Brothers and sisters, gather round and hear me! I stand before you today, as I have many days before, with the demand that you elevate yourselves for a moment out of the toils and troubles of your daily lives.

I know. I know.

We are not accustomed, in this day and age of endless work, constant travails, and countless other demands on our time, to stepping away from all of this in order that we might contemplate the beauty and the terror of the world in which we live.

For many of us, a sacred glass of wine, enjoyed in quiet solitude or with those who mean the most to us, is the closest we get to a reprieve from the dust storm of our daily existence. And who among us has not simply enjoyed that glass, and all the magic it contains, with little thought or consideration for what serendipity of season and coincidence of climate conspired to forge that wine through the crucible of yet another vintage from the earth.

I am here today to tell you that we are all sinners. Each and every one of us with that glass upon our lips. We all commit the sins of ignorance and of complacency. For while we succor ourselves and take pleasure in the fruit of the vine, we do not often acknowledge that we partake of something that is larger than the workings of human hands and minds.

Brothers and sisters we are all recipients of great gifts from Mother Nature. In every glass we find, yes, the hard work of many men and women, but that is not all. Beyond the winemaking there is always something more, something that Mother Nature gives, and something, brethren, that she also takes away.

Nature speaks to us and through us every day. And whenever Nature speaks she speaks with power. Her language is at once both familiar and also far beyond the ken of mortal men and women. We do not know from whence the wind comes, only that it blows both hot and cold, and we are buffeted.

This week, that wind blew cold across the promised land. And from the heavens, ice rained down upon the most young and tender of vines, wreaking havoc. Without warning and without reason.

Cote Rotie. Alsace. Mythical names that we have praised with voices joined together in rapture. Today destroyed by hail.

A dark cloud has passed before the sun, casting our vintage in shadow.

As devoted followers of the vine, we must humble ourselves in the face of Nature’s vicissitudes. This is not the first, nor the last time that the aims of man and the vagaries of weather have been at cross purposes. We must accept it, for there is nothing else to do.

But in our acceptance, let there be compassion — compassion for those who toil in the path of the storm. Those who labor against the difficult odds of the world in service of the higher good. To these good men and women, whose lives and livelihoods are even now — amidst turmoil, disappointment, and financial strife — in service of the higher good, let us give thanks.

And let us also give thanks for the opportunity to cherish that which we might not have considered; to value what we might have just as easily ignored; to celebrate those gifts for which we too often receive without thinking.

Wine is a privilege and a sacrament, and we should never forget it. Join me in the silent enjoyment of a glass together, that we may lend our dearest thoughts to those in need.

Let us drink.

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Random thoughts and some happy surprises after a weekend up-close and personal with a lot of wines from New York State.

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All of us wine lovers inevitably discover, in the course of our explorations, our own secret wineries. These are the wines that we hold close to our chest, revealing them to those with whom we share only our choicest of morsels, which often include such things as parking spaces, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and great movies and books.

As I’m in the business of sharing great wine with readers all the time, I can’t really afford to hold much back. But I’d be lying if I told you I had reviewed or written about all my most favorite wineries around the world. Some of them I’ve just not gotten around to yet, and others are just easier to put off writing about with the excuse of wanting to come up with just the right way to talk about them.

But as I’m a blogger, rather than a print journalist, I lack the luxury of thoughtfully composed, well researched, professionally edited prose. The conceit of a considered essay is a blogger’s fantasy, for the most part. Instead I scrape an hour or two of my day together out of 15 minute snippets and toss out raw thoughts about the things I care most about, including those secrets that a better writer might spend months deciding how to frame.

Lang and Reed Wine Company is simply one of those labels that represents everything I wish Napa might become over time. Or perhaps put another way, they are something I hope Napa never manages to lose.

Run by John and Tracey Skupny, Lang and Reed winery represents the culmination of a love affair with Cabernet Franc that is perhaps outlasted only by John and Tracey’s own romance, which began back when both of them were just teenagers in Missouri, and carried them on adventures together on shoestring budgets throughout Europe after they both graduated from college. From the Midwest to the Loire and many places in between, the Skupnys finally settled down in the town of St. Helena in the Napa Valley to raise a family and to slowly cultivate the idea that maybe, just maybe, someone could survive making wines that contained solely Cabernet Franc. Yeah, they thought that was a pretty insane idea, too.

John Skupny had the length of a whole career in Napa to consider the possibility. Over the past twenty years he has worked for more than twenty five vineyards in the Napa Valley in some capacity or other, but perhaps most notably, he served as the Marketing and Sales Director for Caymus, the President of Clos du Val, and the General Manager of Niebaum-Coppola winery.

It was during his tenure at Niebaum-Coppola that his obsession with Cabernet Franc finally took hold in a way that was impossible to ignore. Plantings of the varietal in the valley were solid and mature, and many vineyards were turning out some great fruit, which everyone promptly blended back into their Cabernet Sauvignon almost without a second thought. But Johh, with a soft spot in his heart for the Loire wines of Chinon and Borgueil (and probably some great memories of romantic evenings with Tracey in Angers, France) decided that Cabernet Franc deserved a voice of its own — a little solo gig in a town dominated by big acts like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, and their various ensembles.

So in 1996, John and Tracey began arranging contracts for small amounts of grapes from at first, one or two, and then later, close to a dozen of the best growers of Cabernet Franc in the valley. Their goal was simple: to make a wine that showed what their favorite varietal was capable of in California, and that they would love to drink themselves. They named the wine after their two sons, J. Reed and Jerzy Lang, and did everything themselves, from grape sorting to slapping the labels on the bottles.

And for the last ten years, they’ve pretty much been doing the same thing. John, an art school graduate who got into the wine business on the bottom run of the ladder (retail), and climbed his way up, takes care of the winemaking, while Tracey takes care of the sales and marketing. When they have time, the two sons pitch in as well, but mostly they help drink the wine.

The Lang and Reed vision for what Cabernet Franc should be is unique not only for its singularity — up until last year’s first ever bottling of a Bordeaux blend, the label made only Cabernet Franc — but also for its approach to the varietal. One of the reasons that Cabernet Franc is most often used as a blending grape is that it can very easily be turned into a wine with great aromatics, excellent texture, and completely unremarkable presence on the palate. In describing this phenomenon, John will sometimes refer to the “mid-palate hole” that can occur when Cabernet Franc is treated like Cabernet Sauvignon and dumped into exclusively brand new French oak barrels.

Lang and Reed’s approach to the varietal is to treat the grape delicately, almost as if it were the thin skinned Pinot Noir: picking carefully to avoid over-ripeness, fully destemming, fermenting whole berries, gently pressing, and aging in mostly neutral oak. The result is a wine that trades the leathery, stiff tannins that can be typical for the Cabernet Franc for a juiciness and accessibility that make Lang and Reed’s wines a pleasure to drink. A certain amount of age worthiness is probably sacrificed for this approach, but the wines retain an acidity and a subtle tannic structure that will certainly keep them evolving for some time.

The winery produces around 2500 cases of wine each year in two primary bottlings — a Napa designated Cabernet Franc, and a reserve bottling named “Premiere Etage” which gets a slightly more traditional winemaking regimen (extended maceration, etc.) and is aged for at least 24 months in mostly neutral oak, but with an occasional new barrel thrown into the mix. The winery occasionally produces a tiny amount of rosé, and much to my delight will soon be making small quantities of a Bordeaux blend called “Right Bank,” which was produced only for charity auctions in the past, and has been some of my favorite barrel sampled wine over the last couple of years.

TASTING NOTES:

2005 Lang and Reed Cabernet Franc, Napa
Medium ruby in the glass, this wine has a juicy nose of plum and blackberry aromas. In the mouth it is lively and round with a nice balance, imperceptible tannins, and expectantly juicy flavors of cherry, redcurrant, and spicy notes that merge with faint flower essences that linger into a long finish. This is Cabernet Franc as only California can make it. 9/9.5. $20 Where to Buy?

2004 Lang and Reed Cabernet Franc, Napa
Medium ruby in color, this wine has a shifting nose of mixed red berry compote that at times smells like cherries, raspberries, and even for a brief moment, strawberries. These aromas are underscored by a faint scent of flowers that manifests more strongly in the body of the wine, which is a nice combination of cherry, plum, and wet dirt flavors that bounce on a backbone of great acidity and mix with the floral high notes through the finish. 1924 cases produced. 9 $20 Where to Buy?

2003 Lang and Reed “Premier Etage” Cabernet Franc, Napa
Medium ruby in color, this wine has a more classic Cabernet Franc nose of cherries and violets. In the mouth it offers pure, linear cherry flavors that are bursting with acidity, and incorporate floral and other red fruit flavors, mixed with an oddly pleasant grapeyness. This fruit high-note, if you will, is married to deeper, richer flavors of dirt that make for an interesting taut dynamic that lasts in an impressive finish. A unique and immensely pleasurable wine, that grabs you (gently) by the lapels and insists you have another glass. 1,975 cases produced. 9.5 $36 Where to Buy?

2002 Lang and Reed “Premier Etage” Cabernet Franc, Napa
Medium ruby in the glass, this wine has a nose of tobacco, cherry, and fresh violet aromas. On the palate it is juicy and dynamic with cherry, tobacco, cedar and spice flavors that make for a mélange of great finesse. Medium bodied, this wine manages to have the richness of Napa without the weight and the tannic baggage of many of its peers. Delicious. 334 cases produced. 9/9.5 $36 Where to Buy?

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