My intern, Chuck, was telling me about a certain Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon we’re both familiar with that, while pretty good, could be better. He said the owner was looking for some Merlot to blend in, to improve it.

“Why Merlot?” I asked. “For softness,” Chuck answered. The Cabernet’s tannins were too raw.

“Why not Cabernet Franc or Petit Verdot?” I said. Based on my experiences, and some reporting I’ve been doing, both these varieties are increasingly popular, especially in Napa Valley, to blend in with Cabernet. I personally thought that Merlot was less resorted to, because it is such a difficult grape to grow right.

Well, in bridge they talk about taking the guess out of the finesse by peeking at your opponent’s cards. In wine, instead of guessing about what’s up, what’s down, and what’s sideways, we can always look it up in the two guidebooks the California Department of Food and Agriculture puts out each year: the Grape Crush Report and the Grape Acreage Report.

I predicted that I thought Petit Verdot was the most expensive red grape variety in California. We looked it up: weighted average dollars per ton: $1,192. A glance of the rest of the list shows that that isn’t even close to being the most expensive. Twenty varieties cost more, including Pinot Meunier, Lagrein and Counoise!

Okay, so my predictive powers as Chuck’s boss were proven to be a total sham. But wait! “Let’s look at District 4 instead,” I said, that being Napa Valley. “I bet Petit Verdot’s the most expensive grape there.”

Flip to page 63 of the Crush guide, and there it is: average price, Petit Verdot, District 4: $4,919. That’s higher than Cabernet Sauvignon ($4,456), Merlot ($2,518), Syrah ($3,015) and Pinot Noir ($2,473)–but not higher than Cabernet Franc, whose average Napa price last year was $5,238.

Still, I could just as easily have pulled a switcheroo with Chuck and said that I bet Cab Franc was Napa’s most expensive red grape, so I considered myself vindicated. The point being that Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot increasingly are being relied upon to complexify (is that a word?) Cabernet Sauvignon. Cab Franc gives, I think, aromatics and sometimes a lovely green note of olives and herbs (in contrast to Cab Sauv’s blackberry fruit), while Petit Verdot adds an elegant structure; it seems to have tannins that are at once smoother and denser than Cabernet’s, which can be prickly despite modern tannin management.

Next I turned to the Acreage Report to see if it jived with the Crush Report. There was in fact a big spike in plantings of Petit Verdot in 2010, but it wasn’t in Napa, as I’d expected; only 18 new acres were non-bearing last year. No, the big increase in California Petit Verdot (59 new acres) was in San Luis Obispo, of all places. It took me about 3 seconds to make the connection: right before meeting with Chuck, I’d been with Scott McLeod, who left Rubicon last year to consult and, possibly, do his own thing one of these days. Scott was telling me about the Adelaide Hills region of western Paso Robles, where one of his clients is located. He predicted, confidently, that this area will become known as a prime source of Bordeaux-style red wines.

So is western Paso Robles where all that Petit Verdot is going? I looked up Cabernet Franc. Only 21 non-bearing CF last year in SLO county.  Where’s most of the new California Cab Franc going? The Sierra Foothills, is where. Once again, it took me only seconds to realize what was going on. Many years ago, more than 10 and possibly even 15, after my first trip to Amador, El Dorado and Calaveras counties, I’d returned home convinced that the best grape and wine up there in the mountains wasn’t Zinfandel, as most would have said. No, based on my tasting, it was Cabernet Franc. I said so and wrote as much. Evidently the growers still believe in it, because between those three counties they had 130 acres of non-bearing Cab Franc last year, about as much as the rest of the state altogether.

This is super-geeky stuff, and I wouldn’t blame anyone from hanging themselves if they even got one-third of the way through reading it. But for some of us, it’s what we thrive on.

I’ve been tasting a lot with winemakers lately, at their wineries. It’s such a different experience from tasting by myself, at home. In both cases, you’re doing the same things objectively: looking at the color, swirling, sniffing, sipping, rolling the wine around in your mouth, letting just the tiniest amount dribble down the throat so you can sense the aftertaste, then spitting most of the remainder out.

It’s what’s in the mind, however, that makes the two experiences utterly different.

When I’m tasting by myself my mind is largely empty. I mean, I’m obviously thinking about what I’m doing, coming to preliminary conclusions, correcting myself, anticipating what to do next. But I’m not thinking about anyone else. In this, my mental existence is more or less what Martin Buber called the I-it relationship: with an external object.

When I’m tasting with the winemaker, that mental existence moves into the more complicated territory of Buber’s I-thou: instead of interacting with an object, I’m interacting with another consciousness. The I-it relationship has bounds, but “Thou has no bounds,” Buber wrote.

This absence of bounds when tasting with the winemaker means that the objective act of of winetasting now shares center stage with the drama of a personal relationship with the winemaker. And, as we all know from our own experiences, personal relationships can be complex and uncertain, demanding of us whatever skills we possess to navigate through them. This is especially true when you don’t know the other person well, as is the case most of the time when a traveling wine writer sits down with a winemaker. I know some winemakers quite well, but with most of them, that’s not the case, and in many instances, we’re meeting each other for the first time.

First meetings are usually occasions for both sides to put their best foot forward. They’re generally pleasant, with informal chit-chat served up to break the ice and probe one another for areas of possible agreement, to find out where the boundaries are, and what sort of relationship might ensue.

When you’re a wine critic, however, this normally pleasant exercise becomes distorted in major ways. For you, there critic, are there to pass judgment on the created product of the other person–a product that may be as important to him, nearly, as his child, insofar as he’s put a huge amount of time, effort, ego and vision into producing it. The other person, the winemaker, may profess not to care what you say or think, but really, he wouldn’t have invited you to taste unless he did. You, meanwhile, know all this, and he knows you know, but there’s no getting inside either one’s head, so there’s a lot of guesswork going on. And when the tasting session extends over an hour or more, it can turn into an exquisite pas de deux, with full choreography.

I’ve had very successful tasting sessions with winemakers and some less successful, but I can truly say most of them are good. Getting a little buzzed helps both parties relax. For me, the best approach is to gain the other person’s trust and even affection by being myself, injecting a little humor into things, and not come across as too sanctimonious or conceited. Of course, there’s risk when you’re a wine critic. Part of you wants to show the winemaker that you know your stuff. You’re not just some boob off the bus, pretending to be the all-knowing guru but in actuality an idiot. I have enough self-doubt to prevent that from happening, but I also know what I know, or what I think I know, and sometimes, when what I know differs from what the winemaker knows (or thinks he knows), that can lead to tension. Tasting in Oakville the other day, there were two instances of this: one where I thought the less expensive wine was pretty much as good as the more expensive (although, after 20 minutes of airing, the latter proved itself), and one where a Bordeaux blend tasted surprisingly mute right out of the bottle. This, too, corrected itself after about 20 minutes, but I did share with the winemaker that, had I been power tasting (as many critics do), I might well have missed the beautiful nuances the wine showed once the air woke it up. I wondered if this statement indicted all wine critics, but I’ve found over my career that it’s helpful to share with winemakers my understanding of the (sometimes severe) limitations under which we work.

I went up to Robert Mondavi Winery on Friday for Margrit Mondavi’s lunch party to celebrate what would have been Robert’s 98th birthday. A sweet occasion. Gorgeous Spring day, at last: gentle northwest breeze, blue sky, warm but not hot. The winery was quite crowded with happy, talkative tourists. As I was early, I hung out on the great lawn for a while, observing, and my first thought was how impeccably Constellation has maintained the grounds. They haven’t let a thing slide. The Bufano greeting you with open arms, the campanile and arch, the flowerbeds, all perfect. There was a live band on the edge of Tokalon Vineyard–Tokalon, splendid in Platonic vineyard glory, stretching to a Mayacamas range lit with the slightest hint of purple, like mountains in a Japanese painting.

After a cocktail hour, we repaired to the Vineyard Room for lunch: green salad from the garden with ‘09 To Kalon Reserve Fumé Blanc, short ribs of beef with ‘96 and ‘07 Mondavi Reserve Cabernet, a galette of apricots, blackberries and frangipane with vanilla ice cream, with 2010 Mocato. On my left, Carl Jaeger, Mondavi’s estate director, kept me amused, as did Megghen Driscol, on my right; we described the contents of our bucket lists.

I looked around at faces I could identify: besides Margrit, there were Peter Mondavi, Sr., Tim Mondavi, Koerner Rombauer, Clarke Swanson, the Trefethens, Mike Grgich, Agustin Huneeus, the Chappellets. This really was Napa royalty; you see them, and there is history, marching across Napa Valley under streaming banners. Grgich summons Chateau Montelena and the ‘73 Chardonnay that won the ‘76 Paris tasting. Peter Mondavi, Sr. recalls his parents buying the Sunny St. Helena winery and then Charles Krug itself–Charles Krug being Napa’s very roots. Agustin Huneeus reminds me of the great glory days of Franciscan.The Chappellets and Trefethen harken back to the heady days of the boutique winery arising in Napa Valley and my own introduction to these great wines.  And Mrs. Mondavi herself, unfailingly charming and polite, the embodiment of Napa grace and elegance, and yet with that warm, human touch.

At one point she stood and gave a charming little toast to Robert, reminding us of something he used to say: “A good Cabernet should have the softness of a baby’s bottom and the power of a Pavarotti.” In all the descriptions of Cabernet I’ve written over the years, I’ve never put it better than that. It made me think of “an iron fist in a velvet glove,” which made me think that, had Tchelistcheff been alive, he would have been at the luncheon.

The vines in Napa looked fine. There likely will be or already has been shatter due to all the rain and cold, but there’s plenty of time for the season to correct itself. I’ll be back in Napa this Friday, for a tasting of certain Oakville Cabernets and blends. The weather should be spectacular, after this worst of (non-existent) Springs.

Napa is jammed with visitors. Fortunately the rains appear to be holding off today, Friday, but will return this evening, and tomorrow looks doubtful for the auction itself. I haven’t been there for years, but when I used to go, in the ’90s, Napa Valley actually experienced summertime. The ladies would stroll Meadowood’s green lawns in billowing white summery frocks, and if it got too hot there were umbrellas beneath which one could take shelter from the June sun. I don’t think heat will be a problem tomorrow. I ran into Heidi Peterson Barrett during dinner at Solage’s Solbar restaurant (she was with her hubbie, Bo), and we were talking about the weather which Heidi described as “wrong on every level.” I liked that. Not just “wrong.” We all know it’s “wrong.” But “wrong on every level”–meteorologically, viticulturally, spiritually, emotionally, historically, biologically, morally, intuitively. I think it’s even wrong theologically, although I can’t prove it.

On Wednesday I visited with Jayson Woodbridge, the owner of Hundred Acre, whom I’d never met before. I’m usually reluctant to say I’ve never met someone before, because I tend to be forgetful about these things, and if it turns out I actually did meet the person, it’s embarrassing. But I’m sure I’ve never met Jayson, because if I had, I wouldn’t have forgotten. Besides, we have a mutual admiration for Winston Churchill, after whom Jayson named one of his English bulldogs who does look remarkably like WSC without the cigar.

Now here I am sitting in the Oxbow Market, taking advantage of their free wi-fi. I’m early for lunch at Morimoto. I don’t know how much of an appetite I’ll have, because I got hungry as soon as I got to Oxbow (such a marvelous place, a sort of copy of Ferry Plaza but not as grand) and had a rather filling breakfast of huevos and chorizo with fried potatoes and tortillas at C Casa, the little Mexican place right next to Hog Island Oyster Co. That filled me up, especially following last night’s dinner (crispy poached lily egg with asparagus, piquillo peppers, prosciutto in a lemon garlic dressing for appetizer, followed by grilled ahi tuna stir fry of brown rice, snap peas, gingered carrots and black sesame and the most delicious green mystery sauce). Eating and drinking too much is one of the biggest challenges of being on the road, and of course you never have the time to do anything aerobic to burn it off, which is why you’ll see the occasional protruding tummy in the wine and food biz. When I finally get back home to Oakland after a couple days on the road, I can hardly wait to get to 24 Hour Fitness. Stairmaster, treadmill, ellipticals, recumbent bike, and then abs followed by upper or lower body–that’s the ticket to repair the damage done by the road. Bo Barrett, by the way, seemed in fantastic shape, trim and buffed. I bet he works out.

Anyhow, this weather really is evil. I know I keep harping on it, but really, this is getting ridiculous. Tomorrow’s (Saturday’s) forecast now calls for heavy rain. Not just showers; not just light to moderate, but heavy. Continuing into Monday. After that, the remainder of the week looks dry, but still unseasonably cool. At least we don’t have tornadoes.

I did my annual visit to Harlan yesterday. Actually, I missed last year, so we went through the entire portfolio of both the 2007s, which were just released, and the 2008s, which will be out in Spring 2012. I will report my reviews and scores elsewhere, but in the meantime, some interesting issues popped up.

I tasted blind, alone. This took about 45 minutes, or about 3 minutes per wine, which is fast, but not exactly the power-tasting some critics practice. Afterward, Paul Roberts, the sommelier, and Don Weaver of Bill Harlan’s staff joined me. I particularly was glad that Paul, who had impressed me so much with his knowledge at the Taste of Oakville Master Class, was able to assist me in understanding the wines. Later, Mr. Harlan himself came in, and we all had a hearty conversation.

One of the topics that arose concerned blind tasting. I’m a bit infamous now at Harlan for always liking The Matriarch so much, and I did yet again with the 2007. It’s Bill’s least expensive wine, at $85 considerably less than many another Napa Bordeaux blend. (All of Bill Harlan’s wines are called red wine, even though many, maybe most, qualify legally as Cabernet Sauvignon.) The Matriarch is a blend of the five BOND wines ($340 each), which are single vineyard wines from vineyards Harlan does not own, but has rigorously developed over years before admitting them to BOND-dom.

Concerning Matriarch, I was interested in two things: How was it determined which lots of BOND go into BOND wines, as opposed to The Matriarch. Obviously, these are subjective decisions, arrived at by the team that does the deciding (winemakers, Michel Rolland, Paul, Bill, maybe Don — I’m not 100% sure). I would imagine there’s initial disagreement, as you’d expect there to be in any group decision, until consensus is reached. So there’s a certain arbitrariness to the selection process. (Some of the lots are even sold off as bulk.)

The other thing, which I asked Paul about specifically, was the old concept of whether a blended wine could not be more complete than a single vineyard wine, which might contain divots–slight deficiencies here and there, in acidity, tannins, color, aromatics, finish, etc. A blended wine, by contrast (remember, we’re talking theory) can be a more intricate tapestry. This is a trusted concept in wine, celebrated in Champagne, although not in terroir-intensive places like Burgundy (although I’ve had great California Pinot makers tell me there’s no reason why a blend of, say, Santa Rita Hills and Anderson Valley couldn’t make for a better wine than either one separately).

This is a touchy subject, one that critics justifiably might fear to broach, especially after having just praised the blend, as I had with 2007 Matriarch. Paul replied, as I knew he would, that while a blend such as The Matriarch might reflect the winemaker’s “craftsmanship” to a very high degree, it could never “break through” mere craftsmanship to “hit the pinnacle” of Grand Cru status.

This is a very powerful argument, one that is impossible to refute. It would be like saying that an authentic Da Vinci was no better than a painting from the School of Da Vinci. My reply was that I am apparently the only reviewer who tastes Harlan’s wines blind. It is very easy, when you are staring at the bottle, to be consistent and say that Harlan Estate shows a purity or power or whatever that Matriarch or The Maiden (which is a lot selection from the estate vineyard, made precisely the same way as Harlan Estate) do not. Anyone can find greater complexity in the BOND vineyard bottlings than in The Matriarch if they come prepared with that belief and the bottles are standing before them.

It is true that I found the 2008 Matriarch “a little rude,” as I wrote in my notes, and did not score it in the same league as the seven other 2008s. I think my hosts were pleased that, finally, I had stumbled into the truth that The Matriarch is of somewhat lesser quality than Maiden or the BONDS, much less Harlan Estate itself. But one thing Paul and to some extent Bill kept reverting to was that, while the wines early on may show attractive features, it’s the ability of the greater growths–the BONDS, Harlan ($750 and counting) and, I suppose to some extent, Maiden ($150)–to age over 15-20 years that makes them special, compared to Matriarch. To that, I could observe only that if Bill Harlan will invite me to some verticals of these wines, it might better help me to understand them when they’re young. I’m told he may be considering just that.

Yesterday’s Taste of Oakville, the annual trade event showcasing dozens of the Cabernets and blends from this prime Napa Valley appellation, was held as usual in Robert Mondavi’s beautiful Tokalon cellar. I didn’t take any formal tasting notes, as it’s very crowded and noisy and the environment doesn’t lend itself to formal tasting.

Prior to the event, in the morning there was a Master Class on the terroir of Oakville. This is a topic of endless fascination to geeks. Heidi Barrett (who was not there) spoke of it in the chapter I devoted to her in my last book, New Classic Winemakers of California: Conversations with Steve Heimoff.

You can visualize Oakville of consisting of three areas: the Eastside benches and hills of the Vaca Mountains, where the elevation line goes up (as one of the panelists said) to about 1,500 feet; the Westside benches and hills of the Mayacamas Mountains, where the line extends only to about 500 feet, and the broad swathe of flatland inbetween. These flats are located more or less between Highway 29 and the Silverado Trail. Through them runs the Napa River as well as its smaller tributary, Conn Creek.

We tasted three wines, each represented by a panelist. The wines and speakers were Oakville Ranch 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon ($60, Phil Coturri, viticulturalist, representing the Eastside), Venge 2006 Saddleback Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon ($125, Kirk Venge, winemaker, representing the valley floor) and BOND 2006 Vecina ($300, Mary Maher, viticulturalist for BOND and Harlan, representing the Westside).

Here’s what each said, paraphrased. Fascinating stuff.

Phil Coturri: Wants to make the soil come alive. Plants extensive cover crops (clover, mustard, even peas) to increase organic matter in the volcanic, minerally soils; as it decomposes it adds complex nutrients. This is the hot side of the valley (because the vines receive the afternoon sun), but what rescues the grapes are the canyons in this high elevation vineyard, which suck in cooling breezes in the afternoon, making them cooler than either Rutherford or St. Helena. The wine itself was starting to lose its baby fat of fruit, showing loads of firm minerals that are a reflection of its terroir.

Kirk Venge: The flatland vineyard has silty, clay loam and gravel soils. It is more vigorous than in the benches and hills, with a fairly high water table. Kirk therefore controls vigor by dry farming, the use of devigorating rootstock, and not planting cover crops; the absence of their added nutrients also helps to control vigor. The vines receive sun all day long, but are helped by the fact that Oakville receives a maritime breeze coming up through Carneros by 3 p.m. most afternoons. The wine was very fruity and soft, with a fat, fleshy texture. Delicious, but lacked the structure of the Oakville Ranch and BOND bottlings.

Mary Maher: The mountain vineyard is comprised mostly of a thin (6”-12”) layer of “valley sequence” soil on top of Sonoma Volcanics. It is well-drained. “Drainage drives our farming.” Mary uses cover crops as well as compost to enrich the soils and control erosion. The area is cooler than in the east or on the flats, as it does not receive the full afternoon sun. This coolness gives West Oakville Cabernets the most intense tannins in the appellation. The Vecina Ranch, which is just south of Harlan Estate, requires irrigation because the vineyard is so well drained. The wine, 100% Cabernet unlike Harlan Estate, was enormous, showing black cherry, mineral and spice flavors. It is an authoritative, masculine wine, with firm tannins, and is very ageable.

All three of the wines, I thought, were marked by cherries, rather than the blackberries and cassis I normally associate with Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon. I don’t know why. The weather that year was very moderate, as it has been since 2005, except for a July heat wave. Bob Levy (Harlan’s winemaker) told me (10/3/06), “I think it’s going to be a very promising year,” although he was just at that moment starting to harvest his Cabernet. The season’s first serious rain did not fall until Nov. 2.

However, at lunch we had a 2007 Robert Mondavi Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon and it was back to classic blackberries and cassis. An extraordinarily delicious wine I gave quite a high score just a month ago. And it costs all of $45.

One could study Oakville for many years and always learn something new.