Super Rich Kids

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File this under the Not-Something-You-Get-To-Taste-Everyday File…

Lauren from Vintner Select hit me up with an appointment with three wines I couldn’t even believe I was being offered the chance to try.  Eisele Vineyard – which had been renamed Araujo Vineyards from 1990 to 2013 – was made Eisele Vineyard again by the new owners, the Pinault family (which owns Chateau Latour in Bordeaux, Chateau Grillet in the Rhone and Domaine d’Eugenie in Burgundy).  It is not often you get to sample three bottles of wine at about $1000 combined on a Wednesday afternoon, but like the old Kurtis Blow song, “These are the breaks.”

Altagracia Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2014.  Ok, I’ve had this one once or twice before.  And it’s once again mighty delicious.  Big, opulent red, full of dense, rich chocolate-covered blackberries, espresso bean, leather, pencil shavings, crushed violets, baked earth, dark baking spices and vanillin oak – it’s just a gusher of flavor that won’t quit.

Eisele Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2014.  You know, I tell customers all the time that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a great wine, but this wine makes me want to apologize for such an oversimplification.  The investment (which is pretty steep to be sure – a mortgage payment for me) pays massive dividends experientially.  I would venture to say that if I was given one last day on earth and I could have anything I wanted, I’d forego the cliché hedonism of a single night with a movie star or some decadent meal cooked by Daniel Boulud – I would opt for simply sitting on the deck of a mountain house somewhere in the Rockies, listening to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue album over and over, and slowly savoring a bottle of this wine.  Rivulets of bold black fruits, sweet caresses of velveteen, mocha-flavored Ambrosia, French press coffee and sultry notes of Baked Alaska made to perfection, it doesn’t get much better than this.  To quote Jim Carrey as the Riddler, “is that over the top? I can never tell!”

Eisele Vineyard Syrah Napa Valley 2013.  I am a big Syrah fan.  I love Northern Rhone, Australian Shiraz, Washington State Syrah – I like it all for vastly different reasons.  This little animal is savory, chewy, decadent and rousing in its grand ol’ sense of style.  There is a meaty quality to be sure, like a slow-cooked Bolognese, yet made with the freshest ingredients, and coupled with a fresh-baked strawberry-rhubarb pie, served fireside on a Appalachian hilltop campsite in the middle of October.  Smoked meats and dark fruits abound.  This one really got its hooks in me, like watching a Jim Jarmusch film or listening to Vic Chestnutt.