By Bruce Neyers

Thursday 9th June, 2022

We traveled to Los Angeles recently and, for a variety of reasons, decided to drive rather than fly. We split the trip to Los Angeles into two days of travel and stopped for lunch along the way in search of a place that had been suggested to me by a friend. I couldn’t find it but was attracted to a place announcing the ‘Best Falafel in Town’. We wandered in, addressed the youngish and exceedingly polite counterman, and asked for his advice with our order. Ten minutes or so later, he came over to our table with a mixed tomato and cucumber salad, a plate of chickpea fritters, and a stack of warm pita bread. We attacked it greedily and sat back amazed afterwards at how good it had been. The star of the meal was the Pita Bread, which we learned was locally made. Still, the salad – not unlike a typical Greek Salad – was necessary as well.

When we returned home a few days later, Barbara announced a new idea for dinner. Our nearby grocer offered a locally-made Pita Bread. To serve with it, she made a fresh Greek Salad with Feta, cucumbers, tomatoes, and red bell peppers, and then grilled a marinated flank steak to make what seemed like Middle-Eastern steak sandwiches. Delicious!

I recognized this as an opportunity to dig into the cellar for one of the recently arrived bottles of an old favorite of mine, Ch. Gloria, a modest wine from Saint Julien that, as they say, punches well above its weight. Gloria sits not far from the Gironde River in the southern part of Saint Julien, equidistant from Ducru-Beaucaillou and Beychevelle. The soil here is gravelly, and the property slopes gently to the south. The blend is never more than 65% Cabernet Sauvignon. and includes a healthy dollop of Merlot. The conditions are similar to our Left Bank Red, a wine I couldn’t help but think about while dining on Barbara’s Pita Bread steak sandwiches. I opened a bottle of 2015 Ch. Gloria, and tasted it alongside the 2019 Left Bank Red. The differences were there, of course, but I was struck by the similarities.

Our 2019 Left Bank Red comes from grapes grown on the left bank of Conn Creek as it flows through our ranch, just a few miles southeast of Howell Mountain. The gravel deposit is deep, approaching 50 feet in some places. The blend is Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, and the wine has been aged for 16 months in 60-gallon French oak cooperage. The vines are planted in rows that run east to west, on a gentle, south-facing slope. While we would obviously never expect to make a French wine from our vineyards here in California’s Napa Valley, I’ve drunk – and loved – enough wine from Ch. Gloria that I can’t help but think about the wines from that property when we taste our Left Bank Red. Striving towards excellence at that level is a life-long objective for us.

Greek Salad

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 2 English cucumbers, peeled
• 2 cups cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• 1 Red Bell Pepper seeded, large minced
• ¼ cup Kalamata Black Olives, cut in half
• ¼ pound Greek Feta cheese
• Pita bread cut in half
• Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Lemon Vinaigrette

• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/4 cup of olive oil

Preparation:

1. Cut the peeled cucumber into 1/4-inch rounds
2. Cut each round into quarters
3. Combine the cherry tomatoes, cucumber, and red bell pepper
4. Season with Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
5. Combine the lemon juice and olive oil
6. Pour the vinaigrette over the cucumbers, tomatoes, and red bell peppers
7. Add the Kalamata olives, then stir to mix
8. Crumble the Greek Feta cheese on top