Happy Valen-wine’s Day!
It’s Valentine’s Day, a romantic time when many celebrate their loved ones with chocolates, flowers, a fancy meal, sweet words, and very good wine!
The origins of this festive season are uncertain, but surely go back a couple of millennia to an ancient Roman celebration called Lupercalia, a disturbingly dark festival later sanitized by the church in the names of two third-century martyrs both named Valentine.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Are you opening anything special to celebrate?
It would be another 1,100 years, though, before the poet Geoffrey Chaucer – better known for The Canterbury Tales, explicitly linked the day with romantic love in his Parliament of Fowls, a 699-line poem about birds choosing their mates.
“For this was on Saint Valentine’s day,
When every fowl comes there his mate to take,
Of every species that men know, I say,
And then so huge a crowd did they make,
That earth and sea, and tree, and every lake
Was so full, that there was scarcely space
For me to stand, so full was all the place.”
–Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Parliament of Fowls”
Shortly after Chaucer mentioned love on Valentine’s Day, it appears, real-life lovers began to send each other love poems on the day set aside to remember Saint Valentine, February 14. You can read more about the story of Valentine’s Day here on the Walks of Italy website: Valentine’s Day: The Unbelievable History You Didn’t Know.
Or we can just talk about wine, as we come here to do. I like to open a good red wine with my sweetheart on special days, and Valentine’s Day certainly qualifies.
This year I picked up an exceptionally appealing blend of red grapes from Santa Barbara County’s Ballard Canyon, and I was delighted to learn that it brings along a love story in its own right. It’s not a story of romantic love but what we might call love of neighbor or deep filial caring for fellow workers toward a common goal.
Stolpman La Quadrilla Stolpman 2023 La Cuadrilla Santa Barbara County red blend, is a California red wine in the style of Southern France with a touch of Tuscany, a blend of 50% Syrah, 20% Grenache, and 15% Mourvèdre with a 15% gulp of Sangiovese.
Here’s the touching love story, as Stolpman Vineyards explains it:
Stolpman’s Profit Sharing Project
When Tom Stolpman purchased the land that is now Stolpman Vineyards, he declared that if his dream of owning a vineyard was to come true, it would positively affect everyone involved. He asked vineyard manager, Ruben Solorzano, to employ our vineyard workers year-round, so the team members could have a steady job, a career, and raise their families locally and with security.
Ruben Solorzano took Tom’s idea a step further: he wanted our crew members to learn the lifecycle of the vine and become engaged and passionate about their work. He decided to give one Cuadra – a small vineyard block – to his team, so they could take responsibility for their land. Each crew member became the farmer rather than just the worker. Thrilled with Ruben’s idea, Tom declared that the wine made from the crew’s Cuadra would be given to the team members for their own consumption. Having the self-titled wine at the dinner table served as both a source of pride and a chance to appreciate fine wine, the fruits of the crew’s labor!
Beginning with the 2009 vintage, we expanded the Cuadrilla program to blend in more wine from the vineyard in addition to the training Cuadra. Today, about 18% of our winery’s production goes into the blend. The profits are returned to the crew members, divided by seniority, in the form of both a year-end bonus as well as weekly bonuses on each paycheck. Our goal is to increase the quality of everyday life for La Cuadrilla and their families.
Today, La Cuadrilla represents a vineyard-wide blend. We assemble it from declassified co-fermentations, gentle-press wine from the high-end cuvees, and lastly; riper, more fruit-forward lots.
Inspired by our perpetual evolution and innovation, creative director Kari Crist designs a new black and white image for each vintage’s release, which always relates to the Cuadrilla members. (See 2023 image in the Tasting Report below.)
With its retail price typically in the middle to upper $20s, with occasional discounts, I would normally reserve my tasting report for our paying subscribers whose support makes it possible for me to purchase the wines I review. In the spirit of the holiday, though, I’m dropping the paywall for this edition. Happy Valentine’s Day!
Today’s Tasting Report
Stolpman 2023 La Cuadrilla Santa Barbara County red blend ($27.99)
Dark reddish-purple with a bright garnet edge, Stolpman La Quadrilla starts with a floral blast of freshly ground black pepper on the nose, quickly joined by notes of black cherries and blackberries and a hint of tobacco leaf. All that delight comes together in a bright, ripe but balanced flavor framed by food-friendly acidity, lingering with palatable tannins in a very long finish. Alcohol is listed at a warm 14%, but it stays nicely in balance. (Feb. 13, 2025)
FOOD MATCH: A hefty, fruit-forward and structured red like this is a natural with lamb or beef and an easy match with burgers, tomato-sauced pastas, or hearty mushroom or bean-based entrees.
WHEN TO DRINK: Like good Southern Rhône red blends, this wine would likely age well for five to seven years, but why wait? It’s drinking beautifully now, 1 1/2 years after the vintage.
VALUE:
Wine-Searcher.com’s $25 average U.S. retail is a bit below the $26 price at the winery and my $28 local tab, thanks to a few discounters that offer it just under $20. Wine-Searcher observes that this wine represents outstanding value on its Quality Price Ratio calculations, and that a number of critics have rated this wine extremely highly. It’s an excellent value in this price range.
WEB LINK:
View Stolpman’s La Quadrilla page.
FIND THIS WINE ONLINE:
Check prices and find vendors for Stolpman La Quadrilla on Wine-Searcher.com.
Read about Santa Barbara County’s Ballard Canyon viticultural area at this Wine-Searcher link.
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