As we waited for Majormischief.com to launch, we celebrated with a great bottle of wine that embodies the joy and passion we live and hope to discover in the people and places we meet in our travels. On this very special evening, we chose the 2007 Sciandri Cabernet, from the newly minted Coombsville AVA just outside the city of Napa.
Sciandri Cabs are food friendly with a European sensibility, imbued with great Cali fruit, and are perfect both at the dinner table and on the back porch at sunset. It’s a medium bodied, well integrated wine with a beautiful nose that the Sciandri’s call “Coombsville Dirt.” The wine’s classic Cabernet bones are draped with nuanced fruit, silky texture, and layered flavors. All in all, one of our go-to wines.
We were fortunate to meet the Sciandri’s at their vineyard and home on a trip to Napa a couple of years ago, when our kind friends at MacArthur’s liquors in DC arranged a visit. Rebecca, Ron and Roberta Sciandri’s daughter, met us and showed us around the home, the tasting room and vineyards before we all settled around the large open-air family dining table for a late lunch.
The Sciandri’s are warm and welcoming, and it shows in their wine. Ron is a second generation Italian-American, whose family has been making wine in the small Tuscan town of Quercia, Italy, for generations. They, and other family run wineries and craftspeople, are a perfect example of the good life still to be found in Napa.
The meal we enjoyed together featured burrata cheese and salami, fruit fresh-picked from above our heads, and a wonderful handmade pasta. It all complemented their wines perfectly. The afternoon was topped off with Ron’s creamy, homemade lemoncello, the likes of which we had never tasted! Marvelous!
