by Jerry on November 25, 2008
I am a wine salesman. I travel the countryside of life chatting with folks about Michel-Schlumberger Cabernet. I dine at the finest restaurants. It is a wonderful life. Sometimes, in the middle of a weary day, I look forward to home cooking – my own. To execute this escape from the wine wars, I book myself into an aging motel room with a kitchenette at the edge of some hinterland village. Before checking in, I shop for simple ingredients at a local store and buy a newspaper – a real one. On-line news can be two dimensional after too many road days. I enjoy re-reading a newsy paragraph after shaking a real page a few times. My dad used to read his paper the same way. Habits, I think, can be genetically transferable. Bet you can’t shake the page you are reading now.
Somewhere around 6 P M. on a recent Tuesday, high in the Colorado highlands, my dinner became toast. Inattention at any altitude can lead to remorse. Smoke poured out of the oven door. Fire alarms bleeted overhead. There was, indeed, a fire in the hole. It’s out now. So am I. After a nasty clean up of hearth and pot, hungry Jer headed to the diner at the edge of town before looking for another room. I ordered wine. We don’t serve wine, the cook told me. I ask, “why not?” No one ever orders it. Hmmm. I went outside and pulled a sample of Cabernet from the car trunk. A wine salesman can have a lonely night or two far from home, but rarely has a day without a glass of wine.
Back at the counter, I sat the bottle down with authority, scanned the dining room, and appreciated the silence. No one was in the place except me and the “chef”. I ask if I could enjoy a glass with him while I waited for my mushroom burger. “Gotta keep it in a paper cup,” he suggested. Good. That’s good. I was gleeful and asked, “Is it illegal to have wine in here?” It wasn’t. Not if I was selling it and offering it to the proprietor. I asked for another paper cup, poured us both wine, waited for my burger, and knew that I was in the perfect place at that moment in my life. Wine and Jer can have higher life moments, but I doubt it.
Jerry Craven
by Jayme on September 26, 2008
Ok, we all know that steak and Cabernet Sauvignon is a classic pairing. Maybe not the most adventurous or daring, but classic and for good reason. I spend a great deal of time traveling around the country tasting people on Michel-Schlumberger. This past week I had the pleasure of visiting Miami pre-tourist season. The weather was perfect and the locals are all calm, preparing for the tourist storm.
I already know what you are going to say,”why would you go to Miami to get a steak with all that fresh local seafood?” I hear you, and normally I would agree with you, but trust me when I say go to Prime One Twelve for a steak. Prime 112 is a sleek modern steak house on Ocean Drive in South Beach. This restaurant is always full, always delicious and always a scene.
Sommelier, Matthew Heinz, has supported Michel-Schlumberger for years and has just put the 2006 Chardonnay “La Brume” and 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon “Deux Terres” on the menu. As a matter on fact, Prime 112 is one of the first restaurants on the east coast to offer the 2004 Deux Terres.
Oh yes, the pairing, steak and Cab good, but dry aged prime, perfectly grilled and lightly seasoned with the finest sea salt, paired with our finest Cabernet, 2004 Deux Terres, is mmm, mmm, good. Simple ingredients done well with complex flavors that blend together perfectly and make the other even better.
Book your table in advance, make sure you say hi to Matt and enjoy the start of your night out in South Beach. Btw, your were right, the seafood at Prime 112 is out of this world.
by Jay on September 17, 2008
Mike and I were talking one day about vintage variation-you know-those often subtle differences between growing seasons and how it affects the wine. This is one area that it’s really difficult to make generalizations about. This is a good year. This is a bad year. What is a “bad year” anyway? Is the wine “bad”? Who decides these things? More often then not, it’s the press. Besides questioning the very methodology of determining good and bad vintages, Mike and I are more fascinated by the subtleties and it was my ascertion that even in “bad” years the wine is still pretty darn good. It’s just different. And aren’t those differences what makes wine interesting and fun. I think so.
One of the tastings we do here illustrates this point precisely. The reserve vertical tasting is the best of the best. We line up three of our reserve cabernets from the same block, made in nearly the same way with the same blend and we let our guests decide what’s what. The vintages are well aged from 1998, 1999, and 2000. I believe our wines really start to show their stuff at about 8 years so these wines are in their prime. This special tasting is available here daily and we’re always happy as your hosts to crack them open!
As Mike and I were chatting we came up with a good way of describing vintage variation. It’s like a thumbprint. Our vineyard is as unique as the grooves on your thumb. It is particular to this place and has definable qualities of soil, slope, spacing, and plant material. All of these things are the physical characteristics of what we call “Bloque Loco.” It’s one of the best spots for Cabernet on the lower ranch. Now the non-physical aspect of this block is how it responds to the growing season. That’s how hard you press down on the thumbprint. When the vintage is easy and all things go smoothly, the imprint of the vintage is light. When we need to respond to certain challenges during the growing season, like frost or shatter or an increase in mildew, the imprint of the vintage is heavier.
I think that is more illustrative way of defining the differences a vintage can have in a vineyard. Instead of writing off or presuming that “in this certain year” a wine is no good, this idea of a thumbprint engenders a willingness to taste, to experience a wine for what it is. One of the coolest things in tasting wine is spotting those differences and appreciating that particular moment in time.
Jay Kell
by Mike on September 15, 2008
Now that the fog has rolled into Dry Creek Valley, the grapes are finally getting the hang time that they will surely benefit from. With these cool, wet (we call it frizzle…fog+ drizzle= frizzle) days and nights, the ripening process has slowed considerably and flavors, acids and tannins all seem to be coming together perfectly.
We picked some clone six cabernet sauvignon off the Bradford Mountain Ranch on Saturday and it came in with beautiful flavors and aromas (not to mention color). The sugar was right where you’d like to see it and the skins were thinner and more delicate than the block adjacent to it.
Ah, the physiology of vines, the subtleties of clonal selections and the effects of mother nature. Cabernet seems to benefit from a little moisture on the skins. It wasn’t until this marine layer rolled in that we began to see a change in the skins of most of the bordeaux varietals (we grow cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, malbec, petit verdot and carmenere). Up until a week ago, the skins were tough (a response to the extreme heat?) and the seeds were still attached to the pulp. Now that we have some cool nights, the grapes are moving towards the latter stages of ripening which includes the maturation of tannins in the skins. It’s a delicate walk here. You want to have nice ripe tannins, but you certainly don’t want pHat, flabby tannins either. One way to achieve this is to taste in the vineyard everyday to get a good idea of the status of each block. So far the season has been kind and with this cool weather slated for the next few days, it looks like we’ll continue to reap the benefits of mother nature’s air conditioning. I like the fog.
Mike Brunson Harvest Update
by Judd on September 9, 2008
Harvest is a great time to visit Michel-Schlumberger. And to encourage our online friends to venture out off the beaten track in Dry Creek Valley, we have a special promotion. From now until the end of October, our Vertical Tasting or Green Tour is free to anyone who mentions they heard about it online. Just call 800.447.3060 to make an appointment and tell us where you heard about it… here on the blog, on Facebook, Twitter, Pownce or Friendfeed.
The Vertical Tasting showcases our reserve Cabernet Sauvignon from vintages 1998, 1999 and 2000. One of the wonderful things about having Estate wines is that all the fruit comes only from our estate. As a result, you really get to taste true vintage differences. What was happening in 1998 (cold, rainy), 1999 (long, long, long, cool season), & 2000 (vibrant, complex vintage) and how did that environment impact the wines? Taste the absolute art of the winemaker, the essence of our terroir, and the subtleties of vintage in this tasting of the best wines our Estate can produce. This is a guided tasting that allows you to compare and contrast these wines side-by-side in our tasting salon. We usually charge $25 per person for this tasting but it’s free to our online friends for the rest of this season.
Our Green Tour was featured in Sunset magazine this year and is given at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Enjoy this extraordinary in-depth tour of our eco-friendly Estate learning about our organic garden, abundant wildlife, Wine Creek restoration, sustainable winegrowing and more. Stroll to the top of our benchland vineyards to take in the breathtaking vista of Dry Creek Valley, our serene lake and the blocks of our different varietals. The tour ends at a hillside table, with a panoramic view, and enjoy a guided tasting of our award winning Estate wines including our new Deux Terres Cabernet. While you’re sipping this reserve wine you can behold the very block of the vineyard that produced the grapes for this extraordinary blend. This tour is a $30 value, again free to our online friends.
We’re hoping to see several of our online friends here as we continue harvest. Just give us a call at 800.447.3060 to make your reservation and mention you heard about it here. One free tour or tasting per visit, please. Come see what everyone is talking about!
by Jay on July 28, 2008
One of the greatest parts of working in the Michel-Schlumberger Tasting Salon is meeting people from all over the country and the world. In the Tasting Salon on Saturday, we had a family from Sicily, whose kids played and danced outside while the adults tasted wine. It was fun watching the little guys play tag around the courtyard fountain. They didn’t seem to mind that there weren’t any televisions or computers around.
One of our wine educators, Joyce, met a man from the same town she grew up in. That wouldn’t be such a big deal but Joyce is from the tiny gold-mining town of Red Lake, Ontario population 4500. Red Lake is only 2400 miles away.
Sharing this spot on earth is what we’re all about here at Michel Schlumberger. We get such a kick taking people on our vineyard tours and showing them exactly where our wines originate. That sense of place, of being able to say “hey, this wine came from this particular parcel” is one of the many things that we want people to take with them. When those folks from Red Lake taste the cabernet sauvignon they bought, they’ll remember Saturday, that Joyce was a great host and how beautiful it truly is here.
