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| The entrance sign for Honig |
On Monday, March 10, 2014, my brother, my father and I visited the Honig winery located in Napa Valley to participate in a wine tasting. After a long day of driving from Lake Tahoe to Napa, we finally arrived at our intended destination, the Honig winery, right off of Rutherford road in the heart of the Rutherford AVA (which is contained within the Napa AVA).
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| The outdoor tasting area |
After parking, we made our way over to the beautiful outdoor tasting area, to find a table with my brother's name on it, as Honig requires reservations for wine tastings. Our host soon came out to greet us and introduce himself, after which he described Honig to us in depth.
Honig focuses it's efforts on two varietals: sauvignon blanc and cabernet sauvignon. Honig produces only a handful of different wines, as they prefer to focus their efforts rather than produce a confoundingly large library of wines. Sustainability is seriously emphasized at Honig. In their vineyards, Honig employs several
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| Our reserved table for tasting |
practices to cut down on the use of harmful chemicals and waste, which include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Utilizing owl boxes for rodent control, avoiding the use of poison.
- Employing drip irrigation, to reduce excessive water usage.
- Eliminating the use of herbicides by mechanically tilling.
Honig also utilizes solar energy to completely power their winery, which cuts down on carbon dioxide emissions. Additionally, and what I found to be one of the more interesting sustainability practices that Honig employs, is the use of trained golden retrievers to detect harmful pests that risk destroying crops.
After the brief introduction to the values and practices of Honig, our host brought us a menu, and our first wine to begin our tasting:
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| The Honig tasting menu |
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Rutherford Sauvignon
Blanc |
- 2012 Honig Rutherford Sauvignon Blanc:
This sauvignon blanc, semillon and muscat blend wine was aged for 6 months in French oak, followed by 6 months in American oak. I detected a very fruity and floral flavor on this wine, with some vanilla, lemon and peach aromas that stood out. On the palate, this wine provided a very fruity, citrus-y taste. Some buttery flavor was detectable as well, lending itself to the year of oaking that this wine underwent, though it was not overwhelming. The finish of this wine was very crisp and dry, which I liked quite a bit. Overall, this was a very well balanced wined that I enjoyed.
- 2007 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon:
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Napa Valley Cabernet
Sauvignon |
The host stated that this wine was made in the traditional Bordeaux style, and has been aged for 7 years. On the nose, this wine gave off a very cherry, dark fruit smell, with hints of chocolate. This wine tasted pretty tannic, mildly spicy, with a cherry flavor and a slightly oaky finish. This was a fantastic cabernet sauvignon, probably at the time that I tasted it, it was the best Cabernet that I have had. This was a hugely complex wine.
- 2008 Bartolucci Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon:
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Bartolucci Vineyard
Cabernet Sauvignon |
This wine was similar to the previous wine on the nose, with very heavy dark fruit aromas and hints of chocolate. This wine provided an immensely tannic taste, and it was very dry. The wine was well balanced, and it was very smooth with only a very mild spice on the backend. This wine has a very heavy body, and was overall a huge wine. Perhaps my palate is not refined quite enough to appreciate this wine as much as the 2007 Napa Cabernet from this tasting, but I thought this wine was just very good, but not quite great.
- 2012 Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc:
This was definitely my favorite wine of this tasting! The host told us that this wine was made in a Sauternes-style, which he said is termed “Late Harvest”, stating that they had waited until late in the year (September-November) to harvest the grapes. He described the use of noble rot to craft this wine, and that it had a low alcohol rate at 11.5% and a very sweet, honeyed flavor. On the nose, this wine smelled of honey, cinnamon apples, and other assorted fruit. The taste of this wine completely blew me away! On my first sip, this wine immediately became the best white wine that I have ever had the pleasure of tasting, and it would make an amazing dessert wine. The wine was very sweet, with a good mildly zesty acidity that was denoted a good balance. If I had to describe the taste of this wine with one word it would be honey. I could not shake the thought of drinking freshly harvested honey while drinking this incredible wine. I suppose it's appropriate that Honig translates to honey in German. Unfortunately, I was too caught up in appreciating this wine to remember to take a picture of this golden-yellow wine.
Following the completion of our tasting, my dad decided to order a few of the tasted wines inside of the winery. The building housing the winery was situated right near the tasting area, and housed an indoor tasting area for times when the weather was not as beautiful as it was during our visit.
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| Inside of the Honig winery |
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| Stay thirsty, my friends |
While looking around inside, I located a pile of postcards that Honig produced of their employees acting silly. I thought these were great, and added to the charm of this somewhat eccentric winery.
After looking around inside of the customer-facing area of the winery, I proceeded to make my way to the vineyards surrounding the building.
At the time of visiting, all of the vines that I could see did not have any crop on them, and it seems that either the growing season has not yet begun for the year. Nonetheless, the seemingly endless rows of vines in all directions was a fantastic sight to behold, as almost all of Napa Valley was just indescribably beautiful.
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| One of the Honig vineyards |
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| Me standing beside some gnarly looking vines |
Visiting Honig was a fantastic introduction to visiting wineries for me, and I can't wait to visit even more. I assume that by visiting such a highly regarded and beautiful winery for my first visitation I will be somewhat spoiled, and I hope that does not sour any future experiences. Should I have the chance at some point in the future, I hope to be able to revisit Honig, as well as explore the many terrific wineries and vineyards located in Napa Valley, and elsewhere in California.
