I make it my habit to pay attention to new, small wineries. Generally that means seeking them out at public tastings, perking up my ears when I hear the names of wineries I don’t know, and approaching each box of unknown wine I get on my doorstep as the potential to be something new and exciting.

Generally, whatever you might like to call these efforts of mine, if they can be described as efforts, tend to be focused on California. This has nothing to do with my preferences, so much as it does with where I live, who I know, and who generally sends me wine when they first make it. All of which means that I stumble across a small, brand-new winery from somewhere else other than California that has started to make good wine, I get quite excited.

I must admit, I hardly stumbled across Cadaretta winery. My discovery of their inaugural vintage was quite the opposite of chance — their wines were literally handed to me by a group of folks from the Washington Wine Commission who happened to be passing through town and thought I might not have heard of them yet. They were right.

Since that first taste, literally a few weeks after the winery put some vines in the ground, I’ve kept an eye out for Cadaretta, as they seem to be a winery that is going places. Or perhaps I mean just the opposite. They’re setting down roots.

Cadaretta fulfills the long held goal (and the entrepreneurial drive) of the Middleton family, a family whose roots in Washington State dig back deep into the 19th century, when they made their fortune, like many others, through an admixture of their sweat, their imagination, and the raw natural resources of the coastal-region-eventually-to-be-known as Washington.

The Anderson & Middleton company, formed in 1898, did what a lot of companies in Washington did back then: they cut down trees, chopped them up, and sent them south to California to be turned into houses like mine. The company was successful enough (and smart enough) to get into the shipping business as well so they didn’t have to pay others to sail their lumber down the coast for them. They got themselves a bunch of big boats, and they named one of them Cadaretta.

Four generations later, the company is still at it, albeit more greatly diversified. Twenty years ago they started farming wine grapes in California, and perhaps as a result, Rick Middleton caught the wine bug, and Cadaretta winery became the dream that is currently taking shape in the low sloping hills of the Colombia Valley.

Winemaking at Cadaretta is handled by the young, capable, Virginie Bourgue. Bourgue earned a degree in viticulture and another in enology in France, and worked in many French wine regions, including a long stint in Champagne where she worked for Louis Roederer and Bollinger among others. In 2002 she worked the harvest at Chateau St. Michelle in Washington and never left.

Under Bourgue’s direction, the estate vineyards are being planted to the primary red and white Bordeaux varietals (Cabernet, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc, and Semillon) with a little Syrah and Chardonnay thrown in for good measure.

It will be another two or three years before the estate vines will yield fruit to make wine, so in the meantime, the Bourgue is sourcing fruit from around Washington State.

This wine is a blend of 79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Petit Verdot, 8% Cabernet Franc, and 4% Merlot from four different vineyards, including the Pepper Bridge Vineyard, which is one of Washington State’s better known sources for Merlot.

This wine was made from grapes that were carefully hand harvested and then fully destemmed into stainless steel tanks where it soaked for some time before fermentation began. During fermentation the cap was punched down daily (a process that takes all the frothy berry bits at the top of the tank and mixes them down with the rest of the juice below to extract color and flavor). After fermentation the wine was aged for 21 months in French oak, of which only 54% was new. About 310 cases were made.

Full disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Dark garnet in color, this wine smells of black cherries and plums, with a tiny hint of floral qualities. In the mouth it is bright and smooth with light tannins and a clear dry quality to the wine that allows the black plum, cherry, and cassis qualities to sit nicely clear on the palate and through a nice finish.

Food Pairing:
I’d recommend this wine for any of those late season barbecues that you might be doing, especially as the weather cools off.

Overall Score: around 9

How Much?: $40

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

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In my other life, the one I lead in the business world, I’ve been involved with or close to the acquisition of several services companies by a larger one. And I have to say, they have always been a bit of a train wreck. Such mergers, acquisitions, or significant ownership stakes always look great on paper, but invariably, when it comes to the real world, rubber meets the road stuff of integration, more often than not, it’s a disaster.

These disasters seem to arise from one of two main areas: cultural conflicts between the two companies, and/or differing priorities on how to run the business between the old ownership and the new. Quite often it’s both.

Three pieces of recent news in the wine world have got me wondering if the same is true in the wine world sometimes.

The first two bits of news were the acquisition of Kosta Browne winery for what seems like staggeringly high figure of $40 million, and the separate acquisition of the Betts and Scholl wine brand for $3 million. Both events, of course, are wonderful validations of the hard work that the owners put into their brands, and their talents as producers. But they also prompt the question, what happens now?

For some owners, the answer to that question might be academic. If the sale is an exit strategy that pays off a lot of hard work, the event might be accompanied by a sigh of relief and an extended vacation. But there are lots of reasons for the sale of a business, and not all of them involve an easy exit (physically or mentally) for the founders or current owners.

In some cases, the terms of the sale involve the owners staying on for a while, or even permanently. Which brings me to the third bit of news. Havens Winery was purchased in 2006 and at first its owner and founder Michael Havens was slated to stay on and continue doing what he had always done. But 18 months later Havens made his exit citing what might be charitably described as “differences of opinion” with the new ownership.

And then earlier this week, the owners, Billington Imports, “all but pulled the plug” on Havens winery according to a story in Wine Industry Insight. This announcement comes after the financially troubled firm purportedly missed lease payments and permit payments earlier in the summer.

This is all quite a shame. Havens was a unique, solid producer of good wines. Billington owns several other wine brands, most notably Chasseur. Certainly the current state of the economy has played a role in the unfortunate end of this wine brand, but something else is at work here too, which I suspect resembles the phenomena that I’ve observed outside the wine industry.

It’s a serious bummer to see what has happened to Havens, and I hope that things go much better for Betts and Scholl and Kosta Browne. Certainly there must be examples of winery acquisitions that produce triumphs rather than tragedies. But like the nightly news, we tend to hear more about, and dwell on the unfortunates.

I’d like to know what you think, especially you readers who are in the business. A note, however, before you post comments. I gather that there are probably a lot of bad feelings associated with the Havens shutdown, so if you’re an interested (or even just opinionated) party, please no mudslinging.

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I need to come clean about something. It wasn’t too many years ago that I really didn’t care for Champagne. After all the weddings and at least 15 New Years Eves and countless other occasions, I was pretty underwhelmed with the stuff. It was astringent, chalky and the pleasure of the bubbles didn’t really make up for the flavor.

But then one day someone handed me a glass (I don’t remember exactly what it was) and I came to a horrible, immediate realization. Up until that point I had just never had any GOOD Champagne.

My lack of experience with quality Champagne was perfectly understandable at the time, given how much money I, and the people I hung out with, were typically spending on all our wine, sparkling and otherwise. It’s a sad reality of the wine world that by and large most quality Champagne starts at about $35 to $40 a bottle, and the really good stuff starts in the $60 to $80 price range.

I quickly did everything I could to correct my misguided understanding of what the Champagne world had to offer, but it was not an easy task. There are very few opportunities to taste a lot of Champagnes side-by-side, even if you are a member of the trade. As a consumer, such opportunities are incredibly rare, especially compared to the relative frequency of opportunities to taste, say, as many Zinfandels as you want, or a lot of Rhone Varietals.

All of which brings me to next Monday, September 28th. If you are interested in giving yourself a little education when it comes to Champagne, or if you’re educated already and simply want to soak yourself in a few bubbles, then you ought to be in line at 5:00 PM upstairs at the Ferry Plaza Building on 9/28 for the annual Masters of Wine Champagne Tasting.

Put on by the Institute for the Masters of Wine as both a fundraising as well as a general outreach event, this tasting offers an incredible opportunity to taste some of the world’s best Champagnes, poured by some of the world’s most knowledgeable wine experts. The last one of these tastings I attended, all the top cuvees from Dom Perignon, Salon, Taittinger, Bollinger, Roederer and more were on offer. The Institute claims that this tasting is “the most prestigious tasting of Champagne in North America,” and who is going to argue with…The Institute?

Of course, I’m now officially a Champagne fan, and my love for good Champagne has been deepening for several years. I kid you not when I say that not a week goes by when I don’t think to myself that I should be buying, cellaring, and drinking more Champagne. And just as soon as we get through this recession, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

In the meantime, I’m going to go hang with the MWs and taste as much as they’ll pour me next week. You should too.

Masters of Wine Champagne Tasting
Monday, September 28th, 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Ferry Building Marketplace
One Ferry Building, Second Floor
San Francisco, California 94111
ph. 913-385-7376

Tickets for this event are $50 and should be purchased in advance online (the event will most likely sell out, as there is limited capacity). Proceeds benefit the Institute for the Masters of Wine, and in particular their scholarships for aspiring students, I believe.

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