Dave McIntyre's WineLine

Oz Clarke Triumphs Over Jetlag

When I invited Oz Clarke, the prolific and genial British wine writer, to my house to taste some wines from the Eastern United States, I didn't want to overdo it. He was coming fresh from the airport after a flight from London after all, and the man would be tired.

I needn't have worried. After more than 30 wines, lots of local cheese and homemade bread, a lengthy meal and a few ballads, I was the one waving the white napkin of surrender. Clarke is not only a laserlike palate - he's a raconteur who has never forgotten his professional training in theater. That helps him write entertaining and engaging books about wine, and it gives him amazing stamina at the dinner table. Excerpts of our discussion about wines near and far are in my column in Wednesday's Washington Post Food section. And don't forget my monthly list of Recession Buster wine recommendations.

Two Voices of Pinot Noir

I suffered cognitive dissonance a few weeks ago over pinot noir. I lunched on Monday with Richard Sanford at his Alma Rosa Winery in Santa Barbara County over beef stew and his 2006 and 2007 La Encantada Vineyard pinot. He had just driven me around the Santa Rita Hills in the Santa Ynez Valley, an appellation he pioneered by planting Sanford & Benedict vineyard in the 1970s and creating Sanford winery in 1980. He explained how the hills running east-to-west – unique in California, where most run parallel to the Pacific – channel the ocean breezes and fog into the valley and moderate the temperatures. Despite being just a two hour drive from Los Angeles, the Santa Rita Hills region counts as a “cool-climate” for winegrowing. Ideal for pinot noir, in other words. Such geography is easy to read about, but seeing is believing.

The Alma Rosa La Encantada 2007 Pinot Noir ($45) is rich and spicy, and tightly focused in a way that draws you closer with every sip. I gave it three stars (“exceptional”) when I profiled Sanford in the Post last August. It has what I love about California pinot noir – delightful floral aromas, good acidity and balance, and a lingering, silky finish. And it does not have what I hate about California pinot noir – excessive alcohol that leaves a burn across the palate, or a cloying, brown sugar taste. The 2006 was even better; Sanford described its aroma as “a day-old rose, just at the height of its power and on the edge of decline.” I couldn't disagree.

 

Richard Sanford of Alma Rosa Winery from Dave McIntyre on Vimeo.

Two days later, back in snowy Washington, D.C., I had lunch with Becky Wasserman, her husband, Russell Hone, and two of the many Burgundy producers she represents. Wasserman, an American who lives in Burgundy, is an influential broker and exporter of fine French wines, primarily from Burgundy. She was here as part of a U.S. tour celebrating her 30 years in business. She is as petite as Sanford is tall, but they seem to share a similar aesthetic – a preference for wines grown organically and manipulated as little as possible in the winery in order to achieve the purest expression of the fruit. Only Wasserman's pinots speak French, while Sanford's speak 'Murrican.

And that's where the dissonance came in. After five days in Santa Barbara County, sampling dozens wines in various styles, my initial taste of Burgundy was a shock. It was a Domaine Alain Burguet 2006 Gevrey-Chambertin “Clos la Justice” ($70), and at first sip it seemed unpleasantly astringent. Where's the fruit? I wondered. But my palate was attuned to California pinot noir; after a few sips, the fruit emerged, then the Burgundian earth and finesse that characterizes the French expression of pinot noir.

As we tasted the Domaine Michel Lafarge Volnay 2006 ($55), with its subtle, silky texture – for lack of a better word (pinot noir at its best is all about texture) – I thought of my lunch two days earlier with Sanford. Back in the 1960s, when he was looking to use his geology degree after a stint in Vietnam, it was a bottle of Volnay given by a friend that inspired him to plant grapes. He told me he does not remember the producer, but he recalls the flavors, the texture, and the inspiration it gave.

Is the Alma Rosa La Encantada the equal of the Domaine Lafarge Volnay? Yes – and here's why I say that. The Alma Rosa is not and can never be a Volnay. But it is a beautiful expression of the Santa Rita Hills and of California pinot noir, just as the Lafarge is a beautiful expression of Volnay. Burgundy will always have an advantage in that no one dislikes a good Burgundy, while Burgundy fans will discount California for not having the right soils or climate to make a Burgundy. Sanford has every reason to be proud of his pinot. And if, as he savors his wine and thinks of that day-old rose on the cusp between glory and decay, his memory wanders back to that long-ago bottle of Volnay, who can blame him?

America's Southernmost Winery

It was cold and rainy on the August day when I visited Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, as the remnants of a tropical storm lashed the eastern side of the Big Island. I caught a glimpse of the Kilauea crater and the steam plume rising from the Halema’uma’u vent before a thick fog and lashing rains descended and obliterated any hope I had of stunning vistas or photographs to take home.

So I decided to visit a winery.

A mile or so off the main road that leads to the park, Volcano Winery is tucked into a blue-collar rural suburb.  (A suburb of a volcano, to be sure.) “America’s Southernmost Winery,” the sign at the gate boasts, and another placard at the end of the driveway points to “Wine-O Parking.” My kind of people.

The winery, opened in 1993, gets quite a bit of tourist traffic, judging from the tee-shirts, hoodies, and other wine-related tchotchkes on sale. And there are several wines to taste, unfortunately presented in little plastic thimbles that make it impossible to smell the wine. (Could that be intentional, I wondered? Larger glasses with the winery logo were for sale.)

They do grow grapes here – a few rows of Symphony vines stood outside the store, the slowly ripening grapes heavily netted against predators such as birds and curious tourists. The winery planted some vinifera varieties, including pinot noir and syrah, a few years ago, but they haven’t yet borne a crop. More on that later.

“You’ve probably heard this before, but these are better than I expected,” I said to the two women who poured me samples and told me about the wines. (Distressingly, I find six weeks later that I did not record their names.) That’s a common reaction, they said, though most people say the wines “are not as bad” as expected.

The wines included two “estate” wines made from Symphony grown on the Big Island. The 2008 dry Symphony is quite pleasant and flowery, but not oily and over-the-top like Symphony can be. The 2008 Mele, picked later, is slightly off-dry but not at all cloying. It would make an excellent aperitif or partner for cheese. Both cost $16.

From there the wines got really interesting. Volcano imports grape concentrate from California to make its Volcano Red ($17), a non-vintage labeled blend of several grapes spiced with jaboticaba berries grown on the island. I struggle to describe the wine, as it doesn’t fit a ready frame of reference, but it’s quite tasty, with the berries adding a woodsy, spicy note. I’d serve it slightly chilled as a fun warm-weather red.

The Volcano Blush ($16.50) blends Sauvignon Blanc, Palomino and Colombard (again, from California) with the jaboticaba berry. It’s exotic, peppery and a tad sweet, like a power fruit drink with a kick.

Hawaiian Guava Wine ($16.50) is just what its name suggests – those same three white grapes with yellow guavas grown on the island. The winery uses the entire guava – skin, fruit and seeds – pureed and fermented on its own before blending with the wine. It is oddly delicious, starting sweet but finishing dry and nutty. (All that from a thimbleful! Well, okay, maybe two or three thimblefuls.) I brought a bottle home to pair with our annual Chinese Thanksgiving feast. (Don’t ask.)

Macadamia Nut Honey Wine ($17) is similar to meade, but not syrupy. It tastes like a macadamia praline that hasn’t hardened yet.

The winery’s Web site now lists an Infusion Tea wine, but that wasn’t available when I visited. Too bad, I’ll bet it’s pretty good.

Here’s my 4-1-1: If you are visiting Hawai’i and its Big Island, plan some time to detour from the national park to Volcano Winery. It’s worth the visit, and not far out of your way.

Hawai’i, you might imagine, presents unique winemaking challenges. The winery originally planted 14 acres of Symphony vines, but only seven acres are still bearing. And that pinot noir? They had hopes of gathering a harvest this year, but in March, just as the vines were flowering, the trade winds from the East stopped, and the steam from the Halema’uma’u Vent on Kilauea, normally blown off to sea, settled instead over the mountain and Volcano Winery’s vineyards. The heat burned the flowers off the vines.

Now that’s terroir.

This is the second annual Regional Wine Week, with bloggers and writers reporting on local wines – you can find their reports and blog posts at DrinkLocalWine.com, and on Tweeter at #dlw09.

Regional Wine Week - half way point

If you haven't yet checked out REGIONAL WINE WEEK on DrinkLocalWine.com, you should. We've got harvest updates on the Finger Lakes and Niagara from Lenn Thompson's New York Cork Report, plus a post from Paul Vigna on how the bad economy has some prime Pennsylvania vineyard land languishing on the market. Rémy Charest has reported on the current scandale in Canadian wine - a legal loophole that allows wine from elsewhere to be labeled "cellared in Canada". Brian Kirby is scouting out some exciting developments in Maryland. And Richard Leahy writes about wines produced from goofball grapes that will surprise you with their quality.

Remember - Think Globally, Drink Locally. And support Regional Wine Week by visiting DrinkLocalWine.com!

Oregon Pinot Noir - Sustainably Good

Oregon pinot noir offers an ideal opportunity to explore the effects of terroir, as the state’s main wine region, the Willamette (rhymes with ‘dammit’) Valley features two main soil types, each with its own expression in the wine.

I explore these expressions in my column this week in The Washington Post, written after my enjoyable sojourn in McMinnville at the International Pinot Noir Celebration.

The Oregon wine industry leads the way in the United States in sustainable, organic and biodynamic viticulture. There is a state certification for sustainable viticulture and a regional group called “LIVE” - that's Low Input Viticulture and Enology – that stresses environmentally friendly practices in the vineyard and in the winery. Its members include familiar names such as Adelsheim, Bethel Heights, Chehalem, and Rex Hill, among many others. LIVE works with the “Salmon Safe” certification that monitors wineries for practices that protect fisheries, and the IOBC, the International Organization for Biological and Integrated Control of Noxious Animals and Plants. (Whew – that's a mouthful!)

This environmental consciousness is to be applauded, for it stands to reason that healthier land will produce healthier grapes and better wine. No one can prove that yet, and any honest winemaker will admit that bad wine can be made from great grapes, and no great wine can be made from bad grapes. So maybe land wins out over the winemaker’s hand, after all.

Price, of course, is always a factor. Oregon has positioned itself in the $35 - $55 range for fine wines, and is beginning to feel the pinch of the recession, as luxury wines from other regions such as Napa Valley experience steep price cuts. Oregon pinot noir has not yet responded to this pressure, though Ted Casteel of Bethel Heights said his winery will be increasing production of its regular cuvee and de-emphasizing its top wines with the 2009 harvest.

Even without the economic climate making its presence felt (yet) on the price of Oregon pinot noir, there are several that provide good value at $25 or less. Here are a few worth seeking out, in alphabetical order:

A to Z Pinot Noir 2007, Oregon, $20

Anne Amie Cuvee A Pinot Noir 2007, Willamette Valley, $25

Benton Lane Pinot Noir 2007, Willamette Valley, $25

Firesteed Pinot Noir 2007, Oregon, $18

IPNC: Land or Hand?

Terroir predetermines the greatness of a wine. Or does it? Terroir is a romantic concept that appeals to wine lovers when the edges of the world get just a little blurry – right around that second glass of wine. We love the idea that a special parcel of soil produces wonderful wine, wine that could be made nowhere else, because the soil, the slope, the sun exposure and the microclimate would not be the same at any other place or time.

And in the next breath we extol our favorite winemakers. Be it Helen Turley, Heidi Peterson, Richard Sanford, Michel Rolland or a host of others, we slavishly applaud winemakers for their talent in crafting blockbuster vino.

So is it the land? Or is it the hand? What makes a superlative wine?

Right about now, you're probably saying, “Well, duh, both!” And of course you're right. This was driven home last week at a fascinating tasting conducted at the International Pinot Noir Celebration in McMinnville, Oregon, in the heart of the Willamette-rhymes-with-dammit Valley. The IPNC, a weekend bacchanal in its 23^rd year, focused this year on “Oregon dirt.” The main seminar tasting featured five Willamette Valley winemakers who have been conducting an intriguing exploration of “land or hand” since the 2006 harvest.

The winemakers are Lynn Penner-Ash of Penner-Ash Wine Cellars, Ken Wright of Ken Wright Cellars, Ted Casteel of Bethel Heights, Laurent Montalieu of Solena Cellars, and Steve Doerner of Cristom Vineyards. They each contributed grapes to the others from one of their vineyards, with each winemaker given free wine on making the resulting wine. The project is “five by five,” or 25 wines each vintage.

For logistics' sake, the IPNC tasting included wines from only two of the vineyards from the unusually hot 2006 vintage – so we had 10 wines to taste in two flights of five each. Ken Wright explained his theory that the geology – the land – would give essential characteristics to the wine grown there. The “parent material,” the underlying rock rather than the top soil of a vineyard, is the deciding factor, he explained.

In Oregon, that means either marine sedimentary soil deposited after the great Missoula glacier hissy fit hundreds of thousands of years ago (my notes are a bit indistinct at this point) or volcanic soils that thrust upward a few eons later when the Cascade Mountains (think Mount Saint Helens, Mount Hood, Mount Rainier, etc.) were formed. The two soil types form a patchwork throughout the Willamette Valley, sometimes even within the same vineyard, though at different points on a slope.

Two things stood out about the 10 wines presented at the IPNC. It became quite apparent as we tasted that the wines were arranged by winemaker – the first wine in each of the two flights was made by the same hand, and so on. So the hand of the winemaker seemed to be the dominant factor – Wright's were the darkest, most primordial, with a lot going on in the glass and not quite settled into a groove just yet. Penner-Ash's were also dark and almost brooding, while Doerner's were more tannic (a factor of whole-cluster pressing, it was explained), Bethel Heights were spicy and the Solena wines more delicate.

Yet there was also a continuity among the flights, showing the influence of the vineyards. The first flight, wines from a marine-sediment vineyard, featured black fruit flavors, such as blackberry, and some brown-sugar sweetness. They were also quite heavy, which was perhaps a factor of the unusual vintage. The second flight of wines, while still not shy, were brighter in their flavors – more on the red fruit side that reflected their origin in volcanic soils.

So yes, the answer to the “land or hand” question is both. But as a “terroirist,” I have to admit that the hand often makes the most noticeable difference – for better or worse, the winemaker's decision of when to pick, how long to soak the grapes on the skins or leave the wine in barrel, make the most easily apparent differences in a wine. Perhaps that's why we celebrate winemakers. And perhaps it's best to leave it up to them to decipher the nuances of the land.

Visual Terroir

Sometimes a  photo doesn’t need to show grapes, vines, barrels or bottles to illustrate wine. While researching a column on the dry wines of the Douro Valley in Portugal, I came across this photo I took last July at Quinta do Noval. Something in the geometry of this staircase attracted me when I snapped the pic, but looking at it now, I see Douro terroir – the schist stones blasted out of the terraced vineyards and layered here speak of the mineral soil in which the vines grow, while the narrow stairs up the steep wall illustrate the dramatic slopes on which the vines are planted. And nary a grape in sight.