B Society Connoisseur Allocation
2024 Fall
Another beautiful Napa Valley harvest season has arrived, and as usual the mood around the winery is upbeat, focused, and exhilarated. As many of you know from your visits, there is nothing like the pure natural energy of the harvest. It is go time! But behind the scenes and before the harvest begins, there is a full season of preparation that happens to make the harvest work successfully. The controlled chaos and constant motion of the “crush” is in many ways the culmination of hours and hours of preparation and planning done by our winemaking team. Here are some of the highlights of what happened before the first picks made their way to the crush pad…
Blending wines from the previous harvest: We spent days working through the previous wines, finalizing blends and bottling wines from the 2022 harvest (and some white wines from 2023), and getting a first look at how the 2023 wines are developing in the barrel.
Barrel review: Tasting barrel samples from the recent harvest blind, we reevaluate all of the various coopers that we work with. The continued insights that we gain from these tastings help us to determine and finalize our barrel orders for this vintage. All of those barrels are ordered months ahead of harvest and then shipped from France.
Vineyard review: At the beginning of the year, we sit down to review our vineyards. B Cellars harvests from nearly 40 separate vineyard properties (and well over 50 separate vineyard blocks within these). We take time to discuss each one, noting what we like about the fruit and what we would like to hone in a bit. This allows us to talk to each grower about the viticultural plan – watering, pruning, yield management – to ensure that we achieve the optimal ripeness from each individual block.
As you can see, a huge number of critical planning decisions are made long before the pick date, and at B Cellars, we have a well-seasoned team heading this up. This will be our 21st harvest under the professional, watchful eyes of Master Winemaker Kirk Venge, and our 14th harvest with Director of Winemaking Derek Taylor in charge of the production operations in our winery. Their passion, experience, and instinct shine through in the consistently high quality of our wine offerings.
Recipes
Black Bean Dip
Chef Derick suggests serving this black bean dip with blueberry mole and coriander crema with B Cellars Pinot Noir, especially the Calesa Vineyard or Brown Ranch. The bean dip’s earthiness accentuates the wine’s earthiness, while the wine’s acid helps to cut through the richness. The blueberries in the mole also help to highlight the wine’s fruit, making this a perfect pairing all around.
Sausage Calzone
Chef Derick recommends pairing Blend 24 or Sangiovese with any classic Italian dish. The high acid in the tomato sauce compliments the subtle tannin structure in both of these wines. The aromatics in the Italian sausage also bring out the spice from the Cabernet Sauvignon in the Blend 24.
Chocolate Ravioli
Inspired by one of the first desserts Chef Derick created, this chocolate ravioli paired with B Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon is the perfect end to any meal. Rich and flavorful without being too sweet. The espresso in the pasta will help to amplify the earthy characteristics of Cabernet Sauvignon, while the berry compote will bring forth the fruit in the wine. The richness of the filling will help to cut through the tannins found in Cabernet Sauvignon.
Past Connoisseur Shipments
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