Nostalgia

Last night, we held our very first staff meeting for the SB team. It was a chance to get all of us in the same room and talk about things, mainly of course, wine. While we do a pretty intense training program for new employees at Riverbench, we hadn't had a chance to sit down as a group and taste through ALL of the wines together. We took the time to do this last night.

Telling stories about my first days at Riverbench six years ago, and the history of the property and the owners, made me a little nostalgic. I found myself remembering the evolution of the Mesa Pinot Noir and missing our former winemaker Chuck Ortman a bit.

I was sitting in the dusty back office (while Riverbench North was being renovated, I worked in the back building with the mice and forklift) my first October at Riverbench in 2007, and Chuck came by. He was going through the vineyard to taste Pinot Noir and asked if I'd like to come along. Of course I jumped at the chance. Tasting grapes with a winemaking celebrity? Yes please.

We tasted row by row and block by block, ending up at the four acre Mesa block. Even to my untrained palate, I could tell those grapes tasted different from everything else we had tried that day.

"Why don't we make this on its own? These grapes taste...different," I asked him. Chuck just smiled his mischievous little smile.

"We could, and they do," he said.

I still don't know if he took me to the Mesa block last on purpose just to see if I'd react. It's long since been, according to Chuck and Jim, the most highly demanded fruit on the vineyard. So that year we kept those grapes separate from the others. The resulting barrel samples that spring blew us away, and the Mesa Pinot Noir become a staple in our wine portfolio.

I miss Chuck sometimes, and he usually somehow senses that and gives me a call to check in. He was such a legendary talent not only on the Central Coast, but in California's wine history. And certainly he was a big part of shaping Riverbench early on. What a sweet and funny man. We miss his goofy sense of humor now and again around here. I count myself super lucky to have worked with him; experiences like the one above will be the things I remember forever.

Wine Dinner with Trattoria Uliveto

I recently realized that this week marks my five year anniversary with Riverbench. It feels like just yesterday that I donned the pink hard hat to start the construction of the tasting room. Ah, memories.

Anyway, the point of this blog is that over the past five years, we've only done a handful of wine dinners each year for various reasons. All that is about to change now that we have Clarissa, our new winemaker, who is great at hosting them. I've also got more staff now, so it gives me time for things like this. Expect great things.

Monday night was our dinner at Trattoria Uliveto in Orcutt, and it was truly one of the best food and wine pairing experiences I've had recently. I love Uliveto because it's a warm, welcoming place with awesome Italian food. But for this dinner, Chef Alfonso Curti pulled out all the stops.

The first course was a tuna tartare paired with our 2009 Cork Jumper Blanc de Blancs. It was unique because he mixed the fish with avocado (love!) so the creaminess really balanced out the effervescence of the bubbles.

Next, Alfonso indulged me with one of my favorite pairings In. The. World. Bacon and 2011 Rosé of Pinot Noir. If you haven't tried it, you should. This bacon wrapped scallop dish was a perfect summer starter, and one of the favorites of the evening.

As if we weren't already happy enough, the third dish, which was a sweet corn ravioli with a porcini cream sauce, pretty much made the night. You know those moments when you match a wine and a dish perfectly? I mean so perfectly that your mouth sort of sighs in relief? That's what happened with a sip of our 2009 Estate Chardonnay. I'm still thinking about it.

The fourth course had everyone asking questions, because it was sea bass paired with our 2009 Mesa Pinot Noir, which is a bit unconventional. I don't believe in the whole "white wine with fish" thing, so asked everyone to give it a try and be open minded. And it was perfect together because there was just enough pepper; a wimpy white wine would have been disappointing. By the way, do you know how hard it is to cook fish perfectly for 70 people? Kudos, Chef.

Stuffed, but pressing on, we moved to a moist and succulent quail at my request. I had a quail risotto there that I fell in love with a while back, and since the birdie goes so well with our Pinot Noir, Chef put this together as a fifth course. Delicious would be an understatment, but I'm running out of descriptive food words in this post. Something about the gaminess of the bird with our earthier single clone 667 2009 One Palm Pinot just works really well.

There was dessert. Chocolate cake, a berry tartlet, and...drumroll, please!...a cannoli. Chef doesn't make his cannoli super sweet, so it was magical with our off-dry 2011 Riesling. Magical, I tell you! Everyone in the place went home happy, and I'm looking forward to another awesome five years full of exactly this type of evening.

A huge thank you to staff member Jules Reuter, pictured here with his lovely fiancée, Penni, for the awesome photos.