Hourglass Winery Napa Valley Wine Tasting with Special Guest Tony Biagi

Hourglass Winery Napa Valley Wine Tasting

With Special Guest Winemaker Tony Biagi

Thursday, March 26^th

7:30pm

2024 Hourglass Sauvignon Blanc Napa

2023 Hourglass HG III Proprietary Blend Napa

2023 Hourglass Cabernet Sauvignon HGIII Napa

2023 Hourglass Merlot Blueline Vineyard Napa

2023 Hourglass Cabernet Franc Blueline Estate Napa

2023 Hourglass Cabernet Sauvignon Blueline Estate Napa

2023 Hourglass Cabernet Sauvignon Estate Napa

Menu

Selection of Cheese and Charcuterie

Heirloom Tomato and Burrata Salad with Fontodi Olive Oil and Aged Balsamic

Seared NY Sirloin with Blue Cheese Au Gratin Potato and Cabernet Natural Sauce

Chocolate Torte

The fee for this tasting which includes dinner and gratuity is $275 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.  Please let us know when you make your reservations if you have any dietary restrictions or food allergies and chefs Toni and Dani will be happy to accommodate you.

 A bit about Hourglass Winery:

The idea of Hourglass was born from a place, yet ultimately would become a journey of human discovery. The interplay of terroir and artistic intention yields wines of unique personality that possess an intriguing dialectic: rich with layers of concentration yet vibrant with a tensional edge; classically structured yet silky in texture; unquestionably modern but with traditional stripes.

So how does that come about?

Tony Biagi is a postmodernist, in life and how he applies his craft as a winemaker. Among his many unique talents is his ability to synthesize traditional techniques with cutting-edge theory—a classicist/modernist yin and yang. He approaches winemaking as an artist informed by science, accepting there is certain alchemy in winemaking that may never be fully understood. 

Tony explains, “Think of making wine as assembling a complex puzzle, and each puzzle piece has a synergistic response to the other. Change any one of the pieces and you change the entire picture. We want the picture to have particular focal points and counterpoints. Within each vintage, we make minute decisions in our farming and winemaking based on the differences each year brings—shaping each puzzle piece—to give us the most vivid, multidimensional picture: with our Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, a pure black fruit piece for depth, a tangy acid piece for lift, a color piece to fit with a tannin piece to influence refined structure; one to smooth texture, one for length, one for aromatics, and so on…Then, we go about marrying the individual pieces together as early as we can and give them 22 months in French Oak, allowing them to integrate into a whole.”  

As demonstrated in his debut 2012 vintage with Hourglass, Tony approaches the puzzle from the center, building his wines from the inside out. He first establishes a classic structural core, using the most cutting-edge means possible to encourage tannin and color to bond in a tight weave. “That tannin/color relationship is critical to everything else we do; we go to great lengths in our vineyard practices, maceration protocols and cellar procedures to encourage that,” he explains. Once the weave is refined, Tony builds mouthfeel around it with layers of silky textural depth, emphasizing the purity of fruit expression. “I want my wines to be rich, but if that’s all they are they become one dimensional and monotonous,” he outlines. To that end, Tony wires richness against acidity and minerality, bringing energy into the equation. This counterpoise results in a sum that is alive on the palate while deep in concentration.

Meeting through a tasting group of Napa’s most promising young winemakers, Jeff and Tony discovered a synergy of ideas and quickly developed a “mutual mentorship” as they call it. “We both had 20 years under our belt and had followed the pendulum swing of ripeness Napa experienced. We have learned a great deal in the process and have very clear ideas about what we want to retain and what we want to refine,” Jeff notes.

Jeff continues by pointing out, “We’re in a refinement phase of what we started some 20 years ago. Our objective is to farm to very precise moments when grape chemistry is in balance. The goal is not to chase some mythical ideal of a vineyard’s ‘ultimate expression of terroir,’ as if that occurs magically. The objective is to find our ultimate expression of that vineyard. Terroir is real, but it’s subject to interpretation. We drive to find a balancing point where the vineyard delivers the dialectic puzzle pieces we are looking for. If we get that right, Tony has what he needs to work his magic.”

Tony Biagi (winemaker of the year 2020 Vinous Media)

“I am fortunate to have the opportunity to taste with talented winemakers all over the world. This year, one person stands out. Tony Biagi is not only gifted as a winemaker, he also has a talent for mentoring young, emerging winemakers.

Biagi has made a meaningful difference everywhere he has been. An early stint in retail in the mid-1990s provided an opportunity to taste the first generation of cult wines just as they were getting started. Internships at Dry Creek and Hess led to a full-time job at Duckhorn, when it was still a relatively small winery. “That was my first experience working with world-class vineyards,” Biagi told me. “We sourced from Vine Hill Ranch, Spottswoode, Oakville Ranch, J.J. Cohn and other top sites.” Stops at Paraduxx and Neal Family Vineyards followed.

I first met Biagi around 2011 at PlumpJack, where he was making bold, luscious wines. A year later Biagi was looking for a role where he could also make wine on his own, so he went to Hourglass, but not before putting the pieces in place for a smooth transition at the three wineries in the PlumpJack group and staying on as a consultant for several years. Biagi took over Hourglass, which was stylistically adrift at the time, and brought a clear identity to those wines. Biagi then launched his own label, Patria, in 2013 in partnership with Kimberly Jones, one of the most respected distributors in California. The first few vintages have been positively stellar.

Quietly and very much behind the scenes, Biagi consulted as Clos du Val moved away from an emphasis on volume towards a greater focus on quality under winemaker Ted Henry. The change in the wines was dramatic and sudden. Sinegal was next, where Biagi worked alongside winemaker Ryan Knoth to help the estate get off the ground. Other recent projects include Amici with winemaker Jesse Fox, Lasseter with winemaker Danielle Langlois and Alma Rosa with winemaker Samra Morris. In every one of these cases, Biagi has provided guidance, but always pushed his protégés into the spotlight and given them all the credit. In today’s world, that is exceedingly rare. In a relatively new role as winemaker at The Vineyardist, Biagi has ushered in small but noticeable refinements to wines that were already superb. For all these reasons, Tony Biagi is my Winemaker of the Year for 2020.” Vinous Media