Happy New Year!

A happy new year to all. 2009 was a great year for PRIME,(OK, economy issues aside) we made many new contacts got terrific placements and met some truly great people.

It amazes me how great our customers can be. We are very thankful for those people that have tried the wine and taken it upon themselves to spread the word to their friends and coworkers. Its your support that keeps the wine flowing...

Winery Update-All wines were laid down for a tasting and photo op. Unoffically, the end of the year is also the end of the winemaking season. Today marks the last day of the Malolactic fermentations for us at Prime. The Cabs have been done for several weeks but the last Chardonnay just finished up today. Actually, the PRIME Chard was arrested (SO2 added to prevent ML) but we did a small lot of full blown, new oak, full ML Chardonnay for a charity auction and that's what just finished.

Today I also tasted the '08 and '09 Cabernets. I was really amazed with the tannin levels in the '09 wines. They are babies, but way more tannin than I expected. Should age really well. The '08s are almost ready to go at this point. Very smooth and supple with great flavors. I think these are going to be some of the best wines yet. Only time will tell...

Forbes Mill Steakhouse Primes up

This week I had the pleasure of meeting up with Erin Shipp, wine buyer and sommelier at Forbes Mill in Danville. Forbes Mill is a beautiful steakhouse now in the space that I used to know as Tony Romas back in the day. I stumbled across an article in the examiner, apparently their sliders are excellent.

Erin is a delightful and extremely knowledgeable Certified Sommelier. It was great to get to talk wine with her and get some insight on how wine service works at her restaurant. Luckily, Erin liked what PRIME had going on and agreed put the D4 Cabernet on the list (and apparently secretly at the bar by the glass, if you know the secret handshake).

Erin really liked the D4 Chardonnay as well. In fact, she gave the wine some of the best compliments I could hope for. "Unfortunately, she said, I can't buy it." Funny thing about a steakhouse: they sell mostly red wine. Up to 97% red she figured. Well maybe we'll try again when the weather warms up...

Double Gold Tasting

All the double gold wines from the San Francisco International Wine Competition (Our 2006 Prime Cabernet Sauvignon D4 included) were invited to attend some traveling tastings. We attended the one based in San Francisco. It was for the trade only with wine and spirits available to sample. This was the first time I had been to Conduit Restaurant (answer to that picture for facebook peeps) and the decor was definitely inspired by its name. The food was tasty and interesting, including sweetbreads and pigs feet. All in all a fun mellow event.

#NapaCabs take over Chateau Montelena

This afternoon St.Supery's Rick Backas (@RickBackas on Twitter) got a great group together with very little notice. The plan was sent out via Twitter: If you produce a Napa Cabernet that is <$50 show up with a couple of bottles at Chateau Montelena at 3PM for a tasting and Twitter fest. Everyone got to know each other and talk about their story.
Lots of great people attended from a bunch of different wineries including-Judds Hill, Signorello, Girard, St.Supery,Titus,Cakebread,V.Sattui,Crushpad,Raymond,Ch Montelena,Flora Springs,BV,and of course, Prime. There was not a bad wine in the pack. It was nice to see how Napa producers work together to help each other. Search #NapaCabs to see comments on how it went down. Prime got gome great complements from the tasters!

2006 Prime Cabernet Sauvignon Release!

The 2006 Prime Cabernet has arrived!

Our second vintage carries on the soon to be tradition of making well crafted restrained and elegant wines. It is our goal to make our District 4 Cabernet reminiscent of some of the great wines of Napa Valley’s past by shying away from high alcohol levels and over extraction.
By no means however, is this wine timid. The first hint that this is a serious Cabernet is the opaque ruby color in the glass. The nose is also quite impressive with aromas of black cherry, forest floor, and spice. Of course the true gratification is on the palate as additional flavors of black currant, red fruits, dried herbs, and a touch of espresso, all linger on a 20 to 30 second finish. This is a classic Cabernet profile if there ever was one. Don’t feel bad about drinking a bottle as soon as you get home, but if you have a cool place to store the wine, it should age nicely for five to seven years.

Cheers!
-Ted, Lisa and Curtis

$39/bottle $421.20/case (10% case discount)

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Just beat it.

The rain, that is. I have never seen rain this hard during the harvest season in Napa. Light showers are fairly normal but a monsoon is a first.

We got over 6 inches of rain in 24 hours. This amount of water can really change things in the vineyard.

First, its too muddy to get a tractor into the field to harvest the grapes. (the grapes are actually harvested by hand but the tractor carries the fruit back to the winery).

Secondly, if the grapes stay wet too long they start to rot. Rain followed by warm and humid weather -the rot sets in and spreads much faster. Lots of people are worried. Check out the article "As rain lingers, vineyard worries mount", it sums it up pretty well.

How does this affect Prime? It doesn't! I was one of those who scrambled and begged to get the fruit harvested right before the rain fell.

My first call to my vineyard manager asking to pick as soon as possible was met with the same reaction the French Laundry would give a diner calling on Saturday for a 7PM reservation. He claimed to be so slammed with requests it would be over a week before they could pick the fruit. A few frantic calls later and my foreman Carlos was able to put together a crew and make it happen with a days notice. Well done Carlos...

The photos above show the beautiful Midoriya Hills Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, the grapes being dumped into the de-stemmer and the leftover stems after the crushed grapes are sent into their tank to ferment. A surprisingly low 4.1 tons but an excellent harvest after all...