“You are trying to lure us into revealing information you are not entitled to? With chocolate and wine? Are you amateurs?”
― Moira J. Moore, Heroes at Odds
I have identified 92 wines, regions, varietals, and experiences. Writing these articles has been a maddening exercise. I keep trying to recall the first time I encountered certain wines. Some, I know, I love deeply, and some I have enjoyed often enough to think we ought to know each other properly by now, yet that first meeting remains stubbornly out of reach. This article is devoted to some of those wines. I should also confess that more than a glass or two has accompanied the writing of these articles, purely in the interest of scholarship, of course. I choose to attribute my lapse of memory to the wine, as opposed to any looming cognitive decline.
81. Gemstone Cabernet Sauvignon Ruby Barrel Selection 2018 – This wine is an absolute gem(stone).
Have you ever loved a wine and yet had no clear memory of how it first found its way to your table? That is my relationship with Gemstone. This is not a legendary or even a well-known winery, but each bottle I have had has been a pleasure. The first was Gemstone Proprietary Red 1997. I cannot recall who introduced it to me, but I vividly recall how good it was. Fittingly, 1997 was their inaugural vintage. A debut like that is hard to ignore. Gemstone earned a place in my cellar after that tasting and has never really left.
About six years ago, my friend Dave invited me to an event in Las Vegas hosted by his watch group, Random Rob. Members came from all over the country. This group and I shared one passion: watches. It was a pleasure to meet new people with whom I shared an interest. This is the sort of thing that can make strangers fast friends, or at the least, give them something pleasantly obsessive to discuss over cocktails.
I attended the group’s opening cocktail party on Friday evening at a watch shop in the Venetian Hotel, where I met Lindsay and her significant other, Dirk. They live in Napa, and Lindsay works for Gemstone Vineyards. She seemed genuinely surprised that I knew about the winery, as they are small-lot producers. They were producing only about 2,000 cases across their range of wines at the time. Lindsay was even more surprised when I told her that I had Gemstone in my cellar. That may have been the moment I ceased to be merely another watch enthusiast and became, briefly, a person of interest.
Lindsay invited me to visit the winery the next time I was in Napa. As luck, or perhaps I should say good taste, would have it, that opportunity arrived only a few months later, as the watch group planned another gathering. This time, the group was meeting in Napa, and a dinner was at Gemstone Vineyard.
Gemstone Vineyard was founded by Paul and Suzie Frank in 1992. They had retired from the gem business, and they gave the winery a name that was either perfectly obvious or quietly brilliant, depending on one’s level of generosity. The Franks sold the estate in 2008, and I recently learned that the picturesque 16-acre estate has changed hands again.
Gemstone is a beautiful estate on a west-facing slope in Yountville, near Pritchard Hill along the Silverado Trail. The estate was originally intended for Chardonnay, but the Franks instead replanted Bordeaux blends of Cabernet Sauvignon clones, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Petit Verdot. The wines were initially overseen by Philippe Melka, but today the acclaimed Thomas Rivers Brown serves as winemaker. His influence is unmistakable in these exceptional wines.
I enjoyed each wine we tasted that evening, but the standout was Gemstone Cabernet Sauvignon Ruby Barrel Selection 2018, which I had not tried before. This is a remarkable wine, and not only for what is in the bottle. In 2020, a jeroboam of Gemstone’s 2019 VIP barrel selection, adorned with 120 rubies totaling more than five carats, was auctioned to benefit the V Foundation in its work toward victory over cancer. Napa, when it wishes, can still do theatrical grandeur very well.
The Ruby Barrel Selection showed an intensely inky color. The nose offered aromas of crème de cassis, dark plum, dark cherry, white flowers, chocolate, blueberries, and tobacco. The palate was rich, driven by dark fruits, especially black cherry and crème de cassis. The wine was beautifully balanced, with tannins so finely integrated that they carried it effortlessly into an elegant finish. It was still young, certainly, but plainly built for age. Fortunately, I came home with a few bottles, and I am doing my best to leave them undisturbed until around 2030.
82. Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape Grand Cuvée Hommage à Jacques Perrin – There’s no place like (Southern) Rhône.
I wrote earlier about the Southern Rhône and the first time I had Châteauneuf-du-Pape, or CNP, as it is commonly (and properly) (Irene’s note: nope) called, in a previous article in this series. It can be found tucked away in the VegasWineaux archives. This time, I want to talk about a particular favorite. There are many superb Châteauneuf-du-Papes, but Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape Grand Cuvèe Hommage à Jacques Perrin occupies a place of uncommon distinction in my wine world.
CNP is one of the great historical wines of France, produced in the Vaucluse department of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, in the village of the same name, in the southeastern Rhône, not far from Avignon. CNP is a wine with pedigree, gravitas, and just enough ecclesiastical flair to remind you that the Church had very good taste in real estate.
CNP can be made as either a red wine or a white wine and can be produced from any combination of 13 legally permitted grape varieties. Unofficially, as many as 20 different grapes may be used to make CNP, depending on how one counts mutations and local practice. The principal grapes in the red wines are Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre, the familiar triumvirate commonly referred to simply as “GSM.” A Châteauneuf-du-Pape may be a single-varietal wine, but more often it is a blend, with GSM providing the backbone and grapes like Cinsault or any of the official (and unofficial) varieties rounding out the edges.
Now for a bit of history, because no wine region improves by being stripped of its gossip. In 1305, following tensions between French King Philip IV (also known as Philip the Fair) and the papacy, the French cardinal Bertrand de Got was elected Pope, taking the name Clement V. Clement declined to settle in Rome and, under considerable French pressure, moved the Curia (in effect, the papal court) to Avignon in 1309. Thus began the Avignon Papacy, a 67-year chapter in which seven successive French popes managed to relocate the center of Western Christendom while also, one suspects, improving local wine consumption.
In 1317, Pope John XXII, the second of the Avignon popes, ordered the construction of a magnificent medieval Gothic palace in Avignon, known as the Palais des Papes, or Palace of the Popes. He also established a summer residence in the nearby village, then known as Castronovum Calcernarium. Over time, the village came to be called Châteauneuf-du-Pape—literally, “the Pope’s new castle.” This is one of the rare places where the name alone sounds as though it should be accompanied by trumpets.
It is in homage to this bit of history that bottles of Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines are famously embossed with crossed keys, which are the symbols of St. Peter and papal authority, and the papal miter, the traditional papal headdress. These symbols of papal authority are effectively coats of arms and are now legally protected trademarks. The Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC), the French appellation rules require that one must at least have the decency to make the wine in the correct village, if one is going to borrow the Pope’s insignia.
As for the wines themselves, I find Châteauneuf-du-Pape endlessly compelling and rarely pass one by. The finest CNP I have ever tasted, however, was Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape Grand Cuvèe Hommage à Jacques Perrin. Regrettably, I cannot recall the vintage, which is either maddening or proof that one should always take notes before the second glass. What I do remember clearly is that it stood apart from every other CNP I had tasted. It was not merely excellent; It had command. Sovereign is not too strong a word.
The Beaucastel story begins in 1549, when Pierre de Beaucastel bought a barn and vineyards in the southern Rhône. Today, the Château is in the northeastern corner of the appellation and encompasses approximately 100 hectares (250 acres) planted to vine. Most of the vines are dedicated to Châteauneuf-du-Pape AOC wines. The Château has planted all 13 of the permitted grape varieties, because apparently moderation has never been their preferred register. Some of the vines are over a century old, and the grapes are harvested by hand. The French AOC requires manual harvesting for higher-tier wines, such as CNP.
The terroir is a mix of sandstone and limestone, with the region’s famous stones, called galets roulés, that retain the heat of the day during the cool night. These stones help the vines produce remarkably concentrated fruit.
The result, in the case of Hommage à Jacques Perrin, is a wine of extraordinary depth and authority. While Beaucastel’s classic Châteauneuf-du-Pape is a broader blend, the Hommage is typically built around a far more commanding proportion of Mourvèdre, often approaching 70%. That gives the wine a darker, more brooding profile, and also the kind of structure that suggests it intends to outlive everyone at the table.
In the glass, this wine is deeply purple, nearly regal in bearing. The nose offers violets, sous-bois, white truffles, leather, raspberry, and blackberry. On the palate, it is rich and layered, with notes of herbs, blackberry, blueberry, kirsch, licorice, and truffles. It is dense without heaviness, velvety without softness, and the finish arrives with that rare combination of force and grace that makes you stop speaking for a moment, which is always a useful measure of greatness.
This CNP is aged in French oak barrels for 12 to 18 months and is produced only in vintages the estate deems worthy. In other words, it does not appear every year, which only adds to its mystique and to the financial imprudence it can inspire. The wine reminds me a little of a young Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire: all charisma, muscle, and danger, except that instead of shouting “Stellaaaa!” it seems to murmur, with complete confidence, “Mourvèdre.”
Pair Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape Grand Cuvée Hommage à Jacques Perrin with roasted duck, grilled meats, or a deeply satisfying red-meat dish. It is, among many other things, a brilliant alternative to Cabernet Sauvignon, and one with far better stories to tell.
Santé!
