Reign of Terroir » A Day at a Time

Jack Keller On America’s Indigenous Grape And Fruit Wines

Admin, Ken Payton — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:14:21 +0000

Taken by a couple of articles that have recently appeared in the Palate Press on both the history and the commercial potential for American indigenous grape varieties, I did what anyone would do: I turned to Jack Keller, author of the site Winemaking, and perhaps the net’s first fermented beverages blog, Jack Keller’s WineBlog. Though humility forbids him from saying it, I have no problem calling him one of America’s leading voices on all things fermentable. And as an accomplished, award-winning home winemaker, he brings to the discussion his considerable experience with the making of fruit, grape, dandelion, even grass wines! He is a terrific resource for information and knowledge, both the arcane and the indispensable. The Michael Broadbent, if you will, of our indigenous and fruit wines. For our purposes here, he sheds significant light upon the questions I put to him.

In addition to visiting his websites, for more information please see my interview with the gentleman from the Fall of 2008.

1) Would you say a bit about the historical eclipse of America’s indigenous grape varieties by Vitis vinifera?

Jack Keller Ken, from the earliest days, I think every generation of Europeans who came to America brought with them a memory of wine that was formed almost exclusively around their homeland’s varieties of V. vinifera. It was and still is, after all, the overwhelmingly dominant grape on the western half of the Eurasian landmass and by import throughout North and South Africa, Australia, South America, and the Golden State. Sure, the more common among the immigrants possibly also had experience with elderberry, greengage, apple, blackberry and other homemade country wines, but there wasn’t really anything in Europe equivalent to the vast numbers of American native grapes.

With a V. vinifera memory, immigrants were of course disappointed in the very different flavors obtained from wild American grapes. However, the old expression “any port is welcome in a storm” also applies to wine. Oddly flavored wine was vastly preferred to no wine at all. Besides, for those who were born in American or came here very young, they had no memory of V. vinifera, American grapes made perfectly acceptable wine. Until, that is, the second half of the twentieth century, when Madison Avenue began to tell us what was and what wasn’t acceptable.

The wild grape of Europe, V. sylvestris, is somewhat analogous to American grapes in that both are dioecious, bearing male and female flowers on separate plants. If you walk through the forests of America where grapes grow, you see many vines that are male and devoid of fruit. V. vinifera, with hermaphroditic flowers, clearly would be favored in the garden or on the farm for that reason alone. But that is but a bonus. The real draw to V. vinifera is the generally superior flavors of the juice and it’s fermented byproduct over any other grape species on the planet. Even an inferior V. vinifera variety is unquestionably superior to the best V. monticola, V. mustangensis, V. acerifolia, V. arizonica, V. girdiana, V. vulpina, V. cinerea, etc. While one can get used to wines from these grapes, they are certainly not the best of the American native species.

The better American indigenous species, V. labrusca, V. aestivalis, V. riparia, and even V. rotundifolia have all produced some outstanding varieties. But, with the exception of V. rotundifolia (muscadine), the vast majority of the commercially successful “American” grapes all seem to have a little V. vinifera in their genes. Concord, Catawba, Alexander, Niagara, Delaware, Norton (or Cynthiana, if you prefer), and Ives are but a few that have had long lasting commercial success, and all but one of those had a European pollinator in its distant past. And then there are the muscadines — Scuppernong, Noble, Scarlett, Nesbitt, Summit, Carlos, Ison, Magnolia, Tara, and so on.

Certainly you can say these wines have been eclipsed by V. vinifera wines, but they were never in the same league at all. Even so, they have their place. Personally, I would prefer a good Ives Noir to an average V. vinifera, and there are a lot of average V. vinifera wines out there.

2) Tell us something of the quality of wines the home winemaker can achieve with both vinifera and native grapes, but also of various fruits.

JK I have been judging home wine competitions for a long time. I distinctly remember the first homemade wine I ever scored a perfect 20 (out of 20 possible). It was a black raspberry with a little elderberry in it, and it was superb. The beauty of that wine was that had I not known I was drinking a black rasp with elder, I’d have thought I was drinking a very well made Zinfandel.

The best wines I have personally ever made were almost all non-grape wines — dandelion, Marion blackberry, Key lime, Loganberry, black currant, pomegranate, mangosteen, black raspberry, Boysenberry, cherry, and (you’re not going to believe this…) beet. Oh, I’ve made more than a few unforgettable grape wines too, but I like to field blend indigenous grapes and produce something no one has ever tasted before. Probably my very best was a blend of V. mustangensis, V. cinerea var. helleri, V. monticola, and V. vulpina, and it was smooth but crisp and utterly delicious. I could never make it again because I just filled the press with what I had, but of course I’ll try.

Having said all of that, I am not the best home winemaker I know. I think I am pretty good, but I know people who make wines that put mine to shame. I consider it an achievement when I can steal a Best of Show or Grand Champion from them.

I think some of the best wines and worse wines I have ever tasted were made from the same fruit or berries. You can make an absolutely delightful wine from peaches, for example, but if your method is inappropriate or you use under-ripe fruit or simply not enough fruit it can be worse than bad. The best eating plums you can find might make pitiful wine, but a bucket full of small, tart, wild sand plums can be transformed into the most delicious wine you have tasted. The same can be said of grapes. The best table grapes generally make poor wine. Have you ever eaten a bunch of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes? Not very appealing, but oh, what wine!

Native grapes present similar challenges. Many have unusual aromas or flavors associated with their species. These are not necessarily disagreeable, although they might be, but they certainly are unusual. Every winemaker knows that the wine almost certainly will not taste like the fruit from which it was made, but it will carry certain characteristics of the fruit into the wine. Learning what will and what will not be carried into the wine is one of the skills that separate really good winemakers from the rest. Put another way, knowing what the ingredients will taste like when combined and then baked or cooked is what separates chefs from mere cooks.

V. vinifera varieties present the same problem, but we have tens of thousands of examples of finished product from which to learn. With most native grapes and a lot of different fruit, you have to make the wines to learn what is possible and what is not. Learning how to manipulate what nature offers so as to bring out desirables while shedding, masking or neutralizing undesirables is what turns the average chef into the master craftsman.

I guess what I am trying to say is that the potential quality of native grape wines is really dependent on the winemaker’s skills. The same can be said of V. vinifera wines, but most viniferas are much more forgiving than are the natives. You have to be a pretty bad winemaker to screw up a batch of Merlot, but you have to be a pretty good winemaker to coax a good wine out of V. mustangensis or V. rupestris.

Country wines present different challenges, but these are basically challenges of ingredient selection and chemistry, solved by a combination of knowledge and good winemaking techniques. Just as tart plums make better wine than most table plum cultivars, tart cider apples make far superior wine than do sweet eating apples. You have to select the right ingredients and then work with the chemistry that comes with them. The results can be both surprising and delightful.

If you’ve ever eaten raw cranberries, the idea of making wine from them might seem like a waste of time and effort. But the truth is that cranberry wine served in a blind tasting will be mistaken for grape wine — usually white Zinfandel — almost every time. Few other fruit or berry wines will do this, but the beauty is what each actually tastes like once fermented. Banana wine will not taste like banana unless the winemaker adds banana extract, in which case it will taste like adulterated banana wine.

The things to remember with country wines is that they are not grape wines, should never be compared to grape wines, and should be judged by what they present — not what you expect. My wife and I were in a little winery outside of Kalamazoo and we were luxuriating in the enjoyment of one of the best cherry wines we’d ever tasted when a woman complained in a very loud, shrill voice, “This doesn’t taste like any wine I’VE ever tasted!” You can go through life complaining and being unhappy or you can just relax and enjoy the moment.

What I love about home winemakers is that they experiment. It doesn’t always work out for the better, and folks with good manners will never let their failures cross the lips of a guest. But those successes, those are where the next greatest thing might be found. My wife’s favorite wine is a wine I learned how to make from Martin Benke called Key Lime-A-Rita, which is basically fermented Key Limeade and Triple Sec, and yes, it tastes more like a Margarita than a wine. Some winemaker down in Florida is going to read my blog one day, give Key Lime-A-Rita a try, and sell a thousand cases.

3) What are the indigenous varieties which show the greatest promise for commercial success?

JK Down here in Texas we have a native grape called mustang that is probably the worst tasting grape you’d never want to try, but good winemakers have been making some terrific wines from that sucker for generations. Mustang is a real challenge, but if you can make good wines from that grape you can probably make exceptional wines out of anything else. I’m not saying mustang has great commercial promise, but at least two wineries in Texas sell an awful lot of it.

The reason I mentioned mustang first off is to make clear that a good winemaker can make good wine out of any grape. The problem with many indigenous grapes is that they bear too little fruit to be commercially viable or are too vigorous to be controlled in a vineyard setting. Those that bear well and can be managed on the trellis have largely been exploited in breeding programs or in niche markets.

There are a lot of old grapes — heirloom varieties, if you will — that were once popular but would now be extinct if not for a few breeders, memorial vineyards, enthusiasts, and the clonal germplasm repositories at Geneva, NY and Davis, CA. The ones I am referring to are mostly hybrids of the native species, but some do indeed have at least some V. vinifera genes. From this vast storehouse are some exceptional grapes that make exceptional wines, but would you plant a few acres of Herbemont, Lenoir, Hidalgo, Ives, Brilliant, Lindley, Elvira, Blondin, Clinton, Elvicand, Valhallah, Hopkins, Bailey, Husmann, Munson, or XLNTA when customers are still asking for Merlot? It would take a gutsy person to do so, but there are some such folks out there. I have tasted commercial wines of most of these grapes (still looking for Elvicand and Hopkins). Most of these grapes will grow fine down here in the Pierces Disease belt (PD), where V. vinifera bears two crops before dying.

The oldest continuously operated winery in Texas is Val Verde Winery in Del Rio. Their flagship grape is Lenoir, a.k.a. Black Spanish, and they make a darned good table wine and a highly respected (and a bit pricey) port from this grape. They also make a half-dozen V. vinifera wines, but I would bet my soul that they buy that juice from some place where those grapes will grow. And that’s okay. They have to compete, and even though Robert Parker is never going to mention Val Verde Winery (they grow that Lenoir grape!), he does seem to mention all the other wines they sell and that works in their favor.

The truth is that I don’t really know which indigenous species or varieties show the greatest promise for commercialization, but there is some good potential out there. I prefer the blends to the varietals in both vinifera and indigenous wines, so I am only limited by what I can find out there.

4) I believe the time is ripe for the expansion of fruit wines into the market, still and sparkling. As with crafted beers, there is a commercial niche high quality fruit wines can create. Your thoughts?

JK Ken, I think the expansion is well under way. In certain portions of Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, every other winery offers a stable of fruit and berry wines, both still and sparkling. I was amazed how good sparkling cherry and raspberry can be. It had simply never occurred to me to make these wines.

Throughout the South you will find many, many commercial wineries offering wines from every fruit grown regionally, including pawpaw, mayhaw, huckleberry, blueberry, elderberry, all varieties of blackberry, currants, star fruit, Clementines, and so on.

Just recently a friend of mine living in the Sierras above Oroville commented on a winery in Chico that makes blackberry, cherry, cranberry, and elderberry wines, as well as a dry mead he likes.

When I lived in San Francisco, on my jaunts down home to San Bernardino I always stopped at a place in Pacheco Valley called Casa de Fruta and picked up a few bottles of pomegranate, raspberry and apricot wines. When down your way, I always tried to stop at Chaucer’s Winery in Soquel, CA, and pick up a bottle of Olallieberry wine, arguably the best blackberry that ever grew, and a bottle of raspberry mead.

I think the wines have been here for a long time. What has happened, though, is that the commercial wine world, especially in California, is 99.9% invested in V. vinifera and that is what rules the roost. Wine writers perpetuate the “If it isn’t vinifera, it isn’t wine” mantra by completely ignoring non-vinifera and non-grape wines. In the PD belt of the South, where V. vinifera vines only survive for 3-5 years, non-vinifera grapes are widely grown and their wines widely consumed. Indeed, muscadine is the grape of the South, and people who drink muscadine have no problem with fruit wines.

5) What are the cultural, practical and gustatory obstacles to the commercial success of fruit and non-vinifera wines?

JK I think there are few gustatory obstacles. Yes, cherry wines will never taste like any wine that rude woman in Kalamazoo has ever drank, but every good cherry wines tastes, well, good. And if truth be told, I have never met a person that didn’t like blackberry wine. But, if you don’t like fruit, well, then you might want to stick to beer.

On a practical level, the shelf life of fruit wines is comparatively short. If they don’t sell quickly, they probably won’t sell. But fruit wines are almost always shoved into the corner with the lowest traffic in the store because the big money controls the high traffic areas. You have to go looking for fruit wines to even find them, and you won’t go looking if you don’t know they are there. When is the last time you saw an ad or commercial — or just a mention in a movie or TV series — for a fruit or berry wine?

So that brings us to the cultural obstacles. I think most of the above is relevant here, from Robert Parker and all the Parker-wannabes, to the farmer who isn’t going to take a chance on a vine that will grow but which almost no one still living has ever heard of. The truth is that it is a V. vinifera wine world and in America it is all influenced by two or three small valleys in northern California.

I talked to a grower 12-14 years ago who was losing all his vines to Pierces Disease. He asked the agricultural extension agent, who was there at that moment, when was someone going to put some real money into solving the PD problem. The agent said, “When PD reaches California the money will flow.” He was right. PD has reached California and there are big bucks flowing into PD research. But that too is part of the cultural obstacle. PD wasn’t a problem as long as it was just wiping out mom and pop vineyards in the South. But when it threatens Big Wine’s vineyards, then it becomes worthy of notice.

Now, it may just turn out that there isn’t a solution to PD. If that comes to past (and I sincerely hope that it doesn’t), then all those native hybrids I mentioned earlier will start looking really good because many of them are PD tolerant and some are outright resistant. Andy Walker and many others at UC-Davis and elsewhere are looking into that resistance and the genes that may be responsible for it. Until the actual genes responsible are identified and spliced, the next best approach is to cross-breed resistance from the natives into V. vinifera. Once you do that, you then cross back to vinifera repeatedly until you have just enough residual resistance to protect the vinifera without messing up the flavor too much with that pesky American muck. It’s a perfectly understandable approach. Another approach would be to simply plant Lenoir, or Herbemont, or Bailey, or….

Having spent megatons of money convincing Americans that they are mere commoners if they don’t drink toasted oaked Chardonnay, it would be, well, insincere — would it not? — to retrain the palate to like something less noble. God forbid we should stoop to anything so low as Carlos muscadine, persimmon wine or — dare I say it? — Key Lime-A-Rita.

So, bottom line, my interest is in the clear-headed promotion of commercial alternatives to Vitis vinifera. I have enjoyed a number of pear and apple-based wines recently, and was blown away by the quality. It seems to me that the success of off-dry Rieslings, for example, the dumbing down, the homogenization of vinifera wines, especially at lower price points (the Two Buck Chuck Effect!), combined with new marketing niches now possible because of the revolution of crafted beers, all dovetail into new opportunities for non-vinifera expressions.

JK Ken, I couldn’t agree more with your last opinion. Despite the best efforts of Big Wine to dictate what we should like, the truth is that not all people are sheep. You can burn out on any taste after a while. The success of all those soft drinks on the cola aisle is based on the fact that people get tired of Coke or Pepsi or 7-Up all the time. The same is true of wines. But I fear Big Wine is trying to control that desire for diversity.

Take, for example, Arbor Mist’s fruit flavored vinifera wines. I counted 11 different flavors the other day at the market, and their success validates your instincts. There is a niche out there for fruit wines and Arbor Mist is jumping in to fill it. But why not sell the real fruit wine? Why flavor Merlot with blackberry when you could sell blackberry wine? The truth probably has something to do with a glut of grapes on the market. Merlot is cheap. If it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be a Two-Buck Chuck Merlot.

Now, I do understand why there is at least some grape in most fruit wines. Having made the real McCoy of every wine Arbor Mist offers, I will be the first to point out that most fruit wines are light in body. I myself usually add about 12-20% grape juice by volume to my fruit musts to thicken that lightness. But the difference between adding fruit flavors to vinifera wines or vinifera to fruit wines actually is significant. Arbor Mist Peach Chardonnay tastes too peachy, like that banana wine adulterated with banana extract. The consumer who tastes it and then tastes an excellent, real peach wine may well be disappointed in the real thing. Arbor Mist is tricking the consumer into tasting what he or she expects peach wine to taste like rather than presenting the real flavor of peach wine. This, in the long run, may well work against the real fruit wine producers.

You mentioned the Two-Buck Chuck Effect on pricing; let’s call this the Arbor Mist Effect on flavor expectations. The former has been positive for the consumer. The latter is just deception. Deception may be profitable and it may taste good, but it’s still deception. It is important to remember that whenever deception is practiced, someone gets hurt. In this case, it is probably the real fruit winemakers who suffer. The niche they belong in is being largely filled by Big Wine (Arbor Mist is owned by Constellation Brands, the largest wine company in the world) and manipulated so that many consumers will reject real fruit wines as “lacking flavor.”

I’d love to be wrong. I don’t think Arbor Mist will steal established customers away from fruit wine producers unless it is on the pricing level, but it probably will absorb the bulk of new customers turning to — what did you call it? — “non-vinifera expressions”? But of course they satisfy the change with more vinifera. The fruit wine producers may not lose customers, but they certainly won’t gain the many new customers they might have.

I really don’t know where all of this is going, but it worries me. If there were suddenly a demand for Norton, would Big Wine plant Norton, buy established wineries producing Norton, or follow the Arbor Mist model and sell Merlot with Norton flavoring added? It’s anyone’s guess.

Great thanks for your reflections on what promises to be a lively cultural conversation in the coming years.

Admin

The Quiet Man, Jason Lett of The Eyrie Vineyards, pt.1

Admin, Ken Payton — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:49:00 +0000

I was on my way to the noisy world of the Wine Bloggers Conference in Walla Walla, Washington. Two stops were planned along the way: Parducci in Ukiah, Mendocino County, and The Eyrie Vineyards in McMinnville, Oregon. Neither destination would disappoint. Indeed, each in its own way would be a revelation. Let me explain…

Jason Lett would never claim that he possesses a near-encyclopedic winemaking knowledge. It is irrelevant to his mission of crafting some of the finest wines made in the US. What he does know of winemaking has come, I would argue, from two equally important and complementary sources: his father, the legendary David Lett, and Jason’s own explorations, his university training, the experience gained from producing his first label, Black Cap, and that he assumed responsibilities for winery and the viticulture in 2005.

Yet it must be difficult to grow up the son of a legend. How to find your own way? After all, a father has his ways and methods, he holds onto his truths with a firm hand. What the son first learns is how to do things the right way. Much later comes a son’s wisdom to do things his way. This is both homage and the only way forward. If I may be permitted a possibly undeserved familiarity, Jason’s quiet confidence tells me that The Eyrie Vineyards’ second iteration will continue to produce wines not only consistent with its historically exemplary standards, but will excel. And since 2005 Jason has not missed a beat. As he said to me, “Even the clamp on a hose, if not properly tightened, can affect the wine. There are hundreds of things to consider.” What he did not say was that such a refined, intimate winemaking knowledge was his. But, humility aside, it is.

A brief gloss on The Eyrie Vineyards: All of there vines are on their own rootstocks, including David Lett’s original plantings from 1965. It must add something to the taste of the wine. Hard to say. It may be that American rootstocks used for grafting express subtle distinctions in their rooting systems as opposed to varieties growing on their own.

Organic from the beginning, The Eyrie Vineyards are not irrigated, forcing roots deeper. (About this readers may learn more in part 2.) Oak is of particular disinterest. Chardonnay sees around 3% new oak. Jason is looking for only for a little help with color. The rule is that the fruit is never to be outshone by wood. To this end Eyrie continues to use barrels decades old. More, The Eyrie Vineyards is the expression of four properties that range in elevation from 200 to 900 feet, all in the Dundee Hills. Jory soils dominate. They are composed of a lighter red clay and differ in important ways from Willakenzie, a richer soil, heavier clay. Though phylloxera was introduced to the Dundee Hills in the ’80s, it has never been a problem for Eyrie. The thought is that this is because they don’t rototill. Phylloxera seems to need rototilling to expand its range. Native organic flora encouraged at Eyrie includes weeds as they are part of the local ecosystem; yet they are kept in control because of the flourishing region-specific biodiversity growing alongside. Again, all of this will be learned in part 2.

For those traveling near McMinnville, Oregon, take an hour out of your day to visit The Eyrie Vineyards tasting room which may be found at 935 NE 10th Ave. Full details may be found here.

A final note: Special thanks to Ben, a resourceful individual working for Hertz in Medford. In addition to rescuing stranded motorists, he is a home beer brewer. Should his product finally come to market, I’ll be first in line.

In The Winery

Before heading out to the vineyards, Jason shows me his parents’ original barrel room, the greater space in which the tasting room is situated.

Admin What was this building originally?

Jason Lett Some gal showed up one day and told me it was a originally a Hershey’s chocolate plant during the Second World War. This is the first room that my folks occupied, back in 1970. They had plans drawn up for a winery to be built on the hillside overlooking the vineyard. But no bank would loan them any money because they were just a couple of crazy kids. So they found this place. It was vacant at the time. It was a perfect winery. There are two layers of cork in the walls and ceiling. There used to be windows but my dad blocked them up. He wanted to create the dynamics of a cave in here. It is very cool in here. The thermal mass in this building is the wine itself. There are 10,000 gallons of thermal mass in here. That keeps the temperature low. And the concrete floor.

All the barrel cleaning is done in here? And the waste water, how is that treated?

JL Yes, we clean the barrels here. The city of McMinnville invested a lot of money about 10 years ago in a processing plant to handle the stuff and get it back downstream in a good condition.

Did the city build it with the wine industry in mind?

JL No, it was for the capacity of the town. But they over-built it. A lot of the towns around here didn’t have the foresight. It’s a good place to have a winery just from a green perspective. You know, the streets are already here, the water infrastructure is already here; we take the chlorine out of the water with a big charcoal filter; the three-phase comes in on the wire; we don’t have to drop a big infrastructure onto farmland in order to make wine here. The infrastructure is already here. From a green perspective wineries should probably be built in town.

You were asking about barrel cleaning, well, when my folks moved into this room, they came here with 30 new French oak barrels. And here are several of them. We’re still making wine in these original barrels from the 1970 vintage. Anything with the letter ‘S’ and a number lower than 30 is from the original vintage. Dad came up with some very good techniques for keeping barrels in sanitary condition through the years.

What kind of techniques?

JL That’s a trade secret! (laughs) The Pinot Gris is done in unjacketed tanks. We do inoculate with Champagne yeast, good old EC-1118. The great thing about it is that it is very neutral. It doesn’t really impose any of its own flavors. Seems to me that if you’re trying to talk about the vineyard you don’t want to necessarily want to impart flavors from the yeast. The very best case scenario is when you can use the yeast from the vineyard. We’re successfully able to do that with smaller fermentations, but with these big tanks, if they start going sideways, it’s a major investment. I’m a little bit more conservative in my winemaking approach with the Pinot Gris, the Pinot Blanc, than I am with the Pinot Noirs.

And how often do you top off?

JL Right now we’re doing it every two weeks. When summer comes we’ll start doing it every 10 days. I like to stay on top of that. We’ve certainly had longer topping periods in the past. Dad preferred a more oxidative winemaking style. One of the nice things about these older barrels is that they are really tight. They don’t transfer oxygen as much as a new barrel would. Certain vintages, like the 2008, we had to keep in barrel forever! That was a big, structured vintage. It needed a lot longer time to open up. And since we’re topping at a tighter interval, they weren’t getting as much oxygen contact that way; so it just took its time getting that micro-oxygenation through the walls of an old barrel. Most of the cooperage in here is French; we’ve got a little bit of Oregon oak. That’s kind of fun.

What do you get from them?

JL A lot of oak. With Oregon oak you have to use it homeopathically. The flavors are great, but they are so strong. Our cooper who does these, every thing is three-year air dried. He’s also doing a rock salt soak in these. It pulls some of the tannin before he assembles the barrel. And they’re incredibly well-made. Since we’re keeping barrels around for the texture they impart rather than the flavor, the quality of the construction is probably the key point for us. The barrels here… there’s one from 1993, here’s one from 1970; this is a mid-1980s barrel; these guys down here are from the late 1990s… we probably have some of the oldest cooperage in the United States in continual service here. Well, shall we run out to the vineyard?

On The Road To The Vineyard

You know, I was talking to the winemaker at Ridge, Eric Baugher. And he told me that for their Montebello they use a very complex mix of French and American barrels. But the American oak is sourced from a number of very specific forests each of which he claimed imparted different characteristics to the finished wine. What do you think?

JL From a botanical point of view, oaks are probably the most prone to hybridizing of any broad leaf tree in that group. There are 200 recognized species of oak in the United States. Red oak versus White oak is a woodworker’s term. It really doesn’t have anything to do with flavor. They just cross like crazy. You’ll see some funny little shrub oak in Colorado, in the Four Corners, it’s a White oak. The Quercus garryana we have here in Oregon is also a White oak; but they are incredibly different species. I just like to make a wine in barrels made from oaks on the other side of the hill!

In terms of looking at an oak mix, oak is such a limited part of the flavor profile of our wines that I don’t obsess about it too much. We kind of go counter to the trend. If you’re employing more oak in your blend then you’re probably going to more toward a darker toast because those tend to give you the coffee and cocoa tones that integrate better. This is all well and good. But for our style we find that the light toasted barrel is preferable. For one thing, you get less bubbling, and issues inside the barrel, but also in a very moderate new oak program – ours is about 5% – those flavors actually integrate better. In a high concentrations, yes, it’s like licking a plank. But to mix one of those barrels into 25 neutral barrels and all of a sudden you get this beautiful support from the wood without any obvious or overt oak signature.

The valley floor here used to be covered with Quercus garryana, Oregon White oak, before colonization. The Native Americans used to do controlled burns to maintain clearings, but the whole white oak ecosystem was basically a whole complex of plants and creatures that were adapted to the White oak, living in conjunction with it. Now we have isolated pockets of trees on the hillsides. You don’t see it so much on the valley floor; the ecosystem is very different.

The White oak is a massive tree. It has a lot of branches as opposed to the European oak which are grown in rows close together so they don’t branch very much on the bottom. They tend to be very slender and long, and very straight. Ours are almost exactly the opposite. It takes a bit of a different approach to make barrels out of Oregon oak. But Oregon oak is distinctly different from what people call ‘American’ oak, most of which comes from the South Eastern part of the United States, from a warmer climate, longer growing season. The oak tends to have wider rings and have a little bit more of that vanilla, coconut characteristic.
It’s ironic to talk about the oak signature at Eyrie!

Well, coming from California it is increasingly difficult to find lighter-oaked wines. Fortunately I live in Santa Cruz. Our AVA has a quite a number of cool climate sites. Wines tend to be marked by restraint. There is some experimentation. But it is not a particularly wealthy AVA, and holdings tend to be small. New technologies are not immediately embraced owing to their expense.

JL Well, if technology made great wine, then jug wines would taste better than artisanal wines. In fact, the opposite is true. In the end, what determines great wine is not the amount of technology you can throw at it but the amount of personal dedication. And I’m not sure why that reflects in the flavor, but it seems to.

I think that a lot of the larger producers realized a long time ago that they could not win the battle over artisanal quality. So what began to happen, I think, is that it dawned on them to limit, through the use of wine critics and to some degree even the Wine Institute, the general development of consumer wine education, the deepening of the understanding of wine. Larger producers seemed to say “If we can keep the consumer dumb as a post then we’ll have a chance in the marketplace.”

JL (laughs) You’re a subversive, Ken!

Very much so! (laughs) So what has essentially happened is that the California wine industry is to some degree dedicated to the proposition that the consumer remain ignorant. That means they needn’t worry about the use or consequences of technological fixes as such. That many wines approach the character coca cola and the unctuous mouthfeel of cheeseburgers is not really a problem. The consumer is always right, after all.

JL So we’re in the Dundee Hills. There is a big wheat field over there. That is the last big chunk of ungraped land on the hillside. And that’s owned by Old Man McDougall. He must be 150 by now. But he’s holding out. He’s not going to let these fancy grape people plant everywhere! And I actually love that. It really reminds me of the way the hill was when I was growing up. We were a very, very minor part of the farming scheme in Oregon back in those days. Grape growing was not a very big deal. There was a huge and diverse agriculture around us. Lots of cherries, cane berries, prunes, and, except for Old Man McDougall, most of that has been supplanted by grapes.

It looks like McDougall’s property has a southerly aspect as well.

JL He’s got a beautiful piece of land. It’s right next to the Stoller vineyard. I’m sure that Bill [Stoler] just looks over the fence and just drools. Yes, it faces South and rolls East, a great exposure for grapes.

End Of Part One

Part 2 will begin with our arrival at the vineyard.

Admin

Ryan Crane of Kerloo Cellars, Walla Walla

Admin, Ken Payton — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 07:28:36 +0000

Ryan Crane owner and winemaker at Kerloo Cellars and Sean Boyd, owner and winemaker of Rôtie Cellars are the best of friends and demonstrate a cooperation that is one of the finest features of the Walla Walla winemaking and wine growing community. Each producer helps the other in ways both great and small. Though all folks are committed to winning in the market place, those in the wine business there understand that the success of one is not possible without assistance and labor of all. As Ryan Crane put it, “We’re all in this together.”

And so it was that Mr. Boyd provided me an introduction to Mr. Crane, just as the electric Abigail Schwerin of Sapolil Cellars had pointed me to David Stephenson of Stephenson Cellars And had I the time for a longer stay, I am certain the chain of referrals would have gone on uninterrupted. But even so, the Crane/Boyd connection is an unusual one. Each moved from the Seattle area at roughly the same time. Each had been ‘discovered’ when still winemaking assistants. And, most amusingly, each had their wines rates by the same critic. And Ryan Crane received the better score. So what? As you will read, Ryan was quick to point out the success Sean Boyd has recently enjoyed. I must say it has made the work I’ve done in Walla Walla a great pleasure.

Admin Hi, Ryan. Are you watching the World Cup?

Ryan Crane Hey, Ken. No, I’m not. This is kind of wild, I’m actually composing an email to a dude in Bangkok. He wants to buy 20 cases of my wine! This is the first deal I’ve done overseas. He’s got a registration number for a logistics company. They’ll pick up the wine here at the winery and ship it to Bangkok.

I’ll be damned! Congratulations. How did that happen?

RC He had my wine at El Gaucho in downtown Seattle. It seems he’s getting married, and he wants to pour our wines. So, I’m working on the costs of shipping the wine to Bangkok.

I understand you and Sean Boyd are good friends.

RC Sean and I have the same sort of story. He’s originally from Seattle as well. We both wanted to get into the wine industry. I come from a background in distribution and sales. I think Sean was more on the enjoying drinking side; I was too. He moved to Walla Walla about a year before I did. We basically packed up everything, quit our jobs. I went to wine school here and just started diving into the wine business.

Were you one of Billo Naravane’s students?

RC No, I was in the last class of Mr. Stan Clarke. He’s passed. He was awesome, the core of the program when it first started.

When was the program started at College Cellars?

RC Boy… I graduated two years ago. I think it started in 2004? Stan and Myles Anderson from Walla Walla Vintners were the two that kind of started the whole program. Myles then stepped away and they hired another director to handle the program.

Was the program designed to turn out winemakers? Viticulturalists?

RC It’s both. The first year is all in viticulture; the second year is all in winemaking. It’s a two year program. Stan taught all the viticulture classes and Mike Moyer taught all the winemaking classes.

I see. So you could just walk off the street and get what, a BA?

RC It’s basically an Associates degree in Sciences on paper. But its an Oenology and Viticulture certificate out of Walla Walla. A graduate is free to pursue either. I love making the juice.

Yes. I was fortunate enough to be given a bottle of your 2007 Syrah by Nicole Rivinius of Rôtie. But as rare as it is, I find it heartbreaking to open it!

RC We’ll take care of that. I want you to get an idea of what I’m up to, my styles. I’ll ship you a bottle of each of my ’08s, both Syrahs and a Tempranillo. And you’ve got the historic ‘07 wine. You can pick and choose.

Damn! Thank you very much! You and Sean are very generous. Are your wines made exclusively from grapes within the Walla Walla AVA?

RC I source outside the AVA as well. My philosophy with varietals themselves is that I want the best, from where they grow the best. So I make unique varietals across the board. For Syrah I’m a cooler climate guy. For me Syrah is going to be Walla Walla all the time. I get my grapes from Va Piano were I work, and make the my wines. And then I also pull from Stone Tree vineyard, a remarkable vineyard. I love it. I also pull a little Tempranillo from here, Les Collines, block 6. And then I pull some Malbec from a little bit north of Red Mountain. Sean and I share some Grenache from Alder Ridge, Horse Heaven Hills. And I’ve got some Cabernet coming on board this year from Bacchus Vineyard, block 10.

I am fascinated by the Walla Walla winemaker’s philosophy. You understand what the AVA offers, but your creative imaginations and tasting sophistication demands that they source from outside the AVA. You folks don’t seem to be concerned about a general Washington State AVA designation. You just want to make the best wines you are able. I like that approach to Walla Walla.

RC The one thing that’s a little bit different on my side from a stylistic standpoint is that I try to make wines that are true from where they’re grown. I really want to make terroir wines, wines of place. So I don’t blend a lot of wines together. I like to make vineyard designate wines that speak of that site. I ask what style of wine do I want to make. And where in Washington State does that varietal grow best. I then select sites. So, Syrah, I like to make good, concentrated Syrah, but balanced across the board. This is what Walla Walla give me; slow concentration and slow maturity in the vines. At the end of the day, when I make the juice, they tend to be really concentrated and well balanced.

With Tempranillo, I’m trying to pay homage to Rioja-style Temps from within the state. I want to make wines that are palate challenging across the board. Just as there are cooler and warmer Spanish Riojas, I want to source the same here in Washington State and blend both together to make the Rioja style: brighter fruits, good tannins, good acid, low alcohol. With Malbec, which traditionally needs some heat to get ripe, I’m kind of edgy, on the cut. I crop it at 1.67 tons per acre. And it’s just stoopid, I mean concentrated just off the chart. So, I like to make vineyard-driven wines.

Where do you do your fermentations?

RC I make all the wine, I’m bonded, out of Va Piano. Sean is bonded at Waters, I’m bonded at Va Piano.

And your distribution circle?

RC I have no distributors. It’s all done through me, Ryan Crane. I haven’t picked up anything yet. I’m really in no hurry. When I moved here, just like everyone else, my wife and I would go out and taste in Portland and Cali and Washington State, and a lot of times you walk into a winery and you don’t even know who the winemaker is, you have no idea of what is going on. For me, I wanted to create and carry the brand. I sell the wines by appointment only, because at the end of the day, my hope is that every bottle of Kerloo Cellars on the table the people can say they met the winemaker, they shared a glass of wine with me, they tasted a barrel sample with me; I think the story drives the brand. I’m really focussed on that part right now, especially in the early vinages of Kerloo wines. I’m in no hurry. And I don’t have much juice. Thankfully we’ve had some good press; we’re moving relatively quickly. I have it in the books that I will have, in the next four years, three distributors. But for now it is just me.

One of my disappointments at the recent Wine Bloggers Conference was the absence of so many small producers. Many were not even referred to in the official literature. Why is this? Is it all about dollars? After all, some of the most interesting wines are being made by the smaller producers. Why should we hear so much about the big guys?

RC I don’t know. Some of the events were definitely driven by the bigger boys. Yes, it’s capital-driven. But I think there is a small core of us little guys that are staying a little out of the mainstream, that are just trying to grow our brands by word of mouth. As for the reasons, I didn’t really hear anything about tastings with the bloggers coming into town, or of any events. For example, there is an event coming up featuring distributors, big wine buyers from all around the country; we were invited to that only because I know the director running it. The little guys just aren’t known. And when a tasting comes to town we may not even know about it. We aren’t necessarily invited to anything.

The Wine Alliance could do a better job, especially with the small guys. But they ask for $2000 every year just to get your name on a small list. For us it is not worth it to write the check. Because it sometimes happens that Boom! Ken Payton comes to town and we end up talking. And truth be told, I think one of the cool things about the small guys is that everyone wants to talk to the smaller brands.

One of the difficulties is that a certain understanding is established between the major wine press and the big guys should the former spend only time with the latter. I don’t want to name names, but the presence of new oak was obvious in many of the wines I tasted. Who can afford new oak? Well, principally the big guys. But that theirs are the ones that are often tasted, a picture or model or standard emerges of the AVA that is uses lots of new oak. That feature then becomes an element of the dominant taste profile. The risk is that smaller brands can become pressured to convert to a barrel program against their better judgement.

RC For me it’s not really about that. They are going to sell more wine because they have more wine to sell. I really want to get the people who want to meet small brands, who want to be a part of the up and coming generation of winemakers in Washington State and, obviously, Walla Walla. I’m patient. And then there’s Brandon at L’Ecole, he runs the wine club there, he’s a huge fan of my wines, and I get many phone calls from people he points my way. Brandon Kubrock is the Tasting Room Manager; the Wine Club Manager is Jaime Chalk.–Admin] The cool thing about it is that we have this kind of underground movement, and Sean is the same way, so whenever people come to town everybody knows who to send them to. People find us. That’s a cool way to do it.

In what direction do think the AVA is headed?

RC It will continue to expand. I think the growth in the past 5 years has been relatively fast. We’re, I think, 140 bonded wineries now. Within the next three years there will be another 50 new wineries opening. I can say, from a numbers standpoint, that ever since Kerloo opened the door, and Rotie, I haven’t seen that many other wineries put in licenses to open here. It has slowed a little because it is such a capital-driven market. But we will continue to grow, perhaps not as fast as we have the last few years.

And from the vineyard side of things, Walla Walla is tricky. There are some really good sites here, and there are some really poor vineyard grounds as well. That part of the business will grow more slowly. I don’t see a whole lot of vineyards opening or starting to plant right now. It also has to do with land allocation and parcel development. Depending where you are at in Walla Walla, some parcels are only divided into 40 and 80 acres plots. Buying 40 acres at $700,000, plus putting in a vineyard after that, we’re talking some crazy cash.

Who are the people who have opened up and are opening up wineries? Are they from out of state? Are they from within Washington State? Walla Walla itself?

RC I think it is a mixture. I’m originally from Seattle, born in Minneapolis, but have lived in Seattle my whole life, so I’m a Stater. Sean is a Stater. A lot of them are from within the state itself. Sinclair Estate Vineyard is Microsoft owned, but they live in Seattle as well. Corlis is within state. Maybe even most are within state.

There must be just a modest number of viticultural managers and vineyard consultants in Walla Walla. Some use Dr. Kevin Pogue, for example. Are there so few that the 140 wineries all share the same small coterie of consultants?

RC It is pretty much the same group. Of the handful of vineyards that are selling within Walla Walla, yes, everyone talks to the same vineyard manager, absolutely.

But does that mean that canopy management is roughly the same? That the layout of the vineyards is roughly the same?

RC In a general sense, yeah; I mean, it’s all on VSP. There is some Sprawl up at Les Collines. There is really no other trellising that’s getting played with except for at Morrison Lane. They’re playing with some Scott Henry and some double tier quad lateral action. So, most of the vineyards, all of the ones I work with, are on VSP. So, in an overall sense, most of it is getting managed in much the same way. Outside of how much you decide to leave from a fruit standpoint.

What is it that Cayuse does differently? Or are they within the same frame?

RC Well, Christophe is doing the VSP system as well, as far as I know. He hangs the cordons a little lower to the ground to get some more heat from the rocks, obviously. I think he’s hanging one to two clusters per shoot. He’s biodynamic. So, no spray program, no pesticides, that I’m aware of. But he’s very secretive. So this is all guessing. He’s a very cool guy. I’ve gotten to know him pretty well. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about him. Half the people in Walla Walla hate him, half the people like him. I think he’s a cool dude. I would say that his sites are truly terroir. His is all native yeast fermentations from what I know. They tend to be really high pH, low acid, kind of stinky wines. That’s all I know. I don’t think he is doing anything out of the ordinary, apart from Biodynamics.

My real question was whether you felt there was a sufficient multiplicity of voices giving advice to the emerging AVA. Can those currently available handle all the exigencies and differences of the multiple terroirs available in Walla Walla?

RC Oh, yeah. I think that’s the most exciting part, frankly. If you look at two of my wines, the one that you got, the ‘07, that’s basically a two vineyard blend, 80% Va Piano, 20% Les Collines. That’s a pretty big, powerful wine. I don’t want to say feminine, but Les Collines is definitely more feminine than Va Piano. My point is that I try to make two distinct Syrahs. Some people like Syrahs that are a little bit bigger, more powerful, with a little bit more viscosity. And Les Collines is like that beautiful lady in a red dress walking to the theater. Those sites, Les Collines and Va Piano, are literally four miles apart and the fruit is totally different. That’s the beauty of Walla Walla.

What is it that readers should know about Kerloo Cellars wines?

RC My goal is to make wines that are true to varietal. I’m not going to make wines that have 1% Petit Verdot, 2% Cabernet Franc, 3% Cabernet Sauvignon… I really want the varietal to speak for itself. It is a harder way to make the juice, but that is my way. So you’ll see a 100% commitment to true varietal wines with Kerloo wines across the board. What that gives me is palate challenging wines from carefully selected sites. I don’t make oak bombs. I use oak minimally, usually about 20% new wood. Right now I’m at 22% new wood with my ’08s. My Malbec and Grenache are at about 25% new wood. Everything is going to be under 30%.

When we started the brand, we meaning my wife and I, we asked how did we want to do this? I already had a style in mind. We wanted to build a brand similar to us: Simple and Sexy. My goal is never to walk away from the project. I’ll always be making the juice. I want everyone to know that. I’m not looking to hire someone to take over the program because I always want to be the face of the brand. And we’re only going to make 1,500 cases max. Between 200 and 400 cases of that is going to go to the wine club. The 1000 cases left are going to be the only things you can get. It’s a chance to be exclusive and really give our customers a chance to get to know us on a personal basis.

While I was in Walla Walla, it was often been pointed out to me that one of Sean’s Rôties received 2 stars and your Kerloo received 3 stars at a particular tasting. Why do you think this happened? Actually, I think it was Sean who first brought it up!

RC (laughs) That’s hilarious. This is kind of a funny story. A wine writer, Sean Sullivan, out of Seattle, a very cool guy, he found me way back in the day. I haven’t been making wine that long, but he was there right when I started; I mean, I had 8 barrels when he came out and tasted with me. I had just put my ’08s to barrel, I think. So he did a focus report on both me and Sean [Boyd of Rôtie) about assistant winemakers starting their own brands in Walla Walla. I'm not totally sure why the ratings were different. Sean goes to bottle a lot earlier than I do. I'm guaranteed 16 to 22 months in barrel and then another 4 to 6 months in bottle before I release. So I'm not sure if it was that the wine tasted more mature. I don't know if my style is more to the liking of Sean Sullivan's palate. I would say my '07s are bigger and have more weight than Sean's just because of our styles. In '07 I tried to make little bit bigger wines. And I think that Sean's are a little more lean and fresh, on the brighter side. Mine are a little bit more on the massive side. But I didn't even ask Sean [Sullivan] about it.

But Sean [Boyd] got a 94 with his ‘07 Southern in the Wine Enthusiast or Wine Spectator, I’m not sure which one. Hey, dude, that ain’t too shabby! The only other thing is that I’m better looking than Sean! And I think I have a better sense of humor; I throw things around a little bit more than old Boydie. So maybe the additional star was for my shining personality!

So whose wife is the better cook?

RC (laughing) Well, my wife took off this morning on a business trip to the fine town of Cleveland. So she’s not here. Annie is the better cook, his wife. No doubt about it. But Sean is a better cook than me as well. I barbeque just as good as Sean. But Sean is a little better cook than I am. I just tell him, “Don’t worry, Sean. You cook, I’ll make the wine!”

Well, it was a great pleasure to speak to you, Ryan.

RC You too, Ken. Take care.

Admin

The Smartest Man In The Room, Billo Naravane of Rasa Vineyards

Admin, Ken Payton — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:38:04 +0000

I met Yashodhan (Billo) Naravane (right) at the Three Rivers Winery. He was member of one of many panel discussion organized, in part, by the good offices of the Wine Bloggers Conference spread among wineries throughout the Walla Walla Valley. Though meant to be instructional in character, centering on explaining the basics of the Walla Walla AVA, it became very clear to me that this gentleman was no ordinary panelist. It turned out uttering generalities is not where Billo excels. His is a very disciplined mind, a curious mind, exulting in a profound natural intellectual freedom and flexibility rarely encountered outside of a university setting. He and his equally gifted brother, Pinto (left), founded Rasa Vineyards in 2007. And in just a few short years they have demonstrated an understanding of viticulture and winemaking which repeats in yet another field their considerable academic achievements. But inasmuch as this is an interview with Billo, we may read a fragment of his CV below:

“Billo has worked in various technical and managerial positions in the Computer Industry for over a decade and a half. Billo received his BS in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from MIT and his MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Billo finished his MS in Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis in June 2008 and is currently running the Viticulture program at Walla Walla Community College.”

But as I was to learn, the CV is by no means complete. As you will read below, Billo is launching new projects that will require significant modification of the thumbnail bio above. Please enjoy my encounter with Billo, without a doubt, the smartest man in the room.

Admin So let’s jump into the middle of things. Tell me about your wines.

Billo Naravane We were interested from the beginning in building a luxury brand. This was when the economy was good. So, we initially poured our wines for MWs, and told them that the price points [for QED and Principia] were $65 and $75. We asked for an honest critique of the wines. We got great feedback, they were said to be beautiful wines, worth the money; but the economy was not the greatest. They suggested pricing it a little bit lower, it might be to our advantage. So we had to go back to our investors, and we decided to price the wine, the QED, at $50. Now, $50 is expensive. We’re not delusional. But that wine I think offers an extremely great value for the money.

We’ve had it in blind tastings with some of the very best wines in the world: Guigal’s La Landonne, La Mouline, Henschke’s Hill of Grace, against Grange, you name it, it’s been blind tasted against it. It really holds its own against the best wines in the world. So, that wine is 94% Syrah, 3% Grenache, and 3% Mourvèdre. It is mostly Les Collines; the Syrah is about 85% from Les Collines Vineyard.

I hear Les Collines being referred to constantly.

BN Les Collines is a great vineyard. It’s a huge property, 300 acres, or so, I think are planted up there. There is a wide degree of variation within the different blocks of the vineyard. It is not an homogenous terroir. Some blocks I really like; there are two we sourced from for the ‘07. One block had this really earthy, mineraly, almost truffle-type character underlying the core of fruit. The fruit is this black berry, black cherry on the Syrah, but has this depth to it. The aromatics are fantastic form that property as well. The finish is sometimes not the greatest. The finish is nice; it’s just not as long as we would like it for a high-end Syrah. So we have to address that via blending.

I’m a big fan of blending in that when done correctly you can achieve an aromatic complexity and a palate complexity, and broaden the finish out, rather than using just one specific wine. Now the trick, however, is that we’re also big fans of terroir, so how do you preserve the Walla Walla sense of terroir in a blended wine. That tricky to do. Blending is highly non-linear. You can put in 2% to 3% of something yet change it by 30%. So you have to be very careful not to obliterate a sense of place, of terroir in blending. But what we’re trying to do, being technically minded, we go through every permutation in the blending process. We do all the samples. Me and my brother then go through all of them, we argue back and forth, and then we decide on the final blend, whatever tastes the best and still preserves that terroir of Walla Walla or of any other region.

In that year, 2007, it was 94% Syrah, 3% of Grenache, Mourvèdre. In 2008 the blend has been different. Our QED will always be a Grenache/Mourvèdre blend, but the percentages will be different based on what the year gave us. 2007 was a very warm year, so we got riper fruit versus 2008, which was a pretty cool year. So, stylistically, our Rasa wines are more along the lines of French wines rather than California. We are huge, huge Francophiles. We love the great Rhone wines, Bordeaux, and Burgundy as well. But we don’t make a Pinot Noir… yet! We amy do so in the future.

Best of luck with a Pinot!

BN We were introduced to a gentleman who owns a small block of Pinot Noir, so we may try it out, not this year but next. Pinot is not something I’ve worked with yet. I’m really kind of anxious to try it.

That reminds me. Rasa is the rough Indian equivalent of the word terroir. Could you explain the distinctions between the two concepts, if any?

BN So the actual root of the word Rasa, it’s from Sanscrit, technically, though it can be used in a couple of different contexts, in one context it means essence. For us that is essence of soil and variety. And almost in a slang parlance, it can mean juice. So we have this essence and juice concept that is the closest word we’ve found that is also relatively easy to remember. Some of the related Indian words can get quite long and complex, hard to remember. We were looking for a word that tied together wine and our heritage. My uncle is the one who thought of it. He speaks Sanskrit. He’s not a wine aficionado, but after explaining what we were doing, about terroir and why it was so important to us, he thought up the word. We fell in love with it. It’s a great name! (laughs)

We’re originally from India; me and my brother were born in India. Our parents moved to New Jersey when I was turning 6, my brother was 8. We just wanted to have a tie-back to our heritage and still have something that was easy to remember, and with a wine connotation.

You mentioned that you initially tasted widely throughout the Walla Walla AVA. And we know the AVA is still in the process of being defined, the proper terroir for which grape, and so on. So, what are the relative merits and demerits of having a Washington State designation as opposed to having a Walla Walla AVA designation? In a conversation with Sean Boyd of Rôtie he said that the AVA designation, though not irrelevant, will not necessarily result in the best wines. He is willing to sacrifice, especially for so young an AVA, a specific designation in favor of an overall quality.

BN I tend to agree with Sean. In our 2007 QED we did source the Grenache and Mourvèdre from Minick Vineyard over in Prosser. We also had a little Lewis Vineyard Syrah in there, which is also from Prosser, over in Yakima. Now, Grenache and Mourvèdre are not best for our area. Let me put it this way: I haven’t tasted great Grenache and Mourvèdre grown here in Walla Walla. Now, this is all price point dependent. I’m talking about a $50 and up price point wine. You can definitely grow good enough quality Grenache and Mourvèdre here for a $20 bottle. I’m not questioning that. But for a quality that you want to deliver at that higher price point, we’ve just not found that yet in Walla Walla. So we have to look elsewhere. And we found this great cooler climate site. We would much rather get this cooler climate fruit. We like the acidity to be preserved naturally, and to get that balanced flavor development, rather difficult at a super warm site. The cooler sites tend to give wines that are much more elegant and refined.

We don’t want to be making wines that are 16% alcohol. There’s nothing wrong with those types of wines; they’re just not stylistically what were going after. I still do enjoy the occasional Australian Shiraz, but I tend to prefer Rhone style for Syrah.

We are after making the best wine possible. While we want to remain as true as possible to terroir, we want to make the best wine possible. For the QED, since we could not get the Grenache and Mourvèdre of a sufficiently high quality, we needed to go outside the AVA. We don’t see that as being contradictory. And if you taste the QED, that is a Walla Walla wine; 91% of the fruit is from here. It is in the blending process that you have to be very judicious to maintain the sense of terroir. One of our blends during the trial phase, when we were going through all the possible blends for the QED, it was roughly 5% Grenache, 7% Mourvèdre, and the balance Syrah. That did not taste like a Walla Walla AVA wine. We did not go with that blend even though it was pretty tasty because it did not taste like it came from the AVA.

You seem to have been blessed with an extraordinary palate. I was reading one of your blog entries about a tasting party you attended some time ago. Could you say something about your tasting history?

BN I’ve been extremely fortunate. When I lived in Austin I had a bunch of very eclectic wine collector friends that I had met throughout the years. It was a wine group we started called the S.O.B.s, the Sons of Bacchus. That name was quite fitting for the group in many respects! They were from many different backgrounds. And some had been collecting for many, many years, 30-40 years. They had these amazing wine cellars. We got to be such good friends that when invited over they would pull these unbelievable bottles of wine: an ‘82 Mouton, ‘61 Lafite, these crazy wines I had the privilege to taste. My brother had a similar experience in New Jersey. We really have tasted, just through really good friends, some of the best wines that have ever been made. One time I got to taste a 1900 Chateau Margaux, and the ‘47 Cheval Blanc, all these wines that are considered to be the best wines ever made. That is one the the biggest strengths that Pinto and I bring to the winemaking process. We are able to recognize, or at least have a perspective, of the best wines ever made. We bring that to our blending and winemaking processes.

It is kind of startling to me how many wine people I’ve met here in Washington, many of them winemakers, who have never tasted a first growth! They probably couldn’t tell you who the first growths are. It’s kind of shocking to me. I would wonder that if you don’t have it in your head what great wine is, then how do you know when you’ve made one?

That’s a very interesting question, and it bears upon the question of wine education, certainly of the average drinker, to the degree there is such a thing. There is a problem within marketing, I would argue, that through a series of commercial feedback loops, they work to maintain a certain level of knowledge, or, alternatively, of ignorance, amongst the wine-drinking public. It is very difficult to know how to challenge that, how to convince people there are depths to wine that can essentially change your life. How would you go about educating people to continue looking and searching for wines of revelation rather than listen to marketers, who have an interest, after all, in limiting that same revelation?

BN Boy, that’s a really good question. I don’t have a good answer. At some point everyone needs to have a friend, or somebody who is into wine, to expose you to an Aha! moment where you taste a great wine that is compelling and kind of leaves you speechless. It is that experience that everybody needs to have. That’s when they realize that there is something to this wine thing. My moment was when I was just starting out in wine. When I lived in California I used to go up to Napa a lot back in 1990 and ‘91. Back then you could go tasting all day in Napa for free. It was great for people just out of college, who had no money and could drink for free. But after doing this, me and my brother started to recognizing the differences between Pinot Noir and Cabernet. Wow, there must be something to this wine thing! It may not be all bullshit!

And then I had an experience in ‘91. I was at a store called Beltramos. I lived only 3 miles from there at the time. I believe it was the ‘86 d’Yquem that was just being released. And they were pouring it in their wine bar. At that time I did not know d’Yquem from anything. There were 3 other Sauternes they were pouring. They cost $3 for a taste of them. The d’Yquem was an additional $10 to taste. At that time I thought, Wow!, I couldn’t afford that. But there was an obviously wealthy woman there. She tried the wines, took a sip out of each one, and left. I asked the guy behind the counter if the d’Yquem was really worth $10 for just a taste? He said it was one of the best wines made in the world, “You should try it.” He let me take over the wines the lady left. The d’Yquem was my Aha! wine. It floored me. I had never ever smelled or tasted such an amazing array of things. It was indescribable. I could not find the words… My perspective on wine changed immediately. I began reading books on wine, going to Napa, not to just get loaded, but to actually meet with winemakers and learn about wine. The passion just went crazy after that. Then we became serious collectors. That was our downfall! (laughs)

To get people jazzed about wine they need to taste something that blows them away, and that they can’t quite put into words. For a friend of mine, it was the ‘90 Lafite. For another it was a Beringer Private Reserve Cabernet. It’s fun to hear people tell you what wine did it for them!

Now, you are also a teacher at the local community college. How did you assume the teaching position, and in the local colleges, how long have viticulture and enology programs been offered?

BN That’s a good question. I’ve always enjoyed teaching. When I was at MIT and Stanford, and U.T. Austin, I had the opportunity to teach mathematics classes here and there. I’ve taught Calculus and Differential Equations, Probability Theory, even a Pascal Programming class, and it was always a lot of fun. And when I moved here to Walla Walla in 2008, I was tasting wine at an event over at Dunam Cellars, and I started talking to a gentleman who, after a half an hour, began asking where I went to school and what was my background. He suddenly asked, “Can you teach viticulture?” “Sure!” When I was at Davis I took all the classes in both viticulture and winemaking. So it happened that the previous instructor had unexpectedly passed recently. So again I began teaching in January of 2009. I took over the viticulture position.

That having been said, I just resigned a couple of weeks ago. I did enjoy the teaching aspect of it quite a bit. Community College is an interesting place. You have students from very wide backgrounds. Teaching in places like Stanford, everybody has a similar background. They have a similar intellectual capacity. At a community college you have students that are super bright to those who I could not quite figure out why they were there. It was a little bit frustrating at times. But I had more frustration with the management there, rather than the students.

I took the tack that I would teach roughly 50% of the viticulture material that we did at Davis. I figured that was a reasonable target. But on no less than 5 separate occasions, the director of the program came in said that I had to dumb down the material. The last time I was approached was in April. I then knew this was not the right place for me to teach. I had tried to make some adjustments. But when eventually I was teaching only 25% of the material they should be learning, I really considered it less than a viticulture class then a viticulture-like class. I didn’t feel good about teaching it. I think the management there is a bit misguided. With the rising competition from other programs at other schools, it makes no sense to take ours out of contention.

At Washington State University (WSU) they recently hired a great, great director, Dr. Henick-Kling. He’s very well known in viticultural and enology circles. He’s going to raise that program up to probably compete with UC Davis at some point. I talked with him, and I was thinking of doing my PhD there. He gave me a run down of his vision where WSU is going to go. If he executes, it’s going to be a great program. It will produce 40 to 50 undergraduates a year, and 10 or so Master students a year. And you’ve got other programs cropping up in Yakima and South Seattle; and then we have Walla Walla Community College that wants to diminish the quality of their program. That doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s a bit short-sighted.

That is unfortunate. They may well be in the process of becoming an irrelevant institution just when the region needs qualified people the most. I hope the transition is not too jarring, but about pesticides, I’ve noticed that a number of vineyards in the valley, even some near Cayuse, a biodynamic property, are fringed or surrounded by apple orchards and other crops that require a substantial use of pesticides. I was told that Japan, for example, demands perfect apples. Many tons come from the Walla Walla Valley. Now, for someone who aspires to something like an organic status for their vineyard, what are the tensions, if any, between fruit farmers and grape growers? I asked this question of the winemaker at Buty. He said that although the fruit trees bordering his property are heavily spray, he just doesn’t pay attention to its impact on his vineyard! So, what is going on?

BN I can’t imagine how there couldn’t be conflict because of the proximity of these orchard sites to vineyards. They really are often on top of one another. As best as could have been done, they have put restrictions on the application and the timing of the sprays. They are not allowed to spray if the winds are more than 3 or 4 miles an hour to contain the drift, for example. Now, on the local basis you can’t tell a specific orchard owner that they can’t spray something that is legal for them to apply. There is this whole question of legality versus sustainability, organic and biodynamic. So just because you can spray something, doesn’t mean you should. And if you are going to spray something, then you’ll probably want to do it in the least invasive manner as possible. So overall there is a great deal of friendship and trust between the growers that they are not going to do something that is going to damage their neighbor’s crop. People here are very cognizant and willing to work together, which is great.

That being said, if you have a biodynamic site and your neighbor does not, how do prevent somethings from coming over? Some drift is inevitable. In fact, the biggest case is probably 2,4-D. This is something a lot of the wheat farmers like to use to contain weeds. However, 2,4-D is extremely toxic to vines. I mean, just a small amount of 2,4-D drift coming onto your vines causes serious damage; you will essentially see the arrest of the photosynthetic capability of the vine once just a little bit of 2,4-D gets drifted onto it. With this we have been seeing a little bit of contention between people using 2,4-D versus people who don’t want it used because it is affecting their grapevines. Some of these things need to be sorted out. But the spirit is generally one of cooperation.

And could you discuss the difficult issue of the local migrant labor force? What is the local mentality?

BN Hmm. Ask 10 people you’ll get 10 different opinions. In general, while I would prefer people to be properly documented – when we came over, we’re immigrants, we had to go through the whole process, the Green Card, the Passport – I would appreciate everybody to do that and respect the laws of the country. But we realize that there are some kinds of labor Americans don’t want to do. The laborers here during harvest are great people. They want to work. They are very industrious. They work hard and get the job done effectively. It needs to be addressed at the Federal level. I’m kind of for giving amnesty for the people who are already here, and getting them appropriately documented. This might curtail future people from coming in. But all the workers I’ve met here have all been tremendously great people.

I must congratulate you and your brother on your extraordinary success. You’ve gone from 0 to 60 in nothing flat. You’re one of the brightest individuals I’ve ever met. Maybe you should become the president of the community college! What are your plans for the future? What are you academic plans, if any?

BN I still do have aspirations to complete my PhD. I have worked in Theoretical Mathematics, kind of at the cusp of Electrical Engineering, so I toy with the idea of going back to mathematics or possibly doing something in Plant Physiology or Viticulture. Right now my focus is to get Rasa to be successful. I think we are headed on the right trajectory. Our wines are improving. We’re just beginning to get positive praise from the critics. We’re having the major critics coming through right now. Jay Miller was here just a couple of weeks ago. Tanzer is coming soon. I can see success on the horizon. Once that is done, I think I’ll pursue my PhD.

An extraordinary pleasure, Billo. Thank you.

BN Thank you, Ken.

Admin

From Tasting Room To Winery With Sean Boyd of Rotie Cellars

Admin, Ken Payton — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 14:40:47 +0000

Anonymity. It is one of the great difficulties facing the young winemaker. How to break through the wall of advertorial noise, the clamor, protectively surrounding established labels? The quality is there. The dedication, the labor. But absent good fortune or dumb luck, the new kid on the block faces a long slog toward much deserved recognition. And this is as it should be within the marketing ecosystem. Indeed, during my recent participation in the Wine Bloggers Conference there was not an ‘official’ word spoken of a number of very good small producers, Sapolil Cellars, Stephenson Cellars, Kerloo and, of course, Rôtie. To be mentioned in the ‘official’ literature costs money the little guy does not always have. So it falls to independently-minded bloggers, caring only for wines of quality and of story, to pound the pavement to find them.

And Sean Boyd of Rôtie Cellars has very good karma, if I may put it that way. For so great is the reservoir of good will and reputation for quality he has built up within the Walla Walla wine community that his efforts are on the minds of the locals. It is for this reason tha when researching an entirely different story, I stumbled into Vintage Cellars and met the exquisite Megan Bosworth working there. She told me there was someone I should meet, a certain winemaker I should know about. Come back at 5 o’clock. I did, and met Rôtie’s lovely marketing whiz Nicole Rivinius, also an employee of Vintage Cellars, and Sean Boyd himself. The results may be read here.

Ms. Rivinius worked the next day to diligently arrange a tasting at Rôtie’s freshly minted tasting room. I dragged several important wine writers along, including Hoke Harden, Remy Charest and Joe Roberts. Hoke Harden over at Elixir Vitae has written a very entertaining and informative piece on our experience there.

What follows is an account of the balance of my time with Mr. Boyd. I should mention that I was asked not to reveal certain vineyards from which Mr. Boyd sources some of his fruit. I have honored that request.

In The Tasting Room

Admin I like this. It’s a nice space. Simple.

Sean Boyd This is Nicole’s sanctuary. She sells the stuff; I just make it. Let’s get you some bottles. You have to promise me that you go to Saffron, the best restaurant here in town. Well, that’s the line-up. The VDP, the vin de pays, which means country wine, has some of my most expensive fruit. But it just wouldn’t blend into the Northern. I make about 70 barrels a year, and I sell off about 30. I pick the best barrels that I possible can for the wine club. So nobody really gets this. Let me find you a box…

These are for me? Are you shittin’ me?

SB Yes. You got to taste the wines to see if you like them. You’ve got to open these f*ckers up, shake them up, because they’re ’08s. Open them up in the morning. They’ll hang very well. They’re very tight.
Our white is a Roussanne and Viognier, a 50/50 blend. The ’09s will be 50% Viognier, 30% Roussanne, and 20% Marsanne. Marsanne is my new favorite grape. The ‘08 was a little heavy handed with the Roussanne, I think. I was really trying to dial in the first year by playing with Roussanne. I learned a lot. It’s a very heavy, viscous grape. I stopped it from going through secondary fermentation, so it’s as crisp as they come. It’s definitely elegant, but its got a weighty back-end. You only really realize how much acid it has when you have it with food because it really clears the palate. But you still think of it as having gone through secondary. So adding Marsanne really helped in ‘09. Sommeliers love it, but they’re definitely in the minority. We definitely have a good following with the white, but not everybody is there. Some say, “Ooh! That’s a little different. But there is no oak and no butter!?”

The Southern is 70% Grenache, 15% Mourvédre, 15% Syrah, all from Horse Heaven Hills. That is the one that does well with awards. The Northern, co-fermented Syrah and Viognier, comes from 4 different vineyards. Definitely give these babies some air. Please. Please, please.

These will be much appreciated. I have a bit of a European palate. Living in California can be difficult… And I’m not crazy about grotesque amounts of oak. You know the story…

SB Hopefully you don’t mind grotesque amounts of fruit! Are you going to drink wine tonight?

I’ve got some writing to do. Yes.

SB Here’s one from the last four cases of ‘07 [55% Grenache, 35% Syrah, 10% Mourvédre]. These cases came back from California battered and bruised from the transit. I have no clue what happened to them. So try that tonight.

Thank you, Sean. It’s extraordinarily generous of you.

SB Hey, you’ve got to buy off the Press, even if you get shitty stories off of it. That’s just the way the world works. (laughs)

Well, in my case, what I typically do is just turn on the mic. I then will transcribe verbatim, along with my questions and narrative ornaments, of course. This is an extreme case, but I recently interviewed Tim Thornhill of Parducci. I had to get completely the hell out of the way for that one. But I like minimal intervention, a more documentary approach.

SB That’s how we sell wine. I had a guy selling wine for me in Seattle. I asked him, “Jesus! How are you selling all this wine?” He used to say, “Well, what I do is ask for a wine list and a menu when I first sit down. I open up the wines. I act like I’m looking at both menu and wine list. I let them all talk; they all like talking. And all I do is nod once and a while; and they buy.” I thought that was ingenious! Everybody likes to hear themselves talk, especially in this industry. There are so many egos and heads out there.

In The Winery

Sean Boyd This is my playground. Here in this winery we’ve got Wines of Substance, which it Waters’ second label. They split some with Gramercy. I think Gramercy has 10% ownership in Substance; Waters has 90%. Waters does about 3,000 cases; Substance is probably about 10,000 or 12,000 cases. And Gramercy makes their wine independently here. They are probably pushing 5-6,000 cases.

It’s kind of a crush pad facility?

SB Well, it’s definitely Waters’ facility. It’s so capital intensive to build a winery. So us little gutter dogs like to come in, and for a reduced salary I make Rôtie Cellars here. It works well. I wasn’t born with $1,000,000 in the bank, or $5,000,000, which is probably be what it would take to get a nice facility.

So basically, the fruit comes in half-ton bins. Then you go into either 3/4 or 1/2 ton fermenters. We love stainless steel. These are the best ones, these round, hot tub tanks. We had these designed so that we could control the fermentation temperature. If it gets too hot the yeast eats itself up. That death phase just kicks right in. Then you struggle through your fermentation. But if you can keep it at 75-78 degrees, then it is a nice, cool fermentation. It finishes a lot smoother. I really like having control. As the fruit is nearing dry, it’s nice to be able to also plug them in and heat them up. The worst thing you can do to wine is leave a little sugar in there for microbial growth. If I could have a winery loaded with these, it would be a no-brainer.

By how much does the temperature vary in the Fall, I mean after harvest?

SB September is still pretty warm; but in October it is down to, well, here we get this diurnal shift, so it’s down to 45 degrees in the night, which is fine for barrels. Anything under 58 degrees is pretty good. We do almost all the fermentation indoors. We like to try and keep our VAs low. The coolness helps that. We do a lot of whole cluster fermentations, so those require some pump-overs, though we prefer to punch down. It’s fun to be able to have lots of small fermentations because you can really play around with what yeasts you’re using; you can try different lots, some with stem, some without.

The blending program here is based on the idea that you don’t just go off of the vineyard and how prestigious it is, or how much you loved the last year, or how fantastic it was when you picked it. It’s more along the lines of tasting everything every month. So if I have 7 different vineyards of Syrah, I’ll blind taste them with people whose palates I really respect. I don’t want to know what they are. I want to know what I like the most, not what vineyard I want to have in a bottle. Then it’s fun. You can figure out what you like. Some vineyards really surprise you. Doing it blind helps.

Some of the wines we’ll try today will include Grenache. I’ve just blended 2 blocks in their 13th and 14th leaf off of Horse Heaven Hills, from nice south-facing slopes, one is 28 brix, one is 24 brix. I’ve blended those because they had interesting phenols going on. Then there are 8 barrels of another Grenache, the vineyards of which is even further down the river. It’s turned out to be some of my best Grenache; 24 and 1/2 brix. It was picked in early November, really rare, because usually we have a freeze that come into Washington State by then; but this site is so hot, and as we talked about yesterday, it’s the kick-ass area for Rhones, for Grenaches and Mourvédres. It enjoys a super-long cycle, very temperate. It’s magical for those varietals (sic). You just have to find all the crazy people that started growing them 15 years ago! They are the fun ones. Shall we taste?

Yes, of course. One quick technical question. How many punchdowns a day?

SB Three. It depends. Your fermentation tells you what’s going on. If you’re smelling H2S you have to make Nitrogen additions. A punchdown can tell you a lot. If it was Pinot Noir, we’d go much lighter on it. We’d probably cover it. We’d let that heat and moisture just kind of work itself out. But with Grenache and Syrah you’re given a lot of leeway. It’s hard to beat them up too much. It’s just keeping the cap wet. Let’s taste through.

You have distributors locally. What about back East, or California, for that matter?

SB In California the market is just dead. We sold out of our ’07s. And California still had 21 cases. But everybody seemed to want deals and deals and deals because the market is so saturated down there. So we pulled it. We’ll sell it here. I don’t want to make deals that will cheapen my brand. Seattle is my major market. There are not too many in Portland yet. Of the distribution, about 20% of production goes straight to Seattle. Most of the rest goes out of the tasting room. It’s a double-edged sword. You want to sell it as close to retail as possible, but it is really important to service the accounts in Seattle so that you are seen. So that costs a certain percentage of the portfolio.

As we taste through the barrels, Sean explains his love of Grenache, especially when dominant in Châteauneuf-du-Papes. He rhapsodizes over Cornas, another passion we share. Some of the barrels are full of violets and roses, odors of an English garden spilling out. The Grenache in other barrels is lighter, leaner, almost Pinot in character. Still other barrels, whether of Syrah or Grenache, are bowls of fat blueberries, and marked by the occasional reductive character, mushroom and forest floor. Selection after barrel selection is of a very distinctive character. I begin to understand what Sean means by the winery being his playground. The blending opportunities are extraordinary. It is almost like the range of admixtures one might find in a perfumery. Sean’s talent is clearly in finding diverse vineyards from both within and without the AVA, and from varied elevations, that conform to his disciplined understanding of Rhone varietal correctness. And vineyard site variety is key. After all, for a Syrah pH that pushes 4 on the Walla Walla Valley floor, but that possesses a mid-palate he wants to preserve, Sean’s trick is not to add water or to acidulate (as one might with an estate designation), but to blend the softer expressions with, say, 24 degree brix juice with very high acidity from another locale. We were not able to taste the Mourvédre or Cinsault. It was being held at another facility.

SB The first year I didn’t have enough contracts. But now I am able to pick and choose which vineyards and barrels I use. People ask why didn’t I try to extract more. That’s ridiculous. Grenache is mean to be a lighter color, leaner. Of some lots, I don’t tell too many people where I get it. I just say ‘down the river from Horse Heaven.” Can you leave the specific vineyard out?

Of course.

I take one last picture of Mr. Boyd, one among his favorite barrels. I then take my leave, smarter, pleased to have played a roll, however small, in the celebration of this guy. He has good friends in Ms. Bosworth and Ms. Nivinius. He owes them a beer, or two.

Admin

Take Our Jobs, An Independence Day Special

Admin, Ken Payton — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:38:38 +0000

On this Independence Day I will take a break from my noisy pyrotechnic display to quietly reflect on how our country was built and how it is sustained. It was hard work to build the Trans-Continental Railroad, the Highway system, to fell the forests, to electrify America, and to fight our wars. How beautiful the sparks from welder’s torch, the miniature daily display of 4th of July fireworks! From the captains of industry to the common laborer, all are part of our unexampled historical narrative. The phenomenal growth of the agricultural sector deserves special praise. The efficiency of our farmers to put food on our tables from coast to coast, to fill supermarkets to bursting with produce is heroic; but reflection must also fall upon the migrant laborer as an indispensable engine of America’s transformation.

But times have changed. A new fever is sweeping across the country, a divisive, toxic reaction to the presence of undocumented, unauthorized workers among our ranks. Arizona and Texas are just two of the states promoting draconian legislative solutions to the strangers in our midst, their governors falling over themselves to formulate the most un-American rhetoric. Even though the Labor Department tells us that “three out of every four farm workers were born abroad, and more than half are illegal immigrants”, crass political opportunism knows no shame, let alone decency.

But help is on the way! In our quest for mind-numbingly simple solutions, no matter who gets hurt, Stephen Colbert and the United Farm Workers of American (UFW) are joining together to promote the Take Our Jobs initiative. The idea is as elegant as it is peaceful: via the UFW site itself American citizens, only those able to prove it, of course, may pour over a constantly updated listings of agricultural jobs offered across America. Those wishing to work may sign up. That’s it! Training will be provided, for it makes a difference whether one picks, for example, grapes, lettuce, or strawberries. And the working hours are strictly enforced. So prospective field laborers must arrive on time. Just what attire is appropriate is also explained. You wouldn’t want to show up without a hat in triple-digit heat! Water will be provided, though there are no guarantees in this world.

Though the site is currently active, Mr. Colbert will provide an update on its progress July 8th on his show, The Colbert Report. Have a safe and sane 4th! I won’t!

For additional information, please see this.

Admin

The Future Of Wine Writing, Walla Walla Redux

Admin, Ken Payton — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:59:37 +0000

What follows is my gaze into the crystal ball of wine writing’s future. I was invited by the organizers of the Wine Bloggers Conference, this year held in Walla Walla, Washington, to offer my views along side of those of the steady Steve Heimoff and the durable Tom Wark of Fermentation. My invitation to participate, I must say, was a bit of a lark, entirely unexpected. It is one thing to go about the quiet, deliberative work of presenting important ideas and issues to the public, one’s readership; it is quite another to take to the stage with gentlemen of such considerable experience and wisdom. Though I will not dispute for a minute the insight of the Conference organizers for having thought of me, I will say that I approached the panel discussion with humility, indeed, with a haunting sense that it could all go very wrong. But it didn’t. In fact, it may turn out that our exchange will take on an after-life none of us could have predicted.
Not used to public speaking, fully aware of the shortcomings of my presentation, here I offer an enhanced, fluid reconstruction of my remarks.

So It Begins…

None of us on the panel had any idea of what the other would say. We had agreed that our point of departure would be the question of whether in the future there would be a handful of important critics, gatekeepers; whether the consumer would continue to depend upon select voices for navigating the bewildering choices. However interesting the answer may be, it was clear to me that the question did not remotely approach what I understand by wine writing. Whether there will be gatekeepers in the future is a marginal question at best. The handmaiden to mere commerce, tasting notes and scores threaten to trivialize wine, and make of wine writing little more than the penning of serviceable haikus. A sub-genre at best, tasting notes and scores might more properly be understood as the discursive equivalent of a wine additive or manipulative technology.

And the assumption of a passive consumer deepens this impression. Having worked in a winery and knowing the manipulations commonly brought to unbalanced juice, I have often encountered a deep cynicism with respect to the public. And just as it is a common feature of winemaker psychology, so too does it afflict the wine writer. Aware of winery shenanigans, to the degree that they turn a blind eye to such manipulations in their tasting notes and scores, they, too, show a lazy contempt for the consumer, more so when, as often happens, they are made fully aware of a specific winery’s procedures and practices. Critics often share an unspoken compact with a winery that some things shall go unspoken. Indeed, it is just this structural deformity, the non-equivalence between wine critic and consumer knowledge that encourages contempt for the latter and generates dependance.

Now, to be put properly on the path to being a successful wine blogger, especially one specializing in tasting notes, will often mean accumulating secrets, a knowledge of which the public is unaware. It is the effective concealment of aspects wine knowledge, rather than its elaboration, that informs credibility. How humorous is the spectacle of established wine critics slamming bloggers for their lack of expertise when what they really mean is that they don’t know where the bodies are buried! You don’t need a PhD is business to know that controversy will close more doors than it opens. So, a wine blogger’s success, their monetization, is often built upon a foundation of bad faith, the requirement that wine drinkers be reduced to passive consumers, and that some aspects of wine knowledge be strictly policed.

The principle obstacle to improving the fortunes of wine writing in a broader sense is, unsurprisingly, the digital form it is required to take. These days there is no wine-related conference one may attend at which social media does not play a commanding role. Whether it be Twitter, Facebook, or blog formats themselves, these forms can significantly limit expression. A technological fetish, the various forms of social media, endlessly promoted, are granted magical (commercial) powers. But at the expense of thought and culture. We are repeatedly told that no one reads anymore; that 500 to 1000 words is all we should write on our blogs. But that is a function of social media’s digital forms. They aggressively subvert thought, largely preferring commercial applications alone. The corrosive financial impact of multiple digital innovations on traditional wine writers exploring the complexities of wine history, culture, and the literary side of the wine world, is everywhere evident. After all, democratization has, since Plato, known another face. With respect to wine writing we might call it a variation of the tragedy of the commons.

The future of wine writing ought to include readers in the writer’s explorations. No longer relegated to a passive position, the word ‘consumer’ should be scrapped. It was just a short while ago that Oz Clarke referred to Merlot as America’s gateway wine. Following upon a series of news reports in the 1980s about the beneficial effects of moderate wine drinking, America turned to wine in a big way. Merlot was chosen because it was the least wine-like wine, by which was meant that it caused no offense and was easy to drink. A lot has changed since then. The ‘consumer’ is not longer in that place. I compare our understanding of the evolution of the ‘consumer’ to traveling by car in the south of France to the Spanish frontier. The architectural forms, the local vernacular, slowly change. To take a single snapshot at any given mileage marker tells you nothing of the subtle, on-going transformations. It is the same with our idea of the ‘consumer’. Though we may try to fix the concept, it is morphing, taking on complexities of its own. So, the first principle of future wine writing in digital formats should be this recognition. Educate readers! Invite them along. Deepen their understanding along with yours. Most importantly, make of your own developing sophistication a promise to readers that your current ignorance will become a shared future knowledge. For your journey is also theirs.

There are great opportunities for on-line wine magazines. The Palate Press and Catavino are among the best examples we currently enjoy. Though differing in intent, each offer opportunities for multiple genres and topics to be more fully explored, even if somewhat briefly. The world of wine demands the multiplication of genres the on-line mag performs. The Palate Press’ recent stories on under-valued indigenous American grape varieties amply illustrates the point.

And then is the interesting possibility of wineries themselves taking on a greater role in wine writing in the future, to help gently force the agenda. It has long been felt that a winery can only provide updates on the humdrum ‘everydayness’ of their work. Perhaps one might read on Facebook an announcement about a festival or wine sale, the comings and going of the winery dog, that is about it. And whether one is organic or biodynamic is a one-off utterance. “We are organic!” Next month they write, “Yup. We’re still organic!” What is needed is for a winery to enter into a compelling narrative, for themselves to become a generator of important news. And this, in my view, is what Parducci Wine Cellars, the whole of the Mendocino Wine Company, is fast becoming. America’s first carbon neutral winery, the 100% reuse of winery waste water, the construction of wetlands, the aggressive promotion of biodiversity on their properties, these and many other green initiatives make of the Mendocino Wine Company an on-going performance of its vision of the future. The process moves. It is the unfolding story with multiple chapters.

Their most recent chapter may well be that as the anchor for a broad-based micro-finance initiative throughout the Mendocino AVA itself. Briefly stated, micro-financing is the use of monies aggregated from multiple private sources for the purpose of peer-to-peer lending. The purpose is not only to eliminate banking hierarchies and their usurious interest rates, but to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit. And to open up opportunities for development often closed to small farmers, for example, in our troubled economic times. Were a struggling farmer wish to do the right thing, to improve the efficiency of their water recycling system or even to install one, where a bank might not see a compelling financial interest, private micro-financing dedicated to such an initiative could quickly respond.

I shall have much more to say about this matter moving forward. It is best for now to simply let the process take its course and, hopefully, to awaken the imaginations of other wineries to the idea of micro-financing.

So, there are many, many ways to approach the question of the future of wine writing. I have related here not the sum total of my speculations, just those generally consistent with my presentation at the Wine Bloggers Conference. There will be much more to come. After all, tomorrow is the future.

Admin

Parducci, Building The Future

Admin, Ken Payton — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 09:07:39 +0000

“My name is Tim Thornhill. I grew up in Houston. Some 35 years ago we all took off and went to work or went to college. The family only got back together once or twice a year sorta’ only when somebody died or got married. About ten years ago my brother [Tom] and I started thinking about what we should be doing, and what we would regret not doing; and that was trying to get as much of our family back together in one location, if possible. So I looked around the country, Tom already lived in the San Francisco Bay area; we settled on Northern California as being the region. We spent three years looking through Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino counties. While Napa and Sonoma have the geography and the climate, they really didn’t have the community that we were looking for. When your gathering family together to put down really deep roots, you have to look forward 40 or 50 years as to where you’re leaving them and how are they going to feel about it.

“What Napa had to offer, as far as all the commercialism and tourism, it just really didn’t fit for us. Also, this community is a very, very green community. There is 5 times as much organic acreage in Mendocino county as their is in Napa or Sonoma counties. So it really worked for us. When we purchased the first property [La Ribera Vineyard], it had 150 acres of vines on it. We ended up in the vineyard business. But it was really the landscape for the family estate. My parents were here right away. One of my older children has come back. In fact, I just became a grandfather three days ago [6/15]. My daughter [Kate], who runs the export and does all of our contract grower negotiations, married one of the winemakers here, and has now thrown off the next generation, probably a biodynamic baby, to be honest. Then we partnered up with Paul Dolan.”

All of this was said within the first few minutes of my revealing vineyard tour at Parducci Wine Cellars. I knew then and there I was in luck. Tim Thornhill is a rarity, in my experience. He needs no prompting to get to the heart of the matter. And he thinks big. But this has nothing to do with any Texas cliché. For he is a man of the world.

As you read what I will call a ‘lesson’, perhaps you might think money was an overwhelming factor. Not all wineries, after all, may believe they have the resources to accomplish what has been done at Parducci. But Mr. Thornhill turns the question around. Aligning yourself with the natural forces of Nature (with a big ‘N’) will save you money. And perhaps the world. After all, how much is spent on pesticides, municipal water, and electricity? How great are the monies spent resisting the natural world? Biodiversity, plant and insect succession, water filtration, oxygenation, gravity– these are biological and physical processes to be harnessed. The idea is to align your project with how the natural world expresses itself, how it goes about its business.

Life loves to live, I tell my kids. Even the lowly weed sprouting in the median along I-5 is an act of grace. Caltrans may knock it down, but there is no denying the weed’s determination to live. There is a beauty even there.

We now join a conversation already in progress.

“We take a row, I think it’s one every 14 of 16 rows, and we put in an additional drip line, sub-surface, and then we plant around 30 to 40 different plant species in our mix. We have flowers year-round. You’ll note this row [pictured] runs all the way through the block. So we get good distribution of insects all the way through. I want all the insects I can get! They will balance themselves. There’re almost 3000 species of predatory insects in Northern California. It’s really about habitat. We do the same thing time after time after time, whether it’s the insects or the owls.”

I am shown a video, recently taken by Mr. Thornhill, of the interior of one of their many owl boxes around the property. Barn owl eggs are clearly visible. In another box fledglings hiss behind a partition. A third video shows a mother owl starring at the camera.

“People ask me, ‘So, do you put owls in the box?’. I tell them no more than I put insects in that insectary. ‘Where did you get your owls?’ Well, the owls are indigenous. They just need habitat. An average owl consumes 53 pounds of rodents in a year. So I don’t need poison in my vineyard. I don’t need traps. They will balance themselves. The owls wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t food. They just need the habitat.”

Reduce The Use

“The first thing I want to do with all of my energy consumption is ‘reduce the use’. And what we find is that if you measure there is an almost immediate reduction just because people know you’re measuring. Of course, there is a push-back in the beginning for most people when you say you want to measure everything. So, in the vineyard we installed what’re called tensiometers. They measure available moisture in the soil. We used to make our decisions based more on schedule, what was convenient, or maybe what was historical, which usually was not based on data; it was based on feeling, emotion. ‘In god we trust; all others bring data’.
So we put all these tensiometers and started measuring available moisture in the ground. We found we did not need to necessarily water on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, like we were doing. We might not even water at all that week. We’ve reduced our water use by 25% in our worst case, and 37% in our best case. And we end up with better balanced vines, better fruit, and better wines in the end.

“We’ve reduced the amount of water we pull from the aquifer, the water we pull from the rivers, the amount of biodiesel burned to run the pumps, the number of hours run the pumps… yet the quality of our product has been improved. A lot of people will say being environmental is too expensive, that they can’t afford it. Being environmental means being efficient. When you’re efficient, things drop to the bottom line. So first we reduce the use. Then we get into recycling.

“Here in the winery to reduce the use, I went through and divided it up into 22 different sections. Each section has its own water meter. So when walking through the winery right after I put the meter in, the gentleman running the barrel room for 17 years said he’d seen that I had put one there in his spot. He was a little concerned that I would now how much water he was wasting. I said, no. I want to know how much water you’re saving. Well, guess what? He’s done nothing but save water. And so have all of his other guys, basically in competition. They’ve got the scoreboard right there, the water meter!”

“All of our utilities have been coming down. Our electric consumption, for example, between ‘06 and ‘08 went down by 15%, but our production actually increased by between 100-200%. So, while we’ve grown the production operation tremendously, we’ve reduced our electrical use. And you see our water use in the vineyard also declined. The period from ‘05 through ‘09 was one of the worst droughts in California history. But even while we had a tremendous drought, this means far less ambient moisture, we were still able to reduce the amount of irrigation we did, and ended up with better fruit and better balanced vines.”

Reuse and Recycling

“I try to use the water that rinses the tanks to also, at the end of the day, rinse the floors. We’re using it twice, if at all possible. Then the water is to be recycled. At that point the water is BOD. Here is a picture of what it use to look like when we first got here. It was basically purple. All designers told me back then that I needed to put four 10 hp motors in my pond, basically agitators like any sewer plant uses. But signing up for 25 years for four 10 horse motors was not in my game plan. I kept going through consultants until I found one willing to think completely outside the box. We went out and maximized existing resources.

“Here’s how we did it. In the winery I gave everyone dust pans and brooms so that they could sweep up all the debris of winemaking first before they tried to wash down the floors. It all use to just go down the drain. That use to be ok, and legally it was ok, too. But it also meant that the water was basically ruined. It had no oxygen. It’s called BOD, biological oxygen demand. It’s created mostly by sugars and solids. The sugars, in our case, comes from the fruit. So my job is to get the solids out and remove the sugars, and put the oxygen back in the water.

“So when the waste water leaves the winery (after years of bringing all the plumbing into one place), it goes up to the tanks way up on top of the hill. Up there we have repurposed old fire tanks. They now serve as anaerobic digesters. The water spends between 20 and 30 days to go through those tanks. Then, via gravity, it comes down through a series of trickle towers. The first one is near the tanks. Here’s another one [pic]. The water comes up through a pipe and runs down the trickle tower.
Now, the consultants I went to designed a trickle tower for me, but it was going to be $100,000. It was all stainless steel and plastic. Instead, what I did was take some old grape trailers. These things were in the weeds. Nobody even knew they were here. They do hold water. So I then took barrel racks, old steel barrel racks, stacked them up; welded them together; stuck it full of wood slats to act as a media; I then jammed a bunch of willows between. You’ll note what most people would call black slime coating the sides. It’s actually called filamentous fungi. What it does is consume compounds, sugar being my main compound. And as the water trickles down through here it also gets aeration. So, my settling goes on in the tanks on the hill. My de-sugaring goes on in these trickle towers.

“This one [pictured above] was built about three or four months ago. The efficiency is quite measurable. It’s an amazing thing. It has a whole lot of surface area; and the filamentous fungi, if you take it in your hand, feels kind of like wet cotton. You can squeeze it. It has texture. But lay it out on the flat rock in the sun, and by the next day it is like a piece of paper. It’s almost nothing but structure.
So the water passes through the trickle towers, the last one sitting just before the water goes into the pond. So that’s the delivery of the water from the winery to the pond. Now, in the pond is where they wanted me to put these four agitators. They would have just consumed the power of three or four houses. Instead, we built a water falls.

“Think about the two main processes in this world with respect to water. The giant water filters are the Everglades of the world. The oxygenators are all the streams and rocky creeks. That’s where the trout live because that is where is found the highest oxygen level. So we figured out that with one five hp pump all we had to do was lift the water in this pond twelve feet. That takes very little psi, very little power to move a lot of water. So I raise about 400 gallons a minute twelve feet. From that point it is gravity again. The water is raised above the pond level to the road height. From there gravity takes the water through a series of water falls. Those are my aerators. All gravity. No moving parts. Rocks. Plants. No service! And were operating at 20% of the power of the four aerators originally proposed, and we achieve a water quality 3 to 4 times what they would have ever had as a goal. We’re pretty pleased.”

We pass by a portable chicken coop with a solar door which opens at dawn and closes at dusk. It must be moved every six months when the predators in the area catch on. Guinea hens pass through. Hawks, a couple species of duck, egret, black, green, and great blue heron, common snipe, geese, sandpipers, killdeer, turkeys, bluebirds, a kingfisher, even the occasional troublesome otter, all make use of the pond, one way or another. There are muskrats.

“This pond use to be purple four or five years ago. It had a smell that people on the freeway would call and complain about. There is now no smell. Again, when the water comes out of the winery it has a BOD of about 2,500. Before I can use it on land it has to have a measurement of 80 ppm. I am now somewhere below 10 ppm. We can’t even get a reading. So I have virtually no BOD. When the water comes out of the winery there is zero oxygen. I’ll measure the oxygen down where it comes out of the wetland. We’ll probably find it is over 4 ppm. Trout require about 5 ppm.
“My minimum requirement for oxygen is 1 ppm before I can land-apply it. The BOD minimum is 80 ppm before I can land-apply it. So this water in the pond can be used anytime.” [To clarify, there are two measurements in play here. One, for BOD, is a measurement of organic material: the lower the number, the better. The second is for oxygen saturation: the higher, the better. The 'minimums' Mr. Thornhill refers to are establish either at either the state or federal level, or both. Admin]

“The water has to go back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth. It comes in via gravity, passes through the water falls, is pumped back up the twelve feet and starts all over. The plants in the pond do all kinds of things. They suck out all the excess nutrients left in the winery water; all the phosphorous, the nitrogen. They will also remove heavy metals. They also introduce oxygen. Aquatic plants pull oxygen out of the atmosphere and introduce it back into the water through their roots.
I had a neighbor call me to ask if I was interested in some concrete. He was taking out a big patio. I went and looked. There were forty of these slabs [pictured]. I said I would be right back with my truck! So I am going to put a path of these all through the wetlands so that people can see what is going on.

“So here’s our dissolved oxygen level. And I would venture to say that we are probably close to 6 or 7 ppm. We’re over 5, that’s for sure. When they first gave me an oxygen set to test, it went from zero to one, in tenths. Right? I would measure and tell them that I was getting 1. They would ask if I was getting a full 1 or a point 1 [.1]? No, I was getting a 1! And if you went to the bottom of the water fall it would be 12 ppm, off the charts. Saturated. So I got a new set. I come out to check the oxygen levels once a week, usually when I’m doing a tour, just out of curiosity. But I do have a guy who checks it in three different places every single Monday. We can see a difference from end to end of the pond and wetland.

“We check BOD once a month. That’s kind of an expensive thing or I would do it all the time. But we don’t see huge changes once we get out of harvest. There just begins this very steady decline. In fact, BOD removal is much faster now because of our trickle towers. We can go right to a trickle tower and measure the BOD in the water as it comes out of the tank. At the bottom of the tower BOD is cut in half. That is just at the first tower; and I’m going to have four.

“We recycle 100% of the winery water. After we’ve ‘reduced our use’, we reuse it more than once. It’s kind of like a wine glass. When people ask me what is the difference between ‘recycle’ and ‘reuse’, I tell them that a wine glass is reused. When it is broken, it’s recycled. So with the water, we try to use it more than once. But it does get ‘broken’. Then we have to recycle it. So this entire process here saved me about 5 million gallons of water last year that I was then able to use for irrigation. It’s high-quality water. I would have otherwise had to buy it.”

“So, number one, we recycle 100% of the water. Number two, we do it in a way that consumes very little energy, with no chemical applications. Number three, we’ve ended up with a bird sanctuary out of it; more habitat, more biodiversity, a greater contribution to the biodynamics of this property. And number four, I get to share the knowledge with people and try to teach others.

“When you want to talk about sustainability, what is true sustainability, well, first of all it means living your life and running your business so that it doesn’t adversely impact future generations. I didn’t come up with that. But I also think that it means sharing information. If you are not passing the information along, that is not sustainable. The sooner we pass it on right now, the better. It needs to be viral.

“My partners and I came to the conclusion, when we created our partnership, that if we waited for the governments around the globe to address environmental concerns, then it wouldn’t happen fast enough. However, industry can turn on a dime, with incentives. They are now incentified. They weren’t five years ago.
It’s been a struggle all my life to be an environmental person. Other people sort of laugh at it, and don’t pay any attention. It’s the same thing with organics. I remember when I kept thinking, well, there getting it now. That was 10 years ago. Maybe they’re getting it now. That was 5 years ago. Now they’re getting it. I mean, now there is a big push. A big wave. There is incentive.

“You take Walmart and Clorox. I’ve sat on boards with the environmental guys and that is the number one thing they are focused on is turning their company green. They know that if they don’t, they’re out. That company will not be around five to ten years from now. I’m convinced.

“The generation coming into play now, my kids, basically, the twenty and thirty year-olds, they are distrusting. They see what is happening. They want third-party certification. So, that’s where ‘certified organic’ or ‘certified biodynamic’ comes in. A lot of people don’t want to be measured. I do. It’s kind of like running in a race. If I’m going to run, let’s make it a race. If it’s going to be a race, then I really prefer the front. It’s just a lot more fun.” (laughs)

We then drove to the winery’s tasting room where I enjoyed a healthy lunch. I turned off my recorder. Both my intellectual and corporeal appetites were satisfied.

Admin

In Praise of Old Wine Books, Robert Lawrence Balzer

Admin, Ken Payton — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:11:42 +0000

How strange and jarring can be the experience when reading old wine books, especially those centered on California. But what might be meant by ‘old’ ? Is 1978 old? It can seem like ancient history when reading Wines of California, by Robert Lawrence Balzer. Yet that is the book’s great strength. Selling for pennies on the second-hand book market, Mr. Balzer’s book provides valuable insight into where we’ve come from, how far has the industry moved in 30 years. California’s first great modern wine writer, his Wines of California enjoys an unusual distinction of having been written on the cusp of California’s explosion onto the international wine scene, a fuse lit by Mr. Balzer himself.

Who is Robert Lawrence Balzer? From his Special Collections page at Cal Poly Pomona.

“Balzer is recognized for having had an enormous impact on the California wine industry, and on the acceptance of California wines worldwide. He began championing quality California wines in the 1930s, decades before the rest of the world realized their stature. In 1973 he organized a blind tasting with the New York Food and Wine Society, where California Chardonnays received the top four scores. That contributed momentum toward the famous 1976 “Judgment of Paris” blind tasting where again California wines received top scores over French wines (portrayed in the 2008 film “Bottle Shock”). The acquisition of the Robert Lawrence Balzer Collection builds on an already significant Wine Industry Collection at Cal Poly Pomona Library and further strengthens the library as a research venue for the wine industry.”

A man of many talents (he played a small role in the 1975 film Day of the Locust), a practicing Buddhist, Balzer’s distinguished writing and teaching career earned him the enduring gratitude of Ernest Gallo, Robert Mondavi, and the California wine industry as a whole. A charming post from the Underground Wine Letter describes a recent March 2010 visit with the gentleman this way,

“Robert, the first serious wine journalist in the U.S., has been a wine writer for close to 70 years. I had not seen him since his birthday before last and he will be 98 in June. A true Renaissance man and an epicurean, Robert has been a retailer, an actor, a restaurateur, a Buddhist monk, a flight instructor during World War II, a wine instructor and the author of 11 books. While age is finally catching up with him, he is still charming, knowledgeable and articulate, especially when reminiscing about the earlier days of California wine. He stills drinks wine and Scotch regularly, which he partially attributes to his long age. An amazing man, he has known the rich and famous in politics, food and wine, Hollywood and more.”

Adding to his august reputation is the New York Wine Tasting he organized in 1973. Years before the far better known Judgement of Paris, the New York tasting

“assembled 14 leading wine experts including France’s Alexis Lichine, who owned two Chateaux in Bordeaux, a manager of the Four Seasons restaurant in New York City, and Sam Aaron, a prominent New York wine merchant. They evaluated 23 Chardonnays from California, New York, and France in a blind tasting before an assemblage of 250 members of the New York Food and Wine Society. California Chardonnays received the top four scores. Fifth place went to the 1969 Beaune Clos des Mouches Joseph Drouhin. Other French wines in the competition were the 1970 Corton-Charlemagne Louis Latour, the 1971 Pouilly-Fuisse Louis Jadot, and the 1970 Chassagne-Montrachet Marquis de Laguiche Joseph Drouhin.”

I belive much may be learned from older, out of print wine books. Mr. Balzer’s Wines of California is a case in point. There is a kind of innocence about his style. Free of technical, highbrow cant, we may read what are now almost tragicomic observations such as this about California Pinot Noir.

“Pinot Noir, both the grape and the wine, remains an enigma to California viticulturists and winemakers alike. [....] Pinot Noir in California seems to elude even the most intelligent application of enological science in the production of wines comparable in stature to those of the French Côte d’Or. [...] Few wineries can afford more than a year or so of bottle age before general release. That aging is the beginning of the refinement necessary to achieve a wine’s full potential. It is up to you, the wine buyer, to allow your wines the time they need to reach their peak.”

Or this (abbreviated) breakdown of California’s “own wine, unique, complex, and [...] varied” Zinfandel.

“1. A light, young, and fresh Zinfandel, its berry-like flavor suggesting the French Beaujolais.

2. A heavier-bodied, deeper-colored wine, capable of long cellar aging, comparable to the finest French clarets of the Médoc. Such wines are most likely to emerge from the cooler regions.

3. Late-harvest Zinfandels, with alcohol content as high as 17 percent by volume [!] and with minimal residual sugar. These have rare aging potential and suggest the results that will be possible when viticulture and enology marry in the science of winemaking.”

From rare pictures of youthful and noted California winemakers, Fred Franzia, Dave Bennion, Martin Ray, Joe Heinz, Warren Winiarski, Michael Mondavi, even Justin Meyer, to an excellent gloss on California wine history, this book has all that a contemporary wine enthusiast might want to learn about how the California wine world was understood in the late seventies. Mr. Balzer’s accounts of what he calls The Corporate Investment Period (1965-1974) and the Financial Adjustment and the Post-Boom Crisis (1974-1976) are especially insightful.

So, it is to Robert Lawrence Balzer, who will turn 98 on June 25th, that I offer my deep gratitude for his work. I strongly encourage folks to visit their local used book store and buy a copy of what will prove a classic, the Wines of California.

Admin

The Beer Trials, An Essential Guide

Admin, Ken Payton — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:59:01 +0000

Sometimes on a hot afternoon a rosé or sharp Albariño just won’t cut it. With the weather we’ve had here in Santa Cruz, temperatures sure to spike over the weekend, I often turn to a cold beer to slake a thirst satisfied no other way. But what if I want those moments to be more than merely satisfied? What if I want exhilaration? If I only had a guide…. Well, I am happy to report that they are at it again, those Fearless Critics. Fresh off their groundbreaking The Wine Trials, this ever-widening circle of drinking friends has now returned with yet another very helpful guide, The Beer Trials. This time they’ve willingly sacrificed weeks of their lives for the humble beer drinker. And I am glad they did. What a world of taste and variety I have been missing!

As I discovered during a trip to Vermont some time ago, there has occurred an extraordinary explosion of artisanal, high quality beer production here in the states. It is no longer about Bud versus Coors, or dueling Michelobs, the choice of Corona or Pacifico for the beach. There are now new names to conjure: Saison Dupont, Russian River Pliny the Elder, Magic Hat, Boulder Planet Porter, Widmer Broken Halo. Just how massive has been the cultural shift to high quality beer making, abroad as well, I have only recently begun to learn. This book certainly helps! After years trying to grasp the intricacies of the wine world, is was in just the few weeks since the publisher sent me a copy, that this casual beer drinker can now more confidently find the IPA of my dreams. And understand why one might be better than another.

Yet the authors’ artisanal rap does not go to their heads. They are not fighting a variation of the culture wars. The Beer Trials is no high brow versus low brow. Their tone is itself humble, and humorous. Yes, I may keep my fond memories of stealing sips from my father’s Hamm’s.

“If this is a book with an agenda, then that agenda is simple: to broaden your horizons, and narrow your search, by arming you with better information about beer. If we can help you find a new beer to love, then our purpose is met.”

Written by Seamus Campbell and the intrepid Robin Goldstein, with the contribution of a dozen professionals, from homebrewers to the BJCP-approved enthusiast, The Beer Trials provides much more than a list dozens and dozens of beers from around the world. It is as well a guide to beer styles, flavors and ingredients. The section on adjuncts, additives, and unusual flavors was highly instructive. As was the chapter on off-flavors and flaws. I had no idea the flavor of malt could be further broken down into pale, English pale, crystal, medium crystal, Munich and Vienna. Now I do. Neither did I know what could be the differences, for good or ill, that adding oats, corn, rice, molasses, wheat or rye, brings to a finished bottle. Skunky, tart, sour, buttery, and soapy, these flaws are discussed. And the stylings created by proper use of Acetobacter and Brettanomyces? Of Brett they write,

“Brett produces a variety of phenolic compounds. [....] The most desirable of these is closely related to the clove-flavored phenol produced by weizen yeasts., and can come across as meaty (like bacon), smoky, or spice [....]
‘Old leather’ is the classic British description of Bretty beer — intriguing enough to inspire the recreation of 19th-century British beers, with authentic Brett flavors.”

As with The Wine Trials, all tastings were done blind. And again we are presented with compelling observations about the distorting effects of lifestyle marketing, observations central to all of the Fearless Critics’ work, and one of the many reasons I find their efforts important and commendable.

“If your job as a consumer is to look beyond all categories of lifestyle marketing, that doesn’t mean skepticism of Anheuser-Busch’s Super Bowl ads. It also means skepticism of the well-intentioned but ultimately narrow and unscientific opinions of the beer snob who insists that all great beer must be Belgian and cost at least $10. That enthusiastic beer geek may turn out to be even less aware of lifestyle marketing than your average Bud Light drinker.”

After a few pages explaining their methodology, their (harmless) scoring system, and price point symbols, we dive into the soul of the book: an examination of enough beers, more than 200, to keep me occupied throughout the Summer! Amber and Pale Lagers, Belgian, Brown and Dark Ales, including Porters, Stouts, and my personal favorite, India Pale Ale (though I will now look for a neuvo British Brett beer!), and Smoke, Sour, Strong, and Wheat beers are all well represented.

Another fine guide for a thirsty public. Highly recommended.

Admin

An Informal Talk With Ridge Winemaker Eric Baugher

Admin, Ken Payton — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 04:19:07 +0000

A former Biochemistry and Molecular Biology student of UC Santa Cruz, Eric Baugher’s path to Ridge began as a summer job in 1994. It was essentially essentially a scientific inquiry with a bit of research thrown in. Unsure of his graduate school plans, whether to pursue a PhD and enter the pharmaceutical world, or to go into Dentistry, Eric decided to take a year off just to figure it out. After more time spent at Ridge, he made the proper decision: “No way am I going to any grad school. This is what I want to do. There is no better drug to be making!” Now the winemaker at the Monte Bello winery division of Ridge, one of California’s best known producers and a shining star in the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA, Eric has fully realized the skills of his mentor, Paul Draper. Mr. Draper needs no introduction. His merits, awards, and deserved international recognition are the stuff of legend. The Judgement of Paris anyone?

But for all of that the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA does not receive a tenth of the recognition of its noisy peers, Napa and Sonoma in particular. This is for a number of reasons, not the least of which are the dispersion of the properties and lack of organizational savvy. The pioneering spirit of the AVA, its strong sense of independence, has its downside. Ask anybody to name a Santa Cruz producer. Chances are folks will draw a blank. I have even heard people exclaim that they had no idea Ridge’s Monte Bello was made from Santa Cruz Mountain fruit!

In any event, I learned that Mr. Baugher was to helm a tasting at VinoCruz, Santa Cruz’s premier retailer for showcasing the wines of the AVA. Not wishing to be a bother, but insisting on a story, I hustled to the venue and made a bother of myself. Pausing between the public’s questions and his answers, I stepped in from time to time to ask my own. Though by no means a rigorous interview as readers here have come to know, it does have its charms.

Admin I understand that you were in Bordeaux recently [late May]. The reason?

Eric Baugher En Primier! I wanted to check out the competition. I was touring with some other California winemakers, going to some of the chateaux and tasting. I visited a cooper near Cognac just to see what they were up to there.
When I arrived there it was 91 degrees! I was unprepared. Normally Bordeaux is cool, especially this time of year. You always expect rain and cool weather. that’s what I packed for. When I got there it was Summer. Then I heard that back here it was raining and very cold. But at least I was able to bring back that weather to California.

Just out of curiosity, what cooperage does Ridge use for Monte Bello?

EB Always new oak, and 95% American, a nice mix of: Canton Cooperage, Kelvin Cooperage, Radoux, Demptos, Barrel Associates, it is a wide, diverse mix. We don’t rely on one barrel to make the wine. We really want the diversity of flavor from the coopers, and the different forests of America.

I was going through an older book on the California wine world circa 1979 and I can across a rare picture, the first one I had seen, actually, of Dave Bennion. I did an interview some time ago with Ken Burnap who, along with Mr. Bennion, paced out the original boundary of the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA. How is Dave Bennion memorialized at Ridge?

EB I know there is an area, a spot in the vineyard where there is a large rock, one of the limestone rocks that were dug out when they were planting what is now known as the old vines. It is a spot where Dave Bennion used to go sit. There is a nice clearing around the rock, and ever so often people go out there. Fran Bennion still lives right below the winery. She is very close to the winery. We see her often, especially when we have special events at the winery. Usually the Bennions will come up.

Have you ever seen Ken Burnap up there?

EB No. We hardly ever see anyone [other winemakers] in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It’s surprising; but it is a different appellation. We’re so spread out. Everyone is off doing their own thing. It’s really difficult to see people. Whereas in Napa and Sonoma? Everyone is watching over who is doing what. Anytime anyone goes out to lunch you run into winemakers. In the Santa Cruz Mountains we just don’t have that. We all kind of occupy our own part of the mountain and stay to it.

In the old days there used to be all kinds of dinners, back when there were 17 wineries.

EB Nowadays there are more than 70 wineries and, again, we’re so spread out. There is no single road you can take. They are all so far apart.

So, are these selections principally your responsibility?

EB Most are. The Lytton Springs we now make at the winery in Dry Creek Valley. This is produced by my colleague John Olney. I’m responsible for Geyserville, everything that’s produced at Monte Bello winery. That would be the Mont Bello, the Chardonnays, our Rhone varietal wines, and several of our Zinfandels. And I’ve been responsible for 16 going on 17 vintages, working with the master, Paul Draper.

How is he, by the way?

EB Oh, he’s doing well. He’s in great shape. He’s very active, and actively involved in the day to day business of Ridge. But he’s relied upon me to take over winemaking long ago. And I didn’t go to UC Davis! So I didn’t bring any of that, you know, the technical, industrial methods of winemaking to Ridge. That’s not the way we do things.

A visitor asked after the recent heat wave we’ve experienced in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

EB We need this heat. Our growing season is off by three weeks. We’re starting off really late. It’s been a long Winter. And very wet. These late Winter rains is making for very good weed growth this year. At one point before we mowed, the weeds were taller than the vines. It was horrible.

How has our troubled economy affected sales at Ridge?

EB Well, at the bottom of last year, March of 2009 was probably the lowest point of our sales. It really affected our distributors mainly who were not buying wine because they didn’t want to sit on inventory. As things improved last year, by June things came back, distributors were re-ordering wines to replenish their inventories; and on the sales side we were seeing that the distributors were actually getting the wine into the marketplace, selling it to retailers and restaurants. So health returned to our sales by June of last year. And every month since sale have continued to improved. We’re actually 39% better this year than we were last year at this time.

Exports have really picked up substantially for us! Particularly in the UK, but also Germany, Switzerland, Japan, those are the big markets. Australia and France, we have distribution there. About 25% of our annual sales are to the export market. It’s a good diversity for us to have those markets. And as the US market comes back stronger, hopefully that will counter any effect that we may see in the export market. European markets are having some issues recently.

I noticed a Parker score on their tasting table placard so I asked, Do you think Robert Parker will ever retire?

EB Well, he’s got people in place now; he’s got his understudies there slowly taking over. I would imagine that in the next ten years we’ll see some change. Jim Laube as well, from the Wine Spectator. Hopefully some new writer will come in with a different sense of taste and style, or a greater appreciation for real wine rather than these fruit bomb, cocktail-style wines. And I think they’re slowly losing out to the on-line world, the new generation of wine consumers are necessarily going to be relying on Jim Laube and Robert Parker for their wine information. They’re going to be getting it off the internet through blogs. That’s a greater power.

But here on your placard you’ve got a Robert Parker score!

EB (laughs) That’s true! You can’t get away from him. We actually have not submitted samples to him for three years. There was a long hiatus where he didn’t review our wines… because we don’t worry about what the critics have to say. We don’t court them. Our customers let us know when we have succeeded by buying our wine. Firstly, we begin by making wines that we truly enjoy drinking ourselves and that our customers keep coming back to buy. We’ve got to begin at that point. And if then the critics come along and give some favorable scores, then that’s great. But we don’t count on that as part of our economic engine to retail sales.

Getting back to Bordeaux, how were the wines?

EB The 2009s that I tasted were terrific, absolutely beautiful. It’s a high quality vintage. The Bordelaise haven’t yet released their pricing because they’re waiting for the Chinese to decide how much they are willing to pay for the wines this year.

So the Chinese are that important a player?

EB Well, the Chinese were everywhere on the streets of Bordeaux.

They were everywhere in Cahors as well.

EB But I do think the Bordelaise have a very beautiful vintage in 2009. And I would love to buy some, as long as they’re reasonably priced.

A last question, about climate change. Many winemakers will not associate climate change with viticultural adaptations from vintage to vintage. The human mind can no more remember the weather last week let alone last year. We’re not wired that way. But if they go through their records they can then see they irrigated a little bit more here, they were a little more aggressive with the green harvest there, or they messed around with their canopy… they can detect subtle viticultural trends if sufficient attention is given. Is there anything about Monte Bello, about Santa Cruz’s Ridge that you’d care to add?

EB The only thing that we’ve been seeing it that to get physiological ripeness we’re generally having to go to slightly higher levels of brix. So what that has done is that the average alcohol of Monte Bello through most of the history of that wine, up into the 80s, the late 80s, early 90s, was right around 12.8% alcohol. That was a pretty precise measurement. As we moved into the mid-nineties to the present, the alcohol has moved now into the 13% to 13.1% range. We haven’t seen a general trend of hotter growing seasons. What we’re seeing is a lot more weather variability, or extremes. The coldest days of Winter have become much colder. The hotter days of Summer have become much hotter. Wind comes at unusual time of the year. The weather has become much more unpredictable. This has made the grape growing a little more difficult, more challenging. There is a lot of high anxiety for us, trying to grow with these extremes.

In 2004, the earliest harvest in our history, we began picking grapes in the middle of August that year. We were out sampling, tasting. We saw that verasion came early. It was on our radar that the harvest was going to be early. For a lot of California winemakers it just didn’t register. A lot of people picked too late and produced over-ripe wine; whereas we produced beautiful wines. A different style, though. They were lighter just by the nature of an early season with heat.

So do you plan to stay where you are? (laughs)

EB Oh, absolutely! I’m a Santa Cruz native and I work at one of the first growths of North America. There is no other place to go!

Admin

Domaine Du Prince, AOC Cahors, Terroir And Quality

Admin, Ken Payton — Fri, 28 May 2010 06:03:11 +0000

Domaine du Prince is located in the south of the commune of Saint-Vincent-Rive-d’Olt. A few kilometers from the Lot River, just 15 minutes by car west of Cahors, all of its vineyards are situated atop a plateau; and as with all regional plateaux above the Lot, they share what are generally agreed to be the finest soils of AOC Cahors. Though the geochemistry is complex, a plateau’s high clay and calcareous, limestone soil blend helps maintain pH balance and improves water retention, so stabilizing a vine’s nutrient requirements, especially important in the warmer clime of these higher elevations. The wines from plateau vineyards tend to have higher acidity and, with proper canopy management, sugar and phenolic ripeness more often coincide with each harvest. The Malbec grape grown here will promise lower yields, richer aromas and firmer tannins. And should Merlot, an authorized blending grape, also be grown it, too, will share in this promise.

While in Cahors I was consistently told that the plateau terroir not only offers the greatest growing and slow ripening advantages, but that the finished wines are ‘classical’ expressions of the AOC. Though less than a third of all wine production comes from diverse plateaux vineyards, most sold under private labels, and though negociants typically buy from vineyards planted in alluvial soils, I cannot be certain that in a blind tasting I could always pick a wine from the plateau. But one wine that for me did emerge as a benchmark for what is meant by ‘classical’ is the beautiful wine Lou Prince from the Domaine du Prince.

First a bit about the family. Genealogy traces the Jouves name back to the 16th century, though a reader of old French could take it back much further. Domaine du Prince takes its name from an ancestor who while in Paris brought some wine to the King of France (another version has it the Tsar of Russia). Because he drew near the King this ancestor was nicknamed by his village the ‘Prince’. Even on official documents, on tax papers of the era, for example, the name reads Prince Jouves. The Jouves’ family has been in the wine business for generations, though they also grew cereals, vegetables and raised diverse farm livestock. It was only about 40 to 50 years ago that the vineyards of the Domaine began to be the main product; they still have cattle, sheep, and grow some cereals, but only for family use. Other farms in the area have also shifted solely to commercial wine production. This is not too surprising given that the soils are not suited for many agricultural products other than the vine, and that water for irrigation is scarce. It is to the fecund plains and valleys nearer the river that historically many farmers turned.

Domaine du Prince produces a number of different wines on their 27 hectares of which just 2 are used for Lou Prince. This chosen vineyard, roughly 38 years old, yields around 2,400 bottles, yes, bottles per year. Recent notice of this wine has led to the sober prediction that demand will far outstrip supply in the very near future. They already sell more than they produce, having to market increasingly scarce holdings of older vintages. Owners and winemakers Hélène and husband Didier Jouves, along with his brother Bruno, have limited land available to expand production that will reliably guarantee the same high quality. A small select block on the same terroir in the immediate area has been planted recently. These young vines should be productive in three to four years.

A wine producer working a single vineyard, Hélène explains to me, knows his land, knows individual vines by heart, when to harvest and, therefore, strongly senses what will be the quality of the finished wine. Drainage, cluster sensitivity to rain, disease pressures, weather patterns, all are part of the knowledge gained by experience. The continuity of historical memory becomes of decisive importance. And that is why the hectares of vineyard 30 yards away will not produce the same quality. The winemaker knows he will fool no one, he knows he will not be true to himself should he dilute the specific qualities of one vineyard with the grapes of another.

The Lou Prince vineyard yields about 30 to 35 hectoliters per hectare (roughly 730 to 950 gallons) from a maximum of 4 tons of grapes, all manually harvested. The clay soils are very deep here with among the deepest rooted vines on the property. The Lou Prince vines will suffer less during the hot summer months without rain owing to the clay’s superior retention and parsimonious release of water.
Then Didier gets at the heart of the matter with the observation that very few producers in AOC Cahors really know their own terroirs. They may have some on their property, but they don’t know how to identify or use them. The recent push by the local wine authorities for higher quality has everything to do with educating winegrowers on how to properly think their land. The Malbec Days celebration itself serves to bring into focus the importance of terroir. Hélène forcefully adds,

Hélèle Jouves “His father’s generation was just doing wine. They were not doing quality wine. They were planting vines anywhere and wherever there was room. That’s how the previous generations did things. Now the young generation is learning how to use the terroir, how to work the vineyards, in order to have good wine, even though they have been raised like the old ones. It is hard for the young to make the older generation understand what it is we are doing in the vineyard. When we are doing green harvesting, for the older generation it’s like we are throwing away wine. His father [Didier's] was sick when he saw him doing it! He didn’t even want to see the vineyards. He’d say ‘It’s impossible! How can they do that!’ Now? He’s happy to sell the Lou Prince. He knows. He can tell the difference. But most of the winemakers in the Cahors area are not at that point yet. They’re still thinking that the more wine there is, the better it is.”

And of the use of chemicals in their vineyards, Domaine du Prince pursues la lutte raisonnée approach. They grow in a windy, dry place so they don’t really need to use much. Near the river, anyplace where humidity and fog are issues, they would have to think differently. But not here. They do use sulphur, and bit of copper (cuivre) but only to save the crop. This, too, is a change from the older generation when chemicals of all stripes and strengths were used whether the vines needed it or not. They wanted to be sure and used chemicals all the time, including lots of copper. Now, if it is not needed, it is not used.

From the vineyard we drove to the winery built by the Jouves family, in recent years expanded in response to their growth. Though Lou Prince may be made in miniscule quantities, the winery as a whole produces 100,000 bottles from their combined acreage. Of these, 60,000 to 70,000 bottles are sold per year out of the winery itself. Quite good for a winery which, as Hélèle says, is in the middle of nowhere. She adds that locals know of Domaine du Prince’s reputation for high quality at competitive prices. But it is all word of mouth. They do not advertise. Their interest in the export market is to help sell the balance, some 30%. Should that prove successful, they have the capacity to produce 150,000 bottles. The extra 50,000 are virtual bottles, so to say, in that they currently sell the wine in bulk to negociants. They would prefer to put it under their own label. Should the export market show interest they most certainly will move in that direction.

Hélène Jouves “Many producers would prefer to put their wine under their own label rather than sell in bulk. Not long ago selling wine in bulk was still profitable. The price was good. Little work was required. They didn’t have to pay for the bottles. It was easy and easy to sell. You wouldn’t make a lot of money, but you could get a price for what it was worth. But now, the price is so low that you no longer earn money selling in bulk. So everybody tries to give more value to these wines by selling in bottle. Also the temptation is to overcrop which drives the prices down further. To increase the quality is the key to higher prices. But when selling in bulk it doesn’t matter the quality. The price is exactly the same for good and bad wines. One doesn’t help the other.”

I should add that their Lou Prince is what is known in the region as a Charte de Qualité wine about which I shall have more to say in a later post. Suffice to say it is a new, rigorous certification program that seeks to find the finest wines from the finest terroirs in AOC Cahors. The idea is to forcefully promote to winemakers the very real relation between quality and terroir. Each year rarely more than half the wines submitted, from the beginning a small number, meet its strict tasting protocols. Indeed, so daunting are the program’s standards that many producers decline to attempt it. Many, however, do make the attempt, thereby raising the international profile of the AOC as a whole.

In any event, Domaine du Prince offers a wide variety of wines, from a ‘bag in a box’, to the Charte de Qualité Lou Prince, and everything in between. And all but the ‘bag in a box’ are under cork. Lafite corks in the case of Lou Prince. (Cork closures are near universal in the AOC Cahors.) Though they have never had a tainted bottle of Lou Prince, TCA occasionally finds its way into other bottlings. More disturbing is the anti-cork attitude of some importers, Chinese and American principally. Some insist on screwcaps as a condition for doing business.
Back in the tasting/bottling room every effort is on display. A customer finishes his purchase. Off in one corner is a pallet of Lou Prince destined for New York. Outside I hear chickens. I am given a taste of the spectacular 2005 Lou Prince. Beautiful. Then a bottle. My spirits soar.

I met the youngest of their three children, a young boy already fascinated by the vineyard. Despite the sad fact of AOC Cahors vineyards being sold because the children refuse the patrimony, thankfully another generation of Domaine du Prince winegrowers is assured.

Admin

A Vineyard With Soul, Laurent Rigal’s Prieure De Cenac

Admin, Ken Payton — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:39:12 +0000

It sometimes happens in life that you meet a person of such spiritual dedication that you think things differently, your world-view nudged in a new direction. Such was my encounter with Laurent Rigal, son of Franck Rigal, family winemakers for Château de Grezels and Prieuré de Cenac in Parnac, AOC Cahors. On the first night of Malbec Days here in Cahors, what was called the Pré-ouverture, a kind of sneak preview, I tasted only a small number of wines, a few of which immediately caught my attention, this despite the tremendous heat inside the venue (I was told air conditioning was too expensive to install, coming in at around €10,000). Of those wines, one stuck in my imagination, ‘La Vierge’, from the Prieuré de Cenac vineyard. By virtue of a personal meander appropriate to this region dominated, as it is, by the Lot River, and the generous assistance of Jean-Marie Sigaud, I was to meet father and son the following day. A winemaker discussing their work often presents two faces, one public, a visage of commercial, more formal utterances, and the other, private, far rarer. I was fortunate to listen to the latter.

The vineyard for La Vierge is situated within 39 hectares of gently sloping hills high above the Lot River. At the top of the very highest hill is a special terroir in that it contains a 50% concentration of the most desirable soil admixture in AOC Cahors, clays, principally red, and 50% limestone. Iron, a red clay element, gives minerality and adds balance and complex aromas in the wine. The vineyard was planted on Laurent’s birthday 30 years ago, in 1979, from which the first harvest was taken in 1983. That was a very good year owing to the modest yield. The vineyard for La Vierge sees no chemicals and is all hand-picked. It is, most importantly for Laurent, biodynamic, his passion.

He began working this vineyard 7 years ago after finishing school in Bordeaux. There he learned the principles of terroir, biodynamics, the influence of the ocean on weather, and especially a respect for the land and its biodiversity. For it is biodiversity that informs the success of the grape harvest. And it is the responsibility of the winemaker to give back to the land what he takes away. All of these principles represented the broader change taking place in the entirety of the AOC.

When purchased this vineyard was already planted to the vine, but owing to its great age it was replanted with new vines, so low had the yields become. (Currently around 8,000-10,000 bottles come from the site.) It was formerly owned by a monk. The monk grew a large variety of cereals and vegetables during and after the Second World War, as well as maintaining a vineyard. Many monks sustained the local appetites and economies during this difficult time all throughout France.

Of the vintages from Prieuré de Cenac, Laurent has been responsible for 6, from 2003 forward. Of the difference between his first vintage and most recent he explains:

Laurent Rigal For the first vintage I was very excited. And very stressed! My father and grandfather set very high quality standards I had to meet. My first vintage was very hard work. I tried to make it perfect. But I felt I worked for nothing because it was a passion that drove me. Then I worked every day from early morning to mid-night, as late as two in the morning. Now I work more efficiently because working too hard on the vine and wine brings a negativity to the wine. I give the whole process more liberty and approach the harvest and vinification with greater respect, letting it develop on its own. Before I was pumping-over [remontage] 6 times a day; now I keep it at 2. It is better.

On the property there stands the monastery that, as Franck Rigal explains, the family hopes to renovate into a rooms for visitors, perhaps room enough for six. This he tells me as he drives our small car onto the steep slope to the vineyard hilltop. There is no road, but it is wide enough(!) Under brilliant sun, expansive sight lines in all directions above the broad and gentle slopes, we stop and I take in what they call mamelom, the ‘tit’ of La Vierge. But there is more to this name than a mere description. For Le Vierge means ‘virgin’, and the monk had cleared a place of quiet contemplation in the trees just a stone’s throw away. A spiritual topography begins to come into focus.

Laurent Rigal I will show you his place of quiet repose in a moment. But I want to say that here there is energy, a strong cosmic force and a telluric force. There is a concentration at La Vierge, and all around the statue is a reseau [network] that helps keep the vines in good health. There is another concentration of energy in the prieuré which serves the entire vineyard. This is very important for biodynamic viticulture because we use this energy to develop good health, to infuse the earth and the vine with life. The winemaker must learn to develop this force in the plant, the vine, and to so help reduce the quantity of chemicals.

We have three products in biodynamics: We use cow manure, and we prepare it according to Maria Thun – she is the person who developed biodynamie in France and Germany – we also produce mineral sprays for application on the vines. Two products are for developing the telluric force and one is to develop the cosmic force, to attract the light onto the vine. It is very important that you develop and focus the energy of the universe, the light. But this is rare. It is not easy to do.

So it is that the mamelom, the name of the hill, La Vierge, that of the vineyard, are descriptive elements of a kind of immaculate nursing (if I may put it that way) with the cosmos.
We then, midst a riot of bird-song, walked down the mamelom to Laurent’s place of contemplation and one of the vineyard’s power points. It was here that I took the picture of Laurent and his father, Franck. The picture of Laurent above shows him sitting at the precise power site initially discovered by the monk.

Laurent Rigal I was up this morning at 3 o’clock preparing and spraying, according to the calendar, the constellations, preparations for this vineyard! So I am a little tired today. In biodynamics there are four days: A fruit day, a leaf day, a root day, and a seed day. Today was a fruit day.
Here, at this quiet place, there is a concentration of telluric and cosmic force. Some people who visit this place feel this energy coursing through their fingers. And when you sit down, not to pray but to think, and if you are energy-friendly, then you may receive the energy.
And of the wine made here, the aromas and the taste of La Vierge, you can say the moon and the sun are in harmony. The wine is the expression of this union. We will be bringing a horse and cow to the vineyard soon; they bring good astral properties. This is a very special terroir for biodynamie. You have iron and orange clay.

Next I will show you the cave of the prieuré, but just for you. It was built by the monk. I do not often talk about these things, but you have an ambience. I can see it in the eyes when people do not want to listen.

In moments we are in the cave, the property’s second power point located beneath the main structure, the house to be renovated for guests in the fullness of time. Though I am a bit uncomfortable in doing so, I must stress that Laurent did give me permission to post the accompanying photo.

Laurent Rigal This was built by the monk, and it is in the form of the cross of Christ. I put my biodynamic preparations down here to bring into them the energy of the cave and the cross. Here I make the two products, preparations, described by Maria Thun. This one I put on the earth for an energy of concentration and recuperation…. This is a special place for me.

We head back to Cahors, the bridge where Laurent still faced the balance of the day pouring his wines. I was again to see him in the evening when, now nearly sleep-walking, he poured wines into the night, still cheerful, composed, radiating a great inner peace. I shall treasure my time with the gentleman and his father, among the finest moments of my time in the Cahors region.

Admin

The Terroirs of Domaine Le Bout Du Lieu, Cahors AOC

Admin, Ken Payton — Thu, 20 May 2010 09:42:34 +0000

In the interests of economy here may be found a kind of hybrid narrative, a compilation of a series of voices, principally that of the young winemaker Lucien Dimani, the son of Arnaldo, and my editorial contribution. Direct quotes will, however, be properly attributed. The point of this exercise is to faithfully present the Domaine Le Bout du Lieu’s precise understanding of their terroirs within the broader Cahors AOC. As underlined in a previous post, the Cahors AOC is kaleidoscopic, an assemblage of shifting elements only informed, not defined, by the proximity to the profoundly ox-bowed Lot river, vineyard orientation and canopy management, elevation, soil type, northern or southern exposure, blending percentages – if done- of Malbec (70% minimum in any case), of Merlot and Tannat, the blind luck of microclimate variations during the growing season, the skill of the vigneron and, it must be said, politics. What adds to the complexity is that all these elements are intertwined in such a way as to render nearly impossible durable regional harvest predictions or even the success of any given grower. To be a winegrower in the Cahors AOC is to daily roll the dice. Terroir has no ornamental value here. Rather, it not only frames the conversation, but it has the last word.

Preliminaries

From Cahors to Saint-Vincent-Rive-d’Olt is about 13 miles due west; not far, but the winding road adds time. The village has a population of 183, and less than 400 including the surrounding villages of Douelle, Parnac and Luzech. All along the road may be seen vineyards, many in the yards of private residences. The first village we passed through was Douelle which translates as ’stave’, as in the stave of a barrel.
Many, many years ago this was home to a number of cooperages producing barrels for the regions’ winemakers. Nowadays there are none remaining in the Lot region. They went out of business because larger cooperages outside the region offered better prices, and the barrels were made of a different kind of oak than the one locally grown. Different flavors came from oak from other areas. Local oak was a bit ‘green’. Political tensions within the Lot followed upon the choice by regional winemakers for barrels from outside the local economy. But that was 70 years ago.
Concrete tanks became rather more popular for the small to average sized winery because of the differences in the time and labor required for racking. Spent barrels would continue to be used owing to their greater micro-oxygenation proficiency, but imagine one tank verses fifty barrels: racking one tank takes two hours; racking fifty barrels takes two days.

Upon entering Luzech, past a small, well-stocked open market, we drove up a hill to a magnificent vista. It was from there that one could easily observe the alluvial to terrace, hillside to plateau terroirs, and specifically nearly all of the holdings of Le Bout du Lieu, a small part of which are on the first terrace; their larger vineyards are found on the second and third. (To clearly photograph them from the vista is another matter! A layer of fog played havoc.)

A bit about Luzech situated on what was once an island in an extreme meander of the Lot river. Years ago, before the building of dams and other water control structures, this particular stretch of the Lot was quite wild and treacherous, a tumult of powerful currents. Those traveling by boat, merchants in the main, would begin at the foot of the village and by the end of the day would have only traveled the length of the ox-bow, again arriving at Luzech at night. What took one minute to walk, was a challenging one day journey by barge. Indeed, many sailors lost their lives, so many that a little commemorative chapel was built at the end of the ‘island’ opposite Luzech. Now, the river’s flow is regulated by dams, land loss by canals, the flood events, too, are therefrom diminished.

Incidentally, from the vista point it is estimated that 15% of the total acreage under vine cultivation in the whole of the Cahors AOC may be seen. It is obvious that this AOC ought to be one of the premier wine touring destinations in all of Europe. Plans are underway to more aggressively promote exactly this. Just 50 years ago a larger percentage of the land was dedicated to a wide range of agricultural activity. Farms formerly dominated the region. Vegetables, corn, wheat, walnuts, fruits, pig, cow and sheep husbandry were the mainstays of the local economy. The vine now plays a far greater role.

Frosts remain a great threat. Even as recently as last week the cloudless night sky sent temperatures plummeting. No young shoot can take such thing. Historically, in 1956, a very late frost killed 99% of the young growth. Even with global warming frosts are a perpetual danger. Interestingly, owing to the scattered distribution of vineyards and the attendant micro-climates, damaging frosts and hails do not necessarily effect the region as a whole. Hail storms, for example, are very focussed. One vineyard may be destroyed while the neighbor’s is spared. In any event, the closer the river, the deeper the valley, so increases the risk.

With headwaters in the Pyrenees, the Lot is the greatest meandering river in all of France, with this area around Luzech having the most extreme loop. It is a tributary of the Garonne. The explanatory tile pictured above provides useful illustration.

The Terroirs

First we visit their vineyard on an alluvial terrace. Limestone and the first hints of gravel may be seen. Some say this is not a good terroir to make quality wines. Lucien is not in agreement.

Lucien Dimani “As long as you work well, you control the crop and the yield, you shouldn’t have any problem. Of course, if you want to do 8 tons an acre then here it is possible. You are close to the river. But it is something you cannot do on the second or third terraces, never mind on the plateau. The yields decline naturally the higher you go. There will not be the same quality, but here you can produce something similar. I know this because of blind tastings. I am sure some people would not believe me I tell them the wine they are drinking is from the first terrace.
These vines are from 28 to 30 years old. And this is high density for here. The number of vines in a vineyard depends where you are. If I compare it to Bordeaux it is a low density. So let’s say it is from average to high density, closer to high. There is an AOC recommended ratio, a minimum density of a vineyard, about 3000 vines per hectare. Here we have about 4500 vines per hectare. We have good results from this vineyard as long as we manage the crop and the fruit is not clustered too close together.
Trellising remains the same in all our vineyards, the same kind of canopy management. The only thing we change is sometimes the vigor management, but this bears primarily on the age of the vine and not the soil; and what wine we plan to make of these grapes. We’ll drop clusters to concentrate the flavors in the remaining grape clusters.

A lot of people are organic here, but do not always pursue certification. We have a lot of new converts as well. It has become more common. Of diseases, we have mildew and odium; but we can control them. We don’t have too much pressure. It depends on the vintage. But normally it is not something that is hard to control as long as you do your job in the vineyard. If we have to spray, we spray. If it is dry there is no reason to spray. Lutte raisonnée.

My father [Arnoldo] is the vineyard manager. He started working in the vineyard with his father when he was 6 years old. I, too, started working when I was 6 or 7, to help. A long time ago it was school and work. Now, everywhere in France there is the problem of the next generation of winegrowers. And it is even more difficult these days to find people willing to work at harvest. It’s easier in Bordeaux, but it is starting to become harder every year for hand-picking. So, 90% of the harvest is by machine, machines shared among neighbors. Here there are four properties and us. We share the harvesting machine. If tomorrow there were a law that we had to do everything by hand, no one would do it. And hand-picking is a huge cost.”

We next travelled to a second terrace vineyard.

Lucien Dimani “Here there is more gravel. This is also alluvial but with gravel. Even higher up will be found more gravel. We went a bit higher in elevation to another terroir. The root stock here is SO4. This is the oldest vineyard that we have. It is a vineyard we bought that my father took care of for 20 years. He did not plant it. He first rented it. Another, younger block is beyond the trees. This vineyard is a second terroir. There is a bigger difference between red clay and alluvial soils than between graveled and alluvial-graveled soils. Again, in blind tastings it is confusing. But if you have red clay it cannot be mistaken. Nearer the river the soils are also deeper. And the vine depth varies. Here the vines are about 8 to 10 meters down. It also depends on the vineyard density. The lower the density the roots tend to grow more horizontally.”

Then comes a higher vineyard yet, their third terroir.

Lucien Dimani “Vineyard orientation catches the maximum sun. When we do the leaf removal for air circulation and exposure we do it only on the rising sun side. Otherwise the sun will burn the fruit. Later, mid-August, when the sun is not so intense, we do the other side, but only on special plots. We only remove the leaf on the fruit; not above or below. The idea is to limit the humidity in the bunches themselves. Botrytis likes humidity. By select leaf pull we limit it. And we do de-budding when we prune. But we also do a green harvest later in the year if we have too many bunches that might become a source of disease. The fruit cluster, how tightly packed, depends on the clone. Of course, without irrigation a higher crop means lower concentration and lower quality. There is a balance between the crop and the quality. But there are limits above which the quality is not necessarily enhanced by lower yields. You may have 2 tons an acre, but if you lower the crop to 1.5 tons an acre you will find the quality will be the same in a vineyard harvesting at 2 tons. You will have lost half a ton per acre for nothing. You will have worked for nothing. It is about balance. Here in this vineyard the harvest is around 2.3 tons per acre.

This vineyard, the third terroir, sits on a small plateau. It is not strictly speaking a plateau; but we call it such because it is a flat spot on the top of a hill. The red clay is very visible. You saw the digging coming up. The surface is lighter, but if you dig it is red. The vine are between 30 and 35 years old.”

The significance of the respective soils, the terroirs overall, on the resulting wine will be explicated in a later post. For now we drove to the winery itself where I was to meet the formidable Arnaldo and his wife Monique, equal partners in all the winemaking labors. They had prepared a deep tasting of vintages and bottlings from respective terrace terroirs. A full account of this part of the visit will be written at a later date. Suffice to say for now that their hospitality and generosity was very well regarded by this traveler. I thank them. To their son, Lucien, rugby player, my narrator and teacher, and to his lovely American friend, Eileen, I, too, offer my humblest thanks for the nearly three hours they sacrificed for me.

Admin

The Terroirs Of Cahors, A Brief Primer

Admin, Ken Payton — Tue, 18 May 2010 08:05:35 +0000

A city and its people offer to the traveler the opportunity to learn as much or as little as they wish. However, for the wine writer there is much less latitude. Cahors is a demanding AOC. There can be little true understanding without the writer’s submersion into its dizzying terroirs. As noted in an earlier post, the wines of Cahors have long been welcomed at my table. Yet choice of her wines in America has long been seriously limited. So it was that I attended a Cahors tasting in San Francisco and was spiritually transported by the rich variety. Yet even then, despite my many conversations with the patient producers attending, I could not begin to guess at the terroirs expressed, the real source of the differences. Now that I am in Cahors for the Malbec Days festival, I can begin to get answers to the new questions the San Francisco tasting awakened in me. Little could I have guessed the extraordinary lesson waiting around the next turn.

Wandering the streets of old Cahors in a jet-lagged fog early Monday morning, I saw a sign pointing to the Maison du Vins de Cahors. Just across from the train station, I walked in, barged in, if you like, and began to explore the sober working space. I was directed to the main office where I was introduced to the remarkable Jean-Marie Sigaud, President of the Union Interprofessionelle du Vin de Cahors (UIVC). With the assistance translating offered by Juliette and Maxim, I enjoyed a conversation that essentially threw me into the deep end of the pool, no more so than when I was introduced to The Map, the graphic depiction of the terroirs of Cahors. The work product of many days and hands by the Geographic Institute of the University of Toulouse, The Map, pictured below, is the non-plus-ultra of a terroirist’s education.

I shall leave the explication of its complexities for a later post. But I will say that there are 9 different terroirs classified. From the four alluvial zones, also known as the terraces, to the two different types of limestone covered slopes, up to the plateau, itself of three soil varieties. Even a cursory glance at The Map below reveals the enormous combinations afforded the winemaker, all given by the Lot’s graceful meander. Much more to come…

Admin Just how many producers are expected for the event?

Jean-Marie Sigaud We expect around 400 producers.

And of those producers, will small ones be present as well?

J-M Sigaud Not all of them. Those producing under 500 hectoliters will not be present. There are about 150 producers in the AOC making below that amount.

And where are Cahors wines sold?

J-M Sigaud You have three different markets: Export, around 20%; supermarkets make up 60%; 20% direct including tasting rooms, to tourists who come directly to the Domaine, private sellers, open markets, salons in different cities…

Why is it so difficult to find Cahors’ wines in America?

J-M Sigaud (laughs) Until 4 or 5 years ago production and consumption were balanced in the local market. Now, it is that the French drink less, not only of Cahors wine but of all wines. French people are drinking less wine. So we decided to go and begin greater exports the the United States and China.

Has there been any negative feedback from the use of the word ‘Malbec’? Traditionally the grape was called Côt or Auxerrois regionally. Some traditionalists, even in the US, think that this may be principally for marketing purposes.

J-M Sigaud There are three names. Auxerrois used to be the most used name of the grape. Traditionally it was Auxerrois. And technically it is called Côt, but more generally it is now called Malbec. So if you go to Bordeaux we will talk about Malbec because they don’t know the word ‘Auxerrois’. They don’t know what it is. We use the word Malbec because it is more internationally known. Auxerrois is only known here.

Those of us who love Cahors wines get a little bit worried that the closer one steps toward the general name most closely associated with Argentina, maybe the closer will become the winemaking techniques. We worry that the wines of Cahors will get softer, easier to drink when young. We like the purity of the Cahors expression.

J-M Sigaud The Malbec of Cahors will always reflect the difference of terroir. It will never be like the Argentine. Here we have enough rain. In Argentina they have to irrigate. We have six different terroirs in the Cahors appellation. You therefore have differences in quality.

You have the river, the first terrace, second and third. Each time you go into a deep bend in the river then you have this configuration. But you don’t have this configuration on both sides. Each time the river bends you will have a cliff on one side of the river and you will have terracing on the other.

Well, that is very helpful!

J-M Sigaud The best terroir is the third terrace and the plateau, between 200 and 300 meters high. The river itself is 120 meters above sea level. Would you like to know the nature of the terroir? Where the river flows you have this rich alluvial soil, a flood plain. That’s why it’s not very good for the Cahors vines; it is too rich. And you have the terraces which are the slopes of exposed earth over time. So, you have on one side of the river a cliff and plateau; on the other, the hillside slopes, the terraces exposed by erosion, all of which are of a different soil type and composition. In addition you have the North and the South. The North receives less sun than the South, so the South is preferred.

And there is the plateau; it is of clay, red clay. There are two types, red and white. The best terroir is red clay. We have a press document, but you are here before it is ready! The AOC is 50 kilometers long; the river makes it longer! It is about 4 or 5 kilometers wide.

And that is what you came here for; to find the difference between Argentina and Cahors?

Yes and no. I want to deepen my readers’ understanding of Cahors wines because Argentina is so much more present in the marketplace. I would like to move that in another direction, to get people to taste Cahors wines. People just don’t know Cahors. And I fear, which is to say, I know, that the Cahors style, its powerful terroir expression, and wines of similar strengths, are not well represented in America. I think Robert Parker, Coca Cola, fast food, and sweets have a lot to do with it. There are many who feel as I do. We’re looking for wines of greater finesse and character, terroir wines. We’re looking for difference. The wine of Cahors, certainly for me, and I think for others, is very much that wine.

J-M Sigaud Merci. The production of good Cahors wine is between 40 and 50 hectoliters per hectare. And the vine density is about 4,500 per hectare. About 80% is Malbec, 15% Merlot, and 5% Tannat.

And the rootstock of the vines?

J-M Sigaud In the ’70s the rootstock was SO4, and in the ’80s we had a lot of Riparia, 3309 and 41B, with a little bit of Richter [110]. And since the year 2000 we’ve used Fercal on the limestone soils of the plateau. Each producer had to take the good rootstock depending on where he was situated. It really depends on each parcel.

The harvest is around October 1st. And the harvesting degree will be between 12.5% to more than 14% of alcohol. Of course, you’ll have higher alcohol on the south side. Then you have the savoir-faire of the winemaker. The grapes will be mature, more or less, between the 1st and the 15th of October. Each producer has to decide when he wants to harvest. The more he waits, the greater the alcohol. In Cahors, despite the alcohol level, the biggest difference is the terroir in which the vines grow. Machine harvesting is done over 90% of the area with the best wines harvested by hand. Some of the producers even select individual grapes. At least one of them!

Does the Merlot mature at the same time as the Malbec?

J-M Sigaud Tannat after, Merlot a little bit before; three passes through the vineyard. The rootstock has an influence on the ripening.

I was then generously invited to lunch, but not before I laid eyes on an extraordinary map pictured above. The product of the Geographic Institute of the University of Toulouse, it is an extremely fine hand-painted representation of Cahors’ diversity. It is clear to see, once the geological principles are grasped, that Cahors AOC wines have an infinite number of expressive possibilities.
And while at lunch Jean-Marie Sigaud selected three wines from the restaurant menu, each to show how these elements bear upon the black wine in the glass, in this instance the terraces to plateau. Each of the wines, grown very near one another as the crow flies , was from an increasingly high elevation: Chateau Gaudou, Chateau Nozières, and Clos Troteligotte respectively. Though all three were very good, it was the last, Clos Troteligotte, made by the Christian Rybinski, that possessed the greatest electricity and finesse. It is from a plateau terroir, and continues a family tradition.

The conversation continued over lunch:

Do you enjoy your work as president of UIVC?

J-M Sigaud (laughs) It is a passion. The wine makes me crazy because it is such a passion, such a love for the wine. I don’t want to leave.

Are you elected to your position?

J-M Sigaud I’ve been president for 23 years, elected by the winemakers. In 2013 I will likely be leaving my position. But I am really not sure.

Well, it’s a very important time for Cahors wine. Surely they need a steady, experienced hand.

J-M Sigaud The most important thing is to meet a lot of winemakers because they all have a lot of differences between themselves. My politics is based on difference; it is difference that makes exemplary the culture of Cahors wine. Eighty percent of our winemakers are independent and 20% are in the cooperative. That is why we can have such different wines. One thing to remember is that when speaking to winemakers be sure to get your terroirs straight! (laughs) Especially for me.

Nowadays viticultural consultants speak only about the facts as they see them. To speak about terroir is not important to them. Nobody is interested in that! You are the first one to come here and ask to learn about our terroirs. (laughs)

The world has gone crazy!

J-M Sigaud Yes! You can’t speak about wine if you can’t speak about terroir. For many a wine is only a cépage and not a terroir. But here there is a new trend. Producers in Cahors want to underline the point that terroir is very important. Until now it was considered only a second thing, not the most important. Now it is both a cépage and a terroir.

Are négociants as interested in terroir here?

J-M Sigaud Yes, completely. The négociant makes a selection of different wines considering their terroirs. And they put the individual terroir on the label of the bottle. It’s a part of their communication with the public. Here it is very important.
A last word about these wines, [the ones we were drinking at lunch]. The basic principle is this: The further we leave the river, the better the terroir.

To make wine is a very personal thing. Each wine is like a portrait of a producer and his vineyard. The winemakers you want to meet here are those who while doing their job live for their passion.

END

Specific details of the multiple terroirs to come. But first I must enjoy my dessert.

Admin