On April 27th I had the distinct pleasure of attending the 2nd annual Taste of Mendocino, America’s Greenest Wine Region at the Golden Gate Club in San Francisco’s Presidio. This well attended, downright crowded event, was a revelation. Living for far too long in the shadow of Napa and Sonoma, the membership of the Mendocino Winegrape and Wine Commission (MWWC), some 84 wineries and 343 winegrape growers strong, has decided enough is enough. Among their multiple initiatives is the effort to put their wines and progressive green credentials before the American public. In this time of environmental concerns, climate change, debates over ‘natural’ and biodynamic wines, of the American consumer’s evolving palate, Mendocino County has a wisdom and a vision accumulated over generations that will benefit us all to learn. From the website:
“Founded in 2006, MWWC is dedicated to sharing knowledge of the singular attributes of the winegrapes, wines and wine estates of Mendocino County with a diversity of audiences around the world.
Mendocino Winegrape & Wine Commission members benefit from research and education programs that emphasize positive relationships with winegrape and wine buyers within our own organization and extending into communities around us. Collaboratively, we place a strong emphasis on organic grape growing and specialized viticultural techniques appropriate to the dozens of grape varietals grown in our 12 diverse regions.
Mendocino County’s authentic “green” credentials are unsurpassed by any other wine region in the world. From pristine wild lands and coastline to multi-generational hands-on family farmers and winemakers, this is a region that has been at the forefront of the sustainable, organic, Biodynamic and fish friendly farming movements.
Now, whereas the county’s narrative is compelling, able to persuade drinkers to look for the region’s many and varied wines, it is the quality of what is in the glass that will keep them coming back for more. And let me tell you, the wines I tasted, only a fraction of those on display, were among the finest domestic efforts I have ever enjoyed. The acid levels were wonderfully high, the tannins firm, the oak judiciously used. The fruit was, dare I say it, pure?
Of course, these are general considerations. Mendocino County AVAs and growing regions are very different; I must confess I was somewhat perplexed at the event’s format. The differences between the Potter Valley and the Anderson Valley are enormous. And a few producers, a very few, disappointed. But with respect to varietal correctness, I was simply astonished as I moved from table to table. Expression after expression were true, soulful realizations of the their grapes. Syrahs were restrained and beautifully perfumed; Pinots, boldly fruited and transparent in the Burgundian style; the Cabernets, exquisitely balancing fruit, lower alcohol, acid and tannins; the Petite Sirahs again showcased that variety’s beguiling sensitivity to terroir; and the Zinfandels, a grape much abused these days, were tightly wound, almost abstract when compared to the awful alcoholic fruit bombs regularly detonating on our dinner tables. Perhaps most surprising were the Merlots, a grape I had largely abandoned. No longer.
These are but a handful grapes grown throughout Mendocino County. Indeed, owning to the geological complexity of the county, its boundaries seemingly drawn by a demented cartographer, it is obvious why dozens of varieties may call this region home. Yet it is also true that for this very reason that experimentation with varieties is enthusiastically embraced here. As with the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA, it is very clear that California’s great learning curve of matching grape to place, vine to terroir, is being successfully realized in Mendocino County. A great many of the region’s producers are farmers, the highest compliment one may offer; true American farmers, respectful of the land, attentive to its rhythms and its greater wisdom. For they know better than most that it is only with such a disposition that honest wines may be made.
Here are a few specific producers who caught my attention. I will mention, with one exception, only the reds.
Albertina Wine Cellars. Though fruit forward and with softer tannins than I prefer, the quality of their Cabernets was quite high.
Barra of Mendocino. All organic, they offered a Petite Sirah, Zinfandel, and a Sangiovese, all very good.
Bink Wines. The wines of Deb Schatzlein, present at the tasting, were among the finest of the afternoon. She makes Syrah, Pinot Noir, Merlot, and ‘Melange’, a Bordeaux-style blend. Made in small lots, I strongly recommend you sign up for her wine club. I might add that her reserved demeanor, whether from shyness or the tiresome obligation to pour her work for a room full of strangers, added to her charm. Like many of the producers in attendance, they are not your practiced ‘happy talk’ B.S.’ers, but very down to earth people, if I may put it that way.
Chiarito Vineyard. Winemaker John Chiarito offered a Petite Sirah, Zinfandel, and a transcendent Nero d’Avola. (Mr. Chiarito is the first to plant this variety in the US.) All brilliant. I was given a taste from one of the last bottles of his long sold out 2003 Negro Amaro. Out of Ukiah, he is doing superb work. Hats off!
Lolonis Winery. The moment I stood before their table, a gentleman placed a cloth Ladybug, their logo, on my shirt. After tasting their excellent Zinfandel, Merlot and Cabernet, I turned to go and ran into Petros Lolonis himself, a man of great dignity and gravitas.
Terra Savia. Winemaker Jim Milone makes a 100% Chardonnay sparkler that was equal parts finesse and play. A serious wine!
Paul Dolan Vineyards. It is hard to find the words to describe these world class wines. I won’t try. My advice? Get on the list. These were the finest domestic wines I have tasted in a very long time. And the prices for most of Dolan’s efforts are laughably low. Amazing juice.
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It was at this point, only an hour into the tasting, that I was called away to the seminar The Grape Grandparents of Mendocino County. Hosted by MWWC President Dave Batt, it featured UC Davis Coop Extension advisor Glenn McGourty, winemakers Alex MacGregor, Charlie Barra, Greg Graziano, Steve Sterling, and Bob Blue. Below are accounts of three of the speakers. A full account of all remarks will be presented here at a later date.
—–Glenn McGourty, Advisor for the UC Davis Cooperative Extension
“We’re not allowed out in public very often. We dance, we sing, we drink wine, we have a good time!
Everybody knows Sonoma and Napa, but there’s a large area on top of that called Mendocino and Lake County. That’s our territory. Size wise, it’s a combination of the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island put together.”
Mr. McGourty went on to describe Mendocino County as sparsely populated, about 90,000 souls. It is 100 miles long and 60 miles wide. Most of it is in the Russian River and Navarro River watersheds, and a little bit of the Dry Creek watershed from Sonoma County. It is a very mountainous region owing to the ongoing collision of the North American and Pacific plates. The regions of the county vary widely. The Pacific Ocean is a big air conditioner with the temperature a steady 50 F. Elevation is gained as one moves inland. The relation of an area to fog affects local climate. Fog brings cooler temperatures. Areas beyond the fog are, of course, warmer, with more moderate temperatures for areas above the fog. In the Anderson Valley fog is present almost every day in the summer time. Yorkville Highlands is above the fog, where the Dry Creek headwaters are. The Mendocino Range define the westside of the Russian River to the Hopland area, where nearby lies Lake Mendocino, the headwaters of the Russian River. Also framing the region are the Mayacama Mountains, at once the westside of the Napa Valley and the eastside of the Russian River Valley where Mendocino County begins.
Italians first grew grapes in Mendocino County, but only for family consumption. Hops were the principle crop in the late 1900s. Greeks grew grapes as well, the Lolonis Family, for example. Prohibition killed the approximately 20 wineries then in existence. [Parducci survived owing to its production of sacramental wines.] It was, in any case, always a race to drink the wine before it became vinegar. Low tech was all that was used. They weren’t making wine for Robert Parker! Mendocino has kept the old that was good, and they’ve added to it. Head pruned vines, simple farming, organic by default, light shakes of sulphur twice a year was about it. Carignane emerged as popular variety. It sustained good yields, an extra ton over Zinfandel. The important point to take away is that, apart from home winemaking, commercial wines were initially grown for the bulk wine market. The region’s history of these early days is that of the evolution from bulk and jug wines to varieties. [For supplemental information please see this.]
To illustrate these last two points we turn to two speakers. The first provides a thumbnail sketch of a kind of winemaking that continues Mendocino’s organic tradition, organic avant la lettre; the second speaker delves into deeply respected regional themes.
History in a glass.
—–Winemaker Alex MacGregor on the 2007 Trinafour Carignane, Niemi Vineyard, Redwood Valley
“This is of Finnish, not Italian origins, from a Finnish colony that bought property in the ‘teens and in the 1920s planted grapes, then ripped them out after World War 2 and replanted in the 1950s on St George rootstock, dry farmed. It’s never been sprayed. By default it’s farmed organically, but it has since been certified organic. These vines used to yield 7,8,9,10 tons an acre. By the time they got to 60 to 65 years old, they’re yielding 2 to 3 tons an acre. It’s definitely not a sexy clone unless you say ‘Carignane’. A neat history in a bottle. I try basically not to screw it up. It’s farmed by Alvin Tollini; his family has been farming for 3 generations. I make it with native yeast fermentation, native malolactic, there is no fining, no filtration, there’s no new wood. The only trick that I use in this wine is that it goes on top of a little bit of dried Petite Sirah skins, ripasso style, from Petite in the same vineyard, about 10%. They are not dried on mats like Amarone. I dry them in a tank, with heat, and once they’re really, really without moisture left, I’ll put the Carignane on top of those skins for 3 or 4 days and then drain to wood. It’s pretty straight forward.”
From Jug Wine to Varieties.
—–Charlie Barra [his oral presentation has been edited]
“My family migrated from the northern part of Italy, from the Piedmont district, in 1900. And they were grape growers over there, my grandfather, like my dad. And they came first through San Francisco and the earthquake, then they moved to Santa Rosa; they finally moved to Mendocino county to grow grapes because the area was very similar to from where they came. The terrain and climate was very similar. They planted small vineyards there, selling grapes to larger wineries who then made vin ordinaire and jug wine. That was their primary market. Then along came Prohibition. They had quite a difficult time; and without resources, I don’t know how they ever made it. But they did. Sometimes I have a suspicion that they converted some of their wine into alcohol, but I’m not sure about that! That all happened during the 30s. That was quite common with Italian families who moved into the Mendocino County area. (They moved into other areas, too.)
We were a very small grape growing area because we are a very cold climate. The Mendocino climate is very unique. Hardly anywhere else where they grow grapes that has a climate similar to what we have in Mendocino County. Very warm days, good for growing fruit; very, very cold nights, which is very good for preserving the balance in the fruit that determines the quality of the wine that you’re going to make. Now, as a grower, I like to take a lot of credit for what I do because I work very hard. I would point out that I just finished my 64th harvest! As a grower, you don’t miss a harvest. The reason you never miss a harvest is that you get paid once a year. You had better show up!
The climate that we have is unique, very consistent; it’s the kind of climate that you can grow many different varieties of grapes. But in the beginning, when they produced vin ordinaire, they grew Carignane, Alicante, Palomino, [unclear], all those varieties, and they sold them to large wineries for jug wine. That went on for quite a few years. And because of our very cold climate, you could not plant vineyards on the bottomlands. The most productive lands in Mendocino County were not planted to grapes. They were planted to hops, pears and prunes. That’s what we had on the bottomlands. They could withstand the frost better than the grapes. Grapes were only planted on the hillsides. Where I grew up, I was born in Calpella, just north of Ukiah, all of the vineyards were on the hillsides.
Mendocino County did not get into the varietal wine business, like those you’re drinking, until at least 75 years after Napa had already made a reputation, before we even got started in the wine business. This is why you don’t hear about Mendocino County. But you’re going to hear a lot about Mendocino County when it comes out of the bottle! It’s superior, it’s very easy to drink, and has more flavors than any wines that I have ever tasted.
I was born in 1926. I grew up in a vineyard. Ten years ago I could prune a vine as well as anyone else. In fact, when I graduated from high school they gave me a pair of pruning shears for a present! In my senior year, I was 19 years old, of course, World War 2 was going on, and grape prices were very good. I had the opportunity to lease a large Zinfandel vineyard growing on a hillside, 1945, from an Italian who was retiring. So I had to make a deal with the high school principal to go to school half a day. So I started farming in 1945; and in that year I made 3 times as much as the principal! He was making $3,300 a year. And I made over $10,000.
I had very difficult years, but I also ended up owning over 400 acres of vineyards and a pretty big winery in the county. I finally had to sell 200 acres of vineyards because it was cutting into my fishing time! Then in 1950 I decided to plant a vineyard all my own. I bought a 150 acres out in the Redwood Valley. You’ve got to remember, this was all borrowed money because my family had absolutely no resources. I planted varietal grapevines, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, some Cabernet, Petite Sirah, things like that. In doing this I made friends with Bob Mondavi. Unfortunately, when the grapes came in I had no market because nobody was buying varietals from Mendocino. So I had to sell my varietal grapes that were producing 3 to 4 tons an acre, to the larger wineries as vin ordinaire at $40 a ton, which was very difficult to do. Then about 3 years after production started Bob Mondavi and the Wente Family came up and made me a deal that they would use all the varietals I could grow if I would deliver them to Livermore and Napa. I was willing to do it, except that I didn’t know what they were going to pay me. I asked what the price would be. They asked what do you get now? I said $40 a ton. They told me that if I delivered them to their wineries they would pay me twice as much. So that got me started in the varietal wine business. That was 60 years ago. By that time Napa had already made its reputation. But we’re catching up very quickly.
I don’t have any problem withe the varietals we’re growing. In the case of Pinot Noir, we have Pinot Noir planted in lots of different locations. We’d always bring samples to wineries for selling our grapes. At one time, by the way, I was growing 600 tons of Pinot Noir, and I couldn’t give them away. We’d take these samples to a winery. And the winery, without knowing where they came from, would choose the Mendocino Pinot Noir, without exception.”
The seminar started a little late, and went over its alloted time. Regrettably, I had less than an hour left to taste through more than a dozen producers. The tasting room was now jammed. There was simply no way, especially with family obligations back in Santa Cruz, that I could intellectually engage the wines, let alone their makers. I decided to flee, but not before asking Charlie Barra one question, the answer to which might serve as a coda for Mendocino County producers as a whole.
Admin Mr. Barra, could you say a bit about your aversion to pesticide use? Were you ever visited by pesticide dealers?
Charlie Barra I could tell you all kinds of stories. I’ll tell you this. My best friend operated a pesticide warehouse and sold for large companies. He would come on the ranch and try to convince me why I had to use pesticides on my fruit. He would scare the hell out of me! He’d say he’d gone to such and such a ranch and saw what I had. He then said he went back two weeks later and it was a complete disaster! They scare you into buying pesticides. Fortunately I didn’t listen very well, until one day I told him to get his fanny off my place and don’t ever come back again. I threw my best friend off the ranch! Because it was all salesmanship. If I can grow grapes without pesticides, and I’m not an expert on pesticides, but if I can do it, anybody can do it. You just have to make up your mind. Yeah, in the beginning there was a little fingernail biting. But in the end, it’s good for everything around you, your health, your wildlife, and I feel good about what I am doing. That’s very important, to know that you’re not destroying anything. I won’t say it has anything to do about wine quality. I don’t even care about that. I care about the environment and the people around me. We need more of that in this country.
—END—
Am I raving in my enthusiasm for Mendocino County wines? Maybe just a bit. But for someone whose palate often feels a stranger in California, I have at long last found another region, in addition to the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA, my taste preferences may call home.
Admin
The question is surprisingly simple: what is the relationship between wine and music? More accurately, what happens to the experience of tasting a specific wine, of its flavors, mouthfeel and aromas, when the sense of hearing, normally a negligible participant, is fully activated? How does a wine change when listening is given direction, a starring role? This was the question put to us at Monday’s gathering at the magnificent Hess Collection Winery. The group, assembled by Jo and Jose Diaz under the title Scoring the Scores, included Steve Heimoff, Clark Smith, Dan Berger, Laura Ness, and yours truly. All the wines, 19 in total, were Petite Sirahs. The music? All the tunes are found on Alacia Van’s superb CD Beautiful Thought. We’ll get to the music in a moment.
Now, it would be easy to dismiss this playful experiment as much ado about nothing. Music is music, wine is wine. But we, on the other hand, experience miraculous, unexpected intersections of physics and pleasure, art and science everyday. So routine are these encounters that the brilliance of the natural world, the complexity of a simple experiences, often go unnoticed. Take the run of a small stream, its flow over rocks, its eddies. A stream taken as an open system, the mathematical modeling of its movement is bewildering complex. But it does have a math. Or cloud formation, as it interacts with air pressure and temperature. There is math there, too. Better known is Johann Sebastian Bach’s prodigious mathematical play subtending many of his prodigious compositions. A particularly favorite example of mine occurs near the close of Gleik’s book, Chaos when he sits with mathematician Mitchell Feigenbaum on the floor of the latter’s empty apartment. As smoke rises from Dr. Feigenbaum’s cigarette, initially a laminar flow, it finally breaks into turbulence at precisely the point worked out by the Dr. Feigenbaum himself.
Our group’s question at Hess was essentially about missing information. To take one more illustrative example, that of weather prediction. Years ago a humble meteorologist by the name of Edward Lorenz was crunching numbers on a computer, a computer primitive by our standards. Approaching a deadline for a weather prediction, he was forced (for various reasons) to rerun his results. To speed things long, he clipped a few decimal numbers off of the very ends of his weather station data, things like wind speed, air pressure, temperature, all the inputs one normally associates with weather prediction. To his surprise, and ours, he came up with an entirely different forecast. Most puzzling was the fact that the decimal values clipped so as to shorten the numbers were seemingly insignificant, equalling the turbulent effect of a butterfly’s wings. This discovery led to the oft misunderstood ‘Butterfly Effect’, the idea that information missing from a calculation may have staggering real-world consequences.
Revolutionary ideas were soon to follow or to be loosely united under the mathematical science of Complexity Theory. Chaos, Poincare, Topology, Catastrophe Theory, Fractals, to name but a few, became the buzz words of an invigorated, visually informed math. And this latter concept is doubly important. Sight had been abandoned from math more than a century ago. It was all a matter of the brain. Every school child knows the pain of Algebra, the college student, of quadratic equations. The only bit of the world remaining before the student’s eyes was the dreaded text book and test paper. But through Fractals, the pioneering contribution of Benoit Mandelbrot, the natural world was reintroduced. The stunningly beautiful visual modelings of missing information has changed mathematics forever. The sense of sight was finally restored to the mathematical sciences, and aesthetics given its rightful seat at the banquet table of creation. Art became an expression of science. And a science may now find art as a source of primary information. For the natural world expresses both simultaneously.
So who was I to prejudge the Hess Collection Winery Petite Sirah tasting? Perhaps the sense of hearing might prove to be a treasured source, once stimulated, of something like wine’s missing information? First a word about our cast of characters. Clark Smith is arguably at the origin of the meditation on the wine/music intersection. An ebullient individual, overflowing with curiosity, crackling with the energy of a man half his age, Mr. Smith has researched this topic for some time. Dan Berger, Mr. Smith’s co-theoretician on this day, is himself a deep pool of knowledge. He, too, is an innovator of sorts, and bursts his banks with unanticipated gifts of insight. Noted wine writer Steve Heimoff played the part of the responsible skeptic, laboring to understand and explain the wines in ways everyone might appreciate. For Mr. Heimoff hyper-specialized wine knowledge can limit or interfere with what should proper be the simple pleasure of drinking. Laura Ness, champion of the Santa cruz Mountains AVA, she is up for anything! Open to the world, she was a fountain of play and inspiration. Jo and Jose Diaz, as organizers, were responsible for setting this comédie humaine in motion, though both clearly enjoyed moments of shared bliss as the afternoon proceeded. Myself? In such august company I felt it best not to speak unless spoken to. It is enough to say that watching these extremely diverse professionals in action was its own reward.
The wines:
2007 Artezin, Mendocino County
2005 Clayhouse Estate, Paso Robles
2007 Concannon, Conservancy, Livermore Valley
2006 EOS Estate, Paso Robles
2005 Langtry, Guenoc Valley, Serpentine Meadow
2005 Lava Cap, Granite Hill, El Dorado, Reserve
2007 Line 39, Lake County
2004 Mettler Family Vineyards, Lodi
2007 Miro Petite Sirah, Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County
2005 True Grit from Parducci, Mendocino County
2006 Pedroncelli Dry Creek Valley, Family Vineyards
2007 Silkwood, Stanislaus County
2006 Twisted Oak, Calaveras County
2005 Ursa, Sierra Foothills
2006 Vina Robles, Paso Robles
2006 Hess, Allomi Vineyard, Napa Valley
2008 Diamond Ridge
2005 Quixote
(1 missing)
For the musical offerings please see Jo Diaz’s web site Juicy Tales for the list.
The method was simple. After an exhaustive introduction to the basics by Mr. Smith, we were first to taste the wines and then write a few notes. Next we were exposed to a variety of tunes, jazzy in the main. The task was to both pair a wine to a musical offering and, more importantly, to see whether our appreciation (or denigration) of a wine was substantially altered. An overarching question was whether we might find areas of collective agreement beyond tasting alone. By turns sultry, energetic, atonal, and novel, each tune was distinctive and rich. As we all listened, some of us perplexed, Mr. Smith and Mr. Berger went about their research with all the joy of latter day Archimedes. Exclamations not unlike that of ‘Eureka!’ rang out between the two. Mr. Heimoff offered a Mona Lisa smile as he sat listening next to the computer speakers. At one point Jo Diaz burst into laughter at his expression, and never fully recovered!
By fits and starts we next turned to lunch. Time, a sadistic task master, was moving quickly. A beautiful meal had been prepared by Executive Chef Chad Hendrickson, all the ingredients of which were sourced, with few exceptions, from local organic and sustainably farmed products. So beautiful was the food that, indeed, it crossed my mind that its preparation is itself among the highest cultural expressions of the twining of science and art. Ironically, we did not discuss the food and wine pairings before us. The designated music played over our conversations. We continued to entertain the question well into a dessert of Bitter Chocolate Terrine, Crème Fraiche Ice Cream with Banana Caramel Sauce.
What was learned? Well, that the people assembled were great intellectual adventurers. That the sympathy of music to wine demands greater research. That no miracle of everyday life should go unthought, however transitory and discrete. Such as our gathering.
Admin
Friday night’s Dark and Delicious, the annual celebration of Petite Sirah and food, brought a friend and me over seventy miles to attend. Through slow south bay traffic, we finally crossed the Bay Bridge and picked our way through the bleak, melancholic expanses of the Alameda Naval Station to the Rock Wall Wine Company, our destination. Darkness had fallen by the time we arrived, and we couldn’t help wondering after the choice of venue; that was until, turning a final corner, we gasped at an unobstructed view of San Francisco skyline just sparkling to life this temperate evening.
Perhaps 6:15 p.m., the building was already packed. Arousing, rich aromas and a slightly harsh white light spilled over a long line of souls waiting to enter. And excellent live music could be heard. I mean, very good music, a superb band, the name of which I will post shortly. Of the crowd, I could see the dress code was casual, but some were decked out in their finest, including my companion. Dior mingled with Levis. Thankfully, very few wore perfumes or colognes. (Nothing kills the ability to taste wine more efficiently than perfumes.)
All ages were present. I was pleased to see a great many young people in the mix, twenty-somethings mingling with mature professional men and women. I would estimate the average age of the crowd to have been around 40.
The room was divided into three sections, long rows lined with winery and restaurant offerings. These rows were capped by yet another row of servers at one end, and tables covered with Silent Auction opportunities at the other. Although each row was crowded with guests, they were well behaved and polite, quite unlike the slow motion brawl of a ZAP event, for example. Indeed, folks at Dark and Delicious had ample chance to chat with winemakers and chefs; and more so as the evening rolled on, when the live music ended and the Bee Gees, Michael Jackson and the Commodores hummed over the speakers. Then the rows furthered thinned, many folks preferring to dance. This was my opening to more leisurely taste the Petite Sirahs I had come for.
I tasted extensively, sampling (and spitting) nearly every wine. But I do not think it fair to write notes in such an environment. There is simply no way one can credibly claim to have properly thought a wine. For wine is not about tasting alone. Petite Sirah demands careful attention, so varied is its terroir expressions. It is simply too easy to get lost in its mystery, to ‘rate’ in a purely reactionary manner what one does not immediately understand. I have held my head in shame at many of my blogging colleagues who write in this manner. In fact, one of the most fascinating aspects of Petite Sirah is how dramatically it changes in the glass, how it responds to humidity, the ambient temperature, the salt air, and most importantly, food. In addition, the finished grape’s great aging potential, routinely under-estimated in the traditional literature (witness Jancis Robinson’s faint praise), makes patience a necessity whenever a new bottle is opened. The finest examples are rather thrilling contests between the all-too-human, childish demand for immediate gratification and the immense rewards granted adult patience. Who has not been disappointed when finishing a bottle only to find the final pour to be far more sublime than the first? Like a selfish lover, no one leaves the experience any happier.
Of course, the wine of any variety may be so designed as to be ready by the time it arrives from the market to the table. And a heavy dose of new oak on garish display Friday night may fool some drinkers, but not me. The Petites I like best are mysterious, mercurial yet balanced . Now, because of both the cautionary remarks above and out of an abundance of respect for winemakers, their labor, heartache and unique agricultural challenges, I shall mention only two wineries of very special merit, in my opinion.
First up is the Aver Family’s ‘06 Blessings. This wine made from 100% estate grown fruit, wowed me months ago and it continues to soar. Mr. Aver, learning of the Dark and Delicious event late last year, was wise enough to set aside the few bottles he brought last night. His ‘07 was not ready so he made the painful decision to bring the last of his very first Petite Sirah effort. It is especially pleasing to know the grapes are grown in the Santa Clara Valley. The august California winemaking history of the area is perhaps taking a huge step forward with this wine, retaking its place as an important growing region. Petite Sirah growers take note! And drinkers, get your name on their list. As a small producer, they will sell out easily each year, as the ‘06 Blessings already had months ago. Great juice.
Next is a producer I know absolutely nothing about, a new discovery: Marr Cellars Winery. I tasted were the ‘05 Cal. PS Alger Vineyards, Tehama County(!), the curious ‘06 Cuvée Patrick PS, also from Tehama County, and the ‘05 Shannon Ranch, Lake County PS. I met the winemaker, Bob Marr, and shall interview him later this month. The prices are very competitive for such quality, between $18 and $20. Very well-balanced and focussed, the fruit quite pure. The higher acidity and the restraint of oak flavors won me over.
Finally, it was a great a pleasure to meet for only the second the man whose historical family-owned Concannon Vineyard is the first to have released single bottlings of Petite Sirah way back in 1964, an eternity by California standards. Founded in 1883, Concannon has long carried the torch for this lovely grape. Tireless in his promotion of the grape, this picture of Jim Concannon, too, captures the spirit of Petite Sirah itself, at once youthful, spirited and wise. It was an honor to have again shaken the gentleman’s hand. Good work, sir!
Hats off for Jo Diaz!
Admin
“What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Just as Romeo and Juliet, the “star-cross’d” lovers, would learn, the awful truth is that a name, a proper name, is a difficult obstacles to overcome. In the wine world there is perhaps no better illustration of this truth than the erratic fortunes of Petite Sirah/Durif.
By now the story of the obscure French nurseryman/scientist Francois Durif and his namesake creation is well-known, as minimalist as it may be. The same few details are always repeated: Peloursin and Syrah, his ‘star-cross’d lovers’, were successfully, well, crossed in the late 19th century. But just as suddenly as the hybrid, Durif, came into existence it would be plunged into a long history of taxonomic instability, especially in California, that only DNA profiling in 1999 would undo.
Oz Clarke writes of Durif in his 2001 ed. of Encyclopedia of Grapes,
“The confusion in California seems to date from the 1920s, when officialdom lumped together Durif, Petite Sirah, Syrah and several other vines under the name of Petite Sirah.”
And just as often repeated is that the resulting wines made of the grape were disappointing.
“[I]t was originally grown in the south of France for its resistance to downy mildew – though not for its quality in any other respect. It produces coarse, rustic red wine and has virtually disappeared from French vineyards.” ibid.
Jancis Robinson from her 1986 ed. of Wine Grapes and Wine (infamously) noted,
“The name Durif means almost nothing to most wine drinkers, but its California synonym Petite Sirah is known to millions. [....] There is nothing particularly petite about it, and it has no connection whatsoever with the noble Syrah of the Rhone valley [...]. [I]t was quite clear that it had none of the noblesse of the Pinot family and was always regarded as a rather ordinary variety, producing wine to match.”
She sums up the grape with a sniff.
“Rigorous though unsubtle.”
Of course, they note a few exceptions, hedge their bets. Mr. Clarke writes,
“In Australia Durif is grown under its own name, and produces dry, solid, four-square wines in warm climates that supposedly age forever – though they’re so impenetrable to start with, what the evolve into I’ve never been able to wait long enough to see.” ibid.
Ms. Robinson gives this,
“Paul Draper of Ridge Vineyards is an exponent of the variety as good, rigorous blending material for blowsier Zinfandels, but his is a keener appreciation than most. Perhaps it is simply, as so often the American case, a question of skillful marketing of the name.” ibid.
Fifteen years separate the two books! But it seems in the summer of 2009 Ms. Robinson found at long last a Petite Sirah she likes.
“As for Middleton’s Clayhouse Petite Sirah Paso Robles, I tasted it blind in San Diego, and take back all those nasty things I said (yet never wrote) about California Petite Sirah. Too many of them are rustic, massively tannic, tooth-enamel-stripping monsters, from which I derive no pleasure. Yet the Clayhouse PS is something special, not just to me, but to most of the other Critics Challenge judges (all journalists of some renown), who collectively chose it the best wine of the competition.”
There are two rather large curiosities about the appraisals of both Clarke and Robinson. Clarke says that the wines made from the grape are “coarse and rustic”, but also that Australian bottlings exist that “supposedly live forever”, wines he implies he shall never live long enough to drink. Robinson draws a similar contrast between ordinary, rustic and “the best wine of the competition”.
What can be made of this tension? I suggest at least four elements are at work.
1) There have never existed significant European expressions Petite Sirah/Durif bottlings from diverse terroirs to provide guidance to critics as to what the grape can do.
2) There has been no sustained inquiry into Petite Sirah/Durif clones; neither has it been established from which Syrah and Peloursin clones Durif was originally hybridized.
3) Petite Sirah/Durif may well prove to be especially sensitive to terroir.
4) The highest quality expressions of the grape have long aging potential.
Of the first element, it is hardly surprising that the arbiters of an elusive ‘noblesse’ in wine be from Great Britain. Much of French wine-making history, from Champagne to Bordeaux, has historically been linked with British taste and with long-standing cultural exchange. Indeed, it has often been observed that early skirmishes between the American Robert Parker and some British critics were likely motivated in part by irritation with Parker’s interference in this history.
The story is far more complex, of course, but my point is that absent French examples of Petite Sirah/Durif British critics have not known what to make of purely American expressions.
The truth of the second element, the absence of research into clones, is clearly stated in the 2003 ed. of Wine Grape Varieties in California, published by the U. of California, Ag. and Natural Resources,
“Little, if any, clonal research has been done on this variety. The only selection currently registered is listed as Petite Sirah FPS 03. The old Napa Valley selection is currently in the virus testing and virus therapy process.”
That Petite Sirah/Durif may be sensitive to terroir is borne out by numerous tastings of varietal bottlings, including a recent event at Concannon hosted by the advocacy group PS, I Love You and one held just last week by Tom Merle of the Bay Area Wine Society. There is simply no credible explanation for the wild variety of expressions apart from that of experimental terroirs (and quite likely, clonal distinctions).
Of the fourth element, this last one hints at a difficulty not easily resolved in California. That of the aging potential of Petite Sirah/Durif. If we might agree with Oz Clarke about long-lived Australian expressions, and if we agree, again citing Wine Grape Varieties in California, “Durif produces full-bodied, red table wine with deep color and long aging potential”, what is a state that produces millions and millions of gallons of easy-drinking wine to do?
What if it were to turn out through on-going plantings from Lodi to Mendocino, from Paso Robles to Dry Creek, from high in the Red Hills of Lake county to the Santa Clara Valley, that somewhere in California could be found the finest place to grow the grape? Will we abandon the best it has to offer, potentially a world standard; will we sacrifice aging potential for the short sell?
I would like to introduce a 5th element. Years ago, but within living memory, California used to enjoy what we now know to be historically correct field blends, but also simple mixes of vines in a vineyard, mixes of unknown clones, vines identified by shared taxonomic characteristics alone, or simply through the intimacies of grower and plant. That all changed with the advertisement-driven emergence of consumer preference for varietal labeling. Endless acres of mixed vines were grubbed up for a single grape variety.
It does not follow, however, that there was, as Oz Clarke states, pervasive ‘confusion’ over Petite Sirah/Durif’s proper identification all those years ago, any more than there was confusion about what were precisely the numerous Italian varieties in a given field-blend. I would suggest that there must have also existed a difference, equally important, in grower philosophy, a philosophy which was not interested in the varietal ‘purity’ of its vineyard.
But that is another story.
Admin
For an earlier effort of mine please see this.
PS I Love You, Petite Sirah’s highly motivated advocacy group, held their 7th Annual Petite Sirah Symposium and tasting at Concannon Vineyard August 4th. I was invited to attend the Media Tasting by the organization’s executive director Jo Diaz (also of Diaz Communications and Juicy Tales). I knew I would be away on vacation in the San Juan Islands of Washington State on that date but the draw of event proved irresistible. That, and the simple fact you don’t turn down an invite from Jo. I cut my vacation short, hopped on a plane, and was at Concannon Vineyard outside of Livermore Tuesday morning, well before the Media Tasting was to begin. As a wine lover with very little understanding of Petite Sirah or of its producers, it was too good an opportunity to ignore. And I am very glad I attended!
I had tried single varietal bottlings of Petite Sirah (or Durif, as it is also now known. Long story! For a good write up please see Dennis Fife’s article) in the past, all of it from the supermarket. Routinely disappointed, I simply didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Often the wines were flabby, big fruit monsters with little finesse or complexity, no acid or vigorous tannin, especially when purchased at a lower price point, and when sourced from larger AVAs, the Central Coast, for example. Long known principally as a grape used to fix or modify other varieties, some larger producers, by blending Petite Sirah fruit harvested from around the state, have done the grape’s reputation no favors as a stand-alone variety. Like much of low-end Pinotage, another little known, easily ruined grape, the drinking experience can be positively awful. But when I took a look at PS I Love You’s impressive membership roster of wineries producing at least one variety bottling, I must say I suspected I was in for a brutally honest reeducation, the kind of comeuppance in which every wine writer ought to delight.
The first question I had, when confronted by this extraordinary member’s list was why were there so few Petite Sirahs in the supermarket? Even in better markets with well-regarded wine selections, I could rarely find more than two or three producers, even then almost always from the usual suspects. And they would be shelved below the Syrahs and at some remove from the monotonous ocean of Cabernet. I can honestly say I am no closer to understanding why after having now been floored by the excellence of the wines I tasted at the Symposium. The experience was not unlike that of opening the door to a long-forgotten room at a museum. Ah! So this is where we put the American Wine History display.
And what a history is enjoyed by this grape. Indeed, one of the finest wines I tasted was from the former site of the PS I Love You Symposium, the venerable Fopianno Vineyards where Petite Sirah has been grown for decades. I was to enjoy their ‘03 Russian River Estate Reserve in the presence of the winemaker, Natalie West. The wine was young, with a bright acidic finish, firm tannins, and just a hint of oak rounding out the finish. Ms. West explained she uses only 20% new oak. For me wine is all about structure. This wine had it.
And this Petite Sirah example was among the last I tasted, over 25 in all, many of them twice. Yet still there was a compelling, obvious distinction from all others I sampled. Indeed, one of the great surprises was the extraordinary plasticity Petite Sirah has to differing terroirs, and equally is it a testament to the respect for the same shown by almost all of the winegrowers. Of course, there were some ‘troubled’ wines, wines lacking in terroir, to say the least. But of all those that brightly shone each was very unlike the other.
Take the Mounts Family ‘07 Dry Creek Estate PS. It was a much lighter style, perhaps the lightest of all PS present. Even at 15.5% alc it was well balanced, very fresh, with almost a rustic finish. A world apart from the Foppiano, but as much a pleasure. (Imagine the difference between Sta. Rita Hills Pinot and that of a Pinot from the westside of the Santa Cruz Mountains, for example.) The wine was poured by the Gary Cooper-like David Mounts, winemaker.
Between each of those expressions, with respect to weight on the palate alone, was the truly outstanding ‘04 York Creek, Dynamite Hill Ridge from the Spring Mountain District. Again, the balance of this wine and the first two was a delight. The ‘04 Ridge had higher acid, was quite lean, tannic, with a long fruit finish. Beautiful wine. It will age well for years. An ‘03 Lytton Estate was also poured by David Gates, Vice President of Vineyard Operations for Ridge. But inasmuch as it is a blend of 77% PS and 23% of Zinfandel, it is outside of consideration for my purposes. (It was very good!) Thank goodness I arrived early. When the membership broke for lunch a bottle of any producer’s already opened wine was taken to one of a dozen random tables. That was the last I saw of the ‘04!
Another expressive terroir wine, this one from the a higher elevation, 2000-2400 feet, is the first release of Fortress Vineyards, an ‘07 Estate Petite Sirah from the Red Hills AVA in Lake County. Owner Barbara Snider (along with her husband, Gary) explained to me that after many years of selling their grapes to wineries they finally decided to begin wine production themselves. Why is it that first time winemakers so very often knock it out of the park? Well, their Petite Sirah is another quite superb expression, this one, as noted, from upper elevations.
And about first time winemakers, I simply must gush a bit about the Aver Family Vineyards’ offering, the ‘06 Blessings. Near the end of the tasting I wandered over to their allotted space in Concannon’s barrel room and was casually poured a taste. My eyes must have bugged out of my head because Carolyn Aver, wife of John Aver who was also present, began laughing at my expression! John Aver in all seriousness said “We get that a lot.” There exists only a few cases left of this wine from an initial production of 25. A fellow blogger next to me was also drawn to the juice. I begged her not to write about it until I could buy some. She said she was just about to Tweet her favorable opinion. Desperate, I asked the Avers if I might buy some then and there. Tomorrow my half-case arrives!
Strictly speaking, the Aver Family wines, though from their estate fruit, are made and finished at CrushPad in San Francisco. The winemaker in charge is the very talented Kian Tavakoli. But the Aver’s involvement is considerable.
There were many other excellent examples. Those mentioned above especially pleased me. Indeed, I’ve had my understanding, such as it was, entirely recast with respect to this variety. Give the grape a try.
A very special thanks goes out to Jo Diaz for inviting me to this embarrassment of riches. And to Concannon Vineyard for their hospitality.
Admin
Sterling Vineyards has a great deal to say. Through a growing series of green and philanthropic initiatives involving everything from waste recycling to restoration of riparian habitats, from water recycling to the conversion to solar power of their celebrated tram, from using organically grown grapes to donations to Napa families in need and monies for land preservation, all that I have read and heard tells me Sterling Vineyards has made very impressive gains.
The Wine Bloggers Conference organizers are to be praised, as well as the other associated wineries and organizations, for bringing the Napa and Sonomas’ collective response to environmental and social issues to the forefront. For me personally it is a far more important collection of nested concerns that the latest release. Indeed, among the first questions I ask when making a wine purchase is where my dollars are going? In whom and what am I investing? What behaviors am I rewarding? I spend extra for organic tomatoes; I go out of my way to purchase Fair Trade coffee; I buy from local and socially responsible stores, those that pay a living wage and provide health care for their employees. Why should wine be approached differently? I am pleased to report Sterling Vineyards passes muster. And the best news is that they are not alone, far from it, among Napa and Sonoma producers as I trust fellow bloggers will report from their winery visits.
As I wrote in an earlier piece we departed on one of eight randomly chosen busses for winery destinations. The first stop on our tour was Sterling Vineyards where our group was to meet the charming Alison Crary, described, in part, in a bio provided on a flash drive as the following:
As Associate Winemaker for red varietals at Sterling Vineyards, Alison Crary is able to fully indulge her curiosity about Napa’s most prominent grapes and the terroir within which they grow. In close concert with Mike Westrick, Senior Vice President of Winemaking at Sterling, Alison has the opportunity to harvest over 200 vineyard blocks within Napa County, and to evaluate the wines made from those sites year after year. Working with varietals as diverse as Cabernet Sauvignon and Carignan, Mourvedre and Merlot, Petite Sirah and Petit Verdot, Alison takes great joy in expanding the breadth of her experience, and exploring the ever-evolving world of wine.
What follows is a partial, edited transcript of a ‘wild’ recording of her remarks as we lunched and toured a limited portion of the impressive winery and grounds. Part 2 will appear early next week.
“So how many of you are familiar with Napa Green Certified Land? We’ve got a couple back there, excellent. Are there any experts? Couple more… couple more. Wonderful. And the name Fish Friendly Farming? O.K. Great. So you guys are going to do the rest of the talk, and I’m going to sit down and eat! (laughter) Just kidding.
Sterling is a member of Napa Green Certified Land. We are aiming for certification. We are currently 80% of the way there, which for us is a pretty big undertaking because we have over 1000 acres of estate vineyards. When you think about the fact that right now there are just over 30,000 acres of land in Napa County that are enrolled in Napa Green, and 15,000 of those acres are planted to vine, the fact that we have 800 acres already certified, and we’re about to certify the last 200, we make up a 1000 of that 15,000 acres that have been certified. I’m very proud of that fact.
We’ve been working toward [full] certification for the last couple of years.
Fish Friendly Farming and Napa Green basically center on the idea of preserving soil and preserving and restoing watersheds. For a winemaker, you know, this is a really important thing. These are two of the biggest resources. I need great water and I need to hold on to my wonderful soil that grows my terrific grapes. So it is, of course, in our interest as well to make sure that we preserve these two extremely valuable resources.
We go into our vineyards, like down at Winery Lake, we go in, we restore any watersheds that have seen damage in the past. We’ve been working on this restoration at Winery Lake [vineyard] for two decades. The work that we did twenty years ago at Winery Lake, we’ve basically gone and rolled through the rest of our estate vineyards to make sure the habitat stays friendly to fish, that we are able to nurture and plant native species like Western Dogwood, California Rose, yarrow… some of these plants will keep the sol where we want it and not in our streams during the rainy season. So that’s part of Fish Friendly Farming.
We’re also very committed to making sure we keep our dust levels down in the vineyard, that we do so with sustainable means. Right now we’re using a sugar polymer that we put on our vineyard paths throughout these 1000 acres of estate vineyards to make sure we keep the dust down and that we keep any of the sediment from going off into our streams an rivers providing better environments for the fish fry and for local salmon.
Everyday that I drive to work I feel very fortunate. [....] Everybody in the valley is extremely motivated to keep it as beautiful as it has been and will be. We are not alone. We do make up a lot of those certified grape lands. But we also have a lot of partners through the Napa Valley Vintners. And we have a lot of people here who are striving for the same preservation. We will continue it until we see full certification.
In addition to the Napa Valley Green Program we also just became a newly minted Napa Valley Green Winery. It happened this April. We were one of the first twelve in the entire valley.“
From the flash drive, a piece titled Sterling Vineyards Is Certifiable Green.
Founded in 2007, Napa Green Certified Winery was developed by the Napa Valley Vintners in coordination with the Napa County Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and is based on the Association of Bay Area Government’s (ABAG) Green Business Program as a model due to its consistent, credible and recognized program with a long track record. ABAG’s winery-specific checklist was updated and adopted as the certification method for Napa Green Certified Winery because it puts all the regulatory pieces into a comprehensive format that goes beyond compliance. The checklist includes water conservation, energy conservation, pollution prevention, and solid waste reduction elements.
“We have done a number of things over the last few years to make sure… well, we were actually, we were headed for certification before there was a certification (laughs), to be quite honest, because a lot of these projects were started several years ago. What I’m talking about would be night air cooling of all of our facilities. We live in an environment where we have during the summertime a 50 degree fahrenheit diurnal variation. Last week,for instance, we had a number of days when it was 49 degrees at night and 99 degrees during the middle of the day. We have sensors on all our air intake vents that blow at a certain temperature and bring that cool air in, and it will shut off at warmer temperatures so we can naturally cool our entire facility.
We also have this year 4 ten hour working days which right there cuts off 20% of our energy usage and also water usage, because if you only have to sanitize your winery 4 days a week rather than 5 that’s a huge savings in terms of water.
We’ve also been recently been recognized for our waste reduction. For a facility like this I am extremely proud to say that we have diverted, or have been able to divert in the last two years 95% of the waste that is generated on site. We’ve been able to keep it out of landfills. We compost all of our pomace. We recycle everything we can, down to little, tiny batteries to small boxes we reuse; any materials that are recyclable, we collect them and move them out through the proper channels. A 95% waste reduction has added up to a diversion of over 1,400 tons of material every year. Fourteen hundred tons! That’s what we’re keeping out of the waste stream every year.
And water conservation? How many here are from California? What you may not know is that we are in the third year of a drought. I was lucky enough to move to California in a non-drought year and I didn’t really understand what all the griping and moaning was about, now I understand it. I get it. It is extremely dry out here. And water is a very, very hot commodity. Our governor, this Spring, challenged all Californians to reduce their water usage by 20%. Well, we just christened a water processing unit, and I’m about to totally geek out on you here, warning! Winemaker goes geeky on you! But this is a fascinating piece of machinery, something called a membrane bioreactor. We’ve installed either the second or the third one in the county. We just christened it this Spring. What this is going to allow us to do… UC Davis has put out a statistic that it takes one to four gallons of water to make one gallon of wine. That’s a huge water usage. This membrane bioreactor will allow us to recycle and reuse 50% of the water we use on this site. Fifty percent for us is a pretty big number, it’s three and a half-million gallons in one year.
In addition to the use of organically grown grapes in some of our bottlings, we’ve also made strides in our packaging of these wines. Our labels are 30% post-consumer recycled paper, only using soy inks. We are a member of One Percent For the Planet. It is a group of businesses who’ve come together and said they will donate one percent of their proceeds to furthering environmental protection around the planet. We’ve donate $50,000 so far. That’s just in our first year. We’re very proud of that partnership.
And we’re very proud of the wines, too! (laughter)
I am a big gardener, and one of the fringe benefits of our membrane bioreactor is that we get to use the compost that comes out for our community garden here at Sterling. [The garden] is growing like gangbusters right now. So I was having a little squash, a little zucchini, out of that garden, just sautéed with some butter, salt and pepper; throw a little of that on some angel hair pasta and crack open an organic Sterling Sauvignon Blanc, there’s dinner! (laughs)“
End of part 1
Part 2 may be read here.
Great thanks to Alison Crary and Sterling for their generosity.
Admin
Out of the possible 10,000 Vitis Vinifera varieties in existence it has been estimated that only 200 are commonly used in wine production and less than 50 are grown internationally, the rest restricted to their regional origins. However, it is the “Big 6” in the global market – Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Syrah/Shiraz, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc – which makes up the bulk of production, with many wine drinkers happily going through the year on these, with the occasional top-up from specialised favourites such as Semillon, Riesling, Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Franc, Sangiovese, Tempranillo, Nebbiolo, etc.
Even wine enthusiasts, a category in which I count myself, don’t often venture too far off this beaten path, but there is a group who shudder at the prospect of restricting themselves to such limited choice, whose raison d’être is to actively search out and try the unusual and exotic. The Wine Century Club was formed in 2005 by Steve de Long (creator of the Wine Grape Varietal Table) and since then has expanded to over 430 members world-wide. The majority of members are based in the US, 350 at last count, with some towns having enough to organise local gatherings. Canada, at 37, is the next significant group, with the Rest of World contingent headed by the UK on 10 members and Australia on 6. Details of the club meetings and events can be found on their website.
I first read about the group just over a year ago and it seemed a perfect part of my new found commitment to push the boundaries of the wine frontier, to explore strange new varieties, seek out new grapes and old civilizations and boldly go where few wine drinkers have gone before (sorry, couldn’t resist that!). Having a competitive nature I immediately downloaded the membership application form and started going through my tasting notes and records to find how many varieties I could definitely claim. According to WCC rules the “Grape varieties that you’ve tried only in blends with other varieties are permitted” but for me this was ambiguous and open to abuse, as an evening meal with some Bordeaux, Chateauneuf-du-Papes, Port and Madeira could get you nearly half-way to the total if you included all of the typical grapes that could be in those bottles. So I made myself a little pact – only include the major varieties clearly listed on the bottle and making up a significant percentage of its content, not the 5% or 10% blends that often are found – if it wasn’t on the label, and I couldn’t clearly reference a major share in a blend, I didn’t include it. I eventually counted 49, which I was not too disappointed with given that I’d only been seriously into wine for just over a year, but that 100th variety seemed a long way off indeed. I knew that I’d be able to increase this number without changing my wine buying methods too much and I was already experimenting with new wines, the UK has a great buying choice compared to many other countries and, as regular readers of R.O.T. will know, I am frequently sent on business trips around the world so I had an excellent chance of coming across even more local grape varieties not often encountered back home.
So, for the best part of a year I looked for unusual names on the labels, and along the way I learned a lot more about grapes and wine than I probably would have;
- Assyrtiko, the dry white from the volcanic island of Santorini, whose eruption 3 thousand years ago is believed to have led to the downfall of the ancient Minoan civilization. Today grapes grow on the steep slopes of what’s left of the caldera.
- Georgian Saperavi and Rkatsiteli from a country with possibly 9 thousand years of history with winemaking but plagued by counterfeiting, spurned by its neighbour, Russia, and looking west for new markets.
- Italy, familiar to most people for Sangiovese and Nebbiolo, whose diverse selections of regional wines contributed 15 varieties to my total and created a love of Southern reds made from Aglianico, Negramaro and Nero d’Avola.
- The world’s most planted grape varietal is Airen from central Spain.
- Turkey, with a history almost as long and several hundred indigenous varieties, including Öküzgözü, Bogazkere, Narince and Emir, it’s almost impossible to drink a bottle in that country without tasting something new. Turkish wine is going through a transition at the moment, rediscovering an ancient heritage of wine production but at threat from Government taxation and discouragement in a predominantly Muslim society.
- The Eastern Mediterranean vying for the title of most unpronounceable grape, with contenders including Xynisteri, Agiorgitiko, Papazkarasi and Karasakiz.
As you may have already guessed by now I have finally reached the 100 mark. It was initially a slow progress, with only 20 new varieties on top of the 49 in the first 6 months. I may have been buying more unusual wines but I already had a cellar which had plenty bottles ready for drinking and I wasn’t deliberately changing my drinking habits just to get into the Wine Century Club – in the words of the Paul Masson ad, “Drink no wine before its time”! However time did start to take effect so there was a noticeable shift in the proportion of the weird and wonderful in the cellar, until the law of averages started to mean new varieties came to the top of the drinking list more frequently.
So what was the grape that sent me into triple figures and where did I drink it? Whilst I wouldn’t have minded had it been a glass taken alone at home in the U.K. for the sake of good memories, and more impressive writing, I am happy to say that it was a glass of 2005 Pano Papakosti, a blend of Papazkarasi, Cinsault and Karasakiz varieties from Marmara and the Aegean regions, savoured at an excellent winehouse in Istanbul (see my earlier ROT post for a full review of this evening).
Interestingly my cellar still contains quite a few new varieties I didn’t get to in the normal course of drinking, another 8 which were in reserve to reach the 100 but which I’ll get to over the next few months and years, including a Corsican red containing Niellucciu Sciallarellu, a Croatian red made from Plavac Mali and a few others made with grapes that many of you reading this will not see as uncommon and already have in their lists, Torrontes, Pinot Blanc and Tannat.
 
For a couple of other excellent articles on unusual grapes look here & here and for those enquiring minds who are interested in exactly which grapes made up my Century (deep breath!);
Agiorgitiko, Aglianico, Albariño, Alicante Bouchet, Arneis, Assyrtiko, Barbera, Blaufränkisch, Bonarda, Bual, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Canaiolo, Carignan, Carmenère, Chardonnay, Chasselas, Chenin Blanc, Cinsaut, Clairette, Colombard, Cortese, Corvina, Dabouky, Dornfelder, Emir, Fernao Pires, Flora, Furmint, Gamay, Garganega, Gewürztraminer, Greco, Grenache/Garnacha, Grenache Blanc, Grolleau, Grüner Veltliner, Hárslevelü, Jandaky, Kalecik Karasi, Karasakiz, Királyleányka, Macabeo, Malbec, Malvasia, Marsanne, Melon de Bourgogne, Merlot, Meunier, Molinara, Montepulciano, Mourvèdre, Müller Thurgau, Muscadelle, Muscat Blanc, Muscat of Alexandria, Narince, Nebbiolo, Negroamaro, Nero D’Avola, Öküzgözü, Orange Muscat, Palomino, Papazkaras, Petit Verdot, Petite Sirah, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Pinotage, Portugieser, Prosecco, Riesling, Rkatsiteli, Rondinella, Rondo, Roussanne, Ruby Cabernet, Sangiovese, Saperavi, Sauvignon Blanc, Schiava, Semillon, Sercial, Silvaner, Sultaniye, Syrah/Shiraz, Tempranillo, Tinta Negra Mole, Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional, Trebbiano/Ugni Blanc, Vasilaki, Verdejo, Verdicchio, Viognier, Welschriesling, Xarel-Lo, Xynisteri , Zinfandel/Primitivo and last, but not least, Zweigelt.
Greybeard.
This is the first in a series of interviews I’ll be conducting with winemakers of the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA.
Was wine a common drink in your family’s household?
Michael I grew up in England during the 50’s and 60’s when table wines were not as popular as they are today. Far more beer was drunk in those days. In my family wine was regarded as a bit of luxury. We had wine for dinner only on special occasions and then it was usually a white wine. But there was always sherry or port in the liquor cabinet. My mother would have a little glass of sherry on occasion in the evening.
When did you begin making wine? What was your initial inspiration?
Michael I really got into making wine when I was at UC Davis during the early nineties. But before that I had made hard cider when I was at art college in the UK and messed around with getting all manner of things to ferment. In England you can drink alcohol by the time you are 18, so at college, Mateus Rose was one the tipples of choice. Also my uncle had a pub, The Wagon and Horses, in Chorley, Lancashire, and he used to let me help him tap the oak barrels in the cellar. A year after I finished art college, studying photography, I started working on cruise ships as a social photographer. Ships are like floating hotels, and wine and food are very much part of the ambience the cruise ship. In this environment, I began to develop an interest in wine. Also we were visiting many of the wine producing areas of the world. This is when I began to take note of the various wine regions of the world. So when it became time to swallow the anchor (to settle ashore), I was ready to do something different. At that time I was visiting California, and the wine business seemed like a very attractive profession to be involved with.
Could you tell us about your wines?
Michael With Sones Cellars we are focusing on only a few varietals, mainly Petite Sirah and Zinfandel. The reason for this is that we like these varietals ourselves; we want to make wines we enjoy drinking. For sale this year, we will have three Petites and a couple of Zins. Our aim is to produce vineyard designated wines of the two varietals showing off the grape and appellation. California is the natural home to Petite Sirah and Zinfandel, with both varietals having been heavily planted here since the late 1800s. Our goal is to produce quintessentially Californian wines, and both Zin and Petite thrive here. Why imitate Burgundy? Let the Burgundians do what they already do well. For the last couple of vintages we have also made a white wine blend, which we call La Sirena. This is a blend of Pinot Gris, Viognier and a little Sauvignon Blanc. Here our goal is to produce something that is different from the mainstream white wines.
Having worked at number of different Santa Cruz Mountain wineries I have been exposed many and varied styles of winemaking. It has been a good experience which has led me to believe that least intervention in the wine making process as possible is the best way to go. I like making wine without the use of some the modern processing techniques, such micro oxygenation or de-alcoholization. These techniques are used to produce wines that fill the marketing parameters set by a winery sales team. A lot of the wines you find in the shops nowadays is made this way. With our wines we make them to the best of our abilities and then let the customer decide whether they like them or not. Hopefully we will have enough people who like our wines and buy them, that will allow us to make a livelihood out of being winemakers.
How much do you produce, and what are your growth projections?
Michael We started off very small, producing only 350 cases for our first 2003 vintage. In 2007 we produced around 800 cases and for this year we hope to break the 1,000 case level. Lois and I want to keep Sones Cellars a small family winery that we can manage ourselves, so we plan to grow to about 2,500 cases and stop there. Though it sounds big to us now, that is still small in the winery scheme of things.
What projects are you working on now?
Michael Well, the next thing for Sones Cellars is to move into to our new little winery. Lois and I started making our own wine in 2003 at Byington winery in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Since then we have been itinerant wine makers, fermenting and cellaring our wines at other wineries in the Santa Cruz area. Finally some time in May of this year we will be able to put Sones Cellars and all our wine paraphernalia under one roof on the west side of Santa Cruz on Ingalls street.
Any advice for someone thinking of beginning their own label?
Michael Well, there’s a question. The wine business is something that prospective wine makers should think long and hard about before venturing into. It is relatively easy to make good wine; it is a lot harder to sell it. There is so much competition nowadays, and on all levels of quality. For a number of years you invest a lot money before you have even sold a single bottle. It is the nature of the business; you buy the grapes, cellar the wine for a year or two, bottle the wine and it is only then that you see any return. As they say “To make a small fortune with a winery start with a large one.”
Where can we find your wines?
Michael We have just started this past year in getting our wines into shops and restaurants. Locally in Santa Cruz, Vino Cruz and Shopper’s Corner carry our wines. Or you can get them directly from us if you live in California. Until we get our winery established, we are limited to Californian customers only.
Thank you, Michael.
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On April 27th I had the distinct pleasure of attending the 2nd annual Taste of Mendocino, America’s Greenest Wine Region at the Golden Gate Club in San Francisco’s Presidio. This well attended, downright crowded event, was a revelation. Living for far too long in the shadow of Napa and Sonoma, the membership of the Mendocino Winegrape and Wine Commission (MWWC), some 84 wineries and 343 winegrape growers strong, has decided enough is enough. Among their multiple initiatives is the effort to put their wines and progressive green credentials before the American public. In this time of environmental concerns, climate change, debates over ‘natural’ and biodynamic wines, of the American consumer’s evolving palate, Mendocino County has a wisdom and a vision accumulated over generations that will benefit us all to learn. From the website:
Of course, these are general considerations. Mendocino County AVAs and growing regions are very different; I must confess I was somewhat perplexed at the event’s format. The differences between the Potter Valley and the Anderson Valley are enormous. And a few producers, a very few, disappointed. But with respect to varietal correctness, I was simply astonished as I moved from table to table. Expression after expression were true, soulful realizations of the their grapes. Syrahs were restrained and beautifully perfumed; Pinots, boldly fruited and transparent in the Burgundian style; the Cabernets, exquisitely balancing fruit, lower alcohol, acid and tannins; the Petite Sirahs again showcased that variety’s beguiling sensitivity to terroir; and the Zinfandels, a grape much abused these days, were tightly wound, almost abstract when compared to the awful alcoholic fruit bombs regularly detonating on our dinner tables. Perhaps most surprising were the Merlots, a grape I had largely abandoned. No longer.
Chiarito Vineyard. Winemaker John Chiarito offered a Petite Sirah, Zinfandel, and a transcendent Nero d’Avola. (Mr. Chiarito is the first to plant this variety in the US.) All brilliant. I was given a taste from one of the last bottles of his long sold out 2003 Negro Amaro. Out of Ukiah, he is doing superb work. Hats off!
“We’re not allowed out in public very often. We dance, we sing, we drink wine, we have a good time!
“My family migrated from the northern part of Italy, from the Piedmont district, in 1900. And they were grape growers over there, my grandfather, like my dad. And they came first through San Francisco and the earthquake, then they moved to Santa Rosa; they finally moved to Mendocino county to grow grapes because the area was very similar to from where they came. The terrain and climate was very similar. They planted small vineyards there, selling grapes to larger wineries who then made vin ordinaire and jug wine. That was their primary market. Then along came Prohibition. They had quite a difficult time; and without resources, I don’t know how they ever made it. But they did. Sometimes I have a suspicion that they converted some of their wine into alcohol, but I’m not sure about that! That all happened during the 30s. That was quite common with Italian families who moved into the Mendocino County area. (They moved into other areas, too.)
