“Ms. Ceja,” the maitre d’ said, “is at the Queen’s Table.”

While this could mean a lot of different things at other places, at the Ahwanhee Hotel it’s the table where the queen of England sat when she visited Yosemite National Park with Prince Philip in 1983. The round table sits in an alcove in the grand dining room beneath its

The majestic Ahwanhee, built in 1927, has hosted a glittering array of guests including President John F. Kennedy; and its enduring traditions range from afternoon tea to the spectacular, medieval Bracebridge Christmas dinner, for which photographer Ansel Adams wrote music.

The annual Vintners’ Holidays is a mere 28 years old, but is, nonetheless, another event that has taken hold. In the quiet time of the year, after the harvest is finished, and Yosemite’s summer crowds are gone, it’s the perfect time to bring together winemakers, growers, and fans who just like to savor a good glass of wine.
Stew Good, the Ahwahnee’s long-time beverage director, created the event in 1981. Each year, throughout November, he invites California vintners to present talks and tastings in two- or three-day sessions, each of which culminates in a gala dinner that features the presenters’ wines.

For Amelia Ceja, president of Napa Valley’s Ceja Vineyards, it was her first invitation to participate in the Vintners’ Holidays. Ceja, who came to the event with her daughter, Dalia, was scheduled to present a talk on the cool climate wines of Carneros, where the family winery is based.
Also on this session’s agenda was a joint talk with grower Andy Beckstoffer and vintner Fred Schrader, who buys Beckstoffer grapes. Sonoma got equal time with presentations from Dan Goldfield, owner and winemaker of Dutton-Goldfield Winery, and Steve Reeder, winemaker at Constellation-owned Simi Winery.

The moderator was Peter Marks, a master of wine, former director of the wine programs at Copia in Napa, and now vice president for education at Constellation’s Academy of Wine. It was Marks’ fifth time at Vintners’ Holidays, he said. “I love it.”

The easy-going schedule — a welcome reception, two talks and tastings each afternoon, and the grand finale, the dinner, allows time to experience Yosemite at its most serene. Ceja said she and her daughter explored the valley by bicycle, and planned to have a go at ice skating at Curry Village; and she also hosted a small private dinner in the Ahwanhee dining room — this is where we ended up at the Queen’s Table. She poured Ceja’s Sonoma Coast pinot noir, a wine Ceja produces in a small amount, she explained, because most of the fruit they grow in this location is sold to other wineries. “We make it mostly for our wine club members,” she said, but it’s well worth seeking out.

The energetic Ceja, thrilled that her daughter had joined the family business after earning a degree in communications and marketing, described her current enthusiasm for Facebook and Twitter, as well as future plans, which include the launch of an online cooking series (“We make our wines for food,” she said.) and a possible brewery. “It takes a lot of beer to make good wine,” she noted. It was the story of her family’s rise from migrant farmworkers to owners of the thriving winery that engaged the audience the following day — that and a sampling of the diverse wines made from their Carneros fruit.

“Always enjoy wine with your food,” Amelia Ceja advised. “It just makes life so much better.”

‘Two icons’

The first-time joint presentation from Fred Schrader and Andy Beckstoffer also packed the great hall of the Ahwanhee with an audience interested in tasting high-end Schrader wines and listening to the perspectives of a vintner and a grower, both introduced by Marks as icons of the wine industry.

Marks described Beckstoffer as “an icon and a visionary” for his preservation efforts.

“We are just trying to do it the right way,” said Beckstoffer, who has garnered national, state and local honors for his championship of the agricultural preserve in the Napa Valley and his sustainable farming methods. Beckstoffer farms 1,000 acres in Napa Valley, another 1,000 in Mendocino and is developing 1,000 acres in Lake County. His goal, he said, is “farming with soft hands.”

Beckstoffer said that when he first began farming in the valley in the 1970s, there was a hierarchy — the first class being vintners, the second class growers and the third class farmworkers. “Now, that’s all over,” he said.

“We are both trying to do it the right way,” he added, referring to Schrader, a former polo player, art collector and race car driver, who in 1988 founded the iconic Colgin-Schrader Cellars, and then went onto launch his own solo effort in 1998. He uses Beckstoffer grapes to produce both the Napa Valley and the Lake County cabernet sauvignons he poured for the audience.

Schrader wines, Marks told the audience, “are a benchmark of the great wines of the Napa Valley.”

The Schrader-Beckstoffer team provided light-hearted banter as they described how they work together for the joint goal, “to make great wine.”

“He may look a little simple,” Schrader told the audience about Beckstoffer, “but he has a great brain going on.” Of his dependence on top-quality grapes, he added, “When you make wine,” he added, “you’re only as good as your next act.” The Schrader method, he described as “let the wine make itself.”

“I love to hear that great wines are made in the vineyard but it’s the winemakers who make the wines,” Beckstoffer said. “You can make bad wines from great grapes.”

He summed up the relationship between the grower and vintner lightly: “Growers want to overproduce and vintners want to underpay.”

Schrader provided tastes of his Double Diamond from Lake County as well as two Napa cabs, a 2006 GIII from Rutherford’s George III vineyard, and a 2006 RBS from the legendary To Kalon vineyard in Oakville, “hallowed ground,” which, Beckstoffer noted, has been continuously farmed since 1868. “We don’t know what makes these great,” Beckstoffer admitted, “it’s one of those cases where the sum is greater than the parts.”

The Lake County wines sell for $30 a bottle, while Napa cabs are $180, and Beckstoffer wistfully noted that Lake County was part of Napa County in the 19th century. “Just think what I could have charged Fred for those grapes,” he quipped.

The grand finale

As engaging as the seminars are, the event takes on its grander aspects on the final evening when guests and presenters all sit down to dinner, created by Ahwahnee’s executive chef, Percy Whatley, and his team. He paired a Ceja sauvignon blanc with a roasted beet carpaccio; a Simi chardonnay with pappardelle and truffles; a Dutton-Goldfield pinot noir with quail and “mac ‘n’ cheese;” and the Schrader Double Diamond cab with wild boar.

Although 2009 may not have been a holiday for many in the wine industry, this was a dinner to provide a momentary memory loss.

But for the most part, the Vintners’ Holidays serves to create new — and excellent — recollections.

Frank Hewitt first came to Yosemite in 1943 and returned to work there in 1947, before moving to the Napa Valley where he grows grapes in Calistoga. He and his wife, Inger, have attended the Vintners’ Holidays for all but two of the years — and since they stay for a full week, two sessions, it was their 51st gala.

“We come to celebrate our anniversary,” Inger Hewitt explained.

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Source : Sasha Paulsen, Napa Valley Register