Good Grape Wine Company

October 18 2006

Gimme Shelter

The other day I wrote about the peculiar case of Napa River Winery—a Napa winery that doesn’t appear to be listed in any Napa phone book, or online.

The offending wine (and winery), which I haven’t purchased yet is a brand sold at Trader Joe’s and allegedly a winery based on bulked out vino from Napa--a requirement that was a part of the legal ramifications that Fred Franzia ran into. I think the law requires that labels have wine from the appellation it references. Hence, Franzia’s central coast wine can’t be called Napa Ridge it has to be renamed which Franzia has done calling it Harlow Ridge.

Then, the very next day, I get an email from Crush Wine & Spirits in NYC titled “Gimme Shelter” that detailed a luxury Sav. Blanc (called “Shelter” and built a little mystery around its origins. With a Mick Jagger sighting in Napa last week, I’m going with the “Gimme Shelter” title for this post, as Crush has. Their email blurb provides a pretty good, if not cursory overview and is provided in excerpted form below.

I’ve purchased from Crush in the past and can recommend them, as well, though I hope the Shelter Sav. Blanc isn’t made in the massive quantities that the TJ’s stuff is ... 50K + cases. If so, the story gets shot to hell ...

… we can’t tell you too much about this wine because its exact origins must be kept a secret. Yes, this is 007 meets the wine business.

What we do know is that Shelter Sauvignon Blanc ... is blended from the top vineyards of one of the most famous winemakers in the region. Superstar vintners obviously don’t want you to know where their extra juice goes, so it is sold with the promise that its identity will kept on the DL.

Believe me, the wine itself offers up more than enough proof of its aristocratic pedigree: Shockingly rich fruit for a dry white wine, with a ripeness and opulence second to none. The only thing that’s missing is the famous label. This is a wine to buy for immediate consumption.

Here’s how Shelter comes to be:

Top winemakers always vinify more top quality wine than they bottle, preferring to tinker with their final blend and add more juice from some barrels than others.

The owners of the Shelter project, with their friendships and deep rooted relationships in Napa, find out about this incredible extra juice before it’s disposed of (read: quaffed at Napa Valley parties) and purchase it to label at a fraction of the price. What you end up with is an excellent bottle of wine that’s selling for well under its inherent value.

No pretension – just killer wine. It’s everything you could possibly want from a New World Sauvignon Blanc: Pure ripe melon and pineapple fruit, incredible richness and a sumptuous texture.

The efficiency of the Shelter project keeps costs low and passes on the savings to us and to you. But there’s just not much of this "extra wine" so please reply to this email or call (212) 980-9463 immediately to secure your piece of this small-production gem.

All well and good, but I’d still like to find Napa River Winery ... paging Napa River Winery.

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