Grape Wine Journey

As Christmas is around the corner, there are many wine tastings in town in celebration of the holiday. 

I went to a Christmas tastings at the American Club this week.  There were around 50 wines on display.  The one wine that caught my attention was not because of its value or style, but the memory it brought….

My first experience with Californian wine went back more than 15 years ago.  I was on a business trip to New York City.  There was a customer’s dinner at the Four Seasons Restaurant in the Seagram’s Building on Park Avenue.  My colleague from the New York office ordered a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from Sterling. All I remembered was that it tasted very good.  At that time; I could only describe wine in two words – like it or not.  And I remembered Sterling since then.

White Stucco Hallway

Last summer, my husband and I were on vacation in Napa Valley.  We visited a number of vineyards, including Sterling.  We booked a guided tour at the vineyard; it happened that we were the only people that made the reservation, so it became a private tour.

Sterling’s facility was situated on a hill about 300 ft from the ground.  There was an aerial tram that took visitors to the facility and where the tour began.  The architect of the building is Mediterranean-style whites stucco based on buildings from the Greek Island of Mykonos where the founder Peter Newton once lived.     

The tour guide let us took all the time we needed to walk through the facility. Explained in details the vinification process and suggested we should come back in fall.  That was harvest time and we could feel the action in motion.  We could even taste the grapes. 

VIP Tasting Room

For most of the vineyard tours, you only get to taste the wine at the end of the tour.  But at Sterling, they had wines for tasting at every station throughout the tour.  At the end of the tour, there was a tasting area that you could purchase more wines for enjoyment.

At the end of our tour, he took us to the VIP Room for tasting.  The décor was country style with wood panels and antique cabinets and clocks.  We tasted three of the Reserve red wines.  Then came the fun part – blind tasting, there was a black opaque glass on the table with wine in it already.  We could not tell if the wine was white or red, and it was at room temperature. 

I could not taste any tannin from the wine, so my guess was that it should be a white wine.  The wine was light bodied, crisp with floral and peach flavor.  It was a variety I was not familiar with.   

The wine was Viognier; a white varietal, when served chilled should be a good summer wine to enjoy at the porch with BBQ.  It is now a fashionable wine, if you come across one, should try it.

The wine at American Club was Sterling Vintner’s Collection Cabernet Sauvignon.  It is the lower end of the Sterling collection.  I would describe the wine as the classic, text book Cabernet.  It showed blackcurrant on the nose and palate.  It was fruity in style.  For $138 per bottle, it is a good party wine for the holiday!