Nestled in the Coombsville AVA in Napa Valley just outside of the town of Napa, Palmaz Vineyards has a history that dates back to the Gold Rush era of the 1800s.
Today, it is proudly owned and operated by two generations of a family that has brought innovation, creativity, and hospitality to the culture of wine, and ancient art of winemaking.
As summer fades, we lean into the warmth of our kitchens and recipes that can take an edge off the chill. Soups, stews, and braises—we fall back on all kinds of comfort dishes here at Palmaz—but nothing is more comforting than the sound of a stock pot simmering.
A decadent dish, indeed! We love it served next to a bed of fresh arugula, shaved Parmesan and a glass of Palmaz Cabernet for the perfect fall lunch. Make sure to have some extra Cabernet Reduction on hand for anyone who wants to spoon some additional sauce over the top.
In true form, the 2018 Riesling “Louise” from Palmaz Winery was delivered in a “Flûte” shaped bottle reminiscent of Rieslings from Alsace, France. It also has a low alcohol content consistent with old world production.
We often use cantaloupe for this recipe, paired with our Amalia Chardonnay, but Amalia Palmaz has recently been making this dish with Honeydew. It is a delicious variation, with a delicate flavor that balances perfectly with the spice of the cayenne pepper and saltiness of the prosciutto! Use whichever melon you have on hand—either will make for a refreshing dish. The Honeydew variation pairs beautifully with our Louise Riesling.
Sommeliers are asked the question at least once a day, says Zaitouna Kusto, sommelier at Esters Wine Shop & Bar in Santa Monica, California. “These well-meaning people aren’t wrong about their tastes, of course, but they are potentially misguided by a number of sociological factors they may not even realize.”
American sweet wines have long had a poor reputation. In stark contrast to the grand sweet wine traditions of Europe, like Sauternes, Tokaji and Italian passito, U.S. bottlings are often lumped together with poorly made, sugar-laden sweet offerings sipped by those thought not to know “real wine.”
Dear Tim,
Thank you for so thoroughly covering our story. I really appreciate the effort to capture such a technical topic and make it an enjoyable read! I have a couple reactions to some concepts your article drew that might potentially serve as a followup topic for a future piece and an interesting discussion for our blog where your article will be featured.
Grapes are a hardy, resilient fruit. Among the first lessons one learns when studying wine is that grapes should even undergo stress during their time on the vine when grown for high-quality winemaking. And so we can describe the wine industry as characteristically resilient by nature: resistant to freak annual weather occurrences; resistant in the long run to the fickle tides of drinking trends; and resistant, largely, to technological advancements.
Over the course of the previous five installments of this series on Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, I’ve focused on various specific appellations, trying to contextualize them in order to demonstrate what makes the wines from each unique. This final one, on Cabs labeled as simply Napa Valley, as opposed to any of the specific nested AVAs, is inherently problematic: Wines labeled as Napa Valley encompass a sweeping range of soils, micro-climates, geological histories, elevations, and more. In that regard, it’s just not possible to tie them all together in any satisfactory way.
To help shed some light on Napa Valley as a whole, I spoke with Vinous founder and CEO Antonio Galloni, who is not only one of the most important critics in the world of wine in general—his expertise literally spans the globe—but whose Vinous Napa Valley Vineyard Maps, done with critic and cartographer Alessandro Masnaghetti, are the most comprehensive and educational I’ve ever seen.
“The reason why I started to do those maps back in 2011,” he said, “is that I was tasting wines for Robert Parker [of The Wine Advocate],” and realized that, “if you woke up on the valley floor, you think you were tasting in Piedmont” from all of the fog. “And if you drive up to Pritchard Hill, it’s dry and sunny—and this is the same day.”
