John Brown has been a wine and food columnist in West Virginia since the 1980’s. His regular columns appear in the Charleston (WV) Gazette-Mail under the title Vines & Vittles and in The State Journal - a statewide business weekly
Falcor Winery: Charleston’s Napa Valley connection
It’s not often many of us can have our dreams come true, but that’s pretty much the case for two Charleston lawyers whose love of wine has morphed from a passionate hobby to another full-time occupation.
While Mike Bee and Jim Petersen (at right) won’t be giving up their day jobs any time soon, the two local residents are spending a considerable amount of time in their second jobs as owners of a boutique Napa Valley Winery – Falcor.As enthusiastic wine lovers and regular visitors to California’s North Coast wine country, Bee and Petersen decided to take the plunge and start their own winery. After visiting Napa and talking to many people in the trade, the men were encouraged to modify their idea of building a full-fledged winery and begin their foray on a more modest scale.
First they set about finding the right wine maker. A mutual friend introduced them to Ray Coursen, then the winemaker at Napa Valley’s Whitehall Lane and now owner of Elyse Winery who agreed to take on the task. Coursen is not only a fine wine maker, but is also familiar with many of Napa’s finest vineyards and is able to procure fruit from them for his (and Falcor’s) wines.
Their first wine was a 1996 full-bodied style Napa Valley Chardonnay. Mike and Jim were very pleased with the result and that led to a stable of limited production wines (about 500 cases for each varietal) including two chardonnays, sangiovese, syrah, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, Le Bijou ( a Bordeaux-style blend), cabernet franc and a rose.
Mike’s son, Ryan, is now Falcor’s general manager and, in addition to his day-to-day duties, he oversaw the building of Falcor’s new winery and up-scale tasting room which opened last summer in the town of Napa. If you’re in the area, you can visit the winery at 2511 Napa Valley Corporate Drive, Suite 115 for a tasting of the wines.
While Falcor wines are available at wine shops and fine restaurants throughout the state and the southeastern US, you may also order wines directly from the winery by calling 888-402-9463 or visiting the website at www.falcorwines.com.
I have reviewed a few of their wines in the past and today I’ll give you my impressions of the latest releases from Falcor.
2005 Durrell Vineyard Chardonnay ($42) – Grapes for this rich, full-bodied wine come from the Durrell vineyard in Sonoma County where renowned wineries Kistler and Patz & Hall also source their fruit. This wine shows flavors of ripe pear and creamy vanilla and will benefit from two to three years of bottle age. Try it with chicken cordon bleu or Chilean sea bass.
2005 Sangiovese ($35) – This Napa Valley wine is comprised of 88% sangiovese and 12% cabernet sauvignon. Medium-bodied, it is brick red in color and full of bright cherry and cinnamon flavors with a lingering finish. Excellent balance insures it will continue to improve over the next five years, but would be a great pairing now with a roasted veal chop.
2004 Syrah ($32) – Also from Napa, this wine has dark, juicy plum flavors with a hint of toasty oak. Stylistically, it reminds me of a big Barossa Shiraz and would marry nicely with marinated and grilled leg of lamb.
2003 Le Bijou ($40) – This Bordeaux blend of cabernet, cabernet franc, merlot and petit verdot is a symphony of flavors and always a favorite of mine. Complex with tack-room and spicy aromas, the wine has forward fruit and cola nuances and is well balanced. While drinkable now, it too will benefit from further aging. No question of the food match here: grilled or roasted filet.
2003 Cabernet Franc ($38) – Ripe, rich , blackberry fruit with a touch of anise and toasty oak, this Napa wine is stylistically more like a Chinon (from the Loire region of France) than a California wine – and that’s a good thing. Drink it with pork tenderloin that has been marinated in lemon juice, olive oil and rosemary and then roasted.
2005 Dry Creek ( Sonoma) Zinfandel ($36) – Like its Dry Creek Valley neighbors A. Rafinelli and Lytton Springs, the Falcor Zin is bursting with blackberry fruit typical of the area. Rounded out with a touch of oak, this wine will benefit from about three more years in the bottle. This wine needs baby back ribs slathered with a Kansas City style sauce.
2003 H. Block Cabernet Sauvignon ($65) – This is a special wine made from grapes grown around the town of St. Helena in the Napa Valley. It is a rich, full-throttle cabernet, but is well balanced with black currant and cola flavors with just a touch of oak. Decant it for an hour if you want to drink it now and serve it with roasted red meat or…with a “death by chocolate” dessert.
