12th year for Appellation St. Helena’s Wine Tasting & Food Pairing Competition
St. Helena, Napa Valley, April 2023 – Appellation St. Helena (ASH) brought back its signature “bASH” event on Saturday, April 1 to an enthusiastic crowd. Approximately 300 guests enjoyed the 12th annual bASH at The Culinary Institute of America Greystone in St. Helena. The event is an annual wine and food pairing competition where the wines from 22 ASH member wineries were paired with savory bites prepared by teams of ‘rising star’ students at the CIA. Attendees enjoyed tasting each wine with specially created food bites and then voted for their favorites.
The judges were CIA instructors Daniel Kedan and Michelle Mutrux. Proceeds from the evening will go to scholarships for students at the CIA and students at St. Helena High School, as well as ongoing support for Appellation St Helena.
Participating wineries were Anomaly Vineyards, Calafia Wines, Charles Krug Winery, Chase Cellars, Ehlers Estate, Hall Wines, Lithology, Mending Wall, Napa de Oro, Pellet Estate, Raymond Vineyards, Revana Estate Vineyard, Rombauer Vineyards, Salvestrin Winery, Spottswoode Estate Vineyard & Winery, St. Helena Winery, Taplin Cellars, The Crane Assembly, Titus Vineyards, Varozza Vineyards, Vineyard 29 and Young Inglewood Vineyards.
The professionally judged winners were:
FIRST PLACE
- Team 16 & St. Helena Winery –
- SERVING: Steak Tartare Fritoli
- PAIRED WITH St. Helena Winery’s 2017 Grand Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
- CIA TEAM: Morgan Plew, Alex Xouris, Paolo “Patxi” Alegrado
SECOND PLACE
- Team 14 & The Crane Assembly
- SERVING: Steak Tartare Bites
- PAIRED WITH The Crane Assembly’s 2018 G.B. Crane Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon
- CIA TEAM: Michael (Chao) Bishop, James (Taco) Morely, Travis Swailes
THIRD PLACE
- Team 22 & Vineyard 29
- SERVING: Blackened Prawn Ball
- PAIRED WITH: Vineyard 29’s 2019 CEANDA Cabernet Sauvignon
- CIA TEAM: Alvin Park, Eun Joo (Audrey) Kim, Lionel Tan Tnee Sue
FOURTH PLACE
- Team 18 & Charles Krug Winery
- SERVING: Savory Stack
- PAIRED WITH: Charles Krug’s 2022 Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc
- CIA TEAM: Lucas Macleod, Antonio Lipari, Nicole Hernandez
PEOPLE’S CHOICE WINNERS
- FIRST PLACE
- Team 7 & Ehlers Estate
- SERVING: Miso Pesto Ravioli
- PAIRED WITH: Ehlers Estate’s 2018 ‘Portrait’ Red Blend
- CIA TEAM: Emily Flores, Kristen Medrano-Acosta
- SECOND PLACE
- Team 20 & Titus Vineyards
- SERVING: Duck Liver Mousse over Shokupan topped with blackberry and Titus Cabernet Gastrique
- PAIRED WITH: Titus Vineyards’ 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon
- CIA TEAM: Celine Kim,Timothy Chapman, Ean Dalton
- THIRD PLACE
- Team 5 & HALL Wines
- SERVING: Suit and Tie Pasta
- PAIRED WITH: Hall’s 2019 Coeur
- CIA TEAM: Alyssa Rosas, Suraya Ruiz Serhan, Jacob “Teddy” Racca
ASH partnered with the Culinary Institute of America and the St. Helena Chamber of Commerce. ASH thanks Sunshine Market and Le Creuset for their generous donations and support.
In 2024 bASH will take place in April again at CIA. Watch the website for details.
The event also included a wine raffle, which was a collection of wine from participating wineries.
St. Helena has the distinction of being the birthplace of Napa Valley’s commercial wine industry with Dr. Crane’s cellar founded in 1859, David Fulton’s in 1860 and Charles Krug’s in 1861. The St. Helena American Viticultural Area, or appellation, was officially approved in 1995 and in 2004, the vintners who had worked together to get the AVA approved established a group to promote the growing region, today called Appellation St. Helena. The group focuses on promoting the quality of grapes grown and wines produced in the St. Helena AVA.
Appellation St. Helena is comprised of roughly 12,000 acres, of which approximately 6,800 are planted to grapes, more than any other AVA in the Napa Valley. More than 400 different vineyards are located within the appellation and the Association has 34 members.
The boundaries form an hourglass shape, and the middle section represents the narrowest width in the Napa Valley, where the Mayacamas and Vaca Mountain ranges nearly meet. The AVA is a mosaic of alluvial fans and 21 different soil types. The soils here are created from centuries of erosion of run-off from mountain hillsides and the Napa River and its ancient tributaries.
Grape growing in the St. Helena appellation dates back to the Mexican land grants in the 1840s when General Vallejo gave Edward Bale a wedding gift of property. Bale and his bride promptly planted vineyard on their property. By 1880, over 100 people were making wine in St. Helena. While many types of grapes excel in St. Helena, the most frequently cultivated are Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Syrah, Zinfandel, and Sauvignon Blanc.
Board members are Katie Simpson, Lesley Keffer Russell, Seth Goldfarb, Myriah Mutrux, Jack Pagendarm, Eric Risch, Paige Cole, Torey Battuello, Julia Jinks, Mike Spiegel, Sylvia Taplin and Dave Yewell.
