Wednesday, February 3, 2010

St. Supery Virtú 2008

On our first visit to the St. Supery Vineyard during our honeymoon in 2003, we were impressed with their white wines, particularly their Sauvignon Blanc.



On our return late last year, we wasted little time in signing up for their wine club. For about $45 every 2 months we receive 2 bottles of their white Estate wines, medium expensive for us. We received the St. Supery Virtú 2008 in December and got around to trying it with baked Red Snapper with Sweet Potatoes. Those that know us may remember how much Lynda and I have enjoyed St. Hallet Poacher's Blend (Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Riesling), so it was with great expectation that we sat down to taste the Virtú. The 2008 Virtú is a blend of Semillon (57%) and Sauvignon Blanc (43%), and whereas the wine was well made with a good body, initially we thought that the Sauvignon Blanc was inhibited by the Semillon, but after awhile the wine opened up and delivered a complex and creamy finish. Although enjoyable, we didn't think this vintage stood up to Poacher's Blend, so we won't buy any more, however, we'll probably try next year's vintage to see if there's any improvement.


Here's what St. Supery themselves say about the wine. "This Virtú has a rich and luscious style with aromas of peach and ripe cantaloupe. Flavors of peaches and nectarines are completely filled out with a subtle mineral quality. This is a great bottle of wine!"



Whilst doing research for this post, I came across a tasting performed by a group going under the moniker "Wine and Beer of Washington State" who sampled Virtú last July, they don't say which vintage, but I suspect it was the much proclaimed 2006 (52% Sauvignon Blanc, 48% Semillon). Anyway, here's what they said:


"The Virtu is a Sauvignon BlancSemillion (sic) blend and it caused the most debate by far at the table. Ed went hmm when he first smelled this wine followed by “wow” after sipping. He tweeted about it knocking his socks off. Then the debates began and continued through out the evening. We debated the Sauvignon Blanc vs the Virtu over aroma, flavors and pairing. A big aspect of the debate revolved how the wine changed over time in the glass and off the ice. The nose on this wine can be subtle when well chilled, but becomes complex with layers of stone fruit,watermelon and cedar per Ed. The St Supery Virtu is bright with balance fruit then evolves into this lovely creamy finish. This is a rich wine that pairs well with rich foods. We savored this wine with the Coconut Curry Soup from St Supery and Oysters ala Ed. Everyone really enjoyed the Virtu with the modified Oysters Rockefeller and those oysters were slurped up in a hurry! With the soup, I prefered (sic) the more complex Virtu over the more straight forward Sauvignon Blanc but it was the Virtu and oyster pairing that made me sigh and smile. Both the Virtu and the oysters had these complex layers of flavor and aromas but the pairing worked because none of those layers overpowered the other. The Virtu was a wine we kept going back to. It wasn’t a favorite for everyone, but it Virtu had dedicated and vocal fans at the table and across the country."

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

The NAPA Wine Train

Back in 2003 on our honeymoon in California, while Lynda and I were enjoying a picnic at the V Sattui winery in Napa Valley, we were excited to hear, and then see "The Wine Train" pass by. The Wine Train is a tourist attraction that meanders from Napa to St Helena. There are many different packages to be had, but the basic one costs about $50 per person for a 3 to 4 hour experience, for which money you get a 3 hour train ride through the Napa Valley, food and wine extra. We made up our minds that we would do that sometime; no driving, some of the best wines in the world, good food, what's there not to like?

Well it seems that POTUS has pledged $54M of his "Stimulus Package" to The Wine Train. Why GovUSA would spend $54M of the taxpayer's money to prop up this private tourist extravaganza is difficult to comprehend, but it gets murkier that that. The contract was not tendered, but instead offered to Suulutaaq Inc. of Anchorage Alaska, a company founded by Alaska natives enjoying access to federal contracts. The new CEO of Suulutaq is Samuel Boyle, previously with South Carolina dot-com Sailnet, now bankrupt. In addition Suulutaaq employs very few Alaska Natives and has sub-contracted much of the job to Peter Kiewit for about $28M, and keeping about $20M for itself for doing not very much actually.

So, basically, a white wheeler-dealer got himself appointed CEO of a shell company that’s legally classified as an “Alaska Native corporation,” then, using this unique privileged status, finagled a no-bid contract to get $54 million in taxpayer funds for a construction job — and then used a small portion of that money to hire subcontractors to do the actual work, while pocketing the rest as pure profit.
What should we do? By being US and Californian taxpayers, we've already paid our share of The Wine Train, should we now fork out extra hard-earned cash to make a trip? What do you think?