From the Yellowstone Club in Montana USA
Montana is this big!
More hard work being done
This is where the real concentration is needed-
look at the colour of that 33 year old wine!
Re-enacting the days ski events...
Late for breakfast again.......
That one and that one and that one too..
Lunch at Plonk, Bozeman MT
One of these is called Big Mike, the other is a bloke in a red shirt
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Dear Diary, and anyone else who is reading this
Harvest time is the busiest time of year for any winery especially a small one such as ours where everyone is needed to help pick grapes, sort grapes, press grapes, clean tanks and barrels, plunge fermenters, and generally work 24/7 for about 6 weeks. So imagine the reaction of the Hatton Estate team when I was asked to go to Montana mid harvest and host a couple of wine dinners on behalf of the kind people at the Yellowstone Club in Montana.
While there we took the opportunity to launch Hatton Estate in Montana with Kurt Wiengardner of Winegardners Wines based in Bozeman Montana.
Director of Wine at the Yellowstone Club, John McCune made arrangements for me to host a wine dinner and stay at the club 7,000 feet up in the Rockies on the Club's mountain that looks across to the Big Sky and Moonlight Basin ski areas.
The Club and Kurt also sponsored a fundraising dinner for The Museum of the Rockies where our wines were poured to an appreciative audience raising funds for Dinosaur research at the Museum.
A backstage tour of the Museum was a real highlight and in the Museum store my Visa Card got a real pounding!
The wine dinner in the Warren Millar Lodge at the Yellowstone Club was a lavish affair in stunning surroundings with the Lodge chefs doing a perfect job with the wine and food matching, and with every wine decanted and served at perfect temperature- it was a gourmet experience I shall never forget. The Dinner the following night for the Museum was a tonne of fun with an actor portraying Theodore Roosevelt giving a rousing speech to an enthralled audience before dinner and set the tone for a fun and raucous evening.
That night it snowed 8 inches - 20 cm!
Awoke to clear skies and foggy head (cest la vie) and resolved to hit the slopes - after trout and scrambled eggs for breakfast. 3,000 acres of beautifully groomed runs and powder barely used by the 100 or so members there that day. Yes I took a few tumbles and was nervous at one point that there weren't enough people skiing past to help out if I broke a leg or something!
Met with some members for dinner at Rainbow Lodge, after writing up some tasting notes with Wine Director John McCune on a ancient bottle of 1973 BV Beaulieu Vineyards Georges de Latour Private Reserve a delicious delicate old wine that worked away at the aches and pains of skiing that day.
During dinner we soldiered our way through some Tahi 2000 and for comparison had 1997 Ch Latour, 1995 Ch Mouton Rothschild and 1990 Leoville Las Cases- as you do!
Lesson # 210: Never turn down an invite to the Yellowstone Club, and always take your ski jacket.
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