What's in your mailbox?

Twice a year I start to get excited about checking my mailbox. For a few weeks a year, that box is less about bills and more about fun. When The Bounty Hunter Catalog arrives, it’s time to celebrate. The heart of my excitement stems from the fact that I know that my friends and family (who also subscribe) are getting this little nugget of joy and soon we will begin a series of informal conversations about wine; what’s new, what’s hot and what’s tasting soooo good.

Over the course of the season I get to know the catalog by visiting and revisiting it – like a trusted friend, I always come back to it and get something new and wonderful to take away. For me, the catalog is like reading the Sunday newspaper – it’s a worthwhile investment of time. Packed with gems and jewels, it’s a treasure trove to discover what fits me and the way I like to enjoy wine (which admittedly is early and often).

So, where to start for this catalog…
The Gaja Grappa is wonderfully grapey and smells purely of the essence of harvest.
The ’08 Laird Napa Valley Cab is speaking my language in a brooding, whisky laden breath.
Holy crap – ’09 Columbia Crest “H3- Les Chevaux” rocked my world – voluptuous, pleasure-filled and at a great price.
Merlot is hot again – Shafer ’09 is intense, powerful and beautifully expressive... a Cab drinkers Merlot!

--Katy Long
Wine Educator

A Visit to Continuum

Recently our Wine Scouts had the opportunity to visit Tim Mondavi’s new project Continuum. Here are two excerpts on their experience.

One of the great joys of working in the Napa Valley wine industry is bearing witness to its evolution. It’s hard to see past the laid-back lifestyle to the real passion that motivates the people who dedicate themselves to the vine and write themselves into the fabric of the Valley. Then there are the occasional heroes that wear their passion proudly and, in doing so remind us, like that first “aha” wine moment, of why people like me choose to pack what they can fit in their car and head west.

Tim Mondavi is pure vision when it comes to Continuum, his family-run estate on Pritchard Hill, and his purpose is clear; to make one wine, from one specific site and make it on a world-class level. His singular focus is a philosophy that was a voice ignored leading up to sale of the Robert Mondavi family of wines to Constellation. It’s hard to imagine what it must be like to sell your family name, especially one with the importance of his family’s to the California wine industry.

Continuum is a new lease on life for Tim and his family and it’s obvious that they’re putting it all on the line. Even his daughter, Carissa, is able to rattle off every detail of the land from the water table to the soil types, different exposures, aspects of vigor and the highly detailed and proactive ways in which they intend to act as long-term stewards of their amazing property. Tim also has his winemaking approach dialed in like Ben Hogan’s golf swing. He has a very clear picture of the wine he wants to make and how to go about creating it. There are only two elements missing so far. The first is fruit. They are still only about 85% estate fruit from the Pritchard Hill site. In the past, they have utilized fruit from To Kalon to supplement the blend and have a few other tricks up their sleeve as well, but Tim will tell you that he believes that fruit produced on his site on Pritchard will rival anything in Napa Valley as an estate-grown vineyards source; Strong words! The second thing missing is, well, a winery, but that should be up and running soon enough and, having visited the site, let’s just say that, between the wine and the view, you’re going to have a hard time not agreeing that this is the next great story from the Napa Valley. The Mondavi legacy lives!

--Räm Hatley
Wine Scout




Standing in the middle of a vineyard, red volcanic dust coats my jeans up to my knees. When I look south I can see San Francisco. When I look north I have a beautiful view overlooking Colgin Vineyards and Lake Hennessy. It doesn’t take long to realize you are standing in God’s country.

I am standing at the top of Pritchard Hill, in the middle of the Continuum Vineyard. Tim Mondavi recently hosted the Bounty Hunter Wine Scouts. After touring the vineyard we sat down to lunch. An incredible cassoulet was served with the ’06 and soon to be released ’09 Continuum. Both wines show beautifully with lunch. The ’06 is just coming into its own. The tannins have softened and the black fruits are taking on an incredible velvety texture. It was a treat just to hold this wine in your mouth. The ’09 is definitely the big brother of the two. The cassis, cherry and blackberry fruits are bold and the tannins are powerful. There is no doubt it’ s destined to become another classic. Exactly as Tim has fashioned it to be! Even better, we were treated to three hours of listening to Tim talk about his vision and family’s remarkable story. A vision, that in just a few short vintage, has made Continuum one of the most sought-after and magical wines in Napa Valley. Tim Mondavi is an incredible man, with a wealth of knowledge, experience and talent, and it shows in every bottle of his wine.

--Sam Miller
Senior Wine Scout

Premiere Napa Valley 2012

Updated 2/19/13:
The Premiere Napa Valley Auction is the toughest ticket of the year. You can’t buy your way in… it’s industry only. The wineries are there to shine with their best wares, and the folks with paddles in their hands don’t like to go home empty-handed. It makes for some spirited bidding and a roomful of very serious wines.
We are excited to see what our ticket in gets us this year. Stay tuned to find out what lots we win! But in the meantime, here are a few gems for PNV 2012:
2010 Martin Est. 'Puerta Dorada' Cab Premiere Napa Valley
2009 Terlato Tete de Cuvee Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley PNV
2010 Far Niente 'Martin Stelling' Cabernet Sauvignon Premiere Napa Valley

“Paddle Number One”. It has a nice ring to it. We knocked off a few longtime rival bidders and took home the honor as this year’s champion at the Napa Vintner’s annual Premiere Napa Valley “bake sale.” Our one-of-a-kind scores include an amazing blend from Silver Oak, a single-vineyard bottling from Far Niente and a To Kalon release from PlumpJack among a lineup of a dozen All-Stars. We were pretty pleased with how it all worked out.

Premiere Napa Valley used to be a one-day affair with the barrel tasting and live auction essentially defining the event.


Now in its 16th iteration, Premiere has morphed into nearly a full week of lunches, parties, tastings and general celebrations. A few of our favorite highlights:

Ray Signorello Jr. set the tone for a lunch last week by greeting his guests with a flute of ’90 Cristal. His über-talented winery chef then proceeded to nail four courses in pairing both Signorello wines and a few select cellar gems (seared duck breast and ’90 Leroy Vosne-Romanée “Les Beaux Monts,” anyone?). Perhaps most impressive was how the Signorello “Hope’s Cuvée” Chardonnay fared. The 1998 was the room’s favorite and three vintages in total topped a ’99 Boillot Montrachet that had been slipped in as a ringer.

Cliff Lede’s “Open That Bottle Night” remains an annual favorite. When a gathering of a couple hundred wine pros tries to outdo one another with bottles from their own stashes, things get serious. Cliff himself showed the room how it’s done with a 5L of 1990 Château d’Yquem. There were simply too many amazing wines to list.
The team at the stunning O’Shaughnessy estate up on Howell Mountain hired a paella expert and raided their personal cellar for dozens of older Spanish wines from the Ribera, Priorat, Rioja and Jerez. Everything from obscure white blends to Unico with a little age on it. No wonder we were so excited about the invitation.

Vintner and bon vivant Jean-Charles Boisset raised the bar for how an auction after-party should be done. In transforming his newly-acquired Raymond Vineyards into equal parts Parisian nightclub, red-velvet bordello and a rave with a Mardi Gras theme, no one left that soirée with anything other than smiles and hazy memories. It was the perfect wrap-up to a long week of flesh pressing… as it were.

Another year of Premiere is in the books and we have the battle scars to prove it. Kudos to the Napa Vintners – and really the whole Valley – for once again bringing their A-game to the week. It has truly become a world-class party.

--Rhett Gadke
Wine Director

Bounty Hunter's Bread Pudding

Makes 8-10 portions

Ingredients:
3 sourdough baguettes cut into 1-2" large chunks
7 eggs
1 qt heavy cream
1 ½ C brown sugar
¾ C white sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
2 tbs vanilla extract
¼ lb butter, diced small


Directions: Mix all ingredients gently by hand. Add 4 cups of seasonal fruit of your choice and mix on last time. Spray large muffin tins with non-stick spray and bake @ 350° for 25-30 minutes.

2011 Wrap Up

Well, that was a vintage none of us is going to forget! Just when we thought Mother Nature had toyed with our emotions enough last year, along comes 2011. We’re talking about the difference between “high-maintenance” and Glenn Close conducting a cooking demonstration of her favorite braised rabbit recipe. This was serious business, friends. Anyone who made it through this year without a little stress in the process has a stronger stomach (or medicine) than most. I’ve never been more thankful for having the right winemaking team.

It was the coolest summer in recent memory. Napa from June to August is like clockwork….foggy mornings, the mist blows off and yield to midday sunshine and then we’re looking at low 90’s and brilliant blue skies all day. Then turn on nature’s AC at night as the fog rolls in from the Pacific to put the vines to sleep. Wash, rinse and repeat. Well, not this year.

Old-timers were calling it the strangest weather they could remember. It rained in June! Twice! That never happens. Thankfully we caught a break at the end with a spell of (mostly) warm, dry days, so we made it out with a solid – but tiny - crop. We basically got a taste of what life is like for the winemakers in Bordeaux. We’d like to keep our California residency, so if the weather would start acting like it should sometime soon, we sure would appreciate it.

Speaking of winter, can you believe the holiday season is already coming to an end? Every year the holidays seem to get here faster. Let’s all raise a glass to health, prosperity and great wine in 2012. As always, your business is very much appreciated.

Cheers,

--Mark Steven Pope, AKA the Bounty Hunter
Founder & CEO

Cabernet Vintage Comparison

I was recently invited to participate in a Cabernet vintage comparison tasting by the Napa Valley Vintners. Alas, you know what you’re in for when they hand you a toothbrush. The majority of the tasters were vintners and winemakers, with a couple of us from the retail and restaurant side sprinkled in (though we are NVVA winery members for our Justice wines). There were about 15 of us tasked with a teeth-staining challenge: Over two sessions – morning and afternoon – we were to taste 3 vintages, ’07, ’08 and ‘09 of 20 different wines in each session… 120 wines total. For the record, if that sounds like lighthearted fun, by about wine 50, it’s not.

The goal was to narrow the field for the Vintners spotlight tasting prior to the Premiere Napa Valley barrel auction in February. Dozens of wineries had submitted samples, and we were thinning the herd through a ranking system. We were instructed to rank each group on the “100-point” scale based on both quality and consistency. The totals would then be tabulated and the highest scoring groups would be showcased in the grand tasting in February. While we won’t know the final results until then, there were some interesting take-aways from the exercise.

First, and perhaps most surprising, was how well the 2009’s were showing. One winemaker poetically compared the vintage to a classic Hollywood movie star. On the heels of such heralded vintages as ’07 and ’08, I expected 2009 to get run out of the building, and to many palates (including my own) it was the best of the three. The second observation is how far Napa winemaking has come in terms of flaws, or more specifically, a lack of them. Rare was the wine that had any hint of “brett” or bacterial intrusions. Clean cellars and careful winemaking count for a lot. And last was the overall levels of perceptible alcohols seem more in check than in the early or mid 2000’s. That doesn’t mean the numbers are lower, but very few of the wines tasted hot or out of balance. Overall, it was a very strong endorsement of what’s happening in the world of Napa Valley Cabernet.

For what it’s worth, my top three groups (with scores) from each session were as follows: Morning: BV “Georges de Latour” Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (97), Bennett Lane Cabernet Sauvignon (95) and Amici Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon (95).

Afternoon: Corsion Cabernet Sauvignon (96), Kenefick Ranch “Chris’ Cuvee” Cabernet Sauvignon (95) and Frank Family Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (94).

--Rhett Gadke
Wine Director

What's in a label?

Here’s some clarification to help you better understand wine labels.

~Vintage: The year designates the year that the grapes were harvested. 15% of the grapes used in the blend can be from a different year if the wine is not claiming an AVA, American Viniculture Area. To be AVA-specific 95% of the grapes must be from that stated vintage.

~Appellation of Origin: California State Law requires that 100% of the grapes be from California. Nearly all other states only require that 75% of the fruit comes from within that named state. Since 1983, 85% of the grapes must come from the named region, for example Napa Valley.

~Wine Type: Wine labels used to only have to contain 51% of the varietal listed. Beginning in 1983, wines that used a specific varietal name, Cabernet Sauvignon instead of Red Wine, for example, must contain 75% of that varietal in the blend.

~Vineyard of Origin: Wineries often list the vineyard in which the grapes were grown because the vineyard has a reputation for producing high-quality grapes. Federal policy requires that 95% of the grapes must have been grown in the vineyard listed.

~Producer & Bottler: This part of the label must indicate the bottler and its location.
1) Produced and bottled by: guarantees the bottler fermented 75% or more of the wine.
2) Cellared and bottled: states that the bottler has aged the wine or subjected it to cellar treatment before bottling.
3) Made and bottled: indicates that the bottler fermented at least 75% of the wine.
4) Bottled by: says that the winery bottled the wine, which may have been grown, crushed, fermented, finished and aged by someone else.

~Estate Bottled: This term is optional. However it certifies that legally, the winery grew 100% of the grapes on land it owns or controls and states that the winery crushed, fermented, finished, aged and bottled the wine in a continues process. Both winery and vineyard must be located in the same viticultural area stated on the label.

~Alcohol Content: This is mandatory and indicates the alcohol content by volume, with a tolerance of plus or minus 1.5%

~Net Contents: The fluid volume in the metric measurement must be indicated either on the label or blown into the glass.

~Declaration of Sulfites: Beginning in 1988, wines which have a level of 10 parts per million or greater of sulfur dioxide must be labeled with a sulfite declaration. For all practical purposes, this means just about every wine commercially available.

~Government Warning: All wines bottled after November 18th, 1989 must bear the Federal warning.