The Cellar Doon Doing the winery walkabout with Randall Grahm is always 1) a pleasure and 2) highly educational. But some occasions are richer than others. For example, a generous and focused Le Cigare Volant vertical tasting—1993 through 2009—provided much in the way of understanding how Grahm’s flagship creation has evolved over the years. In the company of his top sales staff, the tasting began in the cellar, where infant vintages from 2010 and grapes from 2011 slumbered. Taste, spit. Taste, spit. We checked in on the wall of glass amphorae, a.k.a. carboys, in which various varietals were aging in unoaked slow motion. Then we hit the appetizer array at the Cellar Door’s exhibition kitchen—a feast including tiny stilton-and-fig and pepper-and-burrata pizzas, hot from the fire—before sitting down to some serious tasting of Grahm’s glamorous blend of grenache and syrah.
“These wines are alive,” Grahm observed, comparing a trio of silky, vibrant vintages—2001, 2003 and 2005—to the complete agreement of the entire table. These vintages were poured from magnums, Grahm’s personal favorite oeno-container, prized for slowing down the aging process and allowing for maximum complexity. Most of the wines tasted were predominantly grenache and syrah, with smaller percentages of mourvedre and cinsault: odes to black cherries, cassis, tamarind and salt. The muscular 2007 exuded persistence, while the 2009—unusual in its almost equal portions of the four varietals—Grahm described as part of “a very tricky vintage in which nothing ripened.” The resulting wine was “all about the cinsault,” he added. In a departure from tasting protocol (we are talking about Randall Grahm), the final two wines tasted were white—the bold, tannic 2009 Le Cigare Blanc from Beeswax Vineyard (“a gravel pit”) and the 2009 Le Cigare Blanc Reserve, also a single vineyard beauty. The hardest part of the entire experience was spitting.
Kudos to Local Cuisinartist Reilly Meehan He just won Best Young Chef in the World in an international competition in Istanbul, Turkey! Prizes included a week at the Cordon Bleu in Paris. Sponsored by the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, an international society of chefs and restaurateurs, the competition showcases chefs aged 27 and under. Meehan, aged 20, was the youngest competitor. But it all makes sense, actually, since he’s been winning cooking competitions since he took his first Santa Cruz County Fair ribbon at age 10. It was his apple and peach pies that captured the judges’ attention. Meehan’s dad is restaurateur Charles Meehan, co-owner of Seabright Brewery.
Send tips about food, wine and new dining discoveries to Christina Waters at [email protected]. Read her blog at http://christinawaters.com.
