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One of my favorite places in all of Napa Valley to enjoy a glass
of sparkling wine is the sun-soaked, stone patio of Domaine
Carneros.
There is something peaceful about the patio that overlooks rolling
vineyards, which look more like they’re sculpted than
farmed; the loudest sound on the patio is the buzz of a bee,
or the occasional clink of sparkling wine flutes.
Naturally, the sparkling wines that you sip on the patio help
set the mood, too.
Although founded by the Taittinger family of Champagne, France,
and known for three cuvees of sparkling white wine, Domaine
Carneros has been making small quantities of Pinot Noir for
ten years now.
But that’s about to change. As of last week, the winery
set out on a mission to double Pinot Noir production –
to 20,000 cases annually. With the opening of a 23,500-square-foot
facility to crush, ferment and age ONLY Pinot Noir, Domaine
Carneros becomes the first winery in the Carneros appellation
to have a facility dedicated exclusively to the pretty and harmonious
Pinot Noir grape.
Until now, what I have loved to do – and what I send many
guests to do – is sit on the patio after a “hard
morning” of touring the di Rosa Preserve across the Highway
(thousands of contemporary images by Bay-area artists). By then,
your palate is dry, your throat parched. What you need is….
a glass of sparkling wine at Domaine Carneros and either a small
cheese platter to help revive the soul, or, if really in need
of succor, a few ounces of Beluga or Osetra caviar. Always does
the soul good, caviar. And the service and product at Domaine
Carneros are first-rate.
But now, with the opening of an entire facility behind the main
chateau to make Pinot Noir (which is, if you had forgotten,
one of the three basic grapes used in the making of Champagne
– the other two being Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier), the
choice of what to drink on the patio gets problematic: is it
going to be one of three sparkling cuvees or one of three gracile
Pinots? Tough choice.
Eileen Crane, the energetic president and winemaker of Domaine
Carneros took a small group on a behind-the-scenes tour of the
new Pinot Noir facility last week. And while it is quite a contemporary
beast on the inside, from the outside, they have been very careful
to keep the architecture in keeping with that of the main chateau
(which was inspired by the historic Louis XV-style Chateau de
la Marquetterie in Champagne, owned by the Taittinger family).
From a winemaker’s point of view, the new facility is
kick-ass. They have had constructed 33 stainless-steel, water-cooled,
fermenting tanks that are as wide as they are deep to insure
better exposure to the cap. (When grape skins and seeds rise
to the top during fermentation, they form a crust, or cap, that
has to continuously be punched down to get color and tannins
out of the floating mass.)
Domaine Carneros engineers also built pneumatic punch-down machines
to punch down the 33 fermenters four times a day during fermentation.
They added skylights and special vents to respectively light
the facility by day and cool it by night; they installed an
$850,000 solar-powered, photovoltaic roof grid to capture sunlight
and turn it into different but equally costly type of juice
– electricity. In fact, the new solar-assisted system
will reduce the cost of electricity by 90 percent.
This solar-powered electrical system, the biggest installed
at any winery in all of America, will pay for itself in four
years. After that, the winery will save, at today’s rates,
$50,000 a year in energy costs. Let’s hope they remember
to pass some of these savings on to wine drinkers who buy their
delicious wines…
In total, Domaine Carneros has 200 acres under cultivation of
which, three blocks, particularly tempered by the Bay fog, which
drifts into the Carneros region, are planted with Pinot Noir.
Eileen led a brief, but very well designed, tasting to show
the importance of clone, and barrel source. She concluded by
pouring a barrel sample of what is likely to be the final blend
for the 2002 Domaine Carneros Pinot Noir, which will be bottled
next month, then bottle-aged for more than a year and released
in November, 2004.
It was a surprisingly beautiful glass of wine, almost ready
to enjoy tonight with a peppery, grilled fish. I thought the
wine was “gorgeous and ethereal,’ as noted on the
tasting mat I kept.
The $34 Domaine Carneros Pinot Noir is the winery’s middle-level
Pinot Noir. It is flanked at the premium end by Famous Gate
($45), and at the more affordable end by Avante-Garde, which
is $18.
Domaine
Carneros is located at 1240 Duhig Road, just off Highway
12, about six miles southwest of the town of Napa. The winery
is open daily 10 to 6 pm for tours, tasting and sales. Tel:
707-257-0101, or check out the website, www.domainecarneros.com.
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