Attending a vertical wine tasting, at least a good one, always reminds me of this class. A tasting of the same wine from multiple vintages, a vertical gives you the chance to focus on subtlety, meaning and nuance the way a “hey, let’s compare 40 Italian whites” tasting never can. When the wine in question comes from a single vineyard, and is made from a single variety, the experience is that much more enlightening. And, of course, when you really enjoy the wine, well, that’s what makes it fun.

Which is all to say I had a lot of fun last week at a vertical tasting of Corison Kronos Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon at the Brooklyn Wine Exchange. Kronos Vineyard is one of the oldest vineyards planted to Cabernet Sauvignon in the Napa Valley, and producer Cathy Corison has been making wine in Napa for nearly 4 decades. I’ve had her “regular” Cabernet Sauvignon before, made from grapes sourced from vineyards around Rutherford and St. Helena. But this was my first shot at tasting wines from Kronos Vineyard, which she owns.

We ran through six vintages, with the refreshingly low-key Corison giving us the chance to taste and make observations on our own before sharing her insights. She says she’s looking to make wines that are “powerful and elegant,” an intention that comes through loud and clear. Not surprisingly, the younger vintages (2004 and 2006) show off their power more readily, with prominent (but not overwhelming) tannins that indicate these wines are ready to go the distance. They would be lovely to drink now, but if the 2000 and 2002 are any indication, why not wait? The 2000 was my favorite of the night, with mellow fruit aromas (think plum and blackberry), spice and herbal notes, and excellent structure. “Balance” is a word bandied around quite a bit in wine circles, and it’s a concept frequently discussed but rarely encountered. Corison’s wines, the 2000 in particular, exemplify the word: there’s no oak jutting out obtrusively, or alcohol or tannins to overwhelm the palate. Everything works together as one cohesive whole.

Corison loves her wines with lamb. If I were a)drinking more and b)able to spend $138 on something non-baby related, I would definitely pick up a bottle of the 2000 from Brooklyn Wine Exchange to accompany a nice leg of lamb for Easter dinner. Alas I am neither a) nor b) these days, so I leave it to you all to snag one of their few remaining bottles in stock.

Well, as with so much in life, it all depends on one’s mother. Is she warm, fuzzy, and ebullient? A fan of chintz, cabbage roses and Joy perfume? Then I’d go for a Moscato d’Asti. These wines are easy to love. They hail from the Piedmont, in northwest Italy, and are  lightly fizzy and sweet, with aromas of honeysuckle, apricots, and peaches. They’re also low in alcohol, just north of 5%, making them an ideal drink for a Mother’s Day brunch. They go beautifully with fruit, cookies, or cheese. They’re also terrific values, usually coming in under $20. For more on one particular bottle I like, as well as some comic footage of our dog, check out this video on Moscato d’Asti on Food52, where I’m a contributor.

If your mom is on the earthier, intense side — the kind of woman who runs marathons, rescues abandoned dogs, and can still rock a strapless evening gown — then I’d recommend the 2000 Corison Cabernet Sauvignon. (I paid $40 for this wine at the Brooklyn Wine Exchange a few months ago, which looks to have been a major steal. You can purchase directly from the Corison Web site, or else check some of these retailers for the 2000 Corison Cabernet Sauvignon.)

Winemaker Cathy Corison (bonus Mother’s Day points for choosing a female winemaker) is a bit of a magician, creating a wine that’s somehow elegant and powerful at the same time. Napa Cabernets aren’t known for their subtlety, so her less-is-more approach truly stands out. There are no hard edges here. The oak and tannins are fully integrated into the wine, and there’s a sophisticated combination of plum, spice, earth and cassis in the glass. Like many of my favorite Cabernet-based wines, the Corison reminds me of Grether’s Blackcurrant Pastilles, which my mom always had in her purse when I was a kid. Corison also makes a single-vineyard Cabernet from Kronos Vineyard, which is supposed to be exceptional. The 2005 vintage of the Kronos comes in at $98, which means I’ll need to save up a little before this splurge. (Mom would want me to be responsible, after all.)

Happy Mother’s Day, all!

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting one of these very good people, Chris Phelps, the winemaker at Swanson Vineyards in the Napa Valley. (Oakville, to be precise.) Despite some pretty fancy names on his resumé — Chris studied at the University of Bordeaux, worked the remarkable 1982 vintage in St-Emilion, trained at Château Pétrus, and served as the winemaker at Dominus and Caymus — he is as unassuming and low-key as they come. Over dinner in Tribeca, Chris and I had the chance to talk about his work, French Tupperware parties, and what happens when you microwave wine. (Full disclosure: Chris provided the wines mentioned below for free. He is also good friends with my brother-in-law, the very talented designer Daniel Hale. Finally, he is the the mastermind behind the insanely good tri-tip I had at the Boy Scout picnic when I was out in St. Helena last October, which predisposed me to like the guy before I had even laid eyes on him.)

A few things to know about Chris, in no particular order:

1. He has terrific timing. After finishing his winemaking studies at UC Davis, he worked the 1982 harvest in Bordeaux, which is kind of like beginning your professional baseball career with the 1998 New York Yankees. The exceptionally warm vintage led to exceptionally rich wines, which set a new standard for Bordeaux. Lucky, lucky guy.

2. He’s a Cabernet and Merlot man. From his time in Bordeaux at Château Pétrus, source of arguably the world’s finest Merlot-based wine, and his work in Napa, he knows his way around these two varieties. He also knows how to make them work together nicely. Alexis, the seductive, iron-fist-in-a-velvet glove Cabernet Sauvignon-based wine that Swanson is best known for, benefits from the addition of a little Merlot. “It’s like sandpaper, smoothing out the edges of the Cabernet Sauvignon,” says Chris. “It really enables the blend to work.”

3. He’s not afraid to take an unpopular position. He knows that Merlot gets a bad rap–and rises to its defense. At tastings, when participants turn up their noses at Swanson’s well-made Merlot in favor of Alexis, Chris jokes that he has to “give himself a time out” so that he won’t get too agitated. It can be tough sometimes to make Merlot in this post-Sideways world.

4. He loves a good party. While Chris was working in Bordeaux, the elderly woman who lived next door invited him over for dinner one night. Chris showed up — and so did every woman in the village. Turns out she had invited him to a French Tupperware party. The evening’s highlight was her vin de noix, an apéritif based on walnuts. The drink stuck with him so much, he now makes his own for fun (not for sale, sadly).

5. He’s microwaved wine. One of his buddies in Bordeaux swore by this trick: nuke a bottle of wine for a few seconds to artificially “age” the wine. Chris isn’t a believer, but I love that he gave it a try.

Q. How would you compare your 2008 Riesling to your other Rieslings?

A. That’s like asking me which kid I like the best! It’s hard for me to say at  this early age, it really takes three to four years before we get a real sense of the vintage. Our Rieslings will age 15 to 20 years – that’s assuming a good vintage and good storage of course. They improve and pay back your patience.

Q. How would you define the style of your Rieslings in general?

A. Well, I like to say that nobody makes a better Smith-Madrone Riesling than we do! I think of our wines as a 60-40 split between Alsatian and German.  I think the Germans finish a little too sweet, and the Alsatians finish a little too dry and specific. We like a softer finish – that’s kind of the way I’ve backed into our style. Our Riesling is fermented and aged in stainless steel, never in wood. There’s no malolactic fermentation, no aging sur lees, which means you’re getting the pure essence of the grape itself.

Q. How have you seen consumers’ attitude toward Riesling change over the years?

A. Frankly, I think my entire adult life I’ve felt like Sisyphus pushing that rock up the hill [trying to get people interested in Riesling.]What changed was young people! They’ve come to Riesling with fresh eyes and without prejudice. In the past there were so many nasty Rieslings made in America, it has taken a long time to get rid of the generation who only knew those wines. Now the younger generation has come along and they’re not prejudiced at all about Riesling.

Q. What other Rieslings do you like – and what do you like to pair with Riesling?

A. Trefethen makes a nice one. Eroica, that’s a pretty doggone good one, too. There are a couple of good wines that come out of the Finger Lakes. I think Riesling goes well with almost everything, although I do draw the line at beef. I have too many reds to drink with cow. Any fish, especially real saltwater fish and true stream fish. Asian fusion food and Indian food too.

Q. What are some of the biggest winemaking challenges you face at Smith-Madrone and on Spring Mountain in general?

A. Farming on the mountain, that’s just hard. We have 38 acres. Down on the valley floor, you could harvest that in a day. Up in the mountains, that takes 2-3 days, then another day or two fixing the equipment because of the rocks. [The rocks and rocky soil are tough on farm equipment.] When you’re in the mountains, you are your own suppliers of everything that people take for granted, like water. We have our own pumps and pipes. It’s a great deal of work.

Q. What do you think makes Spring Mountain wines so special?

It’s really hard to say what makes the difference. [Here we break so that he can lovingly chastise his Springer spaniel Curly for stealing something from his daughter’s room.] Upland soil is very different from soil on the valley floor. It’s less fertile, it’s better drained, and it’s rockier. The weather is different, it’s cooler. The berries are smaller, there are fewer grapes, there’s a greater leaf to cluster ratio, and the vines do struggle just to grow.

Q. I really loved the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon. How would you define the style of your Cabernet Sauvignon? It seems like you have a more restrained style than a lot of other California Cabernet Sauvignons.

I like the 2004. It’s unfined, unfiltered and done with American oak.  I believe there are four hallmarks of wine quality. The first obligation of wine is to give pleasure. After that, wine should have varietal character. [Meaning it should represent the typical qualities of the variety or varieties it’s made from.] Third, a wine should have balance. The fourth one, which is so hard to get hold of, that’s what Charlie [brother and winemaking partner Charlie Smith] and I call “sense of place.” There should be something that’s interesting and different about the wine. That’s what we call a sense of place. It’s also our goal get the vintage into the glass. Whatever that vintage is imparting, we want that in the glass.

There are two styles of California Cabernet Sauvignon I don’t like: first is the low acid style. They’re impossible to drink. I simply can’t drink them. The second is what I call the high maturity, Parker wine. Those wines can be very seductive. But once you hone in on the singularity of the wine, you realize there’s no complexity, there’s just a prune or raisin flavor. Once you home in on that, that’s all you can taste.

I think there’s more bad wine being made today that ever before in California. There’s a lack of education for some of these winemakers who are self-taught. They don’t understand the basics of winemaking, the importance of clarity and consistency.

But I do think what goes on here on Spring Mountain is a wonderful thing. Many, if not most, of us are small and family-operated. People are very passionate about what they do. It takes a certain kind of person who would want to go into the mountains and put up with the heartache and the hard work that we do. But there’s nothing that’s quite as much fun.

Anyway, enough excuses. Last Monday I had the chance to attend an intriguing wine/cheese tasting courtesy of Artisanal, New York’s temple of all things cheese, and V. Sattui Winery, a family-owned producer based in the Napa Valley. (I know, poor me, right? Seriously, I have no right to complain. Ever.) I feel the same way about cheese that other folks feel about, say, chocolate or bacon, so  this promised a lovely way to while away a few hours.

In many ways, it was. The wines from V. Sattui were well-made and enjoyable. The Vittorio’s Vineyard 2008 Sauvignon Blanc was intensely aromatic, reminding me of grilled pineapple drizzled with lime. (I know, awfully specific — but that’s a fan favorite of ours in the summer, and the taste is a familiar one to me.) Sadly, they’re getting rid of Sauvignon Blanc in this vineyard to plant the more economically rewarding Zinfandel. The 2007 Napa Syrah was good enough, but the high alcohol seemed a tad out of balance. I liked the 2006 Preston Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, but it lacked the intrigue and intensity that I associate with the finest examples of this variety. I loved the idea of the Moscato, a lightly fizzy and sweet sparkling wine, but because the wine was poured long before we sat down to the tasting, it had already lost its delicate fizz.

The 7 cheeses were wonderful — not surprisingly — but there were just too damn many of them. My favorites were a creamy, tangy Robiola from northern Italy, and a salty/sweet aged Gouda resplendent with little crystallized nuggets of cheesy goodness. But after a certain point, everything started to run together. The point of the evening was to try every possible combination and permutation of cheese and wine and rate them from a scale of -2 (the worst combo imaginable) to +2 (a match made in heaven). There’s value in understanding how wine and cheese work together, and seeing how they can bring out the best and worst in each other, but the sheer number of cheeses on offer made it almost impossible to draw any valuable conclusions. Just look at the picture I posted of my illegible score sheet. Blame the fact that I’m overwhelmed right now (see the first paragraph of this post), but sometimes too much is just too much. The experience would have been much more enjoyable had we focused on only a handful of cheeses.

Sometimes I wonder if I should take this same approach to wine. What would happen if I spent six months drinking only Alsatian Riesling and Oregon Pinot Noir? I don’t think I’d be bored. On the contrary, I think it would be incredibly rewarding to focus on these regions and varieties and learn all of their nuances. (It would also do some serious damage to my checking account.) Too often we let our appetite for novelty take over. We’re living in the golden age of wine — never has so much good wine, from so many regions, been accessible to so many of us — but we do pay a price for that choice. We risk being dilettantes, flitting from an Argentine Malbec one night to a Washington State Merlot the next, enjoying them well enough but never really understanding them.

For those of you who already know a little about wine and feel confident in your choices, I’d encourage you to try settling on a variety or a region and try to learn a little more about it. Buy a case of those targeted wines and work your way through them, attend a focused tasting  (if you’re in New York and want to home in on Spanish wine, the Cervantes Institute has some excellent classes) — or drop me a line and ask me for some guidance.

It was really a delight to taste these wines. Smith-Madrone is up on Spring Mountain, in Napa. As I’ve mentioned before, this is one of the most beautiful places you’ll find in the region. It’s a little corner of iconoclastic winemaking and old-school California ruggedness that’s a great contrast to the faux-rustic, Tuscan lite feel that permeates some of Napa’s more touristy areas on the valley floor. The altitude makes for a big temperature drop in the evenings, and this night-time coolness helps ensure that the grapes ripen more slowly, giving them time to develop more complex flavors. The lower temperatures also mean that these wines have good levels of acidity, which gives the wines a freshness that’s sometime lacking from Napa wines.

See below for my tasting notes. My next installment will be  a Q&A with Stu Smith. Chatting with winemakers is really one of my favorite things in the world and is a terrific learning experience. If you ever have the chance to do so — when visiting a small winery, attending a tasting or winemaker dinner — take full advantage, and don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions, even if you think they’re dumb.

All the prices below, aside from the Riesling, are retail direct from the winery.

2008 Riesling (they’re sold out at the winery, but an online search turns up pricing in the $25-$27 range)

The wine has medium intensity aromas of white flowers, honeysuckle, candied grapefruit rind, and a slight perfumed talcum powder scent. There’s some zippy acidity, and just a hint of sweetness. The floral and soft mineral characteristics really come out on the palate, and there’s a hint of guava, too. The wine has a lovely, long finish with a slightly (and pleasantly) bitter/metallic note.  I’d hang on to this guy for a few years to see how it develops. A friend to spicy pork loin, lighter Asian-inflected dishes…or lovely on its own.

2007 Chardonnay ($30)

Medium intensity aromas of preserved lemons, pineapple, lemon curd, Golden Delicious apple. Definitely some oak. (The wine spent 11 months in oak.) richness and freshness at the same time. Again with the citrus and the tropical notes on the palate, a tad too much oak for me, and the alcohol (14.3%) seems a bit high. Long finish. A well-made, luscious wine, just not my bag. [Note: I revisited this guy a few days later with some leftover roasted chicken, and enjoyed it more.]

2004 Cabernet Sauvignon ($45)

Love the deep, ruby color and the intense aromas of black currants, cedar, blackberries and fresh bay leaves. The palate has some cool leather, almost meaty flavors, and the tannins are really well-integrated into the wine. Lots of intensity and concentration of flavor + great balance, something you don’t find everyday. Somehow rugged and approachable at the same time — a very California combination. Given the quality of this wine, and overall crazy pricing you find in Napa, can’t believe it’s only $45. Pan sear a beautiful piece of steak or lamb and dream of summer grilling.

They invited us to St. Helena for the annual harvest festival. This being Napa, I was expecting a little wine country glam: Ralph Lauren-bedecked tourists, locals walking their designer dogs around a faux-Italian plaza, tastings of $40 olive oils, and an extravagant wine auction. Instead, it was pure small-town awesomeness. Dan and friends served up smoked tri-tip sandwiches at the Boy Scout booth, while the Girl Scouts countered with Sno-Kones. Entertainment was provided by a local college theater troupe performing the finale of Mamma Mia!, and everyone was relentlessly friendly.

After downing a few sublime tri-tip sandwiches, my brother Matt and I headed out of town up Spring Mountain Road for some tasting. Spring Mountain is home to some of my favorite Napa reds. Because of the altitude, it gets much cooler here at night than it does on the valley floor. That day/night temperature variation means that the grapes mature more slowly, giving them time to develop more complex flavors. The coolness also helps preserve the acidity, which is a nice counterpoint to the richness of the fruit flavors.

The altitude also makes it a pretty spectacular drive. This wasn’t my first time up here – last July, Paul and I visited Pride, one of the flagship producers in the area, but this time was even more beautiful. The weather was cooler, some of the leaves were turning reddish gold, and the pungent smell of fermenting grapes was everywhere.

After an unsuccessful attempt to visit Behrens & Hitchcock (disregarding my own advice, I neglected to call ahead and they were booked up), we pulled into Sherwin Family Vineyards. The name sounded vaguely familiar to me, but that was all I knew. A friendly greeting from the vineyard dog, Levi, and the spectacular view was enough to convince me. Even if the wine sucked, we could still while away a very pleasant hour on the terrace, which, with its luxe, oversized patio furniture and towering fireplace had a slight “Real Housewives of Orange County Do Wine Country” feel.

The wines most definitely did not suck. We started out with the whimsically named (and, at $55, non-whimsically priced) Cellar Scraps, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot from their 16-acre estate, as well as some Syrah from Dry Creek Valley, in Sonoma. The nose of blackberry, vanilla, coconut, and chocolate was incredibly seductive, and the wine was a rich, mouth-filling crowd-pleaser. The acidity that’s so characteristic of Spring Mountain fruit kept it from veering off into excess.

Next up was the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon. Made from 80% Cabernet Sauvignon with the remaining 20% divided between Cabernet Franc and Merlot, it was a bit more suave than the Scraps, but still cut from a similar cloth – think Clive Owen vs. Gerald Butler. It was utterly delicious, with notes of bitter chocolate and earth along with some great black fruit flavors. Again, the acidity pulled it back from the brink of total hedonism.

Only the Syrah disappointed – the alcohol was too high and seemed out of whack. When a wine’s alcohol is too high, it does a few unpleasant things. First, it creates a distinct “hot” sensation in the back of your throat, which distracts from the actual wine. Second, the alcohol cuts off the finish and you don’t get that lovely, shadowy taste of the wine that lingers after you swallow it.

The Cellar Scraps and the Cabernet Sauvignon, though, were hard to resist, and I didn’t – even at $90, I decided I needed to bring the Cabernet Sauvignon home with me. Comparatively, the Scraps seemed like a bargain, and I picked up a bottle of that, too.

I was kicking myself a little bit as we wound our way back down the mountain. $145 is more than I would usually spend on two bottles of wine. Like, a lot more. It also occurred to me that I had broken most, if not all, of my vineyard-visiting advice: we hadn’t called ahead to make an appointment, we were visiting late in the day, I hadn’t done any homework, and I was most definitely not spitting. (Matt, who doesn’t drink very much, was doing the driving. It’s nice to have older brothers.) I was too vulnerable to the easy charms of Spring Mountain and I paid the price. Still, when you look at this scenery – can you blame me?