[Disclosure: Artesa picked up the tab for dinner and, of course, brought the wine]

Artesa has been around since 1991 when it was established as Cordoniu Napa before transforming into its current identity in 1997.  Starting in 2009 and now going into 2010, it is clear Artesa is making some changes once again.  One obvious shift, that Tim Shippey, Brand Director, admits right off the bat this evening is that they recognize the need to approach alternative media channels, including wine bloggers, to help promote their products, which triggered this dinner hosted at Bone’s in Buckhead, near Atlanta.  To legitimize Artesa’s new foray into social media marketing, the marketing and technical sheet for the 2005 Ridgeline Cabernet Sauvignon Alexander Valley includes a list of tasting scores by Vinography, a well-respected wine blog authored by Alder Yarrow.  I was just happy when they visited my city I was included along with some of my favorite local wino’s to join in the festivities.

If you’re not familiar with Artesa, they are located in the cooler climes of Carneros, a great place to be growing Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.  The winery is built into a hillside that reminds me of a short Mayan temple or Indian burial ground.  I understand the desire to blend into the environment, but it takes on a spaceage feel with the straight lines and bunker-style entrance that reminds me of the door to the Empire’s underground fortress on Endor.  The grounds (internal and external) are decorated with fantastic art, which was by original design.

When you hear Mark Beringer’s name, most who have had at least one glass of wine in their life will probably recognize his last name, which denotes U.S. winemaking royalty of Beringer winery, which have been around since the late 1800’s.  Mark is a fifth generation winemaker, but has created a legacy all his own having made some tremendous wines at Duckhorn winery since 1992.  When asked what he brings to the table as the VP of Production and Winemaking at Artesa since early 2009, he deftly applies some baseball analogies stating that his predecessor focused on “going yard” while he likes to play a little small ball.

When asked why he decided to take the position at Artesa, Mark discusses his love of the historic winemaking background of the Raventos family of Spain having been established in 1551 as well as the company’s current state-of-the-art facilities and vineyard assets.  However, there are a few things he’d like to bring to the table all his own and implement his “small ball” strategy.  Mark focuses on developing and grasping multiple components that he can have at his disposal during the blending stage, much like building a spice rack containing fruit, structure and spice.  This way he has something to build with and develop stylistic wines that are fruit-driven, requiring minimal manipulation and contain more representation of terroir.

Another change, which is very obvious in the marketing materials and readily confirmed by Tim and Mark is the focus on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, the jewels of Carneros.  Previously, Artesa stretched itself beyond those core competencies of the region venturing into many varietals in an attempt to be all things to all people.  But, now many of those will be demoted to the new secondary Elements label.  Just last Fall I enjoyed the 2005 Artesa Reserve Tempranillo Alexander Valleyand I wonder what will be the impact of such drastic changes to this winery’s lineup?  Only time will tell and it will be a couple of years before we begin to see some of Mark’s work under the Artesa label.

Here is the rundown of the wines experienced during the dinner:

2008 Chardonnay Carneros – About 10,000 cases produced.  Light straw in color, the nose presented pears and some caramel/vanilla.  The taste carried the vanilla forward with citrus and a medium level of acid.

2007 Chardonnay Reserve- About 2,500 cases produced.  The color was a darker golden hue and produced toast, apple and vanilla notes on the nose.  This wine underwent only 30% MLF so the toast and vanilla was not overwhelming.  On the palate I got vanilla, citrus and with higher level of crisp acid.  More importantly there as a level of texture and mouthfeel perceived due to the increase time in barrel and sur lie aging.  This was a phenomenal Chardonnay.

2007 Pinot Noir Carneros- Light to medium ruby color and pure fruit up front on the nose with a hint of tobacco and cola.  The taste brought on some strawberries and cherries.  This wine was 100% Pinot Noir.

2007 Pinot Noir Estate Reserve- The color was a little darker more toward the garnet spectrum possibly due to some extended cold soak time.  The nose had some big fruit along with some “funk” and hint of cedar and spice.  The taste provided some dark, black cherry and a decent level of texture on the mouthfeel.

2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley- This wine was a little hot at first, but much blew off quite quickly.  Nose and palate brought big fruit of blackberry and cassis with a medium level of mouthfeel.

2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Alexander Valley- This was very fruit-forward and silky smooth on the nose.  I felt this contained more chewy tannins and was more complex than the Napa Valley offering.

To finish the night off, as many wine-filled evenings often do, Tim asked if he should bring a stash of some single vineyard Cabs he had in his car.  I hope we are not giving away any secrets here.  As any good wine lush would do, we sat back down and said “hell yeah!”  This was the result:

Ridgeline is another property owned by Cordoniu that sits upon Oak mountain in the northern part of Alexander Valley.  There is an interesting story behind this property, but I’ll let you research that yourself.  Here’s what we thought about the wine:

2005 Ridgeline Cabernet Sauvignon Lone Pine  – only 100 cases produced (81% Cab, 19% CF) – 1200′ elev – Nose of chocolate and mint and was very smooth on the palate with blackberries and vanilla.  The mouthfeel was long and strong and down to get the friction on…

2005 Ridgeline Cabernet Sauvignon Standing Bear – 100 cases produced, 100% cab – 1700′ elev -  A little darker than the Lone Pine and much more fruit forward and reminded me of candied fruit.  The saying goes that manly-men enjoy this wine, whilst the women-folk flock to the Lone Pine.  Don’t tell the others, but I preferred the more vibrant Lone Pine myself.

So, there you go.  Read it and weep.  A job well done by Artesa in communicating their change in focus and exposing some powerful offerings from Carneros, Napa and Alexander Valley.  Now we wait for Mark Beringer to do his thing at the plate taking whatever the pitcher gives him and building his spice rack.  Can’t wait.

Cheers!

The vines are getting pretty close to going completely dormant this time of year, as many have lost most of their leaves and those that remain are brown and yellow.  Nonetheless, this changing of the seasons doesn’t diminish the beauty of the valley on this crisp weekend in early December as I find myself making a quick weekend jaunt to the land of wine, specifically to attend a class about preparing vines for next year’s bounty.

But, that, my friends, is just where the story begins.  Having just flown from the east coast the night before, I find myself wide awake at 5 am Saturday morning and thinking about some brekky.  Knowing I’ll be walking some vineyards most of the morning, I’ll want to eat something fairly substantial, if not also to help soak up the impending imbibing of gameday beer and, of course, wine that most certainly lies ahead.  With the sun soon just barely rising on the horizon I reach for Twitter to see who might be awake in the area and offer some recommendations of decent restaurants nearby.  Right away I am greeted with two responses naming Gillwood’s Cafe in St. Helena from @TrevR (not even a mile north of my motel) as well as Auberge de Soleil from @pmabray.  Paul, what were you doing up so early?  Having brought mainly casual pruning attire, it didn’t seem Auberge de Soleilwas going to work out, so Gillwood’s it was and it was perfect.  Nice little joint right on mainstreet St. Helena, where the locals were getting their day started.  The service was excellent and the coffee hot and fast.  Finally, I settled into some biscuits, gravy, eggs and hashbrowns that warmed my soul.

After some vineyard walking, pruning and meeting some great people learning about wine, I headed to Paul’s to watch the SEC championship game that really disappointed as my Gators went down to the better team that day.  Paul and his wife were gracious to invite me over to their house on a weekend day realizing I was flying solo in town for the day and for that I am gracious.  Finn was a treasure, with his dad’s social skills, not shy a bit.  Additionally, I got to meet Clay Wallin, also a Vintank partner, not once but twice!  Not to be realized until after he showed up at Paul’s, but he and I shared a chat in the checkout line at Trader Joe’s about Papaya of all things, being both south Florida boys.

The evening ended, or should I say started (?), after an awesome meal at the new Cantinetta Piero Italian restaurant in Yountville, with another set of tweets as some “old” friends made from way back in the summer at the Wine Blogger’s Conference invited me up to Calistoga for a tractor parade and them some late night wine.  Many thanks to Andrew (@winesoiree), Jill (@jilldever) and Marshall (@mcoffy) for hanging out and sharing some great wines and great stories.  There was much rejoicing in “storming the castle!”

It was a great ending to a full and wonderful day in Napa Valley and I owe it to recent and new sociable friends for being open, friendly and helpful.  That’s what it’s all about.

Just got into my room at the quaint and swanky El Bonita motel in St. Helena and it’s bringing back some awesome memories.  My wife and I stayed here in 2003, one of our first trips to the Napa area.  On my way in I passed Mondavi, St. Supery, Peju, Franciscan but too bad it was 10:30 pm and I couldn’t turn in for a few quick swirl, sniff and spit.  That’ll have to wait until tomorrow.  On my way through Napa proper I noticed there must still be some fires in the area since the aromatics of burnt wood filled the air.

I’m in town only for the weekend to hook up with UC-Davis classmates at the Oakville station vineyard to talk about viticulture and vineyard management, specifically regarding pruning.  Then, we’ll actually get to do some pruning ourselves.  Pretty cool if you’re wine geeky like me.  If you don’t prune correctly, you could not only ruin next year’s crop and yield but the year after that as well.  At any rate, if you can get some good flight deals and then hook up at the El Bonita (rates were the best I could find in the area) I think a short Napa jaunt over the weekend is doable… just not every often for sure (unless you’re rich and you have your own jet).

There will be time for biz-ness as well as some play as I’ll be touching base with some wine industry folks as well as watch the SEC Championship game to watch the Gators defend the title.  Though watching it at 1pm in the early afternoon will be very weird indeed for an east coaster.

It’s not springtime but it sure feels like it here in Sonoma.  Clear, blue skies and a slight chill in the mornings probably in the upper 50’s, with the early afternoons warming up nicely but nothinglike the summer sun I’m used to in “Hot”lanta.  We spent much of our 2nd day of the Wine Blogger’s Conference tooling around in a bus up and around the windy roads of Spring Mountain.  Still very beautiful, but if you easily get motion sickness, you’ve been forewarned.

We ended our evening not far up the mountain at the aptly named Spring Mountain Vineyards, who owns about 845 acres of vines around one of the oldest wineries in the region.  Founded in 1885, it boasts a sweet Victorian home that was used as  backdrop for the unfortunately famous Falcon Crest soap opera of the 1980’s.  They only take appointments, but I think it is well worth it.  They recently bought an additional “ghost winery” further up the mountain that also boasts a home and pool they will gladly take you to see, though I did not get a chance to visit it myself.  A ghost winery is an existing pre-prohibition vineyard property and winery that is no longer in use.

Another interesting tidbit is that Spring Mountain Chardonnay came in 4th place at the famous 1976 France Tasting in which Chateau Montalena beat out the French and put California on the wine map.  They have also done a really good job with their Integrated Pest Management practices.  They’ve used dogs to sniff out mealy bug secretions around the vineyards to know where to release other insects to control the bugs.  Additionally, they learned that blue birds love sharpshooters that can damage crops via Pierce’s disease and have subsequently build bird houses around the vineyard attracting the natural predator.  An unfortunate casualty of the thriving nature, though, might be a century-old palm tree slowly being holed to death by a group of woodpeckers.  Can’t win ‘em all.

Their 2001 Elivette – a reserve wine was very powerful, with big fruit and velvety smooth.  I will be up front in telling you this is definitely a higher-end wine retailing $100+.  But, even if you don’t walk away with any bottles, you are going to really enjoy the experience.

The first day of the WBC09 is officially in the books.  As I nurse a slight “big head” this morning we headed to the Culinary Institute of America in Napa through windy roads — Whoa… keep it down.  The conference is really pretty amazing to me.  I’ve been to many a conference and most are pretty boring.  But then again maybe I just wasn’t as passionate about the content of those events compared to this one.  I mean, I get to taste wines from many Sonoma and Napa wineries and then share that information you via this blog, Twitter, Facebook you name it.  What a gig!

Yesterday we performed what I would call a form of speed-dating but with wineries.  In 6 minutes a winery would tell us about their wines as we tasted it, asked questions and hopefully for them, actually write something about it.  Then once the 6 minutes were up, time to move to the next table… Torrid Pace!  Some notables: Tandem Chardonnay, Cupcake Vineyards 2007 red (65% Cabernet Sauvignon), 2005 Snows Lake “Two” – Cab Sauvignon/Can Franc

If you want to see what I had to say about some of them, and other items throughout the rest of this weekend, check my Twitter feed to the right or here.  I’ll also try to hit up Facebookand Brightkite with some information along the way.

Dinner was extra special as I hung out with Peter Spann from Spann Vineyards at our table, who would pour several of his wines, tell us about them while I ate.  Something very special, indeed.  Thanks to @RickBakas for sharing one of his favorite winemakers and good friend.

Will have more to come including some pics assuming the resort wi-fi will actually let me in… definite conference #Fail on this one.