Vinfolio's St. Helena office is exactly 5 miles from the barrel room at Philip Togni, and I have it timed to just under 12 minutes. Why do I bother mentioning this? I go up to visit Philip at least twice a year and simply put, Philip likes punctuality. So when I spoke to him on Friday afternoon I mentioned that I would like to come and pick up a few cases we had sold, he asked when I could get there. I looked at my watch and it was 1:47PM. I told him I could be there at 2PM. He agreed and gave me the gate code which is even more important than knowing where the unmarked gate is.
The drive up Spring Mountain Road is always fun especially when there is no traffic, the BMW just got new shoes and brakes so we ended up arriving about a minute early. When we spoke on the phone, Philip mentioned that the weather was chilly and suggested I come prepared. When I got out of the car to open the gate, I did notice somewhat of a bite to the air, 5 -7 degrees cooler than the valley floor. I was happy I had a fleece in the car.
I backed into the loading bay where Philip greeted me and we went inside the winery to begin assembling my order. The first business we attended to was trying the 2006 vintage from barrel. Togni produces about 100 barrels from each vintage and keeps each barrel seperate until final blending, at which time he makes the decision to declassify none, some, or all into his Tan Bark Hill program. We first tried the major component of the wine, free run juice which was tasting rich and lushly satisfying followed by the press juice which forms about 20% of the finl blend. Clearly this was showing more angularity and will give the wine the backbone that the rest of the flavors will hold onto.
Back down in the winery, I began loading the wine. When I mentioned to Philip that I needed some magnums he replied that they were not ready. So when I asked when to expect them he opened box of shiners, appled and crimped the capsules and applied the labels by hand. It wss just another example of the old world methods still employed by the winery. All of the fruit at Togni is still hanging and Philip doesn't yet have a date yet to bring it in. Parker arrives in three weeks to taste the 2006 and may also revisit the 2005, which he already rated 92-94.
I shall have some notes and impressions later in the week on the 2005 release. I will also have some older vintages to talk about from the Togni library. Very limited.
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