Napa Valley Honeymoon Tour- Cliff Lede Vineyards

We had a whirlwind trip of Napa Valley, eating and drinking our way through the valley. We visited 16 vineyards, sipped and spitted a bunch of great wine, and experienced the great food and service of the valley’s best restaurants including the infamous French Laundry.

Here is the list of vineyards (in order of visit): Schramsberg, Cliff Lede, Hartwell, Chimney Rock, Robert Biale, Darioush, Elizabeth Spencer, Beringer, Summers Winery, Ch. Montelena, Storybook, Larkmead, Domaine Carneros, Artesa, Del Doddo, and Robert Sinskey.

We enjoyed all of them (except the horrible service at Del Doddo), but had three clear cut winners for our palates and best overall experience: Cliff Lede, Elizabeth Spencer, and Storybook.

CLIFF LEDE VINEYARDS

Cliff Lede (pronounced “Lady”) bought the Stag’s Leap Vineyard in 2002, and began upgrading the facilities, hired the best winemaking team money could buy, and he really cares about making great wine. Tom Roseler, a retired CIO, moved to the valley a few years ago and gave us an incredibly informative tour of the grounds and facilities.

Cliff Lede hired the famous frenchman Michel Rolland as a vineyard consultant, who has focused the blending of the wines to create great “persistance” in flavor. In simplistic terms, a wine has three major phases of taste and perception when you taste: the beginning, or attack, the middle, and the finish.

Many “typical” wines have a fruity “attack”, then a dip in flavor, another rise in the perception of tannins, then a gradual decrease of flavor on the finish. This flavor profile looks like this:

Cliff Lede wines however, have a “persistance” in flavor perception, where there is not the parabolic highs and lows of taste, rather a straight-line blended perception of quality flavors and well integrated tannins, looking like this:

A wine with this second flavor does not have the spike in flavor then another spike in tannins, rather, it’s a seamless “integrated” feel with all of the flavors, acids, and tannins. Also, when you drink a wine like this, there is no sensation of the flavor “falling off a cliff” on the finish.

Overall, we loved the style of the cabernets, combining old world food friendly finesse with new world fruit and power. Our favorite cabernet sauvignon was the “Stag’s Leap” cab, a Napa “bargain” at $65. The 2008 Sauvignon Blanc was the best QPR of the week at $22, perfect with asian food (we enjoyed this at Go Fish, a perennial valley hot spot for sushi and asian cuisine).

The staff were all gracious and friendly, but make sure to book an estate tasting ($50 each) with Tom, you get a great wine education, as well as great wines paired with snacks that will blow you away. We recommend you get on their winelist now, as the buzz around the valley and the owner’s dedication to quality (as evidenced by the work and collective resumes of viticulturist David Abreu, winemaker Michelle Edwards and the previously mentioned Michel Rolland) may make this the next Napa cult wine.

Cliff Lede Vineyards
http://www.blogger.com/www.cliffledevineyards.com
800-428-2259