Houston may be known for oil money, top medical institutes, and hip dining scene, but there’s another attribute that defines it: Houston is a hotbed of people who love and collect wine. Expensive wine. My various trips to Texas included spending time as a keynote speaker at large corporate events and even as an inspirational speaker for dinner parties, crafting intimate moments for guests.
My first night in Houston—where I’d gone to give several luxury wine seminars at the prestigious 1000-acre Houston Oaks Country Club—I was invited to dinner by the heart surgeon Dr. Devinder Bhatia and his wife Gina.
We started the evening with a tour of their underground wine cellar. 17,000 bottles of the most prized wines in the world, including three hundred bottles from the Domaine de la Romanée Conti.
There is something mesmerizing about being in a rarified cellar like that. It felt almost sacred; cathedral-like. Quiet. Reverent. All those wines—time capsules going back a century. All that flavor–just waiting to be released, savored, devoured.
As both a wine expert and engaging speaker, I found it fascinating to experience the sheer scale of this collection and to see such enthusiasm for the history and craftsmanship of wine.
The next day at the country club, I poured the nine wines I’d chosen for the Bordeaux First Growth and Napa Valley Cabernet blind tasting seminar. This deserves some explanation.
I’d decided to do it blind mostly because I thought it would be more exciting that way. Plus I wanted to see if either the Bordeaux or the Napa Valley wines stood out as a group. One of the hallmarks of great wine is, of course, that it tastes of its place. Bordeaux and Napa Valley are roughly 6,000 miles apart. Would the wines naturally separate themselves into two distinctly different groups? Would the tasters immediately be able to tell?
If the wines were all from the same vintage, they might have been able to tell. So to make it a bit more challenging, I decided to pour wines of various vintages, ranging from 2010 to 2019. Now, place would really need to standout.
For the Bordeaux First Growths, I’d fudged a little. Châteaux Margaux, Lafite Rothschild, and Mouton Rothschild were in the tasting, but I decided that instead of Latour and Haut Brion, I’d put in Château Cheval Blanc (because it has a high percentage of Cabernet Franc, a variety I love) and Château La Mission Haut-Brion (which has been called the “sixth” First Growth).
The hardest part was deciding which Napa Valley wines to include. The valley has no classification system, but there are a slew of Cabernets that I think possess First Growth status. In the end I chose Dalla Valle “Maya,” Vine Hill Ranch, Abreu “Madrona Ranch,” and Lail “J. Daniel Cuvée.”
What happened?
A surprising number of tasters were able to tell the Bordeaux from the Napa Valley wines. The Bordeaux were sleeker in structure; their flavors suggested things like tobacco, earth, and old books. The Napa wines were more extroverted, plush, and had flavors that sang with fruit.
Neither scenario is better than the other of course. And anyway, the goal wasn’t to see who “won.” It was, instead, a more emotional goal: to sit in the company of others who love wine and experience the beauty and majesty of wine at its pinnacle.
With the exception of the La Mission Haut Brion (two bottles of which were very funky), all of the wines were stellar. My personal four favorites:
- Château Margaux 2010 (Margaux, Bordeaux)—Black silk and dark cocoa. Sleek and cool. Sensational.
- Dalla Valle “Maya” 2019 (Napa Valley)—Umami savoriness. The wild chapparal of a dry mountain forest. Crushed violets and sage (maybe that’s the wine’s 40% Cabernet Franc showing itself?). Spellbinding.
- Château Cheval Blanc 2010 (St. Emilion, Bordeaux)—Deeply primordial. Like going to the center of the earth. Lavendar blowing in a warm soft wind. (Another high percentage of Cabernet Franc—55%).
- Lail “J. Daniel Cuvée” 2014 (Napa Valley)—So exuberant, it’s almost gymnastic. Hedonistic and packed with fruit.
Karen MacNeil is the author of The Wine Bible and a speaker who gives exclusive wine seminars for large events and small private dinners around the world. Both a wine expert and engaging speaker, her events are sought after for the way she brings wine to life through her presentations.
