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Burgergeddon' heats up
Hydro Grill's dubbed best burger in Calistoga; can Alex conquer Napa Valley?
By John Waters Jr.
Editor
Thursday, July 15, 2010
There’s a new battle being waged; not over oil, or gold, land water or between the sexes, it’s a grilling competition to create the best known burger — yes, that’s hamburger — in the Napa Valley.
The first shots were fired May 31 in St. Helena. A second skirmish followed at the Vermeil Wines/OverTheEdge Winery tasting room on Lincoln Avenue July 7.
Although it’s customary for businesses, especially diners, to compete for customers, now the stakes are higher. The winner will become the well, burger king of wine country. Call it Burgergeddon, Burger Wars, a burger smackdown or rumble. Whatever the label, also call it fun.
“I belong to a wine tasting group of friends and we like to meet and critically taste or examine wines from all over the Napa Valley,” said Martin Reyes, a wine buyer for St. Helena Wine Center on St. Helena’s Main Street.
“One day some of us got into a discussion of where to get a really good burger,” Reyes said. “We were in St. Helena so we decided we’d all pick up a burger at a different place, cut them up and start tasting them, looking for different things about each we liked or didn’t like, and the idea for a blind tasting of burgers throughout the entire Napa Valley was born.”
That was May 31, Memorial Day, the last official day of National Hamburger Month.
Reyes said that first tasting was not blind. “It was very unscientific, no real rules, extremely informal but for the official burger tasting we use the same critical judgments we’d use when tasting wine.”
Except they would be judging contestant’s buns, their meat patties for size and texture, the overall presentation and the savory appeal of the meat.
“I love nice buns,” said Kymberlie Avila of Araujo Estate Wines, one of the judges at the July 7 Vermeil tasting. All the women made some kind of comment on the importance of buns.
The male judges, however, were a little shy about such commentary, perhaps unfamiliar with the imagery in the context of comparing food.
The nearly two-hours tasting put the eight judges to the test. Chomping away were Reyes, Avila, Mary Sue Frediani of Vermeil Wines/OnTheEdge in Calistoga, Jacquelyn St. Martin of Barnett Vineyards in St. Helena’s Spring Mountain District, Jeff Blaum of St. Helena’s Chase Cellars, Becky Tyner of Small Lots Big Wines of Napa (a concierge service that pairs visitors with boutique wineries), Jeff Matuszewski of LocalWino.com (an online guide for purchasing Napa County wines) and Antonia Quast (not related to owners of the Roman Spa.).
“The judges are all highly trained to evaluating tastes and the finer qualities of wines and the foods they’re paired with,” Reyes said. “Quast is an especially nice element on the panel of judges. She was raised in Texas on the country’s second-largest dude ranch and anyone raised on a dude ranch knows their beef. She’s also a master of wine candidate so she’s intimately familiar with both.”
A contest made for Wimpy
Popeye’s pal Wimpy would have gladly paid on Tuesday to taste these burgers today.
During the nearly two hours of tasting burgers and washing them down with some of the best local wines, the judges were heard remarking on the spicy meat of one burger, or how he or she loved, love, loved, the deep fried pickle on another, or that the next one was so juicy it should really be eaten while wearing a bib.
“When you see a lot of napkins being used, that’s a good sign because you know the burger is really juicy,” said Frediani.
After unhinging her petite jaw to get around mystery burger number four (which later turned out to be a burger from All Seasons Bistro), St. Martin held up the remains of the burger to comment (when her mouth was no longer full).
“This is an all-around, well-integrated burger,” she said, then laughed at using commentary she had previously only used when savoring fine wine.
“This one is overpowered by the heat of the spices in the meat,” insisted Avila about burger number five, a comment followed by muffled agreement from most of the others.
Eight giant burgers from the start, they tallied up their scores and the best were picked.
The top of the pile belonged to the overall winner of the night’s tasting — a burger cooked up by the chefs at the Hydro Grill, owned by Alex Dirkheising and Gayle Keller. The burger was a grilled patty with mozzarella fresca, a pesto mayonnaise with crispy prosciutto and grilled red onions.
Calistoga Ranch’s beef quality and seasoning landed it second place overall.
The All Seasons Bistro burger pronounced “an all-around, well integrated burger” by St. Martin came in as the third-place winner.
There were two additional categories — one for the best buns, earned by Brannan’s Grill, and the other for “guiltiest pleasure,” a euphemism for the greasiest, runniest, most decadent pile of grub. The latter came complete with features all the judges loved, a deep-fried pickle and grilled red onions, and it was created by award-winning chef Brandon Shape of Solage.
“We’re really excited about the judge’s choices,” said the Hydro’s Keller. “With our burgers we wanted to build a burger from the wonderful ingredients that are available now in the garden, like the red basil and the sweet red onions.
“Napa Valley has a reputation for great chefs who make everything great, not matter what they do,” she added. “With our reputation for incredibly expensive wines, I think it’s wonderful that our chefs can also produce something very basic and make it great, even if it is a burger. It’s a beautiful contrast.”
St. Helena tastes offered surprises
In the St. Helena tasting, the burger creations, according to Reyes, ran the gamut from the nostalgically-styled Gott’s Roadhouse classic, to the robust, rich hit from Market and the gourmet brilliance that is Cindy’s Backstreet’s own.
In the end, the best-scoring burger came from the Silverado Brewing Company. Unfortunately, a miscommunication resulted in the Brewing Company cooks preparing an ultra-delicious lamb, rather than beef, burger. But who’s arguing, a score is a score and they received the highest score that day. When the dust settled the AKA Bistro entry dominated the mostly-beef lineup.
Martini House roped in a second place spot with its Kobe spartan.
And much to the surprise of six judges and probably over half the town of St. Helena, Go Fish earned a solid third place.
Although it did not score in the top three, Cook received the most “my favorite” votes.
“Goes to show that, just like wine, sometimes scores don’t always tell the whole story,” Reyes said.
Battle heads south
Now officially known on its Facebook page as the “Napa Valley Burger Battles,” the burger wars will head south with the next tasting, scheduled for July 28 in the Yountville/Rutherford region. The exact venue is yet to be announced. There, the best burgers from Rutherford and Yountville will be selected. After that, it’s on to Napa in August. The final showdown, the Burgergeddon, the burger smackdown, is tentatively scheduled for September to decide who gets the best-burger-in-the-Napa-Valley bragging rights.
Details of the final event are still being ironed out and the public may be asked to pay to attend, to help defray the cost of providing burger samples from the top Napa Valley finalists, Reyes said.
“I think the competition is genius,” St. Martin said after the tasting. “What is better than a burger? The quest for the best Napa burger is probably one of the most fun things I’ve ever done.
