My Pick for the Year's Best Wine Book

I thought I'd take a moment since we're at year's end/beginning to highlight my favorite wine book from last year, Matt Kramer's New California Wine: Making Sense of Napa Valley, Sonoma, Central Coast, and Beyond. I first picked this book up in I believe late January last year, and I don't think that I've set it down since.

What makes Kramer's book different from the scores of other California Wine books that are available? The pimary difference is that rather than simply offering page after page of endless tasting notes, Kramer's book educates the reader. Karmer sets the tone with his entertaining first section (around 50 pages in all) entitled "Thinking California". Not a history in the traditional sense of the world, Kramer contrasts the California winemaking mindset with that of Europe, tracing the overall mentality from the industrial wineries of the past to today's cult wines.

Kramer then takes the reader through each of California's major wine regions. He looks at each region as terroir unto itself and is refreshingly frank in telling the reader whether or not this approach can be justified or not with regards to each region. In some cases, Kramer willingly admits that the region in question is merely a geographic deignation with wines of no particular distinguishing characteristics. When it is justified, Kramer takes a closer look at wines of more refinement. In addition, Kramer profiles the finest wineries, putting them of course in the context of the terroir in which they produce wine.

Overall, Kramer's New California Wine is a must-have for any serious wine lover and is written with his classic, amusing, accesible words that have made him one of America's favorite wine writers.

End the year with a boom ... or rather a Zoom!

A new year and a new winery for AVA Wine. I'd like to highlight this week the impressive and fairly priced (perhaps unfairly priced - for the winery - considering the quailty) of Zoom Vineyards. Zoom Vineyards is run by the two-headed monster of Matt Hughes who you may know from Verite, the ultra-premium Lake County affiliate of Kendall-Jackson and Christian Hackshaw, founder of Demeter Vineyards. While the winery itself concentrates on pure, small-lot Zinfandel from Lake County, I must say that a recent tasting of their 2002 Zinfandel from San Francisco Bay/Contra Costa County caught my eye, or rather my palate.

The 2002 Zinfandel, San Francisco Bay is one of the finest Zins I have tasted. It weighs in at 14.9% alcohol, but is not heavy on the palate, nor is its aromatic profile alcoholic, nor is its finish "hot". (A "hot" finish is one that tastes excessively of alcohol, perhaps reminiscent of terpentine, a common criticism of overly modern-styled wines - see my previous post for my thoughts on the subject.) This wine shows amazing restraint - and the price is tremendous for the quality of the wine, but in order to understand why, a bit of viticultural history is required. My continuous mantra through these blog entries is that a greater understanding of the individual wine leads to greater pleasure of the wine...

Old Vines
Old Vines are the key to this wine. There are arguments back and forth between old-world, old-school producers and modernists, but the proverbial thorn in the side of the modernists is that, quite simply, over the course of time the human race improves and learns. Wines from the prominent European viticultural areas do have an advantage, whether we Americans would like to admit or not: trial and error over the course of ten centuries has certain advantages to what is essentailly the cottage wine industry in California. Monks during the Crusades already knew the finest locations to grow vines. It's reasonable to think that in the forty years of the rebirth of the California wine industry, that they have learned less about the best-situated vineyards than Europeans have over many centuries. (This is not to say that they have not learned more rapidly, probably much more rapidly than any of the world's major viticultural regions how to do it right and fast.) Given this amazing head start of many hundreds of years, almost any other deprivement should have put the California wine industry irreperably behind, right? The fact that it didn't, is as a amazing as the story of the United States of America itself.

So what was the straw that somehow didn't break the camel's back? In 1919, 46 of 48 states ratified the Volstead Act making it unlawful to manufacture, transport or sell alcohol anywhere in the United States. Prohibition entered the constitution as Amendment 18 on January 16, 1920, and the California wine industry suddenly faced something more challenging than the head start that Europe had gained through centuries of expermientation. There were a little over seven hundred wineries in the budding California wine industry; by the end, it had almost dwindled to nothing. Many farmers ripped up their vines and planted other more lucrative, that is, legal crops that could be manufactured, transported and sold like any other agricultural commodity. The vines disappeared daily...

Of course prohibition was later repealed thanks the passage of the 21st amendment. There were obviosuly many long term effects, some of which I hope to discuss in future entries, but for now, I'd like to isolate the importance one factor in particular - that of the age of the vines.

The casual wine drinker may be unaware as to how important many seemingly insignificant factors are to producing top quality wines. Vine age is particularly poignant when considering the 2002 Zinfandel San Francisco Bay of Zoom Vineyards. In the 1920's, when nearly every vineyard was ripped up in California, it almost signalled the end to wine in America as we know it. Luckily a few vineyards and wineries perservered. While the French had their own problems (a vine pest named phyloxerra that destroyed most all their vines in the late 1800's), when prohibition was repealed in 1933, most French vines were already nearly 50 years old. In California, the wineries that gave it go following prohibition were forced to begin again, and the French now had an additional forty year lead. But why does it matter?

Old vines do something special. The longer a vine lives, the deeper it works itself into the soil. It can more easily reach water reserves far beneath the soil'd surface horizon and their more extensive network of vines has a greater area exposed to the soil, offering more outlets to seek nutrients from the earth. All other things being equal, old vines have the best chance of creating world-class wine.

Luckily, a small handful of vineyards continued through Prohibition. One of these was the Continente Family Vineyard in Contra Costa County. This is where we find the vines for the 2002 San Francisco Bay Zinfandel of Zoom Vineyards. The vines are 106 years old! I can think of only a handful of European vineyards whose vines exceed the century-mark in age: in the Unoted States, where five and ten year old vines are the norm, vines of this age are almost never seen!

So the 2002 Zooom Zin SF Bay is, despite it's youthful creators, a dinosaur of sorts, a beckon to the old days of California wine. Wines who siphon over 100 years of natural goodness directly into their grapes.

My notes, show that the wine is not overwhelming in spite of it's elevated alcohol (although in the grand scheme of things - under 15% is not all that high for powerhouse red Zins). The nose reminds me at first, not of Claifornia Zin, but of a complex, traditionally made Eurpoean wine, likely of Mediterranean climate. Its expressive, chocolately nose hints more of a top-shelf Italian wine - Brunello di Montalcino comes to mind - than California. The wine does not smack you in the face; in fact, it is rather subtle all said and done, and truth be told, it is quite intellectual, with each sip offering something new, than most every Zin on the market. The palate is so smooth, and finishes with a mouth-puckering note of tannin that will work perfectly with your braised red meats when it's cold, or your grilled steaks and burgers this summer. The rasin-filled palate has the weet, bitter and sour flavors of that dried dark fruit that hits and appeals all parts of the palate. The raspeberry highlights only a enhance the wine that develops and reveals itself in waves as it opens in the glass. What a beautiful wine! It's amazing what old vines can do...

I think Miles was wrong...for some

The movie Sideways made Pinot Noir popular and Merlot passe. Everyone remembers Miles' now famous proclamation, "I am not drinking ******* Merlot! If anyone orders Merlot, I'm leaving!" As a Pinotphile myself, I understand where he's coming from. At the same time, the fact that sales of Pinot Noir are up 120% over the past two years gives me pause. As someone who has sold millions of dollars worth of Pinot Noir over the years, I can tell you this - I expect the sales to slow up in a hurry. If I were starting my own winery in California today, I wouldn't plant Pinot Noir. Let me tell you why.

First there are the basics - Pinot Noir is hard to grow. Pinot Noir is completeley different from Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot or Shiraz. These wines derive their dense, purple hues from the thick skins of those grapes. The thick skins protect the wines from many harmful natural factors such as intense sunlight. The skin of Pinot Noir is usually quite thin. (A corollary of the thickness or lack thereof of the skin is that Pinot Noir is usually lighter in color.) Because the skin is not as thick as that of other red grapes, Pinot Noir is more likely to be damaged by natural elements and also highly susceptible to rot! Rot in your wine is bad! It tastes horrible. When Cabernet for instance is underripe, there is a vegetal green bean character that develops. I'd take a vegetal Cab over a rotten Pinot noir any day! If you don't believe me, try a bad 1983 Burgundy: then you'll understand why really quickly.

Because it's difficult to grow, and requires enormous attention, something of which I am largely incapable (I am mre the visionary-type than detail-oriented), Pinot Noir and I would be a bad mix. But that's not the real reason: the real reason is that, despite the current trendiness of Pinot Noir, I think most casual wine drinkers enjoy Merlot more than Pinot Noir, unless the Pinot Noir is made poorly (more on this below).

Because of the skin differential, the wines are fundamentally different. Cabernet, Merlot and Shiraz age because of tannins. That is because tannins come (largely) from the skins of the grapes. Since Pinot Noir has substantially thinner skin, Pinot Noir doesn't age due to tannic structure. Pinot Noir actually ages due to acidity, or rather the balance of acidity and fruit. Whereas Merlot and its kin age because of the mouth-puckering tannin, Pinot Noir titilates the palate with mouthwatering acidity, much like most (non-sweet) white wines. Pinot Noir is a white wine in red wine clothing. And I don't think that's what most casual wine drinkers want in their wine. It's what I want, but what I want won't necessarily bring you enjoyment.

So we have a problem, as W. Blake Gray's recent SF Chronicle article discusses. Instead of making Pinot Noir the way they should make it, many California winemakers just leave the grapes hang on the vine longer to thicken the skins. It doesn't matter to them that in the first place, Pinot Noir is a cooler-climate grape and shouldn't be planted in 80% of the California vineyards in which it is found.

So we are left with one of three possibilities:

1) Until the Pinot Noir craze dies down (something I instinctively feel is already happening), people will continue wines that they don't like to be trendy.

2) Many winemakers will continue to try as hard as they can to make Pinot Noir taste like Merlot, Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon to cater to the latest trends, thus deceiving consumers into thinking they have developed a taste for Pinot Noir, when, in reality, they haven't yet learned the beauty of real Pinot Noir, that is, Pinot Noir that is graceful, light in color, svelte and equilibriously acidic.

3) The Pinot Noir craze will die of necessity, when most people realize that they prefer supple, fruit-forward Merlot to the vibrant, levity of Pinot Noir.

I can only hope as a true Pinotphile that three is the case. It will allow wineries such as Hunter Hill Winery and Adastra Vineyards to continue making Pinot Noir the way it should be made, from cooler climate sites (the Sonoma Coast and Los Carneros respectively). Although our visits to these wineries convince me that in spite of any trends in any direction, niether winery would budge from their current modus opperandi. That's why AVA Wine is proud to bring them to you. The goal here is to find representative exmaples of each of California's many AVA's (American Viticultural Areas), and in Hunetr Hill Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir and Adastra Los Carneros Pinot Noir, you have two fine examples of this. You can drink either one of these and say to yourself, "This is what Pinot Noir should taste like," and if you don't like it, by all means, drink Merlot and don't feel guilty. Drink what you like and forget the current trends.