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Happy Wines of Barra
What are happy wines you may ask? Can the wine be happy? Can the wine be unhappy? Can the wine actually express emotion?
The first two questions probably don’t have an answer. But can the wine express emotion? You bet. That’s the whole point of wine appreciation. The wine that gives you joy. The wine that brings back happy memories. The wine that gives you happiness. The wine that gives you pleasure. The wine that doesn’t leave you indifferent. Not every wine in your glass will do that for you – but some will. I think it will be fair to call them Happy Wines.
Happy wines are those that put a smile on your face. You open a bottle, put the liquid into the glass, swirl, sniff, sip – and smile, because the wine is actually that good. It doesn’t have to be the best wine you ever tasted. It doesn’t have to be expensive or inexpensive. As long as the wine puts a smile on your face and makes you happy, you can call it a Happy Wine.
My latest happy wine discovery was the latest release of red wines from Barra of Mendocino. I already wrote about the winery before – you can find the complete two-part story here (part 1 and part 2) with all the details about this 50-year-old, 350-acre organically farmed estate located in Northern California, in Mendocino. Everything I tasted so far from Barra was outstanding, and this latest release of the 3 reserve red wines made from organic grapes didn’t disappoint either.
2020 Barra Reserve Petite Sirah Mendocino County (14.5% ABV, $28, 18 months / 30% new French oak, balance in neutral barrels, organic grapes)
Dark Garnet, practically black
Beautiful nose of red and black fruit
Sweet cherries, perfect acidity, well-integrated luscious tannins, layered, delicious.
8+, outstanding, and a unique rendition of PS which doesn’t require waiting.
2020 Barra Reserve Zinfandel Mendocino County (14.5% ABV, $26, 16 months / 25% new French oak, balance in neutral barrels, organic grapes)
Bright Ruby
Dark fruit and herbs on the nose, a hint of fresh coffee, tobacco
Tobacco, cherries, luscious texture, round, pleasant, with long finish.
8, excellent
I just wrote about Barra Cabernet Sauvignon in the previous post where I tasted it alongside two superb Napa Valley Cabs – but I’m happy to talk about this wine twice in a row 🙂
2021 Barra Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Mendocino County (14.5% ABV, $28, 18 months / 30% new French oak, balance in neutral barrels, organic grapes)
Garnet
Eucalyptus, cherries, a hint of cassis
Eucalyptus, dark berries, cherries, cassis, well-integrated tannins, perfect balance, medium-long finish.
8, delicious
All three were happy wines – ready to drink from the moment the bottle was open, and thoroughly delicious, putting a smile on your face. I can also tell you that all three of these wines lasted for almost 7 days after being first opened, standing on the counter, with the air being pumped out – this is definitely a testament to the quality and to the longevity of these wines – while these wines will not set you back by anything comparable to any cult Californian wines, I guarantee you that they will age equally well or possibly even better.
Have you tried Barra of Mendocino wines? I would love to see the smile on your face once you do. Cheers!
Ode to Cab
Ode to Cab.
Or we can just call it a Love Letter to Cabernet Sauvignon.
As an oenophile, I always try to maintain my “grape neutrality”. I can never name my favorite type of wine, never mind favorite wine. If you will hard press me against the wall with this question, I might say that it is Rioja, but the reality is a lot more complex than that.
If you search through articles in this blog, you will find a full range of wine styles and grapes. There are many blogs out there that cover specific region(s) or specific types of wine – but when I started writing close to 15 years ago, I knew that I would not be able to do that. This blog is about wine appreciation – any wine. “Wine should give you pleasure” – and so this is what my writing is primarily after – sharing the joy, the pleasure of wine, no matter what is the pedigree. Wines made from little-known grapes – Bobal, Trepat, Kekfrankos, Romorantin by tiny producers can give you as much pleasure as first growth Bordeaux, cult California, or best super-Tuscans. The liquid in the glass matters, and the only opinion that matters is yours and only yours – you can not enjoy the critic’s 100 points in your mouth.
This is my approach – try any wine with an open mind, and always be ready to be pleasantly surprised – or even blown away for that matter. And yet there is something about Cabernet Sauvignon that makes my heart race, especially coming from the producer I know or have heard of. Listen, I’m doing my best to tell you the truth, even though the “thought spoken is a lie”. But the brain gets all excited when I’m opening a bottle of the familiar Cabernet Sauvignon because I already know how good it can be. Very different from the excitement of the possible taste of DRC, Petrus, or Quintarelly (I’m yet to taste either) – because with those I wouldn’t know what to expect. But I do know what to expect from the well-made Cabernet Sauvignon that is ready to drink.
Even with the wines I happily call the favorites, I can’t tell you what I’m expecting to taste. I can’t describe my expectations when tasting La Rioja Alta, Ken Wright Pinot Noir, or Loacker Corte Pavone Brunello di Montalcino. I expect that I will like those wines as I know the producers and had their wines many times before – but I can’t tell you my exact expectations of the aroma or the taste of the wine. With Cabernet Sauvignon, I have very precise expectations of the aroma and the taste for me to like the wine. If I do not find the cassis (black currant) on both nose and palate when the bottle says “Cabernet Sauvignon” on it, there is no way I will like the wine, no matter how good the wine is for anyone else. Eucalyptus, mint, and a good structure are also expected, but with this some variations are possible. But when the expectations are met… the Cabernet Sauvignon is nothing but a pure, hedonistic pleasure.
So yes, deep down, Cabernet Sauvignon might be the most favorite wine of all – I just hope I will remember it next time I’m asked about my favorite wine.
Now, truth be told, I had a good reason for all this rambling about the beauty of Cabernet Sauvignon. A few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to conduct an accidental side-by-side tasting of the California Cabernet Sauvignon and the results were simply amazing.
With this tasting, we are taking a little trip. We will start in Northern California, where Barra of Mendocino is located. I wrote about their wines before, and now I have a few of the latest releases and I thought that Cabernet Sauvignon would be quite appropriate for the tasting.
Barra Cabernet Sauvignon was the leanest of 3, but still had a perfectly recognizable Cabernet Sauvignon profile:
2021 Barra Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Mendocino (14.5% ABV, $28, 18 months 30% new French oak, balance in neutral barrels)
Garnet
Eucalyptus, cherries, a hint of cassis
Eucalyptus, dark berries, cherries, cassis, well integrated tannins, perfect balance, medium-long finish.
8
Moving 80 miles southeast, we now arrive at the Flora Springs winery, located in the heart of the Napa Valley. Again, one of my favorite wineries in California, I wrote about their wines on multiple occasions.
The wine I had an opportunity to taste was a special holiday release. Flora Springs is big on the holiday celebration, so this bottle features etched gnomes, perfectly appropriate for the holidays. But it is what’s inside that counts, and this wine was nothing short of spectacular.
2019 Flora Springs Red Wine Blend Napa Valley (14.5% ABV, $95, predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon, 18 months in 70% French and 30% American oak barrels)
Dark garnet
Cassis, mint, black tea, cassis is playing in and out – you can smell this wine forever. Cassis is prevalent, wow.
Burst of cassis at first, then tannins come in, offering some bitter notes around the otherwise perfect Cabernet core. A very powerful, delicious wine that needs time to soften up. Either decant for a few hours, or lose it in the cellar for 10 years. The winery says you can enjoy it through 2036 – I’m sure you can easily add another 20 years on top of that.
8/8+
Going back about 8 miles northwest, we now arrive at the Smith-Madrone, the winery located in the Spring Mountain district of Napa Valley. Smith-Madrone is yet another one of my favorite wineries, and the one I feel a bit guilty about as a writer. I wrote about Smith-Madrone wines on many occasions in this blog – 5 years ago, Smith-Madrone were my wines of choice to celebrate Thanksgiving; in 2019, Smith-Madrone Cabernet Sauvignon was my wine of the year. And I’m still yearning to write a post fully designated to the winery…
Nevertheless, Smith-Madrone Cabernet Sauvignon to me is one of the most textbook-proper, pure Cabernet Sauvignon wines there is. Not everyone would share my opinion – my sister-in-law with whom I was tasting these 3 Cabs, was preferring Flora Springs Cab, just for the sheer, unashamed beauty. But to me, a more subtle but very confident representation of the Cabernet Sauvignon by Smith-Madrone was just a perfection:
2019 Smith-Madrone Cabernet Sauvignon Spring Mountain District Napa Valley (14.3% ABV, $65, 83% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Merlot, 12% Cabernet Franc, 18 months in 55% new French oak)
Brilliant dark ruby
A perfection. A textbook Cabernet Sauvignon cassis, pure, perfectly precise cassis. You can think of a bell pepper – I’m not sure it is there, but it comes to mind.
The palate is amazing – cassis, eucalyptus, perfect minerality, a touch of the pencil shavings, salivating acidity. This is an impeccably balanced wine built for aging. In 10 years, it will be insanely good. In 20 – … well, I don’t want to even think about waiting that long…
9-, pure and superb.
If you like Cabernet Sauvignon, either one of these 3 wines will make you happy – each one perfectly representing their terroir and the vision of the winemaker, and yet unquestionably perfectly representing maybe the most noble grape of all.
So now you know what my secret passion, secret true wine love is. What’s yours?
American Pleasures #7: Barra of Mendocino, Part 2
Wine should give you pleasure – there is no point in drinking the wine if it does not. Lately, I have had a number of samples of American wines, that were delicious standouts – one after another, making me even wonder if someone cursed my palate. I enjoyed all those wines so much that I decided to designate a new series to them – the American Pleasures.
When I tasted Barra of Mendocino wines for the first time, I lamented that I was surprised. Delightfully surprised would be an even better way to put it. My surprise was related to the fact that both Pinot Blanc and Petite Sirah were absolutely delicious pop-and-pour Californian wines. Of course, there are lots and lots of delicious wines made in California, but many of them need time to open up and develop – especially the traditional heavyweights such as Petitte Sirah. And the wines I tasted were delicious and ready to drink from the moment they got into the glass.
Charlie Barra, the founder of the Redwood Valley winery in Mendocino, was farming organically for a very long time. And now Barra of Mendocino bottles carry the official organic certification by CCOF. To celebrate this achievement, Barra released three of their Reserve wines with a brand new label, showing intertwined oak and grape leaves. It took the winery more than a year to come up with this new design, the end product of multiple discussions in the focus groups of the club members, employees, and distributors. The oak tree represents an old oak tree found on the original Redwood Valley Vineyards plot. The grape leaf can be considered a tribute to Charlie Barra’s 70 years of grape growing carrier (he is often regarded as a “godfather of grape growing” in Mendocino county). The result – a beautifully looking bottle of wine. As part of this new design, the winery also eliminated foil caps from these Reserve bottles.
Let me now get back to the surprise associated with Barra wines. I got their three newly released bottles to try – Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Now, here lies the danger. This trio can be called THE California wines. Each category by itself – Califonia Chardonnay, California Pinot Noir, California Cabernet Sauvignon sets the bar really, really high. We have all tasted amazing wines in these three categories – that means that the frame of reference has very little room for error. You know my take here – if the bottle says “California Cabernet Sauvignon” on the label, it is better to be THE California Cabernet Sauvignon, the classic as is expected.
The new surprise? All three wines perfectly delivered. Each one was varietally correct and perfectly matched my expectations. Barra Chardonnay was Californian Chardonnay through and through. And so were Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon. And they continued to be pop-and-pour wines. And – these are very reasonably priced wines, considering the pleasure they deliver.
Here are my notes:
2021 Barra Chardonnay Reserve Redwood Valley Mendocino (14% ABV, $24, 7 months on the lees, 30% new French Oak, balance in neutral oak, made with organic grapes)
Light golden
A touch of the gunflint, earthy undertones
Buttery profile with green apples, good acidity, round, delicious.
8, beautiful. Would be happy to drink on any occasion.
2021 Barra Pinot Noir Reserve Redwood Valley Mendocino (14.5% ABV, $26, 8 months 25% new French oak, balance in neutral barrels)
Dark ruby
Tart cherries, herbs, restrained
Sweet cherries and plums on the palate, a touch of vanilla, medium body, round, clean, easy to drink
8-, perfectly quaffable.
8 on the second day, it needs a bit of time to show its true beauty.
2020 Barra Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Redwood Valley Mendocino (14.5% ABV, $28, 18 months 30% new French oak, balance in neutral barrels)
Garnet
Cassis, earth, sweet basil
Dark berries, eucalyptus, minerality, clean acidity, beautifully layered texture. Shows almost sweet upon opening, but quickly loses baby fat to show tight, muscular texture.
8+, outstanding. I can make it my go-to Cabernet Sauvignon easily.
Here you are, my friends. Three delicious wines for you to add to the “find end drink” category – beautifully packaged and now certified organic.
What were your great wine discoveries as of late?
American Pleasures #7: Barra of Mendocino
Wine should give you pleasure – there is no point in drinking the wine if it does not. Lately, I have had a number of samples of American wines, that were delicious standouts – one after another, making me even wonder if someone cursed my palate. I enjoyed all those wines so much that I decided to designate a new series to them – the American Pleasures.
One of the great pleasures of drinking wine is a surprise factor. When you open a bottle you know nothing about – maybe you recognize the grape, and maybe you have an idea of the place, but you never heard of the producer, you never had this wine before – there lies the best mystery. This mystery is the best because you don’t need to work too hard to come upon it. Mystery makes life fun, especially when this mystery is as safe, simple, and innocent as opening a bottle of unknown wine, unlike wondering over a dark path in the forest, not knowing if you are in a way of a raccoon or a bear.
Of course, the surprise can work both ways – you might not be happy about your discovery, you might not be happy at all. But when you take a sniff, which is magnificent, then take a sip that fully matches your initial expectations, you can’t help but have an ear-to-ear smile on your face. And instantly pour yourself another glass. There, this is the surprise and the mystery I’m talking about – a simple pleasure available to you on any day you desire one.
Don’t take it for granted – it doesn’t happen all the time. Sometimes, you don’t want another glass, and simply move on. But when you are in luck, it is not just a pure hedonistic pleasure that is offered to you. It is also an opportunity to learn something new, to discover something which will serve you well for a long time.
At this point you already know that this conversation is not theoretical – we will be talking about my recent discovery. As the subject of this discovery is the wine made in California, I thought it perfectly falls into the American Pleasures series.
Bella Colina Vineyard. Source: BARRA of Mendocino
Please meet Barra of Mendocino.
The history of Barra of Mendocino started in 1954 when Charlie Barra purchased Redwood Valley Vineyards, which today boasts 256 acres of organically farmed vines. Original Redwood Valley Vineyards was planted with “standard” grapes suitable for making table wines. Over the course of a few years, Charlie recognized the potential of varietally-specific wines, and he started working with Karl Wente, Louis Martini, Robert Mondavi, and other pioneers of varietally-specific vine-growing and winemaking to move in that direction.
From the beginning, Charlie Barra was focused on organic farming – no pesticides or herbicides, no synthetic fertilizers – just the natural habitat, allowing Mother Nature do her best. While banal, here is an interesting tidbit – before World War II, agriculture was all organic. Now we have to pay dearly for simply returning to how it should be. Nevertheless… Redwood Valley Vineyards was one of the early officially certified organic properties in California, obtaining its certification in 1989. Mendocino County appellation, home to the BARRA of Mendocino vineyards, today has close to 25% of all vineyards certified organic.
Today, BARRA of Mendocino organically farms more than 350 acres of vineyards, growing Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Muscat Canelli, Pinot Noir, Sangiovese, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Petite Sirah grapes. It is also home to the 2.8 million gallons CCOF (California Certified Organic Farmers) certified custom crush facility.
I had an opportunity to taste 2 wines from the Barra family – as you can tell, I was sufficiently impressed to add this post to the American Pleasures series.
First, Girasole Vineyards Pinot Blanc. All Girasole Vineyards (Girasole means sunflower in Italian, hence the label) wines are not only organic they are also vegan-friendly. Pinot Blanc is not a grape typically associated with California. Alsace, Germany – of course, maybe even Oregon – but Californian Pinot Blanc was a bit of a concern to me. Which dissipated instantly with the very first sip of the wine.
2021 Girasole Vineyards Pinot Blanc Mendocino County (13% ABV, $15, vegan)
Straw pale
Whitestone fruit, herbs, lemon, distant hint of the gunflint
Wild apricots, Whitestone fruit, plump, round, perfect mid-palate weight, good acidity, perfect balance, delicious.
8+, excellent. Hallmark of quality – very tasty at room temperature.
Petite Sirah can be safely called a signature grape of California. Okay, okay – it is not Cabernet Sauvignon or Zinfandel, and it is not even a Pinot Noir. Nevertheless, Petite Sirah is very popular among those who know, and if you need confirmation, don’t look further than Turley, Carlisle, Retro, Stag’s Leap, Ridge, and many many others. At the same time, Californian Petitte Sirah is one of the most challenging wines for wine lovers, because more often than not Petite Sirah wines are massive, and require 10-15 years in the cellar to even start opening up. Thus you can imagine that I approached Barra Petite Sirah with a good dose of trepidation, even though it subsided somewhat after tasting the delicious Pinot Blanc.
2019 BARRA of Mendocino Petite Sirah Mendocino (14.8% ABV, $26, 89% Petite Sirah, 11% Zinfandel, 18 months in 25% new French oak, balance in neutral barrels)
Dark garnet
Dark fruit, fresh and succulent, blackberries, espresso
Polished, elegant, voluptuous. Beautiful supple dark fruit coupled with salivating acidity and roll-of-your-tongue texture. Layered and sophisticated.
9-, truly outstanding.
Two outstanding wines from California – certified organic, super-reasonably priced (both $15 and $26 are almost a steal and offer an insane QPR), and most importantly – absolutely delicious, pop’n’pour wines. A rare treat for sure.
Besides, these wines can be a jewel of your Thanksgiving wine program. Yes, you can thank me later. Until then – cheers!
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