By The Glass
RICHARD FIELD
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On Sunday, wine lovers in Hawaii will have a chance at three extraordinary wine experiences. Well, maybe four, because these three are in addition to the Grand Tasting at "Hawaii Uncorked: A Celebration of Wines." Nearly 200 premium wines
will be available for tastingThe Grand Tasting will feature nearly 200 wines, but if you can tear yourself away for an hour, try one of the breakout tastings. These cost extra, but they represent wine experiences hard to find anywhere. In Hawaii, they may well be once-in-a-lifetime tastings.
Attendance is limited to 50 per seminar, so call for reservations, 955-8821.
Ehren Jordan is a genius, the winemaker extraordinaire of Turley Wine Cellars. Jordan also makes wine for Neyers Vineyards and with his wife, Anne-Marie Failla, for their new small Sonoma Coast winery, Failla-Jordan.
Unlike a lot of wine superstars, Jordan is a little reclusive. The picture of him on the Turley Wine Cellars Web site has his face half-covered. But the wine world seeks him out anyway. Turley wines are cult classics -- hard-to-get, expensive, unusual. At Turley -- which belongs to the brother of famous winemaker Helen Turley -- Jordan makes ultraconcentrated zinfandels from a half-dozen single vineyards.
And if zinfandels seem too mainstream, he also makes single-vineyard petite sirah, a different grape from syrah that is hardly ever made into a varietal wine, especially of this caliber. And just to add to the mix, Jordan also makes a white wine -- not a chardonnay, of course, but a blend of two Provençal white grapes, Rousanne and Viognier.
The tasting: 50 Hawaii people will be among the first to taste 2000 Turley zins ("Juvenile Vineyard," "Old Vineyard," "Duarte Vineyard," "Meade Ranch," "Grist Vineyard" and "Turley Estate"), petite sirahs ("Turley Estate" and "Rattlesnake Vineyard") and the brand-new 2001 Rousanne/ Viognier.
Unfortunately, this tasting is sold out, with a waiting list, but there are two others, equally exciting.
The roaring success of Kendall-Jackson chardonnay has built a wine empire for owner Jess Jackson, one of the most innovative men in the wine business.
KJ wines are sourced from all over California, from the Sonoma Coast to Santa Barbara. As such, the company has been able to identify properties where varietals of grapes grow best, which allows Kendall-Jackson to fast-track single-appellation varietal wines under the "Great Estates" label that it believes are among the best in the country.
The tasting: Gary Patzwald, director of red wine for Kendall-Jackson Great Estates, will lead a "Rate the Great" blind tasting of benchmark cabernet sauvignons and chardonnays from the best growing regions in California.
There will be two flights of chardonnay, one from the Sonoma Coast (KJ Great Estates, Neyers, Flowers, Williams-Selyem), one from Monterey (KJ Great Estates, Testarossa, Talbott, Mer et Soleil). And two flights of cabernet sauvignon, one from the Alexander Valley (KJ Great Estates, Jordan, Rodney Strong Alexander's Crown), and one from Napa (KJ Great Estates, Dunn, Caymus, Robert Mondavi Reserve).
Tickets for the 1 p.m. tasting are $100. Although this is a little expensive, it's a chance to taste 15 wines that can cost $100 or more a bottle. And often, even if you were willing and able to buy a bottle of each, you wouldn't be able to find them all. Even Kendall-Jackson may have a little trouble, so a few substitutions are possible, but all will be benchmark wines, the kind others are measured against.
Warren Winiarski changed the world of wine. In 1970, he realized that the Stag's Leap area of the Napa Valley could grow great cabernet sauvignon, and he has become one of the great champions of terroir in American wine -- that combination of soil, microclimate and cultivation that adds a kind of "somewhereness" to wine.
That alone would be a great achievement, but in addition, Winiarski's 1973 Stag's Leap Cabernet was entered in the 1976 Bicentennial Tasting in Paris. The French judges (many of whom had publicly insisted California could not produce great wine) rated it first in a blind tasting against some of the greatest French reds.
The French judges tried to bury the results, but fortunately a reporter from Time magazine was on the scene, and the rest became history, as the California wine industry finally gained international stature.
The tasting: Winiarski will lead a tasting of cabernet sauvignon from different vineyards, and cabernets from the same vineyards, but different years (Stag's Leap Wine Cellars S.L.V. 1985, 1990 and 1998, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Fay 1990 and 1998, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cask 23 1985, 1990 and 1998).
They are great cabernets. Of all the star winemakers from the '70s, Winiarski is the one whose reputation has endured best.
The 2 p.m. tasting ($100) will probably be the only time in Hawaii that you will be able to taste all these wines.
Richard Field owns R. Field Food and Wine Co. and is an organizer of "Hawai'i Uncorked."
This column is a weekly lesson in wine
pairing written by a rotating panel of wine professionals.
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