The Frog's the Only Thing Not Green At Frog's Leap: Tasty, Organic Wines In a Beautiful Setting

At the suggestions of the awesome normal wine people on Facebook, Frog's Leap was high on the list for my Napa trip this year and I was ready to discover all it had to offer. I'd enjoyed the wines at tastings, and knew the place was touted for its commitment to organics, but I'd never been to visit.

I gotta say, on a number of fronts, I was I happy I made it! Frog's Leap has good wine, a stunning property, and great hospitality. Thanks to all who recommended it!

The Winery is in the Rutherford District of Napa, which is a small area in the middle of the Valley. Because it's so unique, Rutherford is worth a little tangent...so here goes...

More so than any other, this sub-district of Napa is probably the most distinct of all the Valley's American Viticultural Areas (AVAs). Here Cabernet Sauvignon reigns supreme, and with good reason -- the grape has a balance of fruit, tannin, and earth that you don't see in other Napa AVAs. In a valley where the winemaker often determines flavor, the land seems to rule Rutherford grapes.

People often talk about "Rutherford Dust," a characteristic of the wines that's specific to this area. Although it's brought up all the time, truth is: there's some ambiguity about what that actually means. Some say it refers to the earthy, mineral quality of the wines (that I find to be distinctive, delicious, and great), but others say it's just a term for the winemakers' collective commitment to maintaining good land and soil. Although my mouth tells me the former is true, I'm inclined to believe the latter, since the Rutherford Dust Society, a non-profit that promotes the district's wines and farming, claims that is the case.

All I can tell you (and all that matters to me, at least) is that I taste an earthiness in the wines, so when I think of Rutherford Dust, I think of that quality regardless of the original intent of the phrase. And I think of that as a wholly positive description of the wines.

'Nough said on Rutherford.

Let's leap back to the Frog and address the gorgeous tasting room, which is in a red barn and on the site of the former Adamson Winery, built in 1884. John Williams, owner and winemaker at Frog's Leap, did the renovation in 1994 and has kept it up beautifully.

It was a really busy day for this popular tasting room so after checking in we were seated promptly on the porch which overlooks the valley floor vineyards. Our guide through the wines was Peter Molinari IV, whose ancestor was the first Swiss farmer in all of Napa in the 1880s, and whose family still owns Zinfandel vineyards from which they make a little wine but mainly sell grapes. He was the sweetest, most modest, helpful, and knowledgable person with whom you'd want to spend an hour. In a place with lots of bachelorette parties and family reunions (i.e., Frog's Leap is a little commercial), Peter still made me feel special and relaxed.

Peter shared some facts about the Winery with me. Frog's Leap is mid-sized, verging on large. It makes about 60,000 cases (720,000 bottles) per year. The story is kind of neat and not the "rich guy likes wine, buys winery" story that's so common in Napa. After growing up on a dairy farm in upstate New York, John Williams attended Cornell University, to continue studying dairy farming. But during a work-study, he learned more about wine and decided instead to pursue a Masters in enology at UC Davis in California. in 1981 he made the first vintage of Frog's Leap and hasn't thought about cows or sheep since.

Frog's Leap is pretty awesome in that the wines are made only from organically farmed grapes (check out the post and podcast for more on organics). And in places where Frog's Leap's vineyards abut their non-organic neighbors (of which there are many), Williams and his team plant ample buffers of pomegranate and olive trees to ensure the grapes are protected from nasty pesticide sprays.

Peter explained to us that John Williams is all about natural farming. He and his team nurture his vines, but let them grown on their own and struggle to reach maturity. He dry farms -- which means no irrigation (rare in Napa but saved them an estimated 10 million gallons of water last year). Williams sometimes harvests earlier to avoid the thing for which many Napa wines are criticized -- high alcohol levels, too much fruit flavor and low tannins and acids that occur when the grapes hang on the vine too long and bake in the sun (especially in warmer years). Although the wines go for big bucks, many think these Napa styles are overdone and don't allow Cabernet to show it's kinder, gentler fruit flavors, nuances, and textures. You won't find that in Frog's Leap wines.

If you're a regular blog reader, you know I'm a lover of organics and all things ecologically good, so I've got to say how utterly impressed I was that Frog's Leap walks the walk. They have 1,000 solar panels to power their winery and the farmhouse was the first LEED certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, an internationally-recognized green building certification) building in the California Wine industry, with geothermal heating and cooling systems. These people are serious about caring for the environment, unlike those who pay lip service and call themselves "sustainable," a meaningless term in this industry.

And they've got hospitality down to a science. The folks working there were all so nice. My biggest gripe about the place -- the patrons. There were lots of wine snobs there and I saw them being nasty to our new friend Peter, and to the other hard-working staff. I guess in Napa people feel that they should act a certain way, but I can understand why Peter wanted to hang out with us rather than talk to some of the other people who seemed to think he was their servant. Frustrating to watch...and all the more reason for you to go. You will be one of the good ones!

Now to the wines, which were all understated and tasty...

Wine #1: 2010 Rutherford Sauvignon Blanc, $18

Color: Super pale and light with a bit of a golden rim, this looked good. No oak here -- good sign for Napa Sauv Blanc, which always seems to have a touch of smokey, oakiness that I don't think works with the grape.

Smell: Man, this was grassy. It smelled like grapefruit, lemon, and flowers at first. Then a little tropical -- like passionfruit. This was a very typical unoaked Napa Sauv Blanc to smell -- clean, floral, and tropical.

Taste:Just like it smelled -- grapefruit, grass, and tropical fruit stood out. It had noticeable mouthwatering acid and a little weight and silkiness when I rolled it around my mouth. It was refreshing, but medium in body. It has lower alcohol (for Napa) at 12.8%, but it was no powder puff.

Drink or Sink: Drink. A good wine for the porch. Refreshing and light but not overly so. I like that the wine had all the ripe, tropical fruit flavor I'd expect in Napa yet was still on the lighter side. A great sipper on a hot day.

Wine #2: 2009 Napa Valley Zinfandel, $27

A note on this wine before I get into it. This is not your typical Zinfandel on a few fronts. First of all, John Williams and his co-winemaker Paula Moschetti decided to make a more traditional style Zin. What's that? It's a wine that's not 14%+ alcohol, bursting with fruit, and made with nearly raisined grapes. It's one that's a blend of some other stuff, to help fill in where Zin may not be so strong. So...

The Blend: 77% Zinfandel, 22% Petite Sirah, 1% Carignan

The Alcohol: 13.6% (very low for Zin)

Color: This was a really dark color, mostly from that 22% Petite Sirah. The grape has tons of pigment and can darken any wine to nearly purple!

Smell: The wine was like blackberries, boysenberries, and black plums. It was subtle and more perfumed than bursting with fruit. It didn't have the black pepper spice I'm used to in a Zin, it was kind of light to smell.

Taste: Again, a lighter fruit quality. This wasn't a fruit nor an alcohol bomb. It had some ripe black plum flavor and then a good hit of pepper, nice mouth-drying tannin, and great acid to keep everything in check. It was a subtler version of Zin.

Drink or Sink: Drink, but only for comparison to see how a lighter Zin tastes. I generally like subtler wines, but where Zin is concerned I like a little more umph. I was missing fruitiness and spice and felt this was a bit too lightweight for the grape. You'll rarely see a Zin with this little alcohol anywhere, so it's worth trying just for the sake of comparison. That said, it's not one I'll be adding to the rotation.

Wine #3: 2008 Napa Valley Merlot, $34

This is where things started to get really amazing. This wine is 100% Merlot and is farmed almost exclusively around the Frog's Leap estate. While I was sitting and sipping, I was looking at the vineyards of Merlot. It's dry farmed and gets the attention that makes this wine kind of a knockout.

The Alcohol: 12.9% (like a European wine)

Color: The wine was a crimson red with a pink rim. It was mellow in color, so I couldn't tell much about the wine by looking at it.

Smell: And there it is...the Rutherford Dust. This wine just smelled like dust and earth. It had great cherry and chocolate notes, but it was so earthy and herbal (like thyme) that I was completely intrigued. I was excited to taste this. It was decidedly more earthy and subtle than most Napa wines I've smelled, and the alcohol was low so I thought this may be the holy grail -- a true European style wine in California (everyone boasts about this but most of that's crap in my opinion. Plus I'm not sure why you wouldn't just want to be a California wine, when those styles are unique and delicious too!)

Taste: Oh, yeah. Rich chocolate, cherries and dusty, earthy, mineral flavors were prominent. The texture of this wine was amazing. It was both rough and silky at the same time! The tannins dried out my mouth, but the fruit was soft and plump. What a balance!

Drink or Sink: Drink. This is an excellent, understated Merlot that shows what Rutherford Dust really is. If you've written off Merlot from California because of "Sideways" or for some other reason (like a lot of the lower tier stuff sucks, for instance), try this one and it will show you what California could do with Merlot if it made a good go of it. It was great with the Gouda on the cheese plate too!

Wine #4: 2007 Rutherford (small production Cab), $75

The Blend: 93% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Cabernet Franc

The Alcohol: 13.6% (very low for Cabernet)

Color: A dark plum color in the center with a rosy rim and kind of thick legs, it seemed like the color was pointing to a flavorful wine, but I had a feeling it would still be restrained, since I was sensing a theme with Frog's Leap.

Smell: More like violets than fruit, this wine had a serious earthy, dusty, green pepper note to it. It was full and rich with black cherry and vanilla notes.

Taste: A full, rich bold wine. It tasted like it smelled -- earthy, perfumed, and more like blueberries than cherries with a subtle hit of vanilla from the oak. More than anything this wine was earthy and fruity yet powerful and flavorful, without being over the top.

Drink or Sink: Drink. There aren't the distractions of overripe fruit or high alcohol that so many other wines in the Valley/District seem to feature. This was a great wine, and would be terrific with food.

Thank you all for suggesting Frog's Leap. Gorgeous place, great philosophy, and good wines...and they're all pretty widely available so you can probably get them where you live, if you're in the States.

And a big thanks to Peter Molinari IV -- don't let those wine snobs get you down. You are great and sweet. Next year, I'm coming up to your family's property and we're going to DORK out on farming BIG TIME!

If you've been to Frog's Leap or had their wines, please add a comment below and let me know what you thought.