Ashes & Diamonds: a taste of Napa in London

International flight schedules may be almost back to normal, but a recent trip to a Napa winery involved just the London Underground.

Ashes & Diamonds winery brought an authentic California food and wine experience to London recently, bringing over its owner, chef and winemaker to take up residence for one night at Carousel restaurant in Fitzrovia for a special wine-trade dinner.

Scroll down for six new tasting notes and scores of Ashes & Diamonds wines

Kashy Khaledi, owner of Ashes & Diamonds, is an admirer of ‘1960s old-school’ Napa wines: lower alcohol, less oaky, more restrained and terroir-driven. So, when he decided to move out of his high-profile media and advertising career into the wine industry, he sought out winemakers that held the same vision. In 2014, Ashes & Diamonds was born.

‘Winemaking is a collaboration’, says Khaledi, and ‘bringing people with similar goals together’ is how he views his role. And those people are winemakers Steve Matthiasson (consultant for, among others, Araujo, Dalla Valle, Eisele, Spottswoode, Chappellet and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars as well as his family’s Matthiasson Wines) and Diana Snowden Seysses.

Snowden Seysses (winemaker of her family’s Snowden Vineyards in Napa and Domaine Dujac in Burgundy) joined in 2015 to replace Dan Petroski who, with Matthiasson, were the original winemaking team.

I asked Khaledi why he wants his wines to emulate the Napa Cabernets of the past. His response was ‘I don’t want to feel like I am drinking syrup when I drink my wines.’

Khaledi also loves the ‘farm-to-table approach’ of Thomas Keller at The French Laundry and Alice Waters of Chez Panisse. So to realise that particular vision, Ethan Speizer was brought on as Ashes & Diamonds’ executive chef when the mid-century modern winery and restaurant were completed in 2017.

London ‘dinner in Napa’

With Matthiasson in Napa overseeing the 2022 vintage, Khaledi, Snowdon Seysses and Speizer headed to London to collaborate with Carousel. They brought all the wines and ingredients with them, for an authentic ‘dinner in Napa’.

Five Ashes & Diamonds wines (along with 1986 Caymus for comparison) were paired with four courses, letting each speak for itself, but ultimately with the aim of determining whether Khaledi’s vision – to make wines echoing Napa’s wine styles of half a century ago – had been realised.

Mission achieved? Yes: none of the wines resembled the big alcoholic fruit bombs of California’s recent past. They all had balance, freshness and ageing potential, with an evident texture richness in the younger Cabernets (and obviously more fruit and concentration) compared to the 1986 Caymus.

I look forward to Khaledi and wife Laura’s daughter Vivienne taking me through a tasting of them in 20 years.

If you want to emulate your own taste of Napa at home, here are the food pairings. For more detail on the wines, see the individual tasting notes below.

Ashes & Diamonds wine and food pairings

No 4 Blanc, Napa Valley 2018 with grilled summer lettuce, green goddess dressing and trout roe

The grilled lettuce paired well with the charred oak character of this Semillon-Sauvignon Blanc blend.

No 3 A&D Vineyard Merlot, Oak Knoll 2020 with rillettes of smoked trout, fermented potato bread and herbed crème fraîche

This Merlot matched well with both the smoked trout and tomato tostada.

No 3 Cabernet Franc, Napa Valley 2016 with Sungold tomato tostada, salsa negra, midnight beans and sour cream

A nice match, however I preferred the Merlot with this tostada and opted to pair the Cabernet Franc with the grilled beef, as the aromatic nature of both the wine and wild garlic worked well.

Trio of 100% Cabernet Sauvignons with grilled beef, wild garlic, California miso and summer lettuce

• No 2 Red Hen Vineyard, Oak Knoll 2017
• No 2 Rancho Pequeño Vineyard, Oakville 2016
• Caymus Vineyard, Special Selection, Rutherford 1986

Certainly the most to think about here. All matched the beef well in unique ways: the 2017 for its freshness and elegance; the 2016 for its richness and power; and the 1986 for its lean, pyrazine and wet leaf maturity.

Ashes & Diamonds: ‘old-school’ Napa

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