Yesterday evening I rewarded myself for a day well-spent (crossed everything off my to do list except a trip to Home Depot for something I didn't really need anyway) by opening a bottle of one of my favorite wines of all times, a Montemaggiore Syrah. http://www.montemaggiore.com/
Most likely you've never heard of this winery. It's a tiny little hillside vinyard in Sonoma County, run by husband/wife team Vince and Lise Ciolino. He runs the vinyard. She's the wine-maker. I stumbled upon the Ciolinos' delectable wine during a 2005 trip to Celadon, a swank little Napa restaurant, where a waiter recommended it. I haven't been without a bottle or three in my wine rack since.
I love a good syrah. But Montemaggiore's syrah is more. Full of jammy flavor, yet Montemaggiore is smooth, deep and lingering as a dark chocolate truffle. I attribute it to biodynamic farming, which is something like turbo-charged organic farming. Without pesticides, synthetic fertilizers or other practices that leave a noticible trace on the flavor of traditionally-crafted wines, Montemaggiore is the pure essence of a well-crafted syrah and not more.
I'm not going to give you the low-down on biodynamic farming. You can read about it here if you want to: http://www.biodynamics.com/biodynamics.html
And I want to share this wonderful list of wineries whose wine is biodynamically produced. I guess I'll have to plan yet another trip to wine country to check some of these out. http://www.forkandbottle.com/wine/biodynamic_producers.htm.
