Michel Schlumberger

Remember when you were a kid at the table on Thanksgiving Day and you just let the cranberry sauce platter keep passing you by (that gelatinous stuff that sliced like beet colored congealed gravy and wiggled)?
Things have changed-now YOU’RE the adult who cooks Thanksgiving Dinner or at least contributes to it. You can make any kind of turkey sauce you want! Wait for it: It doesn’t even have to be cranberry. It’s true.
Fruit and Meat. They are 2 wonderful food items that really do great things for each other. I didn’t know this as a kid-but as a wine drinking adult who loves to concoct new and better twists on old classics in order to pair them with well….. more wines..I’ve seen the light! For instance, I soak my favorite Turkish Chicken in dried fruit and water overnight, I make apple compote for my pork loin, and I even use marmalade or jam on certain duck dishes. As mentioned in preceding blogs-fruity meat items are often incredibly good with pinot. If they are heavier meats-they can also be amazing with the right Syrah (and yes-ours is the right kind of Syrah).

Maggie-one of our blog followers, mentioned in an earlier post a delicious sounding tangerine cranberry sauce with port. I’m sold-but the question is: which one do I make this year? Will everyone like it?

What are your favorite twists on the old classics? Are your efforts to improve mediocre (and just plain bad sometimes lets be honest) holiday foods unanimously applauded or simply subjected to the suspicious and squinchy eyed inspection by the old school family members who ask ‘why you can’t just be normal for godsake and go open up a can of the real stuff already……? ‘

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

I talk quite a bit about our vineyards each day, educating our customers about how we farm these benchlands on western edge of Dry Creek. One of the most interesting things going on here is block specific farming.  We have roughly 80 acres under vine and we’d be crazy if we tried to manage those acres in the same way.  So we split them up into small subsections, called blocks. A block can be just a quarter of an acre as is the case with some of our Pinot Noir, or it can be as large as 2 acres. We have 65 different ones in all and growing 15 varietals, each block has its own unique requirements.  

One thing is for sure: Benchlands have some of the most diverse soil types, sun exposures, and elevation differences of any vineyard type.  Our job is maximize the benefits of each block while minimizing any deficiancies.  The best way to get a feel for what we do is to walk the hillsides. We offer a Green Tour where we go for an extended hike through the vineyard and actually taste out at a picnic bench high above the rolling hills west of the winery.  It can be a little strenuous and you’ll certainly be glad when we get to the top and taste the 2006 La Brume Chardonnay. 

Benchland farming is about farming diverse parcels. As our vineyard ages, we are now starting to find special block and produce “block designate” wines that showcase some of that diversity and uniqueness.  As with our Deux Terres and Coteaux Sauvages, we are showcasing Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Viognier.  It’s exciting to see some of these varietals break out of the blend!

Jay Kell

Turning down Wine Creek Road this morning, I remembered an interesting conversation I had with a customer a few days back. The gentleman and his wife wanted to know if I recommended decanting the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, if I thought it would ”improve” the wine. 

The subject of decanting can quickly go down the slippery slope of wine snobism so I gave him the same adivce I always do.  Trust your own palate.  If you like to decant young wines in general, then yes, our wines taste incredible when allowed to see a bit of oxygen. See, the point of decanting a young wine, especially a cabernet or other full bodied red, is to expose the wine to O2 which helps soften both the fruit and the tannins in the wine. Growing on hillsides, we tend to have a lot of both. 

However, most folks don’t even own a decanter, which is commonly associated with drinking older wines. In this case, you are decanting primarily to remove any sediment which has naturally developed in the wine. Here’s the snob factor.  Your precious wine has been brought up from the cellar and allowed to stand neck up for three days.  You have the decanter. You have your trusty candle or flash light under the neck of the bottle. You find the “position of repose (the line of sediment formed on the bottle’s side). You tilt the wine 45 degrees away from the position of repose so wine isn’t flowing across the sediment and as you’re pouring the wine into the decanter, you are watching for the smallest amount of sediment to enter then decanter and then you know it’s time to stop pouring.  You are now 25% ready for your MS exam.  

Whenever you pour a wine into a decanter, it changes.  Young or Old, it has now entered the first step (exposure to oxygen) of turning to vinegar.  Will is evolve as it sits in the decanter? Yes.  Will it be better? Maybe yes, maybe no.  Can you use a water pitcher as a decanter or must you only use the finest Riedel one money can buy?  Although I’m sure the folks at Riedel would disagree (and truth be told I have both), I don’t think it matters and I like the sheer whimsy of serving young wine in anything from a beaker to a flower vase.  

What do you think?  Do you decant our younger wines? Do you think they improve with a little air?  And what about our older vintages? How long can say our 1993 Reserve Cabernet (15yr) or our 1998 Reserve Cabernet (10yr) last in the decanter before they head south?  I’m going to the kitchen right now to set it up out and I recommend you make tonight a decanter night, whatever its shape. Experiment. Go to your cellar and pull an older Michel Schlumberger Cabernet just for fun. Take some time and decant it. Get to know the wine over the course of an evening or even a day.

Jay Kell

Mike Brunson wants you to try a bottle of Merlot and so do I.   To help you enjoy this taste challenge, I offer up this delicious beef stew recipe.   A perfect pairing for a rainy November evening.  Let me know what you think about the Merlot, the stew and the pairing.   I loved it a little to much, but that is a story for another day.

Thank you winemaker Mike for the wine and wife Bethany for the stew recipe.  Enjoy.

Beef Stew with Michel-Schlumberger Merlot.

Ingredients

1/4 cup olive oil
2 lbs stew beef, cut into 1-inch pieces

6 large garlic cloves, minced

6 cups beef stock or beef broth

2 cups Michel-Schlumberger Merlot

3 tbsp tomato paste

1 1/2 tbsp sugar

5 sprigs thyme

1 1/2 Worcestershire sauce

4 bay leaves

1/4 stick butter

3 lbs russet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1 large onion, chopped

2 cups 1/2 pieces peepled carrots

salt and pepper

2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

2 tbsp Maggi sauce (Worcestershire if you can’t find)

Method

1. Marinate beef in 2 tbsp of Maggi sauce, 1 tbsp salt.  Combine ingredients into a zip lock bag and set aside while you prep.

2. Heat olive oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat.  Add beef and saute until golden brown on all sides, about 5 minutes.  Add garlic and saute 1 minute.  Add tomato paste, sugar, thyme, Worcestershire and bay leaves.  Stir to combine,  cook about 3-4 minutes.  Add beef stock and wine, bring mixture to boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low, then cover and simmer 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

3. While the meat and stock is simmering, melt butter in another large pot over medium heat.  Add potatoes, onion and carrots,  Saute vegetables until golden, about 20 minutes.  Set aside until beef stew in step 2 has simmered for 1 hour.

4. Add vegetable to beef stew.  Simmer uncovered until vegetables and beef are very tender, about 40 minutes. Discard bay leaves.  Tilt pan and spoon off some fat.  Transfer to serving bowl, sprinkle with parsley, salt and pepper to taste.

5. Serve with a glass of Michel-Schlumberger Merlot, fresh bread or biscuits.  Go ahead and open another bottle of Merlot right about now.  Enjoy.

And we’d appreciate more Merlot recipes if you’d like to share!  Post yours below.

The word terroir may seem a bit pretentious to some. This may be because of it’s perceived affected “Frenchy” pronunciation or because initially the only people who talked about terroir were in the wine industry or were wine snobs showing off their substantial knowledge of all things wine related.

However, there is something to say about the terroir of each different appellation and even further, of each individual vineyard. In the past years, many different appellations have been classified in California due their unique terroir, which proves that their soil, weather, conditions, etc are different enough from their neighbors to warrant their very own growing region. While this makes it harder and harder for the general public to figure out a wine bottle-it also speaks for some of the different qualities we find in wines from these areas.

As far as I’m concerned-I don’t NEED to know about the terroir of a vineyard where the grapes were grown for the wines I drink most nights at home. But I do WANT to know.  And if I were attending a wine tasting for a certain region or country, I might want to delve a little deeper and get to know exactly what differences in ‘nature’ (think nature vs. nurture) were present for these wines before they became, well….. wines. How much does the nature vs the nurture (winemaking procedures, oaking, ageing, etc) differentiate these wines when they are the final product?

I can taste the difference in a wine that has been French Oaked vs. American oaked. I can taste the difference in high alcohol/low alcohol and sugar content. But-can I taste the difference in how the grapes were grown?
At Michel-Schlumberger we think: Yes. Terroir definitely plays a major role in our wines quality and it’s taste once in the bottle. In fact, we have quite our own little unique terroir on the estate. There are so many variations in our 100 acre vineyard sites. Some places are a little cooler or warmer, some are a higher elevation or different soil or mineral content in the soil…….. How do we choose where to grow what, and what effects are we looking for in the wine when we make these choices?

We’ll have more information on this in the next blogs…in the meantime, what are your thoughts?  Is the concept of terroir relevant or unimportant?

Chef Ralph Tingle is a good, earnest guy who could put several reams of typing paper to use whipping out a few chapters of his bio about his well-lived life-to-date: stints at Taillevent in Paris, Le Cirque in New york, Le Fetzer in Hopland, to name a few. Fortunately for Ralph, typewriters are in upstairs attics waiting to be hauled to local museums. Besides, he doesn’t have time to write – just yet - because he is too busy keeping his eye on the bistro ball he put in motion back in ’92 when he opened Bistro Ralph on the Healdsburg Plaza - and this is fortunate for us.  

When Ralph found this ideal place to hang his chef’s shingle and attempt just the right balance of hard work, innovation, relaxation, and celebrity required for a small town restaurant, we were ready to embrace his effort. We are still embracing. We all eat at Ralph’s. We all hope he is there when we go in for lunch or dinner. We all hope he gives us some time. We like Ralph because he is incredibly human, remarkably peripatetic – difficult in our little town, passionate about his kids, politics, and his food – which is also some of our favorite food: lamb burgers, chicken livers, frites, good sole or barely cooked yellow fin, and a proper chicken paillard. Plus, he still starts us off with those little seasoned bread balls that we eat like popcorn while we’re waiting for our glass of wine.  

I mention the bread balls because I have spent time at Ralph’s occasionally calculating the number of these things I have eaten in sixteen years – about 3,786 to date. I mention the wine because currently we can enjoy a glass or two of the 2005 Michel-Schlumberger Maison Rouge – the perfect Bistro wine to have when we dine at Ralph’s Bistro.          

At least in my mind it is.  Yeah, it’s been cold and rainy for the past four days (it is November, after all) but I can’t help thinking about the sunny days ahead.      It’s not that I’ve got a problem with Fall (I LOVE the rainy season) – it’s simply because I can’t help but get fired up about how the Michel-Schlumberger Estate is going to be looking greener and brighter than ever come the return of the growing season.

With this cheesy introduction out of the way I am extremely pleased to announce the completion of PHASE 1 of the new garden plantings.  Last week, friend and garden designer extrordinaire Kate Frey set out the first batch of new plants.  In two days I was able to lay out the irrigation and plant every one of the roughly 300 pollinator-friendly perennials – numerous Salvia, sunflowers, various natives and more.

The front fence of the estate is now densely planted with perennial flowers and vines, which should make for a serious wall of color next year.  Also, we tore out the ugly (and prickly) juniper shrubs along the East wall of the Cellar and planted all sorts of beautiful (and soft) flowers.  We left a bit of room for a small bench, as well, so folks will have yet another special little spot to sit in the shade and commune with Nature while sipping wine.  Finally, we planted two new circular beds in our honeybee garden.  When the bees emerge from the hives to forage after a long, cold, wet winter they are going to find a virtual buffet of nectar and pollen awaiting them.  And, a bit more selfishly, it’s probably not going to hurt next year’s honey crop.

This is just the beginning of some seriously crazy plans we have for the greening of Michel-Schlumberger.  Stay tuned for still more Phases and news and musings.  And maybe a few more rants, too.