The Iron Chevsky Wine Blog

Wine & Spirits Top 100 Wineries tasting is a great annual event in San Francisco each October that I make a point not to miss. Great venue (Metreon), sharp looking people, delectable food, and seriously good wines. Below are the highlights of the this year's 11th annual event. (The 2013 was documented here , 2012 here , 2011 here , 2010 here , and 2009 here ). Diamond Creek , with dear Boots Brounstein. As usual, Diamond Creek showed well - dark, cool, mountain fruit with good structure, one of my favorite Napa Valley wineries, recently highlighted on this blog . Dominus , with Tod Mostero, who hosted me several years ago at the estate. This was the second time I tasted the 2011 Dominus, and my opinion improved. The wine has some grippy tannins and herbs, slightly leaner than usual, thanks to the 2011 vintage. I like how the slight austerity and a leaner body give it a Euro-inclined balance. I believe it will age well. I ran into Burgundy's vunderkind of Do...

For my 3-day birthday weekend in September, Rona and I decided to take Evan to Napa Valley. At 3.5, he is of the age when he would hopefully enjoy running through vineyards, pick grapes hanging in full glorious ripeness, and last through gourmet restaurants (while watching iPad, thank god for that!) I had a bit of extra motivation for Napa this time, because 2011's are just coming out, affording me an opportunity to evaluate something special for Evan's birth-year collection (he was born in 2011). On my short list were Dunn, Phelps, Diamond Creek, Mayacamas, and Harlan. And Ridge of course, but that's another trip, not Napa. I was able to book Joseph Phelps and Diamond Creek this time, while the others requested to follow up later in the year, after the harvest. Visiting two major wineries with a kid in a 3-day weekend was perfect. One winery per day (2-3 hrs) is more than enough, and in the day in between, we drove to the very cool African Safari ( Safari West ) in San...