Played hooky today and did my usual bicycling/wine tasting combo (60 degrees and bone dry. Can anyone say "drought"?). I'm almost running out of easily accessible wineries, but today I found two new ones just south of Yountville-in a relatively cool part of the Napa Valley: Bell Vineyards and Noah/Hopper Creek.
Both had a very austere, not-ripe style in their wines.
Mr. Bell learned his craft in South Africa and Bordeaux, and even the wines with a surprisingly high ABV in the 14% range did not taste very hot at all. Their prestige blend was 13.4% abv. Definitely an austere, relatively light, high acid style across the range of wines. I liked the 1996 Clone 6 Cab a lot, but it was more money than I wanted to spend, so I picked up their "generic" Napa Valley Cab.
Hopper Creek and Noah just down the shared lane from Bell was a lot of fun. Young kid pouring the wines with his girlfriend. He showed me a photo of Mr. Noah, who looked exactly like a Scandinavian Death Metal musician. Definitely cool climate wines with a very austere character. Some of the grapes came from Sonoma County south of Sthe town of Sonoma-almost Carneros. 13.1% ABV for Zinfandel????
I really liked the 2001 Merlot and the Zinfandel. The pourer gave me a deal-buy a bottle and come back the same day, and he comped my a bottle of the Merlot. Needless to say, I motored on my bicycle back to Napa, where my ride had started.