Lofty Ambitions!

The view of the Yountville Hills from the Cornerstone Cellars Library Loft

We have lofty ambitions at Cornerstone Cellars. Not only do we reach for the sky with our wines each vintage, but we want visitors to our Yountville tasting room to be treated to a tasting experience as elevated as our wines. For our club members we always aim even higher. Our lofty ambitions to bring a unique wine tasting experience to our members has now been fully realized! We are excited to introduce you to the new Cornerstone Cellars Library Loft, a private tasting room reserved for our wine club members.

Tucked above the Cornerstone Cellars tasting room, the Library Loft offers lovely views of the Yountville Hills and the town of Yountville itself. On the deck is a bistro table for sun worshipers and inside groups of up to fourteen can enjoy our latest vintages and receive personal attention from our staff of experienced wine educators. 

Knowing that wine without food is a bit lonely, we are pleased to offer you gourmet box lunch selections from our amazing culinary neighbors here in Yountville. Call ahead to order mouthwatering selections from Bouchon Bakery, Napa Style, the Yountville Deli or Ad Hoc's Addendum. As always, our wonderful cheese tasting plates are available to our club members. 

Club members are welcome to bring their guests to share the Cornerstone Cellars Library Loft experience for a formal tasting, box lunches or casual sipping with our selection of cheeses. Our wine educators would be more than happy to present one of our fun and educational wine seminars or create a customized wine experience for our club members and their guests.

To make reservations for the Cornerstone Cellars Library Loft and for current menu information, please contact our wine club director Nadia Olson (nadia@cornerstonecellars.com - direct line 707-490-271), tasting room manager Katrina Kay (katrina@cornerstonecellars.com - direct line 707-260-5671) or call the tasting room at 707-945-0388. 

We look forward to sharing the Library Loft with you. Please let me know you are coming and I'll be sure to stop by and say hello! Craig Camp - craig@cornerstonecellars.com or @CraigCamp on Twitter

 

Franc-ly Speaking

2010 Cornerstone Napa Valley Cabernet Franc, Stepping Stone 

Franc-ly speaking Cabernet Franc is a pain in the butt. Hard to grow and tough to ripen just right. Underripe gives you veggie stew and too ripe gives you concentrate of Welch's. So why are we spending so much time on Cabernet Franc?

The truth of the matter is when you get cabernet franc just right it is nothing short of incredible. It is worth the effort. Its unique blend of herbs and spices blend with the rich fruit flavors to create one of the greatest of all wines for food. The nuances of cabernet franc mirror the flavors in many dishes in a way no other variety can. If you need proof just try our Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Napa Valley Cabernet Franc with lamb roasted with herbs. 

It's tough to grow as while it's a late ripener, just to be difficult, cabernet franc likes cooler sites that allow it to ripen slowly, which allows it to develop its full range of flavors. Too hot and it just pounds out sugar with no complex flavors, too cool and most American's will wrinkle their noses from the pungent weedy flavors and aromatics. Cabernet franc needs a sweet spot and we've found a few that are just right.

Many cooler sites in the Napa Valley are just perfect for cabernet franc. The cooler southern AVA's like Carneros, Oak Knoll and Coombsville are uniquely suited to the variety as well as cooler micro-climates in Oakville and St. Helena. From these sites we craft our Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Napa Valley Cabernet Franc.

In all of our wines we love (and strive for) what we call "lift". That means to us a brightness in aromatics and flavors the seems to rise in complexity as you savor them. We are not referring to the intensity or power increasing as we treasure elegance and balance in our wines, but to an ever expanding range of sensations that draw your palate and nose back for more-and-more. We want our wines to be kaleidoscopes of flavors and aromas.

That's what you have with our 2010 Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Napa Valley Cabernet Franc. The brilliant ruby color pleases the eye, while the lifted aromatics of mint, lavender and rosemary are layered over the bright cassis flavors of this young wine. On the plate the beautiful round tannins smoothly carry the rich flavors into the long mouthwatering finish. This combination of flavors and textures are what make this wine so uniquely appealing and draws you back for the next sip.

 

Rocking It!

2012 Stepping Stone by Cornerstone North Coast White Rocks! and ​2011 Stepping Stone by Cornerstone North Coast Red Rocks! 

2012 Stepping Stone by Cornerstone North Coast White Rocks! and ​2011 Stepping Stone by Cornerstone North Coast Red Rocks! 

Fun. Rocks! is fun, fun to make and fun to drink. Isn't wine supposed to be fun?

Each year we start with a blank slate, but not a blank palate, as in our mind, we know the the bright, zesty, mouth-watering flavors we seek. It's all about the pleasure. Well, it's not just about the pleasure, but also the price. Rocks! is made to be enjoyed - often!

The freedom to blend whatever varieties we find to produce the best wine possible is liberating and fun. To keep this freedom, we do not share the exact percentage of the blends as we want everyone savoring the results vintage to vintage, not the statistics. Rocks! is Rocks!, our expression of a wine priced to enjoy every day, that is delicious enough to make everyday meals just a bit more special. Rocks! will make you think, but not too much as its place in the world is to stimulate conversation, not dominate it.

I'm excited to present you with our new package for Rocks!, which I think convey well its spirit. Bright, lively, as fun as the wine itself and topped with a screw cap to eliminate any obstacle to opening a bottle. This last choice was also made with picnics and patio barbecues in mind as they are a natural home for Rocks!.

My love of interesting blends goes back to the now famous Vintage Tunia by Silvio Jermann in Italy's Fruili, which I was among the first American importers of back in the early 1980's. During the same period I was introduced to the many blended southern French wines by Christopher Cannan. No one debated too much the exact blends of these wines they way people do now. They were just enjoyed for what they were - delicious.

While inspired by European wines, you'll find Rocks! distinctly Californian in personality with generous flavors full of the perfect fruit that we grow in this ideal climate for grapes, yet with that bright tang of acidity for which Cornerstone Cellars is now known. I hope you enjoy Rocks! with some hearty comfort food and fun. After all, that was the idea.

White Rocks! is as always brightly aromatic and spicy, perfect as aperitif with appetizers or with Asian or other spicy or sweet and sour dishes. The Red Rocks! is packed with bright red fruit flavors, a generous texture and is just assertive enough to leave even jaded palates satisfied. 

Rocks! - the blend is our secret, the pleasure is all yours.

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Making Rosé Like You Mean It

In Tavel they make rosé like they mean it. In Bandol they make rosé like they mean it. In America, not so much. At Cornerstone Cellars we mean it too.

Single vineyard Napa Valley syrah, fermented bone-dry and aged in oak for almost six months is a statement. We're serious about rosé. Serious rosé is not cheap and it's worth every dime. Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Corallina Napa Valley Syrah Rosé is such a wine. You can buy cheaper pink wines, but if you want flavor, not just color, it costs both of us just a bit more. 

​2012 Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Corallina Napa Valley Syrah Rosé ​

​2012 Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Corallina Napa Valley Syrah Rosé 

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We confess to being rosé snobs. Corallina Syrah Rosé is a real rosé. That means it's not the leftovers of someone trying to beef up their red wine. In a warm climate like California making rosé by saigneé, or "bleeding" juice out of a red wine fermenter to concentrate that wine, means low-acid, flabby and sweet with those nasty fake watermelon flavors. We're not fans of watermelon candy. 

Corallina Syrah Rosé starts in the vineyard as the first step is selecting a single block of syrah vines destined to become Corallina. Conceived as a rosé from the beginning, every farming choice throughout the year is made with only one goal in mind - rosé worth thinking about. Harvest is timed solely around the complexity of fruit flavors as we don't need to worry about ripening the skin tannins. The beautiful Napa Valley climate provides us with luscious fruit with more than enough color so no other skin contact is necessary than the three hours or so it takes the fruit to be gently pressed. After fermentation Corallina Syrah Rosé rests for five months in mature French oak barrels, where the flavors grow rounder, richer and more complex. 

Corallina Syrah Rosé is lifted, bright and floral, laced with aromatics redolent of fresh wild herb and spices and touches of wild strawberries and white peaches. It is mouthwatering, refreshing and irresistible. Second glasses are unavoidable.

There is so much joy, pleasure and sunshine in Corallina Syrah Rosé that I had to seek out a label that reflected that energy. In "Wine Dance" by artist Janet Ekholm I found just such an image as the brilliant colors and intermingling of subject, landscape and sky into a harmonious whole is the perfect reflection of our vision for Corallina Syrah Rosé.  

I am pleased to present you with our 2012 Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Corallina Napa Valley Syrah Rosé, which tells the story of one year of our lives. It is the full expression of what we seek to share in all of our wines, the essence of vineyard, variety and vintage combining each harvest to create something never to be exactly repeated.

Art and Wine

​2012 Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Corallina Napa Valley Syrah Rosé with label "Wine Dance" by artist Janet Ekholm

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Wine and art seem intertwined, often mentioned in the same breath. Many call winemaking an art, but to me the work is more artisan. Certainly there is art involved in making great wine, yet to anyone who has grown grapes and made wine you know your connection is to the earth. Winemaking is agriculture, you're more a farmer than anything else. 

Yet the connection between artist and winemaker cannot be denied. Perhaps it is because our descriptions of what we taste in wine always fall short of truly conveying the complexity of this beverage. Vague references to aromas of wild strawberries or currents and flavors of green apples, black raspberries or vanilla bean do little to really communicate the amazing array of aromas and flavors that seem to explode out of a great bottle. While we fall short, an artist can convey the complexities of life in their work. Certain works of art just speak to you, as do many bottles of wine.

When I saw the paintings "Color of Life" and "Wine Dance" by Oregon artist Janet Ekholm, I realized they could tell the story and convey the personality of our wines far better than mere words ever could. These paintings conveyed my feelings about the wines far better than any tasting note could ever do. I felt such tie between the images and the wines that I decided to bring them together by creating our first artist labels. “Color of Life” for Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Oregon and, in the Napa Valley, “Wine Dance” for our Stepping Stone by Cornerstone whites and Corallina Syrah Rosé.

“Wine Dance”  perfectly reflected the joy, pleasure and fun of Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Corallina Napa Valley Syrah Rosé and was purposely selected with this wine in mind. The mouthwatering flavors are sure to want to make you dance too. Says Janet on “Wine Dance”,  “Life, joy and energy radiate throughout.  The scene pulsates with the rich colors of a fruitful harvest that has brought about a perfect blending of the soil and sun, and therefore a joyful dance to the wine that will be savored by all.”

​2010 Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Oregon Willamette Valley Pinot Noir with "Color of Life" label by artist Janet Ekholm.

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No wine reflects the ground from which it came more than pinot noir. “Color of Life” blurs the lines between the women and earth into one, just as pinot noir does with a vineyard. In her arms earth’s bounty reflects the incredible range of flavors one can discover in pinot noir. I chose this label for our Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Oregon Willamette Valley Pinot Noir as the brilliant colors and bond between earth and wine truly tell the story of this bright, zesty and richly flavored Pinot Noir. “The goddess of the harvest offers her lush cornucopia of earth’s abundance, evoking the promise of prosperity.  Fully immersed in the landscape, she is one with nature, representing the bounty and richness we are given each day that bring color and joy to our lives,” is how artist Janet Ekholm describes “Color of Life”. I think she also perfectly describes our Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Oregon Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.

Wine and art are perfectly intwined in the beautiful paintings of Janet Ekholm and our Stepping Stone by Cornerstone wines.

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Why Syrah?

Stepping Stone by Cornerstone Napa Valley Syrah 

Your distributor looks the other way and changes the subject. Retailers look upon you with pity. Such is the conventional wisdom in the wine trade when it comes to syrah: it doesn't sell. 

So why are we not only making one syrah, but two? The answer is simple, we love it.

Syrah is one of the world's noble red varieties. It suffers the curse of some other great varieties like riesling, nebbiolo and chenin blanc, none of them come from Bordeaux or Burgundy. These two regions have put their heavy footprint across the world's vineyards and the resulting ocean of wine from cabernet, merlot, pinot noir and chardonnay have engulfed the planet's wine markets and consumer's minds to the exclusion of so many other wonderful varieties.

Not only are we committed to syrah because we love it, we also believe we have found one of the world's best places to grow it, the southern Napa Valley's cooler Oak Knoll and Carneros districts. In my mind, most of the so called pinot noir regions of California are perfect for syrah.

Poor Syrah has also been battered by the market and some self-inflected wounds on top of that. The flood of cheap Aussie Shiraz (the same variety) damaged its reputation among consumers. Then the American wine industry itself scared people away with monster wines pushing or even exceeding 16% alcohol levels. To many Syrah was either plonk or Port.

Those of us who love the elegant Syrah of the northern Rhone Valley know that syrah deserves as much respect as any of the world's finest varieties. The fact of the matter is that the finest wines from this variety come from cooler sites. The image of syrah as a vine for hot climates is just plain wrong. I believe this misconception comes from writers comparing Burgundy to the Rhone. Indeed the Rhone Valley is warmer than Burgundy, but it's not as hot as California.

So we know that syrah can be a hard road to follow, but we could not help our selves. The variety is just too unique and compelling when grown on a cooler site. Our syrah, true to the style of all of our wines, is crisp and lifted with that classic syrah varietal character of butcher shop and dark fruits. On the palate it is substantial, but never heavy. 

It is a simple fact that the best value in California wine is syrah. Why aren't you taking advantage of it?

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The One Per Cent

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It took forty-seven percent to make a difference for Mitt Romney. For us it's the one percent. No, we're not joining Boycott Wall Street. Percentages for us are all about blending and every percent matters.

​Winemaker Jeff Keene and I show what a percent can mean at Premier Napa Valley Auction 2013

​Winemaker Jeff Keene and I show what a percent can mean at Premier Napa Valley Auction 2013

Jeff Keene and I were working on our final blends for our 2011 reds a few weeks ago and it never ceases to amaze the nuance and complexity that can be gained by the smallest changes. It is on the blending table that the soul of the wine comes together. It requires intense concentration and attention to the smallest detail to bring a wine to the perfect point.

There are many ways to blend: different varieties and different vineyards, same variety different vineyards and every permutation you can think of. Yet it's not how you blend, but why you blend that's the most important thing. Different varieties react very differently to blending. Take varieties like pinot noir and nebbiolo and blend them with other varieties you quickly lose their distinctive character. The only real blending choice is to make a single vineyard or multi-vineyard wine. Then there is cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cabernet franc, varieties with assertive character that relish the flourishes added by blending their three spirits.

You don’t start off from scratch, you have a general idea where the wines will take you when you put the first rough blends together. Then you begin to work the permutations. A little more of that; a little less of that and the wine edges closer and closer to what you envision for the wines of this harvest. Finally you’re almost there, but there seems to be something missing. It’s tough to describe or put your finger on, but you know there is more to find, more for the wine to give. It is at this point you discover how important just one percent can be as suddenly the wine comes totally alive from just that small touch of the right variety or vineyard.

This time it was our 2011 Cornerstone Cellars Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon, but it happens with every wine. We were so close with a blend of cabernet sauvignon and merlot, but Jeff and I just felt something was missing. This time the one percent truly made the difference and when we added a tiny dollop of cabernet franc the wine suddenly became brighter, more lifted and, frankly, perfect. It’s our willingness to reach for our vision of perfection that makes the wines of Cornerstone Cellars something truly special. There are many wonderful wines in the world, but sometimes by reaching for just one percent more moves you from wonderful to something memorable. 

Vintage of the Century

It's the vintage of the century!

The pickers take a break as dawn breaks

The hype machine is on for the West Coast. Unfortunately, the noisiest wine press is no longer the one that separates the juice from the skins. Hopefully someday we can get back to the fact that in agriculture there is no perfection, only personality.

Each vintage the weather and soil combine to create a once in a lifetime experience. As with people, the personality you prefer is, well, personal. This, of course, does not apply to the vast majority of wines, which are industrial beverages where the only thing that is important to the consumer and producer is that their wines have no individuality from year to year. Oddly enough, this same rule seems to apply to cult wines.

In the Napa Valley, the weather could not have been kinder to grape growers. Mother Nature’s largess to grape growers and winemakers is not always equal. There’s not an empty fermenter or barrel to be found in the Napa Valley right now due to the bumper crop of grapes bestowed on the Valley this year. More is not necessarily better when it come to winemaking. The growers are already celebrating and headed for some sunny beach. Winemakers still have plenty of work to be done in the cellars with most of the red wine harvest still in fermenters.

It was a vintage Goldilocks would have loved. Not too hot and not too cold, just right. It started with a gentle spring that allowed for textbook flowering and fruit set. Then they just started to come, one after another. Warm sunny day after warm sunny day. Rarely did we hit 100° F for the high and just as rare was the day it did it not hit at least 85° F. The nights were cool dropping down to the low fifties, even nicking the forties. Up and down the temperatures swung wide each day in that dance that makes the Napa Valley such an exceptional place to grow wine grapes. 

September arrived and harvest began. First pinot gris and then we started picking sauvignon blanc, almost on the same date we’ve picked the last two years. Then they started to fall like dominos, coming in just the order you’d expect: first the merlot and then the syrah followed by cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon. The even weather allowed us to pick at a deliberate pace able to wait until the flavors arrived at just the right point. By the middle of October we’d picked almost all of our vineyards. The first real forecast of rain arrived at the same time. On Sunday, October 21st we picked our last fruit. At midnight it started to rain.

By our standards at Cornerstone Cellars we’re very, very happy and optimistic about the wine that is fermenting as I write this article. What makes us happy? Wines with freshness, life, energy and, most of all, personality. We were able to pick truly ripe fruit at moderate sugar levels, which means moderate alcohol levels with crisp acidity that will make the wines sing. I love it.

In most of Europe’s great wine regions a bad vintage means cold and rain, in the Napa Valley it means too hot and dry. For example, take the highly touted 1997 vintage in Napa. The wines are now falling apart, condemned to death by the same high pH and alcohol levels that got them their good reviews in the first place. There’s a sucker born every minute. This will not be a 100 point vintage in the Wine Spectator, thank God, which means we’ll be able to make some real wine.

So the journalists will want to know if this was a great vintage. Of course it was, just like it will be next year and was last year. It’s not a question that anyone who has grown anything would ask. It is the experience of growing the fruit and making it into wine each and every year that makes for greatness. Letting that individuality speak in the wine every year is what makes wine so fascinating. The greatness of wine is in how it speaks to you. Each of us can rate a wine or a vintage 100 points, but we can only do that for ourselves. No one can do it for us.

There is something to love in every vintage. Every vintage is the vintage of the century, even if just for a few minutes. Andy Warhol said everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes. Each vintage should at least get that.

It's a Grind

​Picking merlot in the Oakville Station/To Kalon Vineyard

It's a grind. Another quarter ton bin of grapes is loaded onto the dumper on the sorting line. Another truck arrives and another twenty bins are added to the twenty or so already there. At our top speed it takes an hour to process two tons or eight bins. We rarely hit top speed. Best guess is another five hours to get through these bins. That's on top of the five hours already in. Then when we finish sorting there's another two hours of punch downs and cleaning. 

Its like that every day. It's a grind. Its harvest. The term "romantic" does not enter your mind: at least until it's all over. The only times when the romance of it all fills your spirit are the first day, the last day and the rest of the year. The first day it’s all about the potential, the last day you are a bit awestruck by what you have accomplished. In between it's a blur as you grind through each day. It is very simply the next bin, the next fermenter and the next day.

In the picturesque harvest in the wine magazines it's all about bountiful lunches with happy workers eating hardy meals and quaffing wine from carafes. In a real world working winery its cold cuts, colds, cold wet clothes and hot, sweaty rubber boots. Most of all you are sticky. Head to toe splashed with super-sweet grape juice, which makes you a yellow jacket's dream lunch. 

Then there is all that gleaming stainless steel equipment that looks so efficient and high tech. The reality is more like a Rube Goldberg invention as the whole process is a patchwork of things that don't play well with others. Something always seems to break at just the wrong moment, which makes winemakers the champions of jerry-rigging as equipment is forced to behave with beatings and duct tape. For a winemaker knowing how to convince everything to work in the winery is just as important as knowing when to pick. Let's just say that OSHA would not approve of many of these solutions. 

The day comes to an end with the best beer (or two) you ever tasted in your life quickly followed by an all to short, but very sound sleep. Then you wake up and do it again, and again, and again until one day the last bin arrives.

Then, as the last bunch of grapes from the last bin drops into the last fermenter the romance hits you again. Instantly harvest is once again the best and most exciting thing that happens to you every year. It is the concentrated essence of everything you believe in and the fuel that fires your flame for the next vintage. It reminds you how lucky you are to be working as hard as you can to accomplish something you love.

We finished the last bin at about 5 p.m. last night. Winemaker Jeff Keene and I shook very sticky and very tired hands. Harvest 2012 was done. 

What a grind. I can't wait until next year.

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One, Just One, Green Grape

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It was just one green grape. It was one green grape too many. It's always something. 

It has been a picture perfect vintage. A lovely spring, with warm, dry weather for flowering and fruit-set. A “three bears” sort of summer: not too cold, not too hot, just right. So why was it there? As you passed through the vineyards you could not miss it standing out like a sore green thumb in the middle of a bunch of gloriously deep purple cabernet sauvignon, there would be one, just one, green berry.

No big deal, right? How could just one unripe grape on some bunches make any difference when all the others were perfectly ripe? One green grape is a very big deal if you want to make wines that are special.

Also there was another issue. Everything else this vintage has been perfect. The gorgeous weather has produced fruit capable of making wines from this vintage something very special indeed. When Mother Nature gives you such a gift you must take advantage of it. There is a sense of duty, responsibility, to take this gift and do everything in your power to make not only great wines, but memorable ones. 

What could we do? For us there was no choice. Out into the vineyards went our crews with one mission: to remove one-by-one those individual green grapes. Armed with scissors they went down the rows with the precision of a Bonsai gardener. Was this expensive? Certainly, but this is the price you pay to go beyond good, or very good, on to greatness in a wine. For us there was no choice.

We’re getting pickier and pickier every year as finicky is a virtue when it comes to winemaking. Not satisfied with just dropping any less than perfect fruit in the vineyard, we are going beyond just sorting out any bunches that don’t meet out standards and this vintage will be sorting individual berries on a special sorting table specially designed for nit-pickers like us. Note this is not a job we farm out, Jeff and I do all the sorting ourselves. 

I'll spare nothing, not only in this glorious vintage, but in each-and-every vintage to make wines that I love to drink and, most of all, that I am proud to share with you.

A perfect bunch of cabernet framed by the light of this morning's dawn​