Photos from the Sommelier Journal Terroir Experience 2011. Cool climate Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Syrah from the California coastline.

 

A fun night tasting great wines with good people. Here's what I learned:

• Abe Schoener can cook!
• Abe Schoener drinks his own wines
• Abe Schoener drinks a lot of other people's wines
• Alex Kongsgaard is just as cool as his dad and has a vision
• In addition to making wine, running the office, and doing all the cooking at Kongsgaard, Evan Fraizer makes a mean cider and dances a mean dance
• 2002 Michel Niellon Chassagne-Montrachet Clos de la Maltroie is an excellent drink
• I think I'm getting into Priorat
• Sometimes the Skeletons win and sometimes the Robots win.
• Tonight the Skeletons won.

Abe Schoener has this theory that the more reductive a wine is, the more minerally the wine will be. This doesn’t sit well with me. To my palate, reductive notes and mineral character are completely different tastes.

“Reductively-made” just means that the wine was made with minimal exposure to oxygen. A fruity and inexpensive California Zinfandel or a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc are good examples. Their existence is only made possible by the use of stainless-steel tanks, refrigeration, and inert gases. In a way, this fruity-fresh style of wine is a modern invention; it could not have existed a hundred years ago.

The opposite of “reductive” winemaking is “oxidative,” but that’s not to say such wine belongs in the same “oxidative wine” category as Sherry or Vin Jaune. Oxidative winemaking just means that the wine is made in the presence of oxygen.

Both approaches are practiced in both the New World and the Old World. I’ve loved reductively-made wines from both Worlds. My friend Rudi Pichler in the Wachau makes cutting, expressive, and severely mineral white wines that I’m completely obsessed with. He makes these wines in a very reductive environment using all the modern tools and techniques noted above. Conversely, winemaker Isabelle Meunier makes astonishingly mineral-intense wines at Evening Land Vineyard in the Willamette Valley. And yet her ELV wines receive similar “oxidative” treatment as wines produced by top domaines in Burgundy: indigenous barrel fermentation, natural malos, barrel aging, etc.

Despite the popularity of fruit-forward wines, reductive winemaking presents certain challenges. The same reductive techniques used to produce “fruit bomb” Australian Shiraz can also cause off-putting sulfur smells during fermentation. Yeasts, without enough oxygen, can produce “reduced” sulfur compounds such as Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) which can smell like rotten eggs or cabbage. A winemaker might attempt to counter this H2S problem with a number of additives like diammonium phosphate (DAP) or treating the wine with copper (sounds yummy doesn’t it?). Many winemakers, however, feel small amounts of H2S can also provide a positive perceived minerality. But I don’t see this as minerality at all: I see it as reduction.

Minerality is not H2S nor is it an imagined quality. Minerality is minerality—period—and the degree to which one perceives it in a wine has much more to do with the strength of the terroir (and quality of its farming) than some would care to admit. Minerality is very much present in the wines that I love and drink on a regular basis, and as I mentioned earlier, the methods of production can vary greatly in those wines.

A wine’s minerality is perhaps the clearest indication of the wine’s origin. Nowhere is this more obvious than the wines grown in a band of special soil in France known as Kimmeridgian. Kimmeridgian is a mix of marl and limestone and is prominently featured in the wines of Chablis, Sancerre, and Champagne. It gives a strong, wet-chalk character to the wines that are grown from it and its character is so pervasive that Chablis and Sancerre are often confused in blind tastings. Paolo Vodepevic makes some of his wines in porous terracotta amphorae buried below the earth. This is obviously a very oxidative technique but I’m not sure I could imagine a wine with more hard-stone mineral intensity.

It is just a bit farfetched for me to imagine that while tasting at Comte Lafon in Meursault, Dominique would explain that he made the Perrières more reductively than the Charmes because Perrières should be a more minerally wine. I'll concede that vignerons do a bit of channeling in their cellars but Perrières is Perrières. I could go on with examples like Barolo, Priorat, and don’t get me started on the oxidative wines of the Jura, but this is a blog and not a book so let me get back to Schoener.

I found Schoener’s comment so puzzling because he doesn’t seem to have a reductive bone in his body, and yet he also seems to greatly value minerality. Schoener always looks for rocky vineyard sites from which to produce his own unique expression of California terroir. And no matter which vineyard the wine comes from, Schoener seeks to de-emphasize the fruit character of his wines. “One should sense decay,” Schoener says. He wants secondary and tertiary qualities in his wines, and after a night of drinking numerous wines from his cellar recently (out of 12 wines, just one was his own), I’m convinced he wants mineral in his wines as well. I’ll try to coax a better explanation from Schoener; I’d love to hear your thoughts also.

If you're wondering why there hasn't been a post since last week it's because of Abe Schoener, proprietor and winemaker of Scholium Project. You can read Abe's story here and here so I don't think I'll get into it on this blog. I did, however, have every intention of writing a few words about Abe's wines after tasting with him at his winery on Monday but the experience has left me speechless.

Two white wines from Scholium Project: 2006 The Prince in His Caves and 2007 La Severita di Bruto.

First, was an over-the-top tasting of about thirty barrels of his Petite Sirah project named Babylon. I'm no fan of Petite Sirah, which is usually about as graceful as a block of cement, but these showed blood and iron and even pretty floral notes and I found myself forgetting about their density and power. Later that night, I brought a bottle of 2005 Bricco, the top Petite Sirah cuvée in the Babylon series, to a dinner expecting my friends to find the same nuanced complexity that I tasted earlier that day. But my friends found the wine blocky and alcoholic. Was it the wine? Was it the time and place?

An outstanding free-range bird at the St. Helena farmer's market roasted up Julia Child-style was excellent with two wines from Scholium Project.

We opened two more of Abe's wines last night with this tasty bird from the St. Helena farmer's market. Beth said it best, "up is down, black is white, right is left, these are nothing like what you would expect". Both wines showed a freakish array of complex aromas and flavors. The 2006 The Prince in His Caves, a Sauvignon Blanc with three weeks of skin contact, showed camphor, ginger and marmelade, pine cone, rosemary, resin, musk...sex! This was much brighter and higher-toned than the 2007 La Severita di Bruto, a whole-cluster pressed Sauvignon with a fermentation that stuck in December of 2007 and did not restart until after the 2008 harvest and then did not go dry until March of 2009! Beth said it smelled (at first) like a "box of plastic drinking straws". I'm still trying to figure that one out but I did find a bizarre fondant or icing thing with the first glass. Then, with more oxygen, the wine unleashed a fury of aroma including celery frond, chervil, calcified earth, bone marrow, steeped pekoe tea, meyer lemons, and rock salt.

Scholium Project wines are interesting and great with roasted chicken, broad beans, and sweet corn!

What surprised me most about these two wines was how well they paired with a simple dinner of roasted chicken and summer vegetables. Both wines were very complex and I'm glad I kept the flavors of the food simple. Scholium Project wines will grab your attention and you'll find yourself talking about them long after the dishes are done. Up next, reduction = minerality?

Lot's of good people drinkin' good Broc Wines in Berkeley including famous celebrities like @freddexms, @jbonne, @guilhaumegerard, Trak from Bi-Rite, and D.A.G.!

I helped Chris Brockway of Broc Cellars bottle his 2008 Vine Starr today. Chris is a fellow ex-Nebraskan and lives in the Tenderlolin. He's a super-cool guy and I really like the winemaking that's going on here: spotaneous ferments, no new oak, low sulpher and sourcing from dry-farmed, organic, old-vine vineyards. Vine Starr is 70% Zinfandel, 28% Petite Sirah, 2% Carignan (Carignan has carbonic) but I think of Chris as more of a Rhone specialist. In fact, I can't think of another producer in California who's getting the results that Chris is getting from Grenache: white pepper, floral, meaty while keeping the wine very dry and balanced.

Bottling is pretty boring work so it's good to take a wine break now and then: 2005 Domaine de Belliviere Rouge-Gorge (Pinot d'Aunis) Coteaux du Loir (excellent), 2006 Kunin Syrah, + mystery Zinfandel.

jessebeckerMS
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www.peripheriquewine.com

Evening Land Vineyards is by far one of the most ambitious wine projects in the United States right now. The Prince of Pinot sums up nicely who's involved and what this project is all about. Having now tasted at both the Oregon facility with winemaker Isabelle Meunier, and now Sashi Moorman in the Sta. Rita Hills, I can say simply this: Evening Land is on an entirely higher level. To push the envelope even further, Evening Land has planted an experimental vineyard called Memorious from seed near the ocean in the cool and windy Sta. Rita Hills appellation of Santa Barbara (sorry about the wind, but then again, that's kind of the point).

In a second Pinot Noir vineyard named Wintry Hill we experienced an entirely different climat with perfect southerly exposure and far less wind.

The wines are produced in an industrial park known as the Wine Ghetto in Lompoc. Much like their counterpart facility in Salem the interior of this warehouse winery is sparse and immaculately clean and reminded me of the meticulousness of Rudi Pichler's cellar in Wachau and Didier Dagueneau's in Saint-Andelain. I don't mind moldy cellars at all but this kind of austerity and attention to detail suggests a level of seriousness we don't always see in here in the U.S. The Pinot Noirs differ greatly from those of Evening Land's Oregon vineyard. They have more color and seemed more substantial but they also hint at minerality, show restraint, and are produced with a sensibility that marks a new direction for California wine.

jessebeckerMS

périphérique | selections

www.peripheriquewine.com

At 7a.m. on day two we drove south and west of Santa Maria Valley across the 101, and into the Santa Rita Hills. That's brutally early for a group of hungover sommeliers and wine journalists. We looped around highway 246 and back along Santa Rosa Road before arriving at Richard Sanford's La Encantada vineyard.

Meeting Richard Sanford and tasting his new Alma Rosa wines was one of the highlights of the trip. The Richard Sanford story is pretty epic with many ups and downs including a less-than-fairytale ending to his namesake Sanford & Benedict vineyard. That vineyard is in corporate hands now and is painfully viewable while driving to the top of La Encantada. Yet Sanford remains stoic and his new Alma Rosa wines were some of the most pure, cristalline, and honest that we tasted. Oh, and the wines are a steal. The Pinot Blanc ($18) will be our house wine this summer. 

Across Santa Rosa Road from the original Sanford & Benedict vineyard is Kathy Joseph's Fiddlestix Vineyard. There's a bunch of calcareous soil in the area, which along with the cooling winds, makes the Santa Rita Hills unique among California wine regions. It's called diatomaceous earth and resembles chalk but is much more friable. I wished I could've tasted more of this special soil in more of the wines. The soil at Fiddlestix is something different, mostly botella clay, and her wines seemed deeper, firmer, and with more base notes than La Encantada. Kathy is very enthusiastic about her work and her Pinot Noirs are very good. Her vineyard manager is Jeff Newton who's kind of a legend in his own right. Jeff is responsible for a good chunk of plantings in the Santa Rita Hills and from what I can tell, is pushing the appellation forward to even greater heights. 

It's apparently sacrilegious to visit the area and not taste an Arn’s Aebleskiver from the Solvang Restaurant and now I understand why. They're little Danish pancake balls stuffed with apples and dusted in powdered sugar. We devoured these puppies on our way to lunch at Jonata Winery in the adjacent Santa Ynez Valley. Jonata runs a little farm in addition to growing grapes and they slaughtered a lamb for and spit roasted it for our group. After lunch we squeezed in a comprehensive tasting of Ballard Canyon Syrahs before an over-the-top dinner prepared by winemaker Steve Clifton. Steve and his winemaking partner Greg Brewer are two of the most forward-thinking producers in Santa Rita Hills but Steve is also a top-notch cook. To go into the details of his menu and the wines that were served deserves a post of its own but I'll just say that Steve knows how to cook a goat!

jessebeckerMS

périphérique | selections

www.peripheriquewine.com

Elizabeth and I are mostly interested in European wines. The fully-charged California stuff makes us sleepy and we like the taste of acidity and minerals more than alcohol and fruit. We're always on the lookout, however, for those sensible (balanced?, interesting?, bizzaro?) California wines that occasionally surface.

I was surprised by what I tasted during the 2010 Sommelier Journal Terroir Experience last week in Santa Barbara. David Furer the famous wine writer, myself, and the rest of our colleagues from Sommelier Journal met in Solvang and toured vineyards in the AVAs of Santa Maria Valley and Sta. Rita Hills for three days. The locals, pointed out all the places where Sandra Oh smacked Thomas Haden Church with a frying pan, as well as the Ostrich Farm and the home of the Horse Whisperer.

Places like Santa Maria Valley are like negative one (-1) on the silly Winkler scale and happen to be perfect for growing the kinds of wines I like: athletic, focused, and precise. These areas are really all about Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, although Syrah seems to have some potential. They're making quite a fuss about Syrah in a tiny sub-zone called Ballard Canyon, but I think Syrah might be best in the Bien Nacido "letter blocks". During a seminar at Sierra Madre Vineyard the “2:15 wind” started to blow. The wind blows through the unusual west-east Santa Maria Valley at the same time each day.

Favorites from the first day of tasting included a lemony and bracing Chardonnay from Sierra Madre Vineyard, a black pepper-infused Syrah from Craig Jaffurs, Morgan Clendendon’s Cold Heaven Viognier, the incomparable Z-block Syrah from Bob Lindquist, and an impressive lineup of Pinot Noirs from Bien Nacido Vineyard. Some tasty barbeque ensued at the Clendendon family ranch.

jessebeckerMS

périphérique | selections

www.peripheriquewine.com

Frank Ostini from Hitching Post winery used to make his wine in a garage. Thanks to Alexander Payne, he moved to this fancy facility in Buellton, California. Sure is shiny in here.

jessebeckerMS
périphérique | selections
www.peripheriquewine.com