Thursday night St. Supery and Rick Bakas dropped by Chicago to showcase a few of their wines from their Napa Valley winery, and to meet local Chiacgo…tweeps?
The first wine on the agenda was their 2008 Sauvignon Blanc. St Supery is the largest producer of the grape in Napa, and sell to a lot of different California producers. They even have their own clone, the Dollarhide. You know it’s serious.
This was pretty much a straight-up California Sauvignon Blanc, loads of citrus, and tasty.
The second was the 2006 Virtu, and was probably my favorite of the night. Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. with a serious bakery spice on the finish that’s really intriguing. Rick called it a “red wine drinker’s white,” I would agree.
Playing somewhere in the mid-twenties in the chicago market, it’s really a steal for the level of quality and intrigue-factor this wine carries. Not to mention the badass label (Virtu and Elu with their ancient-future motif, in my opinion, are some of the coolest labels I’ve seen.)
They brought two cabs to taste, their 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2005 Dollarhide Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. I’ve been decidedly in a non-cab stint lately, so it was fun to try some great examples. The ’05 Dollahride lives up to it’s 95 point rating from Wine Enthusiast: full of casis (go figure), great mouthfeel, a little bit of a jammy quality to it with a perfectly balanced oak. Probably a little young, but still enjoyable.
Finally we finished up with a 2008 Moscato. Typical floral nose, full of peaches and a crisp sweetness.
Five wines in total, just a small part of the 18 varietal catalogue they boast. Windy City Wine Guy was also there, but we apparently just missed each other. I also met local social media gurus Carrie Becker and Philip Nowak, who make me feel like a loser with my blackberry, but they were incredibly accommodating nonetheless.
