Wine, wine and wine

Anderson Valley is a well known wine region in California and is particularly associated with Pinot Noir.

Every year they have the Pinot Noir festival and we were lucky to be there at the time (who knew!).

But the night before dinner was even better to talk about and remember. Trevor (my brother Joe) introduced us to Roger Scommegna who invited us to join us for dinner. Roger has his own vineyard and wine offer — Signal Ridge high on the Mondecino Ridge — (as well as the hotel in Boonville and a restaurant -- amongst other things). So obviously we were happy to accept the invite to join him and his wife Pam for dinner.

What could go wrong? Nothing at all. What a great dinner it was. And full of wine luminaries from Wine Enthusiast magazine (including the magazine's "Tasting Director" Anna-Christina Cabrales and the for Northern California taster Tonya Pitts.)

Accomopanying them was Audra Naumann the owner with her husband of New Found Wines.

So Roger needed to impress!

Here's the list of wines (in no particular order) he presented for tasting:

• AGRAPART & Fils (Champagne)
• Meursault Luchets (Domaine Roulot)
• 2017 Pour Lulu (appelation Bandol)
• Mascarello (Barolo)
• Morey-Saint-Denis (appelaton Bourgogne)
• Marchalle Chardonnay (Manchester Ridge Vineyard)
• Occidental (2021 Occidential Station Vineyard)

While the wines were wonderful, the food from Offspring was just as good. Roger ordered a range of starters, pizza's to share and the best clam pasta I've ever had (a small portion).

The pizza flour comes from Italy (because USA wheat is basically contaminated by glyphosate).

The next day we bought tickets for the Anderson Valley Pinot Noir festival. With more than 50 wineries showing off their Pinot it was just as well that they just gave you a taster (less than a sip) of their wine.

I'm not a wine guy: like to drink but don't know much. But still, this was an excellent range of wines.

The one aspect of the day I found interesting is the decoupling of the vineyard from the winery. And also the non-contiguous nature of the owned vineyards themselves. For example, Domain Anderson would have two pinot noir offerings from two different vineyards (one high and one low) each with a different terroir profile but made by the same winemaker.

This decoupling of the vineyard from the winery is interesting in that a small startup winery can get a leg-up by buying grapes from a well-known vineyard (who sells to many different wineries). The vineyard would be featured prominently in their label.

In South Africa blended brand offerings would buy grapes from many different vineyards. For single varietals the vineyard is the brand.

I did manage to make a fool of myself (a dinner with wine would not be the same if I didn't say something stupid).

One of bottles Roger had bought to dinner was corked. This was picked up, and I asked "how do you tell?". Anna-Christina said "it smells like wet cardboard". I replied,

In South Africa we have a much lower standard. It needs to smell like smelly socks before we reject it. Anything less, we drink!

Way to go! (not).