My old friend Tom Hyland is an accomplished wine writer, photographer and wine educator. He also is one of the most insightful writers on the wines of Italy and in particular the great wines of Piemonte. Unbeliveably he did not have a blog, but finanlly Tom has entered the blogosphere with his Reflections on Wine Blog. Having known Tom for more than two decades I can assure you it will be well worth reading. You'll find Tom's new blog at the link below.
In 1964 the Beatles released Meet the Beatles in the United States, the first Ford Mustang was produced, Lyndon Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater for President and the grapes for the 1964 Gran Reserva Rioja of FaustinoI were harvested. They made 219,500 bottles and I drank one last night. I can’t help but be struck by history when I taste older wines. By the way, I just turned nine a month before they picked these grapes, which means I’m becoming part of history too.
To experience these wines is to touch a piece of history as no one makes wines in the same way anymore. Too much science has entered both the winery and vineyard and that’s a good thing. The great thing about an old Rioja Grand Reserva is that they were only produced from the best vintages and from the best wines, which means that you won’t find the faults you often see in older wines from lesser years and pedigrees. A wine like this lets you reach out to winemakers of the past and be touched by the way they thought.
The 64 Faustino Gran Reserva shows not a trace of cassis, raspberries, new oak or alcohol. Part of that is its age, but I’m willing to bet it never showed any of those things. Years in barrels (old) and bottle before release assured there was no baby fat on this wine when it was deemed ready for sale. The winery did the maturing for you.
The most striking thing about such wines are the aromatics. It is almost (almost) anti-climatic to taste them. The other is the finish, which is long and haunting. They are wines that invite you to think. Think about not only the way they taste and smell, but about the people and times in which they were born.
There is no such thing as great young wine. Very good, very enjoyable ones yes, but great ones no. Young wines only have the potential to be great. Drinking young wine all the time deadens the palate making it only sensitive to power and fruit. In today’s hedonistic market driven by immediate pleasures most of the greatest wines are consumed before they actually become great. It’s a terrible waste as today’s wines could be the best ever made and, in addition, never have there been so many wonderful wines designed to be drunk young. More often then not, these “lesser” wines are more pleasurable to drink in their youth than more distinguished and pricy bottles.
For every wine there is a season, connoisseurs should be able to pick the proper season to drink wines made to age. Now we give potentially great, age-worthy (age-necessary) wines points at birth and that defines them forever. It is more important how a Bordeaux or Barolo tastes at two than how it tastes at twelve. That is obviously half-ass backwards. There are wonderful wines for drinking young and grand wines that don’t achieve their regal stature for years. Trying to make those wines ready to drink upon release denies their true potential. It is silly to think that a wine can become instantly profound. Like the people that make them, few wines become become complex as adolescents.
It would be depressing to think you achieved your intellectual peak at thirteen. Why do the same thing to the world’s finest wines.
They said it couldn’t be done. Yet it is being done. California is emerging from the excesses of the previous decades (who isn’t) and presenting a leaner, meaner attitude in their wines. By lean and mean I mean acidity and a glorious lack of residual sugar. Perhaps Pilates is good for all types of fat.
Just today I had two crisp, mineraly and very dry white wines from California and they were as good examples of the genre as you’ll find anywhere.
Facing down a half dozen pristine oysters the 2006 Brander Sauvignon Blanc Natural from Santa Ynez was master of its domaine. It was clean and fresh as you could want, yet the Brander was not that simple cat pee punch produced in New Zealand as on top of that zest was a lovely touch of honeydew melon and ripe pears. Brander Natural is a rare example of a new world sauvignon blanc that can actually challenge Sancerre or Pouilly Fume for both guts and glory.
More difficult to find, but well worth the search is the 2007 Pey- Marin, The Shell Mound, Riesling from chilly Marin County. Here’s a high strung dry riesling that is not a bad copy of Alsace, but an interesting wine in its own right. Like the Brander, on top of all the structure and bite is a deliciously ripe fruitiness that belongs only to California. At only 11.8% alcohol it hits some of those high notes you thought only German riesling could hit.
There used to be a line that could not be crossed in California without wines being branded as thin. Thankfully those days seem to be gone as producers like Pey Marin and Brander produce lean, mean fighting machines such as these.
I happened to finish two things about the same time last week. The first Wine Bloggers Conference and a book, The Billionaire’s Vinegar. This was perhaps a coincidence as I did not find time to read a word at the conference. Drinking trumped reading in Santa Rosa that weekend, but I finished the book a few days later. It’s hard to think of a greater contrast between the event I attended and the events and people in the book.
The Wine Bloggers Conference was defined by an almost innocent enthusiasm and love for wine, while The Billionaire’s Vinegar represents The Dark Side of wine. You cannot be help but be stuck by the ugly greed, arrogance and ignorance of the wealthy posers chasing “great wine” in this book. It’s one of those plots were there is no protagonist, they’re all bad guys. I highly recommend this book as it’s a great story based around the excesses and greed of big time collectors who were sold faked old wines and were just too greedy and had such massive egos they couldn’t taste the obvious.
One thing this book proves is that we are all too human in our abilities and no one can escape the trap of letting labels affect our perceptions. I’ll be the first to admit if someone told me I was getting a glass of 1787 Lafite purchased by Thomas Jefferson my esthetic distance would be right out the window. The trouble with the arrogant bastards in this book is that they thought that their palates were so great they could rise above human frailty. I can only guess they got stupid after they made their money, not before. The tacky glitz, excess and greed surrounding the elaborate tasting events described in the book cannot be overstated. What is perhaps most disconcerting is the attendance at these events of those that consider themselves wine “journalists” Certainly, attending such extravagant events gratis would not be acceptable under even the loosest code of journalistic ethics. It was clear to these writers that they would not be invited back if they offered even a hint of criticism in their reports. Rave reviews were the price of next year’s admission and they were always invited back. It’s hard to be critical after enough foie gras and caviar.
The recent first ever Wine Bloggers Conference in America (there was one a few months before in Europe) painted a very different picture. The jaded arrogance that blinds so many established wine writers these days was replaced by the refreshing enthusiasm of the wine bloggers that descended on the Flamenco Hotel in Santa Rosa. Surrounded by the beauty and wonderful wines of Sonoma over 150 new media wine writers gathered to explore their emerging genre. The energy brought to my mind Gracie Slick and the Jefferson Airplane welcoming the dawn at Woodstock, “It’s a new dawn…” said Gracie before the band roared into that hippie political anthem, Volunteers.
Every blogger that attended was there on their own dime as no one is make a living from wine blogging yet. Everyone was there because of their passion for wine. They are truly volunteers and the generous spirit of this group stuck out starkly to the outrageously expensive, competitive and ego driven wine world documented in The Billionaire’s Vinegar.
While there are many wonderful examples of wine bloggers making a difference I can’t help to pick out Deb Harkness, better known as Dr. Debs, who has created a blog called Good Wines Under $20. For what I hope are obvious reasons I won’t describe what Deb’s blog is about. Deb’s day job is as a college professor, but by night she’s a consumer activist seeking out great wines at great prices for her readers. Yet what is even more impressive about her is her deep commitment to a personal standard of ethics. While most mainstream wine writers are mostly concerned about what others will think of them when it comes to ethics, Dr. Debs, and many bloggers like her are concerned what they think of themselves. Their ethics are in their hearts. They’re not in it for the money or glamour tastings, but out of a sincere love of food and wine. At the end of the day only self respect and personal pride can make ethics a reality. Deb and many bloggers like her are setting a new standard.
I’m well aware that I was one of the old guys at the Wine Bloggers Conference and most of my compatriots there were well under forty, but the energy and spirit there reminded me of an earlier time, before when some of them were born, when we thought we could change the world. The conference gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, that the pointy world of wine writing today can be brought down. Power to the bloggers.
It’s a new dawn for wine writing. Good morning people.
The wrong Acorn has been in the news lately. The tiny Sonoma winery called Acorn was news to me as I tasted the wines for the first time at the first (annual we hope) Wine Bloggers Conference held in Santa Rosa last weekend. Betsy and Bill Nachbaur’s Acorn Winery is very good news indeed.
In a California wine world dominated by squeaky clean, but personality-free wines, the wines of Acorn are packed with personality. Producing wines exclusively from their estate vineyard in the Russian River they once again challenge conventional wisdom on so called “warm” climate varieties. In the cool Russian River Valley, which is known for its pinot noir, the Acorn Vineyard is planted with syrah, zinfandel, sangiovese, petite sirah and other varieties that aren’t usually associated with pinot territory. It seems zinfandel and syrah like a little fog too.
Acorn is doing some things that seem cutting edge in the new world, but actually go back to the very first wines. They are co-fermenting field blends instead of picking and fermenting each variety separately. There is no doubt that varieties that are co-fermented together have different characteristics than a wine made from those same varieties made separately then blended. The chemistry that takes place during co-fermentation is just different.
For example, their 2005 Heritage Vines Zinfandel (1005 cases) is 78% zinfandel, 10% alicante bouschet, 10% petite syrah and the remaining 2% includes carignane, trousseau, sangiovese, petit bouschet, negrette, syrah, muscat noir, cinsault and grenache. All of these varieties were harvested and fermented together. The wine is rich, but with a firm backbone of tannin and acid and loaded with layers of flavors and aromas like coffee, chocolate, porcini and deep ripe blackberries. The 2005 Sangiovese (1022 cases) is easily one of the most interesting New World examples of this variety I’ve tasted. Produced from 98% sangiovese (7 different clones), 1 % canaiolo and 1% mammolo, which is a blend I wish more Tuscan wineries would use instead of overwhelming their sangiovese with the strong varietal character of cabernet sauvignon. This is a decidedly robust, California style wine, but like their Zinfandel it has the zesty backbone to carry the heft. It is interesting to note that while these wines come from an Acorn they are blessedly not over-oaked. They are also not overpriced running around $30 a bottle.
All of the Acorn wines have just the right touch of what I call a rustic character. While being very well made they have just a bit of wildness or sauvage, as the French call it. Rustic does not mean brett or other wine faults, but means that the character of the varieties and vineyard really show through in the wine and are not polished away leaving only artificially gleaming simple fruit flavors. With this edge of wildness, the wines of Acorn are not only delicious, but interesting, which is just the way I like them.
Acorn may be small, but they’re making some mighty fine wines.
Often when you think of Napa and Sonoma, the big corporate winery showcases come to mind. Palatial wineries costing tens of millions of dollars surrounded by gardens that compete with Versailles and gourmet kitchens better equipped than three star Michelin restaurants. Yet some of California’s most exciting wines are not being made in such wine palaces.
Working in leased space, crammed in with other small producers sharing space and equipment, some young winemakers are making a dramatic new generation of California wines. Some of the most compelling wines I tasted during a visit to Sonoma last weekend were some bottlings of syrah produced by some low tech, but high passion winemakers. I say this is a new generation because these are not the huge raspberry fruit bomb syrahs with little varietal character you have come to expect from California. These are big wines, just as they should be, but layered in with all that fruit was real complexity as they exhibited that earthy, butcher shop character that defines the finest wines from this variety.
Morgon Peterson at Bedrock Wine Company is crafting some of the most fascinating American wines I’ve tasted in some time. He’s making a tremendous range of single vineyard syrahs and a dramatic sauvignon blanc/semillon blend. Neighbor Phillip Staehle is making some compelling wines under the Enkidu label. His Odyssey Russian River Syrah is proof positive that the best syrah is made in cooler climates than conventional wisdom has called for in the past.
In the picture above, Peterson presses wines using a muscle powered basket press. Yes, he really makes wine that way. There’s a growing group of young winemakers in California who are well educated not only on winemaking science, but on the traditions that made European wines the standard for greatness in the past. They are on the cutting edge of California winemaking not because of their use of the latest technologies, but by their return to the methods of the past. They are making textured, complex wines that don’t bury the characteristics of the variety under excess and manipulations, but that proudly and clearly show their California personality. For me, these wines were nothing short of exciting. As you might expect, very little wine is produced at wineries such as these. I’d suggest you get on the mailing list now.
The growing sense of optimism over the 2008 vintage in Oregon has spilled over the edge of the fermenter into outright excitement. Veteran winemakers throughout the Willamette Valley are letting their enthusiasm for this vintage show now that almost all their fruit is harvested. Here are some comments on the 2008 vintage from some of Oregon’s most important winemakers.
Brian O’Donnell owner and winemaker of the one of Oregon’s finest estates Belle Pente describes 2008 this way, “In terms of my impression of the harvest, I’m really excited! We brought in 10 tons October 1st that is now done, and these are some of the most delicious young wines I’ve ever tasted! The chemistry on the stuff we picked later is a little bizarre, but with a few tweaks it should be fine….we’re planning to let fermentation run a little hotter than normal and do longer than normal post-fermentation maceration to try and “burn” some of the obvious fruitiness out of the wines to let the site characteristics show thru better. But frankly, I think we’ve got a tiger by the tail, and she’s wild and sassy and will take a lot of good (and lucky) winemaking decisions to get the best out of her.”
Few growers and winemakers have the depth of experience possessed by David Adelsheim one of the true founders and pioneers of the Oregon wine industry. About this vintage he comments, “Another weird year. Three weeks late, rain in July and August, and still we saw the beginnings of drought stress in some sites. We starting picking on Sep 29th and finished this past week on Oct 18th. A third of our Pinot noir was picked by Oct 3rd; during the next 10 days (which were damp) we picked only a few lots of white grapes; everything else was picked in the final six hectic days. And the quality is looking pretty grand. It will need to be – our crop levels were off by 30% compared to 2007”
Jerry Murray winemaker and vineyard manager of highly regarded Patton Valley Vineyards says of 2008, “The harvest has looked great. We pulled in the last of our fruit yesterday. Considering the way the season started out, late bud break and all, mother nature has given us exactly what we needed to not just to avoid a disaster but to really ripen fruit in a way that should make some amazing wines, true pinot. The chemistry of the grapes has been just about perfect, great acidity, moderate alcohol, great color and phenolic development. As a winemaker you hope for this sort of vintage every year but I would be surprised if you get more than a handful in a lifetime. All that is left is to see the quality through to bottle. It is very exciting.”
Top: Vines at the Belle Pente estate vineyard change color. Below: Harvest in Tony Soter’s Mineral Springs Vineyard
Experienced Oregon winemakers are quietly enthused about the potential of the 2008 vintage. Winemakers are rightfully conservative in their assessment of a vintage at this point in time because you never really can be sure about the quality of a wine until it’s actually wine. However, with experience winemakers obviously develop a pretty good idea of what to expect. Those expectations are starting to sound quite high for 2008.
Laurent Montalieu is one of the Willamette Valley’s most experienced winemakers. A veteran of Willakenzie Estate, today Montalieu owns Solena Cellars, the Northwest Wine Company and his newest venture, the ultra-premium custom crush winery Grand Cru Estates. Montalieu, pictured here (left) sampling a vineyard with winemaking consultant Tony Rynders, who is also winemaker at the new Grand Cru estates, has one of the widest experiences with the full range of Willamette Valley vineyards as his Northwest Wine Company deals with vineyards located throughout the Valley. Montalieu comments about this vintage, “The beautiful Indian summer has saved us one more time… essentially right now I am looking at hanging the balance of our fruit as late as possible….. if the fruit is not getting worse it has to be getting better…. So far the ferments have shown great purity of the aromatics and the extraction level will be quite structured .We are in for a treat of a vintage, remember 1999?”
Winemaker Scott Wright, owner of Scott Paul Cellars, also has a great depth of experience with Oregon vintages. Before founding his own winery, Scott was general manager of Domaine Drouhin Oregon. Wright says of the 2008 vintage so far, “We’ve been very happy with the quality of the fruit we’ve brought in so far – very clean and healthy, excellent flavors, really nice pH & acids – potential alcohols in the low 13s – exactly what we’re looking for. Yields have been on the low side – averaging about 1.5 tons per acre so far. We’ve got about 2/3 of our fruit in now, and will likely finish up today and tomorrow. The potential is there for a really nice vintage!”
Superstar winemaking consultant Tony Rynders (pictured above, right) had a decade knocking out one 90+ rated wine after another as winemaker at Domaine Serene before launching his own consulting company and taking on winemaking duties at Grand Cru Estates. On the 2008 vintage Rynders notes, “Harvest 2008 is well underway in the Willamette Valley. We have remained about 10 days behind in ripening based on the last ten years. But is actual fact, we are right at our long term average for harvest timing. After a little rain at the beginning of the month, we have had a nice stretch of weather for the last 12 days. Flavors have come on strong and the sugars are very reasonable. This latest weather development has been critical for flavor development and phenolic maturity. The cold soaks are showing beautiful color. The wines are going to be very pretty with excellent balance. We are about 60% complete with another 20% due in the next three days.”
You are hearing similar comments from winemakers throughout the Willamette Valley. The potential is there for a very special vintage in the classic Oregon style, which emphasizes balance, structure, aromatics and elegance with moderate alcohol levels. I’m looking forward to drinking these wines.
Pictured below, a picker in Tony Soter’s Mineral Springs Vineyard.
While the quiz reveals the Democrats to be more liberal in their drinking habits, the same cannot be said of the Republicans, McCain and Palin drink very rarely.
Oregon's grape harvest continued today in perfect, cool weather. In Tony Soter's outstanding Mineral Springs Vineyard (pictured here) in the Yamhill Carlton AVA they decided to put in the extra time needed to harvest the entire vineyard today as the fruit was in perfect condition and rain is forecasted over the next several days. Most of this vineyard is planted in a unique clone of pinot noir discovered and then propagated by Soter from an old vineyard in California. It has no name at this time and Mineral Springs is the only vineyard anywhere planted with this clone. As it is yet formally named, I'll call it the Soter Clone. This combination of distinctive terroir with a unique massal clone makes this one of the most exciting vineyards in Oregon.
Oregon’s 2008 grape harvest is now in full swing as growers try to beat the sure to come rains and the already arrived birds. The week started with about 30% of the fruit in the valley picked and by the end of this week a majority of the vineyards will be harvested. At this point, the birds may be the biggest threat as massive flocks can devastate a vineyard in a day. In my opinion, this will be a very good vintage for those that did not harvest too early as the grapes have been gaining flavor, if not much sugar, over the last week of lovely, dry and cool, but sunny weather. With showers due later in the week and the migratory birds already arrived, most growers are harvesting as fast as they can at this point. Pinot noir from good sites is coming in fully ripe with good flavors and lab statistics that promise some exciting wines. For the second year in a row, Mother Nature is forcing Oregon’s winemakers to back away from the excessive extract and alcohols too many had started to strive for as they sought high scores from wine writers. The 2008’s should show good balance in an elegant style with moderate alcohols, which, after all, is why people came to Oregon to grow pinot noir in the first place.
Pictured above, winemaking and vineyard consultant Tony Rynders, formerly of Domaine Serene, takes pinot noir samples for analysis from Elvenglade Vineyards near Gaston.
Lots of (most) wineries pretend to have harvest blogs, but just put up PR platitudes without really telling the personal, compelling story of the harvest. One of my favorite Oregon wineries Scott Paul has an excellent harvest blog going authored by owner Scott Wright. Check it out at the link below to get a feeling of what it’s like to go through a harvest in Oregon at the link below:
David Lett, pioneer and father of the Oregon wine industry passed away yesterday. He will be mourned by the entire winemaking community here. Below is the announcement from Jason Lett, his son and winemaker at Eyrie Vineyards, which David founded in 1966:
The Lett family regrets to announce that David Lett passed away yesterday evening. He died peacefully at home, surrounded by his family. We are deeply appreciative of the support of our colleagues and friends at this time. We welcome your notes of condolence - David loved to reach out to people and to connect, and we hope you'll feel free to do the same.
David cared deeply for the land and for his family. In lieu of flowers or gifts, David's legacy can be memorialized through gifts to 1000 Friends of Oregon or to Families United, a non-profit that supports assisted living for adults with special needs.
A celebration of David's life will be held, as he would have wished, AFTER harvest.
I know, I don't believe it either. Yet here I am writing positive notes about an American chardonnay. It's hard to think of a more boring category than American chardonnay, which tends to fall into two groups. One is cheap and sweet and the other is expensive and, well, sweet and oaky. In my opinion the only areas really producing interesting chardonnay year in and out are Chablis for top quality wines and Macon for value. There are wonderful wines produced from this variety in the Cote de Beaune and many New World wine regions, but they tend to be the exception to the rule.
I tasted one of those exceptions with a ridiculously rich home-made chicken pot pie last weekend. The 2004 Chardonnay Dijon Clones, Willamette Valley, Côte Sud Vineyard from Domaine Serene is an excellent chardonnay. I never tasted this wine in its youth, but it has matured into a beautiful chardonnay that integrates richness with a firm backbone that is perfectly overlaid with smoky vanillin from the oak. What pulls this wine together is the hard minerality and firm acidity that keep this this wine from falling into this variety's tendency towards flabby sweetness. Former Domaine Serene winemaker Tony Rynders definitely had the right touch with this chardonnay.
I am not intentionally, anymore anyway, part of the ABC (anything but chardonnay) crowd. However, as I think about it I realize I never even look at the chardonnay sections as I run my finger through a wine list. This has happened over the years as chardonnay began to bore me more-and-more and other white wines, particularly riesling, excited me more-and-more. Oddly enough, many rieslings I love and chardonnays I don't have similar residual sugar levels. However, what divides them are the very dissimilar pH levels. Sugar without acid just doesn't work unless it's for the wine-by-the-glass program at Fridays.
Oregon's grape harvest continued today in perfect, cool weather. In Tony Soter's outstanding 
David Lett