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Mike Grgich Brings Heady Wines to Fullerton Summit

Just mention Napa Valley’s Grgich Hills and the connoisseurs are sure to come.

That certainly was the case for the Mike Grgich-led wine dinner at Fullerton’s Summit House two weeks ago.

The Summit House didn’t need to do any advertising beyond letting their regulars know that the man himself would be coming to town to fill up a banquet room with eager food and wine buffs.

Mike Grgich does about one wine dinner a month and to catch him on his national rounds is a coup. He is 82 years old but you’d never guess it. He looks decades younger and is amazingly fit.

So, it’s not the age thing that makes it imperative to see and hear this man’s story and taste his wines. Instead, it’s his personal fame and the international standing of his wines that is the draw.

I always am amazed at Mike’s energy for life and his deeply enduring passion for making fine wine. It’s a lesson in living to hear him express his respect for the land and the undeniable connection between hands-on winemaking and the soul of the winemaker.

The stories he shares about the industry as a whole and his adventures in winemaking make for great listening for the lucky audience.

Those who “get it” know what an honor it is to be in a wine and food session like this with Mike.

Summit House chef Tim Plumb did a terrific job with the evening’s food. He considered several hors d’oeuvres that would go nicely with the Grgich Hills 2003 Fum & #233; Blanc before narrowing them down to four that took the palate in as many flavor directions with equal wine-matching success.

Once seated at our tables, perfectly seared scallops and shrimp on a gently flavored vanilla risotto began the nicely honed meal. The main course was filet mignon on a huge Portobello mushroom cap and the baby greens that followed were a hit with their “nest” of gorgonzola cheese.

Since Mike makes a very refined dessert wine called Violetta, the chef had no trouble settling on an almond meringue topped with apricot cr & #269;me a la panna cotta to match it.

High praise came from around the room for the whole meal.

The restaurant deserves a separate column about their current food and focus, which I will do during the next month in order to share special menu items I think my readers will enjoy.

As for the Grgich Hills wines that are impressing the wine scene, here’s a bit of historical background.

Discriminating wine drinkers around the world have enjoyed Grgich wines for the past 27 years. World leaders,Presidents Reagan and Clinton, Queen Elizabeth II and French President Fran & #231;cois Mitterrand,have served the wines at state dinners.

Mike is joined in running the winery by his daughter, Violet, and his nephew, Ivo Jeramaz, who strive to make them accessible to collectors, connoisseurs and the general public.

Mike’s artistic and intuitive touch is the guiding force with them and the four enologists on their team.

They all treat each of the six wines in the Grgich portfolio as a special child, because each needs to be carefully nurtured in development and character and each gets that one-on-one attention.

A top priority at Grgich always has been growing grapes in a sustainable manner, using environmentally friendly methods. All of their vineyards in the Napa Valley are organically farmed. The winery now is expanding its philosophy to include biodynamic farming.

This system uses no harmful herbicides, pesticides, systemic fungicides or synthetic fertilizers. It makes use of natural compost to encourage beneficial bacteria and building and maintaining stable humus in the soil, which in turn delivers healthier plants and superior grapes.

He’s also quick to note that there are no set formulas for making a great wine since one must bend a bit to the will of the grapes but also be firm in coaxing the emerging wine into a suitable behavior, just as if it were a child.

Grgich owns the largest biodynamic vineyards in the U.S. Seventy percent of its 367 acres on five vineyards are biodynamically farmed.

The winery’s vineyards are set to be fully biodynamic by 2006.

Grgich has vineyards in five locations,Rutherford, Yountville, Carneros, American Canyon and Calistoga,each of which is planted to the varietal best suited to the microclimate and terroir (makeup of the soil).

All Grgich wines are completely estate grown, produced and bottled.

The winery was founded on July 4, 1977 by Mike, Austin Hills and Mary Lee Strebl. Mike began making wines with his father at the small family winery in Croatia more than seven decades ago.

Nazi occupation and then communism made him want to escape to America as a young boy. Later, Mike took seriously to wine chemistry at college. A professor of his had visited California and told Mike of its wonders.

In order to get himself here, Mike had to go to Germany, then to Canada before arriving in 1958 in Napa Valley. It was not an easy or speedy journey, but the joy of freedom and California’s beauty and climate breathed a new sense of purpose into Mike.

There was a wine world to conquer and, as we know all these years later, he had the vision and the winemaking ability to help turn California’s wine industry into a global statement of excellence. He began his California wine career at Souverain Winery.

He also worked at Christian Brothers, Beaulieu, Mondavi and Chateau Montelena, which was his last stop before Grgich Hills Cellar was launched.

And the wines. We began the Summit House dinner with the Grgich 2003 Fum & #233; Blanc. This is the second vintage of this estate grown wine with grapes from the American Canyon vineyard. This is a sprightly wine that is gracefully fragrant with spring flowers meeting exotic fruit in a clean, crisp manner.

It’s a fine match for chicken dishes with light sauces, seafood and shellfish of almost any kind and pork. It also is welcome in my glass for drinking on its own.

Chardonnay has been Mike’s trademark wine. The current 2002 Napa Valley Chardonnay keeps pace. It’s so clean, balanced and smooth that even I, the non-chardonnay person, finished a whole glass and had a bit more.

This wine is the antithesis of the heavy, loaded-with-oak chardonnays that assault the palate rather than caress it. Here we have a grand bouquet of crisp, fresh stone fruit and melon in the first release of aromas, followed by a bit of citrus. On the palate these flavors are sided by a very slight hint of minerals that marks it as a peer to a great white Burgundy.

There are no harsh side notes in the chardonnay, just a refreshing mouth full of food-friendly wine that could take you through a whole meal.

Grgich’s current merlot release is the 2001 vintage. It is imbued with a very rich, dark color and aromas of cassis and cherry mingling with hints of cedar and rose petals. Chocolate, red berries and the slightest tinge of cinnamon add to the palate appeal.

It should be noted that Mike’s red wines never roar with heavy tannins. Here, they are soft, allowing the finesse of the fruit and the smoothness of the wine to deliver elegant flavor without distractions of any kind. This wine is a natural for pork dishes, lighter style Italian food, duck and red meat and a hot shot pick for matching with Indian or Thai food.

As for the Grgich 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon, it takes me back to my good old days of discovering cabs in general, long before we had all the new varietals that took me on diverse wine tasting pathways.

I haven’t done too many cabernets in the past two or three years but I’m now hooked again having tasted this one.

This cabernet defines how smooth and elegant a very serious red wine can be. I kept swirling it in my glass, absorbing the fragrances for a long time before I even tasting it.

Think ripe blackberries, wild cherries, sweet plums, a bit of dark chocolate and the refinement of oak aging mingling seamlessly with every sip. When we talk of longevity on the palate and a lasting finish, this is it in aces. I absolutely urge my readers to pick up a bottle or order it the next time you’re out at a restaurant with a definitive wine list.

Match the cabernet with duck, any red meat, hearty dishes like osso buco and Mediterranean style entrees.

Mike makes a Zinfandel too, the latest release being a 2001. In fact, he has a history with the zinfandel grape beyond what’s in the bottle now.

Mike long had thought that the California zinfandel grape might be a native of Croatia. In 1996, he convinced Carole Meredith, a distinguished researcher at University of California, Davis, to inspect a vine in Croatia called Plavac Mali.

Carole and her team discovered and proved through DNA research that zinfandel could be traced back to a Croatian grape called Crljenak, the parent grape of Plavac Mali. That was the impetus that Mike used to open a winery overlooking the Adriatic Sea in his native country to produce wine from this grape.

He furnished that winery with the finest equipment and imports French oak barrels for aging the wines so that the quality reflects his high standards there, just as they do here. I’ve tasted his Croatian wines and they are delightful, but not available here.

Grapes for the Grgich 2001 Napa Valley Zinfandel come from very old vines in the Calistoga vineyard. Beautiful purple color, currants, blackberries and raspberries take the stage up front. Suave, jammy flavors of plums, dried cherries, rhubarb and strawberries chime in when you taste it.

I’ve been on a zinfandel kick for a long time and find them compatible with a number of foods. Mike’s zinfandel is an ideal wine to carry one through a meal, perfect for a couple who can only manage one bottle of wine at any particular time. He agrees that from seafood to hearty fare, zinfandel is at home.

2002 marked the fourth vintage of Violetta, the late harvest dessert wine made of 60% chardonnay and 40% riesling. We tend to think of dessert wines as cloyingly sweet, single-minded, sometimes syrupy liquid of which we take a couple of sips and stop.

One must rethink all of that with Violetta. Yes, it is a dessert wine but here’s where it parts with the undrinkable sugary wines: It tastes barely sweet because of the fine balance of acidity whose crisp edge gives it a good-to-the-last-drop character and makes the flavors of apricot, pineapple, butterscotch and subliminal vanilla float so sublimely on the palate.

The wine delivers aromas of ripe pears, toasted nuts and, appropriately, violets. It’s given the wine media a whole new darling to fawn over. In addition to being an extraordinary dessert wine, there may be no better wine match for the richness of foie gras.

When you want to taste legends in a bottle, remember wines from Grgich Hills. They are built on history and passion and global recognition.

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