I’ve missed the past few weeks and am a bit behind on my quest for 52 but this weekend I made quite the effort to catch up with my alumni group’s board retreat. I was asked to plan the inaugural event for the board of the soon to be San Francisco Bay Area William & Mary Alumni chapter. I was amazed to find five alums in Napa alone in the wine industry and was lucky to connect with four of them for our day out on Saturday!

First stop was Ma(i)sonry in Yountville. Fellow alum Daniel Orrison is the Director and Brian Ball is the Wine Director. Ma(i)sonry is an amazing space as it is a gallery in a beautifully restored stone house and a tasting room for their own label Blackbird Vineyards as well as limited production boutique wines. The owner also has a vineyard in Argentina and we started our tasting with a 2012 Recuerdo Torrentes. I’ve become a bit of a fan of rosés these days and really enjoyed the 2013 Blackbird Vineyards Arriviste a blend of cab sav, merlot and cab franc. Perfect way to start a spring morning at our 10:30am tasting! We also tried the 2013 Blackbird Arise (merlot, cab franc and cab sav) and were then treated to an amazing late harvest sauvignon blanc when Roger Harrison stopped by and poured us a taste of his 2011 vintage.

Ma(i)sonry Tasting

After making sure everyone was able to pick up a few of their favorite bottles we grabbed our Bouchon box lunches and started off to our next stop visiting Katharine DeSante in the well know Tierra Roja vineyard in Oakville. Katharine and her husband David DeSante left Virginia for the Napa Valley in 1994 and began DeSante Wines in 2001. We enjoyed lunch on the patio with a lovely 2011 Old Vine Sauvignon blanc. We then grabbed a few bottles of their cabernet sauvignon and walked through the vineyard where the grapes in these bottles were from! We tasted their 201 Oakville Terraces Cab (only 2 barrels produced) and their 2011 Oakville Cab Sav. David regaled us with stories about how he dropped out of med school to pursue his dream of becoming a winemaker, of vineyard management and a few history lessons of the Napa valley. I learned that the Silverado trail was constructed in the mid-1800s as the main road (now route 29) was prone to frequent flooding and the cross roads (like Oakville Cross Road) were put in as “pit stops” for the horses delivering the mail who needed water stops.

Tierra Roja

Our last stop was with the incredibly entertaining Kent Fortner of Road 31. We met him at White Rock Vineyard Napa caves. The property belongs to the Vandendriessche family and Kent keeps his barrels in the caves there. So many interesting stories! Did you know that a single French oak barrel costs $1500 and lasts about 3 years. He also uses Hungarian oak from Tokaji. While he gets his pinot noir grapes from three vineyards in Napa (down near the airport) he creates a blend each season of the three. He produces about 800 cases a year and sells them to his loyal following called “Truckers.” His trademark green truck was his grandfather’s. We were lucky that he saved a few bottles of his already sold out 2012 vintage for us to taste and buy!

Kent Fortner

Oak from Hungary

Favorites from the day – Blackbird Arriviste rosé, the Harrison Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc and Road 31’s Pinot Noir. I’m definitely becoming a “trucker.”

Week 17 — 13 wineries. Got some making up to do!

Cheers!