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It’s the beginning of the wine social season if you will — Premiere Napa Valley.  This past weekend trade and media descended on the valley to taste special barrel lots created by Napa Valley winemakers that are auctioned off on Saturday afternoon. It’s a chance to meet the winemakers and owners, and to network within the industry. There are winery open houses, dinners, wine and more wine.

This is when you get a good feel for the vintage.  Here, the 2008 reds made their debut.  There were many issues with that growing season, including frost and fires.  Yields were low.  Winemakers who’ve been holding their collective breath can breathe a sigh of relief.  Almost everyone I talked to is very pleased with the wines.  To me, they are restrained but complex, with long finishes.

PNV is also about buying wine.  All the auction lots are exclusive to the Premiere Napa Valley “brand.”  Retail and restaurant buyers and distributors bid on the lots during the charity auction.  By the end of Saturday’s bidding, all 200 lots sold for a total of roughly $2 million, 29% better than last year’s tally.  The highest bid was $37,000 for the Shafer Vineyards lot.  Is this a sign the economy is turning around and wine sales will recover lost ground?  Let’s hope so – I’ll raise a glass to that!

Instead of a “best of” or “top 10 list” I decided to highlight the wineries and wines that should be on your radar.  The 2008 reds won’t be released until 2011 at the earliest.

Anomaly Vineyards – these folks changed their wine the Thursday before PNV, a brave move.  Went from blend w/ 60% Cab to 100% cab.  Kudos for following your instincts.

Arietta – a beautiful 100% Semillon with floral aromatics

Ashe Family Vineyards – a new winery with debut releases.  Also had a 100% Sauvignon Blanc, nice and refreshing.  Phillipe Melka is the winemaker.

Blackbird Vineyards – incredible Merlot based wines.  more to come in another post

Black Coyote Chateau – a first time showing at PNV.  Rich layers of flavor – a beautiful wine from Atlas Peak.  Well done!

Chimney Rock Winery – a fabulous wine from the fabulous winemaking team of Elizabeth Vianna and Doug Fletcher.

Dyer Vineyard – really loved this wine, a 100% Cabernet Franc.  Very very aromatic.  From Bill and Dawnine Dyer (look for one of Dawnine’s other wine projects, Meteor Vineyard)

Emblem Wines - Rob Mondavi, Jr. and Michael Mondavi are behind this label.  The lush Cab is all Rutherford fruit.

Gemstone Vineyard – I’m a big fan of Paul and Suzie Frank’s Gemstone wine.  Elegant and complex.

Hourglass – love the violets in the nose

Juslyn Vineyards – Carolyn and Perry Butler’s second PNV is smooth and elegant.  This is also the team behind the Footcandy shoe boutiques.

Tierra Roja – All of Linda Neal’s vineyard management experience is now captured in her own label.  A lovely wine.

Tuck Beckstoffer Wines – my first time tasting Tuck’s wines.  Track down Mockingbird.  More on these wines in a future post.

Venge Vineyards – rich and velvety.  Kirk Venge’s family is rooted in Napa Valley.

VinRoc Wine Caves – this winery is located in the up-and-coming Atlas Peak appellation of Napa.  It’s a wine worth seeking out and discovering, especially if you like rose´

Bottlenotes, an online wine community, puts on the coolest wine tasting events.  Don’t miss the next one, in SF on 2.27.10   Bottlenotes offers $10 off the ticket price for “Around the World in 80 Sips” for my blog readers (loyal fans that you are!).  Last year’s event was lots of fun — and there were interesting wines from South Africa to New Zealand, plus lots of gourmet goodies to try. The event takes place amid the wine barrels at Crushpad, a micro custom crush facility, from 6pm-9pm.

To get your discounted ticket, visit Bottlenotes and enter the coupon code SHOPEAT at checkout.  I look forward to seeing you there!

If you do attend, please add any tasting notes, etc to the comments section of the blog.  Would love to know what you think about the wines!

On Thursday, Feb 11, I took part in the #CaliCabs Community Tasting Tweetup event that was created by St. Supery winery‘s resident social media guru, Rick Bakas. The event started at 5 pm PST, with Cabs from Paso Robles south to San Diego tasted from 5-5:30pm. Then Cabs from Monterey to Lodi were up. Finally, at 6-7 pm, northern Calif Cabs.
My contributions…Eden Canyon “Jolie” from Paso Robles, and cabs from Livermore Valley, a Retzlaff Vineyards and BoaVentura de Caires.
The tweets came fast and furious. At times hard to keep up with the volume. According to Rick, 172 of us on Twitter took part, generating about 2,000 tweets to 1,000,000 followers.
Many of the folks were at St. Supery winery, or at Judd’s Hill winery in Napa.
I have to say that even though I was in my living room in San Jose, I felt like I was part of the community. I even got some more followers on Twitter. (Follow me at twitter.com/winefashionista.)

The next community wine tasting will be #SauvBlanc on March 4 at 5pm PST. Hope to see you tweeting there!

There are no vineyards.  Instead, wine barrels on the edge of the coast signal that you’re at a winery.  Welcome to Pacific Star, on the northern California coast in Mendocino County wine country.

Pacific Star is north of the town of Mendocino and Ft. Bragg.  While the remote location is remote, Sally Ottoson’s wines are accessible and highly drinkable.  Choose from a number of varietals, including a few Italian grapes, such as Barbera and Charbono and Carignane.  I highly recommend Barbera with a spicy tomato ciopinno stew.

She also makes a lovely Viognier/Rousanne blend.  Recently the winery learned that a fault line runs directly under the tasting room and winery, which has been named the Pacific Star fault.  Sally made the It’s My Fault blend — Syrah, Charbono and Carignane — in honor of that fact.

This is the definition of a destination winery.  Plan a visit here with a picnic in mind, and enjoy the view with a glass of Sally’s wine.