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An Evening with Christian Moueix and Dominus
Christian Moueix
On April 25 I was privileged to enjoy an evening with Christian Moueix (“Moo-ecks”) of Petrus and Dominus fame, as a guest of Sherry-Lehman CEO Chris Adams. Monsieur Moueix hosted a tasting of his Dominus and Napanook wines, with paired cuisine from Manhattan’s Hotel Plaza Athenee.
I’ve been drinking his wines all my adult life and so I felt like I’d known Christian ever since I’d read Napa: The Story of an American Eden. In that book, one of my five favorite wine books, we hear about how Christian, who’d studied winemaking and viticulture at UC Davis, was first approached by Robert Mondavi who was in Bordeaux for the 1981 harvest, and had met with Christian and suggested that he consider expanding the Moueix family horizons beyond France. Those horizons alone were considerable; at they time they included the famed Chateau Petrus, and Chateaux La Grave, Magdelaine and Tratanoy.
Eventually, the ever-persuasive Mondavi got Christian to fly to California, where he literally set him up with two sisters of California wine royalty, Robin Daniel Lail and Marcia “Marky” Daniel Smith, the daughters of Napa pioneer John Daniel, the former owner of Napa’s Inglenook winery, the closest thing Napa’s ever had to a French chateau. John Daniel and his sister had become the sole owners of the winery in 1937 and is responsible for many then-unheard-of innovations such as vintage dating and labeling the bottles Napa Valley. Some very unhappy personal circumstances had forced John to sell Inglenook in 1964, but the historic Yountville vineyard Napanook wasn’t part of the deal, and most of it eventually passed on to Robin and Marky. Together they went into business with Christian to produce the luxury Dominus wines (first vintage 1983) from that vineyard, which they then jointly owned until 1995, when Christian became the sole owner. The Napanook wines are the second wines produced from the vineyard and began production in 1996.
At about 6 foot 3, Christian often towers above everyone else at a tasting, and he reeks of elegance and erudition. But aside from his thick accent he’s about as down to earth as they come, and our dinner was punctuated with laughter as he popped up only briefly from his table to introduce each wine, often with a self-deprecating line or joke.
A true gentleman farmer and a distinguished winemaker, it was a thrill to spend an evening with Christian and his lovely wife Cerise. Many thanks to Chris Adams and the fine folks at Sherry Lehman.
Now for the wines:
Certan de May 2008: Soft and reserved, with very little tannin. Average $85 retail.
Magdelaine 2008: A big, bold wine, dense in color, with big and chewy but not off-putting tannins. Wonderful. Average $75 retail.
Dominus 1996: A lovely perfumed wine but getting a little thin. Average $110 retail.
Dominus 2001: A perfectly balanced, wonderful food wine. In fact a nearly perfect wine. Average $105 retail.
Dominus 2006: Promising but still young and a little rough around the edges. Average $90 retail.
Dominus 2008: Lush and delicious, remarkably drinkable right now and sure to get better all the time. Average $155 retail.
Napanook 2008: Very earthy and lacks a bit in the mid-palate. Average $50 retail.
Mark Gaier and Clark Frasier: Best Chefs, Northeast!
Well – those people at the James Beard Foundation FINALLY figured out what’s what and recognized my cousin Mark Gaier and his partner and co-owner/Chef Clark Frasier of Arrows Restaurant of Ogunquit, Maine as Best Chefs – Northeast!
Many more!
Read what the Portland Press Herald says.
Seacoast Online says.
And check out Guyot-Top 40 Restaurants in the Country.
Guys, heartiest congratulations, and Christine and I had a great evening.
Stoutridge Vineyard: A New York Phenom!
Visiting wineries is one of my favorite pastimes, and I suspect, since you’re visiting this site, that it may be one of yours, too.
Usually I go somewhat far from New Jersey to do that – Sonoma or Spain, Sicily or Sancerre. Yet right in my own backyard, or perhaps more correctly my front yard, there’s a winery that is remarkably technologically advanced, but also fun, charming and beautiful. Especially if you live in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut, a visit to Stoutridge Vineyard is well worth the trip.
The current property of Stoutridge goes back to at least the mid 1800s, although it wasn’t always a vineyard and winery – at times it’s been a pig farm, autmobile garage, illegal distillery, orchard, even a training ground for rifle and pistol shooting. This rather eclectic history turned in another direction in 2001, when entrepreneurs Stephen Osborn and Kimberly Wagner bought the place and began returning it to its roots.
Like many other Hudson River wineries, Stoutridge is known for its hardy (and, well, hearty) whites: Pinot Blanc, Vidal Blanc, Muscat and Riesling varieties – and they do a nice job with these. Unlike other area wineries, however, they also produce northern Italian-style reds: Pinot Noir, Sangiovese, Teroldego and Refosco. But most striking of all is how progressive, modern and sophisticated this winery is. You have to see it to understand, but among the highlights: The winery more than powers itself via a 2,000 square-foot solar array that covers the entire south-facing part of the roof. In fact, they’ll soon be selling power back to their local community.
Stoutridge practices what are called “slow-wine” processes, using a tiered architecture that keeps the juice flowing downward naturally. In addition to reducing energy consumption and capital equipment costs, many winemakers swear by gravity-flow techniques, believing that the less the juice is jostled and pressurized, the better. Amazingly, using tailor-made equipment including electric hoists, a single Stoutridge staffer can take a batch of grapes from crush to bottled wine.
It’s not “just” a winery. Stoutridge is also a Vodka distillery, and as you can see, these gleaming stills are impressive (let’s face it, winemaking equipment other than barrels is pretty…ugly). New York and, I think, federal law requires winery and distillery facilities to be physically separated, and here the distillery room is a world unto itself, lined with small barrels in which the vodka ages.
It’s all tied together by a beautiful farmhouse, vineyards, picnicgrounds and tasting room, so even if you’re not into New York-style wines you should consider a visit to Stoutridge.
Wine In The Time Of War
I spent about a year in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war, living in the U.S. Embassy with 12 other Marines (and an excellent Lebanese cook, Mr. Tony Saliba, who kept us jarheads well fed).
As anyone who lived there anytime from 1975 until about 1990 will tell you, the Lebanese showed a remarkable ability to continue normal life and commerce – for which they’re famous – during intense urban fighting. So we Yanks adopted their ways, and during lulls in the shelling we’d leave the embassy to enjoy the waterfront Corniche, or nightlife on Hamra street.
For me, that invariably included dinner and of course wine, and I often tried the “local stuff” – from Ksara, Lebanon’s oldwest winery, and Chateau Musar among others. Remarkably, winemaking went on uninterrupted even as the war raged, and today many more wineries have sprung up to create what is now a thriving wine tourism business. Others, such as Massaya, which produces around 25,000 cases of excellent wine as well as Arak, waited out the war and then expanded significantly when conditions improved. 
While “the Lebanon” is still plagued with sporadic violence, the country is mostly peaceful and from all accounts, vineyards are producing excellent fruit. Many of the new wineries are located in the spectacular Bekaa Valley – the home of the Roman temple of Bacchus – where there’ll also be a wine museum by 2011, a first in the Arab world.
I haven’t been back since the war, so I’ll let The Wall Street Journal Online describe Lebanon’s wine industry. If you’re truly an adventurous wine traveller, it sounds like there’s no place better.
Wine And Health – Hooey?
Slate magazine says outright that Americans are “obsessed” with the health benefits of wine.
Obsessed? No. Interested? Sure. Very interested? A few of us, either ’cause we’re in the business, or we’re in healthcare, or we drink a lot of wine. Or maybe we’d like to, and want a reason? Why not?
And if we seem more interested than our European cousins, it’s probably because wine is not (despite the efforts of people like us) a staple at our lunch and dinner tables. Unfortunately – although less so each year – it’s still seen as an indulgence and something special, rather than a normal and in fact unremarkable part of a meal. So as guilt-prone Americans we’re probably looking for an “excuse” to do something that comes naturally to people in many other countries. The health benefits, whatever they are, are a bonus.
See what you think…have a read.
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