice beni (at least wine-wise) of traveling in France is that almost every restaurant, cafe, and bistro offers nice rosé wines. It’s a category of wine too often given only cursory thought in American eateries. Perfect for a summer day, they’re flexible with food too. The first of these I enjoyed with veal piccata, the next with an omelette and veggies, the third with turkey Normandie (a slice of turkey with fresh mushrooms and cream sauce).

Despite the “musky” name of the grape, there is nothing musky about this wine. Extra tart with lemon-peel, green apple, and plenty of mouth puckering verve to make you want some Brittany seafood. Decent wine and only 12 euro on a wine list.