Lido di Manhattan presents a wine maker dinner featuring one of the Napa's best, Gary Jaffe of Jaffe Estate's.
Experience the ultimate pairing at Wine Dinner as our Executive chef Luis Martinez prepares a five-course gourmet affair carefully paired with five elegant wines from a noted winemaker. Throughout each course, guests are educated about these delectable, complementary pairings that bring out the fine, distinct flavors in each culinary delicacy.
Jaffe Estate Wines
The vines that produce Jaffe Estate wines grow right alongside the only private research-grade observatory in the Napa Valley. Grapes and stars converge at Jaffe Estate to create wines of impeccable balance.
The vines that produce Jaffe Estate wines grow right alongside the only private research-grade observatory in the Napa Valley. Grapes and stars converge at Jaffe Estate to create wines of impeccable balance. The 2007 Transformation, a proprietary blend of estate-grown Cabernet and Merlot, and The 2007 Metamorphosis, an estate-grown Cabernet Sauvignon that benefits from longer barrel aging.
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Opulence and texture is the theme for this wine. The 2007 Transformation from the Jaffe Estate Vineyard opens with the generous aromas of a blackberry bramble and a fine chocolate. The texture makes an immediate impression with the broad and supple tannins extending from the entry to the finish. Yet, this wine retains a youthful edge that promises longevity.
For the 2007, the Cabernet Sauvignon is more assertive with bold, opulent flavors of ripe cherry and black currant. The Merlot adds chocolate notes and lends a rounding sensation to the mid-palate while smoothing the tannins on the finish. As a result, this is a big wine that will impress with its accessibility. The finish is extended with a delightful suggestion of blackberry and red currant. This is a thoroughly contemporary bottling that demonstrates why Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon marry so well. While one grape variety offers a refreshing and savory vibrancy, the other adds polish and refinement that brings balance to this noteworthy blend.
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Metamorphosis honors pioneering Napa winemaker Andre Tchelistcheff, whose philosophy was, "once balanced, forever balanced." Each of the seven unique Jaffe vineyard lots is individually vinified and plays a different role in achieving that crucial balance. Barrel fermented elements add spice to the blend, while the oldest block of Cabernet focuses the aromas and flavors.
Metamorphosis is a traditionally styled Cabernet Sauvignon blended with 15% Merlot. Aromas of black currant and powdery tannins deliver the "big" taste of young Cabernet now, while promising a long and rewarding cellar life. A focused entry of Bing cherry, raspberry and red currant carries through to the lively and textured finish, picking up savory hints of spice and toast from the French oak along the way.
Both wines bear the distinctive Jaffe Estate label, designed to represent the veraison process from bud break to full ripening. The colored spheres correlate to the different stages in the grape growth cycle; they also suggest planetary phases in the night sky.
Vineyard
You're not likely to come across children's toys among the rows of most Napa Valley vineyards. But Jaffe Estate is different. A family lives and plays here, in a lush, garden-like setting where something is always growing, changing, unfolding. And where someone is always looking at the stars.
Situated in the St. Helena viticultural district and bounded by the Rutherford bench to the south, the Jaffe vineyard is ideally located to produce exceptional wine grapes. Its position in the middle of the St. Helena alluvial fan combined with its Bale Loam soil creates the classic conditions for producing reserve-quality red wines.
Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon vines that have been thriving in Napa since the 1970s are planted 8 feet apart, with 10-foot spacing between rows. They are pruned into quadrilateral cordons and maintained as a divided canopy--all to nurture the supple and nuanced fruit that flourishes in these elements.
If it sounds like Jaffe grapes are coddled, consider this: When your family home sits in the middle of a vineyard, you attend to the soil and the water, the budding and the leafing, the sun and the fog differently. Factor in the observatory standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the vines, and the powerful presence of light that has traveled inconceivable distances to reach this very spot. Suddenly, the gift of the present stands out in bright relief.
Jaffe Estate wines originate from that profound connection to the land, the hills, the story, the sky and the rich possibility of the Napa Valley.
In its May, 2008 issue, Wine Enthusiast awarded Jaffe Estate 2005 Transformation 94 points.
According to West Coast editor, Steve Heimoff, "Outstanding …. A stunning wine….. Brilliant and pure, with a rich earthiness."
And Tasting Director/Senior Editor, Joe Czerwinski writes "no region evokes Napa like St. Helena….and leading the way is newcomer Jaffe Estate's debut release [2005] Transformation. "
