January 2018

                                                                     Crab Season in Sonoma

It is a tradition for so many Sonoma Family's to have crab as soon as the season opens in late November. We are fortunate to have a great local source and share the same tradition. Although we keep enjoying it well into the New Year and sharing our love of Crab with our Wine Club Friends and Family.


We started with 16 big beautiful live crabs, 40 pounds. Steeped, picked and repeated.
The shells create the bisque of which is rich and delicious.

The first course for our evening was a crab salad served with greens, pomegranate and avocado. We offered 3 wines to taste; 2011 chardonnay, 2014 chardonnay and 2013 Bohemian Vineyard Pinot Noir.
This group was so enjoyable, tasting and deliberating over which wine paired best. The end result 2014 Chardonnay was the absolute winner.

 

Next course, classic crab cake, no filler. Served with a blood orange sauce. This sauce really is so incredible with crab and obviously has an impact on the favorite wine pairing, 2013 Bohemian Vineyard Pinot. We love pairing this wine with orange influenced foods because it does so well. Favored by the 90% of the group. A couple people liked the 2014 Chardonnay and I liked the 2011 Chardonnay with it. But that just goes to show everyone that there really isn't a wrong answer, it's all subjective.

 

We chose 4 wines for the evening. The first two courses with 2 chardonnays and one Pinot and the 3rd and 4h courses with two very different Pinot's, our 2013 Bohemian Vineyard and our 2014 RRV Pinot. These wines are very different - the 2013 vintage being soft and delicate while the 2014 is more plump and condensed from smaller yields. Plus the RRV is a blend and the Bohemian is a single vineyard from our coolest climate location coming in low alcohol.

The luscious bisque is up next. Rich and perfect with 2014 RRV Pinot, group consensus with no doubt, 100%.

 

 The pièce de résistance, originally "the most substantial dish in a meal." But for me, the show stopper. A dish we serve to a lot of company and it never disappoints, also recipe is on our web site. It is a fun dish to eat because using your hands is a must and it goes so well with wine. The combination of garlic, olive oil, fennel, thyme and chili flakes gives this dish a lot of flavor and the ability to go great with Pinot 'noir.

 Mat prepares this dish by steeping the crab, tossing into the dressing and then finishing it on the grill at high heat for a quick roast.

 

The sauce is incredible to soak up with grilled baguette from a favorite local Bakery, Nightingale in Forestville. Mat also grills half lemons that we pick from the Ruxton Ranch.

 

 

 

Hot steamed towels come out when everyone one by one sighs of delight in a full belly. And cleans there hands to enjoy another sip of wine.

The winning wine with the Roast Crab is somewhat less of a focus as the preparation and need to get your hands dirty changes the thought path. But we did agree that all of the wines won. If you want to enjoy Chardonnay or Pinot Noir, neither will disappoint.

Another fun evening at our Redwood plank tables in Graton. We love where we are and the people who find us and enjoy breaking bread in our Dining room.

Paul Mathew Vineyards, Russian River Wine

December 3, 2017

                                           9th Annual Celebration Dinner

Taking place at our Tasting Room, the first Sunday of December, we celebrate the end of a troubled year and the hopes of a better 2018 with a fabulous six course menu, a very special line up of PMV wines and some of our favorite wine club members and friends.

          Finally organized enough and lucky to have an "Ambience' "  friend to put up lights.

The reception offered a tasting of the 2016 Pinot's bottled in August. Wow is what I say!!!

 

                      Paired with a local favorite cheese, Toma from Pt. Reyes Creamery.

                            And a little shot of kambucha squash soup to warm everyone up.

 

Our Tasting Room is transformed into a dining Room for 30, with candles, linen and a support staff to make it all happen seamlessly.

 The menu is a locally sourced extravaganza of treats. Liberty Duck, Tomales Bay oysters,
           Bodega Bay Crab and much more.

Our sold out Brut Rose' was the first course wine and the very end of the saved stash. It was hard to hold onto enough bottles for this evening. A lot of requests were denied for this occasion.

Paired with Oyster Rockerfeller, recipe from the Hogg Island cookbook. A super popular start and the added beet juice rock salt presentation was amazing!

Second course was local goat cheese croquette, organic greens with pomegranates paired with a very special new wine for Paul Mathew Vineyards. Our 2017 Viognier bottles pulled from the neutral oak barrels that will be bottled early 2018. Spring wine club wine that yielded only 80 cases.
                     Fun dish, great pairing!

 

Super treat #4, we opened our first ever three litre bottle from the 2012 vintage. The Bohemian vineyard was picked to pair with our local crab cake with an orange vanilla sauce. This vineyard often shows a hint of orange or guava, delicate and beautiful.

Liberty Duck Cassoulet, rich and tasty and perfect for Pinot. Two pinot's side by side. Magnum bottles of 2012 Vintage TnT Vineyard and 2012 Horseshoe Bend Vineyard. Yes this was a big hit!

 

 

Main course, braised Lamb shank, Valleyford cheese polenta, paired with side by side wines.

2009 Ruxton Pinot ' aka - our lamb wine ' and our 2013 Syrah.

Two totally different wines both equally perfect.

A petite sweet finish of chocolate ganache truffles.

 

Our fabulous guest chef, Jeff Reilly plus....

Holiday décor made for a fabulous ninth annual dinner. A long and difficult year coming to a close and the hope of a bright future in every way possible for 2018. Happy Holidays, cheers

November 18th, 2017
                                                 
                                            An Evening of Lobster

This idea was 100% Mat. He loves Lobster and I'm good with it. Thus a new dinner for PMV was upon us for a sold out crowd on an evening in November.

I picked the wines, set the table, serve and chat. Mat cooked and cooked and made us proud!

We started the evening with three wines in front of each guest, smell, taste, swirl. 2011 Chardonnay, 2014 Chardonnay and 2013 Bohemian Pinot.

Our first course, Lobster Bisque, a rich bowl of soup with a couple of fresh Lobster chunks. Our group of sixteen tasted the bisque with all three wines and the outcome was Chardonnay was the preferred varietal although divided between the 2011 and the 2014 Chardonnays. Although my preference was the Pinot. The richness of the bisque could handle it.

Next course was a Salad Roll.

This course had a unanimous wine pairing, Pinot Noir. There were a few fans of both of the chardonnays and mine was the 2011, coming from a cooler vintage the 2011 Chardonnay has beautiful acidity that has aged well. This course was enjoyed by all and the fact that each wine was picked by someone, it speaks versatility.

Next up, popcorn lobster, kinda like the more common popcorn shrimp. morsels of lobster deep fried.
This was served with deep fried avocado and 2 dipping sauces: siracha mayo and wasabi lime mayo.

More difficult to find the best pairing with so many combinations but we did...

Each wine took 33% winning. My favorite was the 2011 Chardonnay. With the siracha sauce the pinot did better and the wasabi sauce the Chardonnays did better.

Indulgence is getting more intense with the fourth course, butter poached lobster. Thomas Keller's recipe served with a slice of Nightengale baguette to soak up the butter. And easier to pick the winning wine, everyone voted for the richer of the two Chardonnays, 2014 Weeks Vineyard won hands down.

The final course, surf and turf, BBQ grilled lobster Tail, Filet with Bernaise Sauce.

We swapped things up a bit for this course, rather than two Chardonnays, we poured two Pinot's, The 2013 Bohemian continued from the beginning and we added in the 2012 Ruxton Pinot. This wine mostly because it has some age, earth and dark fruits, opposite of the Bohemian and I guessed it would do well. And yes it did win.

The last course was cleared and the group sighed in pleasure.

We encourage everyone to take notes about the pairings. After the crowd departed and the table was clear, we found these wonderful notes in black and white which left a great feeling of a successful night, Thank you all for coming out!

 Harvest 2017

This has been a tough year and this growing season falls suit.

We experienced very warm temps in June and July and the expectation of another early harvest was commonly heard. And then August happened, cool, really cool until the last week. That last week of August we had temps in the high 90's. At this point if the fruit is close to picking ripeness, a scramble begins to schedule picking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We did our first pick Friday Sept.1st, Ruxton Pinot arrived at the winery by 9am. With the majority of all our fruit coming in that first two weeks, a little spread out as the temps did drop and the ripeness levels were scattered. We ended up picking the final Pinot Vineyard October 11th.

The horrific fires in Napa and Sonoma started late evening Sunday Oct. 8th. The morning of the 9th, Sonoma county's landscape had been changed forever. Willi's Wine Bar was gone and even in the promise to rebuild, that spot will not be the same, ever. We experienced an influx of emails, calls, texts. It was an emotional and crazy time for all. Routine didn't exist and a daily concern of 'what's next' did.



A heartwarming moment in West County was the discovery of the fire crews resting spot. 200+ firemen and 60+ firetrucks rested on a property between our tasting room and our home. A sense of safety was in sight.
As we tried to maintain a balance of life, our tasting room was open. We did not miss a day of visitors. Although that first week, the majority of visitors were friends and club members that had been evacuated or lost their homes. All the conversation was extreme, tears, hugs and a little laughter which felt odd and wonderful at the same time.



                                                      

A lot of wine was consumed. Every story shared. A time to console.

Thus Harvest in West County was over with a bang.

Our Fall Wine Club season was upon us and the thought of going forward was daunting. We then decided to host a ' Spirit lifting celebration' and had a silent auction to raise money for Fire Releif Funds.
We raised almost $2500. in that one evening, gave our valued people a chance to come together and break bread.
Fundraising is every where and support is the new norm.

                                            
                        
This will be a Harvest and a Fall in Sonoma County we will never forget.

Magical Mystery Tour                August 19th

The Wine Road Magical Mystery Tour had it's first trip in early 2016 with huge success. We agreed to sign up in August 2017 for the Russian River tour.

As a small producer, 20 people is a lot for us to entertain during regular business hours. So we agreed to host the group if we could be the 1st stop, 10 a.m. on Saturday morning. The group gets on a small luxury tour bus with a full day of four unknown stops, all serving 4 wines and special treats.

We decided to do a 'Breakfast of Champions' starting with our Brut Rose' paired with deviled egg and caviar on brioche. At 10:00 a.m., breakfast is essential.

 

 

2014 Chardonnay is a beautiful balance of fruit, acidity and oak which does well with salmon. Second bite of the breakfast, a smoked salmon frittata from Bia Cafe.

A great pairing of richness and textures.

 

 

Next up - mini bacon scones from our neighborhood Bia Cafe' to pair with RRV Pinot.  Pinot with breakfast needs some bacon. These mini scones were a perfect bite and the Pinot cut through the buttery component well.

 

 

 One of our favorite special occasion brunch items, we often have Christmas or New Years Day, Dirty Rice with poached eggs. This was a great ending with our 2015 Cab Franc. The wine is not too heavy as it is unoaked with a fresh fruit profile. The Spicy dish was perfect too complete of breakfast of champions

 

 

 I believe we started this group off right for their tour of the Russian River Valley. A little Brut Rose', Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Cab Franc. Good food in their belly and a buzz in their foot step.