If you want to start a wine collection on a budget, plan ahead. You’ll need a space that stays at a temperature in the 50-60 degree range — if you’re planning to use your basement or a closet in the northeast corner, check to make sure the temperature there stays more or less constant and isn’t too dry. Some people rent wine storage lockers. And then, of course, you’ll need the wines themselves. You may want to specialize in a wine that isn’t too expensive and stores well, such as the Cabernet Sauvignons of California.
For a long time, Cabernet Sauvignon, able to survive in many climates without sacrificing quality was the most widely planted premium red wine grape in the world. A classic red wine with cassis notes and strong tannins, the California Cabernet Sauvignon goes well with any sort of red meat. Some recommend serving the Cab at 57 to 60 degrees to get the full flavor, while others recommend a temperature of 65 degrees. If you don’t have a thermometer handy, try putting the bottle in a refrigerator for 20 minutes before serving, or in an ice bucket for no more than five minutes. If you have a wine cellar, on the other hand, you may want to give the wine a few minutes to gently warm up. Joining a wine club will help you get good deals on these wines.
Great Cabernet Sauvignons near St. Helena, CA
Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards in Napa Valley, a short drive from downtown St. Helena, produces world-class wines at affordable prices. These include several variations on the Cabernet Sauvignon.
The 2010 Signature Vintage Cabernet Sauvignon, a deep purple wine with a slight red edge that comes from the best two barrels of the vintage, has a profoundly layered aroma. It begins with a strong cassis, with streaks of blackberry, plum, blueberry and red berries and highlights of crushed roses, blue flowers and anise. The oak adds elements of smoke and tar to the bouquet. The palate of the ’10 Signature is similar to the aroma, with the taste of black, blue and red fruits, licorice, anise, tobacco, smoke, rosehips, and violets. This is a wine that deserves to be kept and allowed to age, and is a showpiece for the skill of the Anderson’s Conn Valley winemaking team.
Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards has been owned and operated by the Anderson family since 1983. Anderson’s wines are sold online and in five locations in Napa Valley, and many other locations nationwide. Wine club members save $25 buying the 2013 Signature Cabernet Sauvignon online. If you’re looking for a good wine to serve at a special occasion, order a bottle today.
One of the best things about wine clubs is being invited on a cave tour. Caves, which stay at just the right temperature and humidity year-round, have been recognized for centuries as some of the best places to store wine in the barrel. So perfectly suited are these caves that when immigrants to California found there weren’t enough caves in the Napa hills, they hired mining and railroad engineers to build caves for them.
The humidity in a wine cave should be at least 75 percent — more than that if there are white wines in there. The coolness of the air and the water pressure of the humidity discourage evaporation of the wine from the barrel — which is important, because the barrel isn’t completely airtight.
Surprisingly bright and beautiful caves
One of the great things about a cave tours this time of year is that it’s guaranteed to be cool inside the cave — so bring a jacket along on your cave tours. This is your chance to learn about the wine industry from the people who work in it every day and taste both the latest wines and library wines from previous years. You may also get the chance to try not only good wine, but good food, and often in a surprisingly beautiful setting — these caves are often carved, decorated and lit to create great subterranean works of art, complete with running fountains from underground rivers.
Cave tours of a vineyard near St. Helena
Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards in Napa Valley, a 10-minute drive from downtown St. Helena, holds tastings in its barrel caves, where current releases and library wines may be sampled and visitors can learn all about the process of making and storing the wine. Cave tastings are $65, but one tasting fee can be waived by joining their wine club or making a $100 purchase. Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards produces world-class wines at affordable prices. The vineyard is a 40-acre estate just south of Howell Mountain, and has been owned and operated by the Anderson family since 1983. Anderson’s wines are sold online and in five locations in Napa Valley, and many other locations nationwide.
One wine you might sample during an Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards cave tours are the Right Bank. Their 2011 Right Bank came from a cooler than average year, leading to a powerful aroma and flavor of blue violets, roses, red currants, fresh red raspberry compote, menthol, clove, anise and allspice, with seamlessly blended oak and grape tannins and bright acidity. This wine is expected to be good for thirty years. Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards doesn’t issue a Right Bank every year. Try their latest Right Bank today.
Wine clubs like the Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards wine club sometimes hold barrel tastings — usually in the spring or summer, when the weather is good and long before the vineyard is busy with this year’s harvest. There aren’t many more weeks left of summer this year, so if you want to go to one, start planning now.
The difference between a St. Helena barrel tasting and other wine tastings is that the wines all come straight from the barrel. Here you can try last year’s Cab at its earliest stage, long before it’s ready for the bottle. Barrel tastings also sometimes give you the opportunity to buy discounted wine futures — that is, to agree to buy a certain number of bottles as soon as the wine in question has been bottled, in exchange for saving money on the eventual purchase price.
If you don’t happen to know the wine-tasting etiquette, you can’t go too far wrong by following these basic rules:
Don’t wear perfume or cologne — it distracts from the wine’s aroma.
Don’t drink too much, and try to eat a little something.
Generally, behave as though you were at an upscale cocktail party, not a bar.
Barrel tastings at a vineyard near St. Helena
Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards in Napa Valley, a 10-minute drive from downtown St. Helena, holds tastings in its barrel caves, where current releases and library wines may be sampled and visitors can learn all about the process of making and storing the wine. Tastings are $65, but one tasting fee can be waived by joining their wine club or making a $100 purchase. Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards produces excellent wines at prices you can afford. The vineyard is a 40-acre estate just south of Howell Mountain, and has been owned and operated by the Anderson family since 1983. Anderson’s wines are sold online and in five locations in Napa Valley, and many other locations nationwide.
One wine you might want to try at an Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards barrel tasting is the Right Bank. Their first Right Bank, the dark ruby 2008, has an aroma rich with mocha, cedar, blackberries, black pepper and plums. The year 2008 was one of those years where the weather places great stress on the grapevines, reducing yield but producing wines of singular quality — in this case, a red wine with a rich, full palate of mocha, chocolate, espresso, ripe raspberries, black fruit and crushed rocks integrated with sweet tannins. It also has an excellent texture and a silky finish that lingers on the palate for several minutes. This wine is expected to improve for twelve to fifteen years and be good for ten more. Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards doesn’t issue a Right Bank every year. Try their latest Right Bank today.
The St. Helena American Viticulture Area is one of 16 AVA’s in the valley. At the northern end of the valley floor, it’s slightly warmer and drier than the southern parts of the valley. It has many different types of soil, from gravel and clay to volcanic soil. Deep, ripe Cabernet Sauvignons, Cabernet Francs and Merlots all come from St. Helena wineries.
St. Helena is often called “Napa Valley’s main street.” This town is one of the centers of the world’s wine industry. Joining a wine club is a good way to get invited on tours of this town and its surrounding area, with its numerous fine wineries, and learn its history. A taste of that history follows:
In the 1860s, immigrants began planting vineyards in the St. Helena area, taking advantage of its near-perfect climate for viticulture. St. Helena was incorporated in 1876, at which point it already had a a schoolhouse, a hotel and a few businesses, including St. Helena wineries. Ten years later it had a population of about 1,800. By this time it was already a center of the growing California wine industry.
A winery near St. Helena
Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards is a great St. Helena winery. Just a 10-minute drive from downtown St. Helena, south of Howell Mountain, Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards produces world-class wines at affordable prices. The micro-climate of Conn Valley is cooler than many other parts of the valley, although warmer than Howell Mountain itself, so the grapes they grow are closer to mountain grapes than the grapes in the St. Helena American Viticulture Area proper. At the vineyard, you will have the chance to meet the owners and wine-makers and taste excellent wine stored in the vineyard’s cave.
Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards has been owned and operated by the Anderson family since 1983. Anderson’s wines are sold online and in five locations in Napa Valley, and many other locations across the nation. By ordering six bottles or more per year, you can join the Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards Wine Club. Club membership will get you a discount on many of their finest wines, as well as the chance to try library wines such as their 2007 Éloge. This dark ruby wine has an aroma of mocha, violets, chocolate, cedar and black stone fruits balanced with oakiness. Its flavor begins with the juicy taste of ripe blackberries, followed by more dark fruit flavors with coffee bean spice and chocolate covered cherries perfectly matched with fruit and oak tannin’s. It has a finish lasting two to three minutes in the mouth, making it a wine to savor. The ’07 Éloge is expected to get even better as it ages. Try a bottle of ACVV wine today.
Running one of the best vineyards in Napa is a lot of work. A vineyard is a farm, and farming is already famous for being hard work. In addition, the winemaker must match the right variety of grape to their particular terroir and choose just the right moment to harvest the grapes — the margin for error is much lower than when harvesting, say, corn. And every piece of equipment used at a winery that comes into contact with the must needs to be kept surgically clean and sterile — the sugar-rich must that sustains the yeast until the sugar is converted into alcohol could just as easily sustain the growth of toxic bacteria. Even with that, every tank and barrel needs to be checked every few days to make sure it’s at the right temperature and isn’t suffering any bacterial invasion.
Wine clubs and wine tastings at vineyards
The best vineyards in Napa have tasting rooms and wine caves, where visitors can sample old library wines and the vintages of more recent years for a reasonable fee. Joining a wine club is a great way to get invited to wine tastings. Bigger vineyards have scheduled tours, and you can usually tour the smaller vineyards by appointment. When you visit a smaller vineyard, you have a much better chance of talking to someone involved in making the wine, or even the owner — although they may be very busy, since, as mentioned before, running a vineyard is a lot of work.
Some of the best wines in Napa come from near St. Helena
Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards in Napa Valley, a 10-minute drive from downtown St. Helena, is one of the best vineyards in the Napa Valley area. Their Cabernet Sauvignon and Bordeaux blends are widely regarded as among the best wines in Napa. It holds tastings in its barrel caves, where current releases and library wines may be sampled and visitors can learn all about the process of making and storing the wine. Cave tastings are $65, but one tasting fee can be waived by joining their wine club or making a $100 purchase.
A wine you might find at an Anderson’s Conn Valley wine club wine tasting is the 2009 Estate Reserve Cabernet. Coming from an excellent year with a long hang time for the grapes, the ’09 Estate Reserve is a dense purple wine with a reddish-purple edge. Its aroma is of red and black cassis, violets, loamy earth and concentrated minerals. It has a medium to full-bodied mouth feel and the flavor of dark berries and red fruits with earth, leather and graphite notes. Join their wine club today and try a more recent Estate Reserve.
Wine clubs and wine collections
