A Recipe Pairing for Your Valentine

Grilled Lamb Lollipops with Goat Cheese 

Valentine's Day is a wonderful excuse to stay in with a wine and food pairing that will excite the palate of you and your significant other. This dish is incredibly flavorful, simple to prepare, and pairs wonderfully with our 2018 Tapestry Reserve Red Wine.

Ingredients:

• Balsamic vinegar
• Lamb chops, 3/4" thick
• Canola or other high-temperature oil
• Kosher salt
• Black pepper
• Creamy fresh goat cheese
• Fresh thyme leaves
• Orange zest

Directions:

1. In a pot, over low heat, bring balsamic to a simmer. Continue simmering, stirring occasionally, until thickened and reduced by half. Lightly salt and pepper lamb chops on both sides. Let sit at room temperature for an hour. On high, heat oil on a cast-iron grill pan until just smoking. Grill chops, about 3 minutes per side.
2. To serve, place a dollop of cheese in a shallow bowl. Place 1 chop (for an hors d’oeuvre) or 2 (for a meal) on the cheese, bone end up. Drizzle with balsamic reduction and garnish with a sprinkling of thyme and zest.

Tapestry Reserve Red Wine

This is a wine that shows the artistry of blending five Bordeaux-heritage grape varieties, which contributed layer-upon-layer of flavor complexity. Cabernet Sauvignon gave the wine its generous core of briary blackberry and cassis expression, while we increased the amount of Merlot this year to tame the tannins and add plush mid-palate texture. Malbec contributed deep plum notes, while Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot completed the blend with nuances of rose, forest loam and graphite.

Vintage

The Napa Valley region enjoyed a stunning, near picture-perfect 2018 growing season including good winter rains, mild spring weather and steady temperatures throughout that allowed for even flowering and bud break. These ideal growing conditions were followed by a cool, even and slow-paced harvest which allowed the winery to vinify wines at a gentle pace. The resulting 2018 wines are of very high quality with plenty of concentrated flavors, color and excellent acidity.

Tasting Notes

The 2018 Tapestry offers a beautiful rusticity in this elegant expression of this tremendous vintage, showing the true artistry of blending five Bordeaux-heritage grape varieties grown within the Napa Valley, which together contribute multi-layered flavors and complexity. The Cabernet Sauvignon imparts a generous core of bramble berry fruits with blackberries, blueberries, black cherry compote and cassis, with hints of anise, while the Merlot brings vibrant, riper notes of plum and dark cherry.

Winemaking

We tailored the winemaking for each varietal to best capture the personality of both the vintage and specific vineyard blocks. Optical sorting, cold soaking and gentle pumpovers along with in-barrel malolactic fermentation all contributed to this wine’s richly textured and complex flavors. Aging in roughly 60% new French oak barrels for 22 months complimented the wine’s impressive depth and freshness.