Feel the heat

Storrs 2007 Sauvignon Blanc (San Lucas) – Light, yet with a certain intensity of grapey fruit, plus melon. Nice balance. Tasty. (9/08)

Storrs 2007 Chardonnay (Santa Cruz Mountains) – Fig, peach, and ripe, velvet-textured apple. Very structured, with a long finish. There’s a little zing of alcohol and bit of oak, but this is the most balanced chardonnay I’ve yet tasted from Storrs, who often seems to craft much thicker versions of this variety. (9/08)

Storrs 2006 Chardonnay Christie (Santa Cruz Mountains) – Honeyed peach candy and thick butterscotch, long and huge. A wine of vivid neon. Huge. Let me say that again: HUGE. There are some nods to balance, but this is a stew rather than a broth; those who prefer that sort of texture will love it, others will most definitely not. Stylistic issues aside, it’s a very impressive wine. Personally, I could drink about a thimbleful of it. (9/08)

Storrs 2006 Pinot Noir (Santa Cruz Mountains) – Strawberry, red cherry, and plenty of heat (it’s 15.2% alcohol, which may theoretically be supportable in a much better-endowed pinot, but just doesn’t work here; excess heat has been a problem with many of the Storrs pinot noirs). There’s some crispness that makes an attempt at lightening, but overall the wine’s just too hot to enjoy. (9/08)

Storrs 2005 Two Creek (Santa Clara County) – Grenache, syrah, and grand noir, 14.4%. Smoke liqueur and red licorice with apple rind and a significant haze of heat. Eh. (9/08)

Storrs 2005 Zinfandel Rusty Ridge (Santa Clara County) – 15.2%. Plum, heather, lavender, plus the twists and tangles of wild vines. Chewy, with good acidity. Balanced. The finish is supple. Quite good. (9/08)

Storrs 2001 “BXR” (San Francisco Bay) – Plum soup, dark chocolate, and green tannin. There’s good length and palate presence, but the wine’s too thick for its own good, and then there’s that irritating underripe shade to the structure. I have never cared for this wine, in any vintage. (9/08)

Storrs 2006 Gewürztraminer Viento (Monterey) – Lychee soap, crystalline pear, honeydew melon, and plenty of acidity with just an edge of skin bitterness. Turns more floral as it lingers. Really nice. Balanced, with both tension and length. A return to the gewürztraminers I used to like so much from this producer, after a few weaker efforts. (9/08)

Storrs is a winery I visit anytime I’m in the area, and there’s always something good. The problem is that it’s rarely the same wine as it was the last time. Stylistically, I think that they’ve let alcohol levels get a little bit away from them; it’s one thing in zinfandel, a very different thing in a pinot noir or chardonnay.

Children of Doon

Here are some notes from a brief visit to Bonny Doon’s soon-to-be-former tasting room in a beautifully forested back corner of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

I’ve requested an appointment (identified as press), rather than just dropping in, and the only benefit seems to be that I taste a few more wines than casual visitors, though no more than their wine club members (one of whom stops in for a tasting while I’m there). It’s a shame, because I’d have liked to learn a little bit more about what they’re doing. But many of my questions are not answerable by the tasting room staff (who are otherwise quite engaging), and others go unasked because I’m not the only customer.

The only facts I really discover are the details of the winery’s recent and rather extreme downshift over the last few years – 500,000 cases in 2006, 30-35,000 cases in 2008 – and that biodynamic certification was received for one of their vineyards (Ca’ del Solo) in 2007, with more on the horizon.

Bonny Doon 2006 “Le Cigare Blanc” (California) – 75% grenache blanc, 35% roussanne, from vineyards in Arroyo Seco. Stone fruit, sand, and spice…then intense apricot and blood orange with slightly less spice…then slight vegetation as the wine winds down. This sort of phase-shifting isn’t, I find, unusual with Rhônish whites that aren’t pushed to (or past) the limits of ripeness. All that said, the most appealing element of the wine is actually its gravelly texture. There’s enough acidity for balance, and great persistence, but I think this wine is not everything it could strive to be. (9/08)

Bonny Doon “Ca’ del Solo” 2007 Orange Muscat (Monterey County) – Less than 1% residual sugar despite all organoleptic evidence to the contrary, which actually isn’t all that unusual for muscat. Orange peel perfume and medium-sweet fruit make this overwhelmingly approachable, but the wine’s fatness is only broken by acidity late into its finish. Some crystals – which they just love at Bonny Doon – are perhaps present as a sort of foundation. This could be better. (9/08)

Bonny Doon 2006 “Vin Gris de Cigare” (California) – A pinkish blend of grenache, cinsault, syrah, grenache blanc, and roussanne. Dried grapefruit and other citrus rinds, with some of them in candied form. Lavender, as well. Good weight and balance. Long. The wine turns more rind-dominated on the finish, but this is only to its benefit. Elegant and quite tasty. (9/08)

Bonny Doon “Ca’ del Solo” 2005 Sangiovese (San Benito County) – There are dollops of nero d’avola, cinsault, and colorino here. What do they add? I’m not sure. An intense nose of mixed jellies – plum, blueberry, blackberry – fades to simpler multi-hued cherries by the finish, there’s a tannic bite that grates with underripeness as the wine lingers, and a fairly significant amount of acidity adds to what eventually becomes a general and growing sensation of off-putting weediness. Eh. (9/08)

Bonny Doon 2005 Syrah Bien Nacido (Santa Maria Valley) – Soulful. A beautiful nose (a sequel to the tedious Russell Crowe flick) of blackberry and leather, plus mint, promises much. The texture is plush, but without sacrificing a pleasantly herbal earthiness not usually found amidst this level of luxuriance. Balanced and very structured, with the clear intention of and potential for ageability. If there’s a flaw, it’s a touch of stretch and green to the tannin, which is worth keeping an eye on as the wine matures. (9/08)

Bonny Doon 2004 “Le Cigare Volant” (California) – 38% grenache, 35% syrah, 12% mourvèdre, 8% carignan, 7% cinsault. Surprisingly Rhônish. Meat, underbrush, herbs, and sap. Juicy and approachable, but very well-knit. I like this a lot, less because the elements are superior than because the wine carries itself with palpable confidence. (9/08)

Beauregard 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon (High Valley) – A little cross-promotion from the winery up the driveway from Bonny Doon’s tasting room. I can’t say I’m a fan. Coconut, dill, and stale chocolate are not aromas I crave. A juicy texture, sour acidity, and overly-rounded tannins aren’t the droids structure I’m looking for, either. And the finish is weird. Don’t just avoid, run away. (9/08)

Bonny Doon 2005 Viognier Doux (Paso Robles) – 12.2% alcohol, 12.8 grams residual sugar, 500 ml bottle. All the aromatics here are in the honey genre. While big, the wine’s got an extremely appealing silken texture with a little edge of bitterness on the finish. There’s little more to it, but it hardly seems to matter. Pure fun. (9/08)

Bonny Doon 2004 Recioto of Barbera (Monterey County) – 14.5% alcohol, 7.2% grams residual sugar, 500 ml bottle. The nose here is lovely – full of crushed raisins – despite the bottle being open for twenty-four hours. This probably explains the bit of fade to the palate and a perimeter that’s more enticing than the center, but the wine retains a certain crispness and edge, with apple-toned acidity. More remarkably, this lacks the persistent (and to me, a sensitive, often deal-breaking) flaw of recioto-styled wines: volatile acidity. If there’s any here, it’s below my threshold of detection…and that threshold is legendarily low. Nicely done. (9/08)

The current “buzz” on Bonny Doon is that shedding its mass-market brands (primarily the Big House lineup) and a lot of the experimental tomfoolery has made them more focused and, overall, better. But I always liked the mass-market wines as very tasty examples of the genre, and I don’t know if I see clear evidence of re-dedication to top quality; Bonny Doon has usually made “good” wines, and these continue in that vein. Every wine – except perhaps the rosé – lacks something that would push it into a higher qualitative echelon. That said, there’s time enough to see what happens; the new paint here is still very wet.

After my tasting, I buy a bottle, unpack some lunch, and enjoy a mostly restful meal at a picnic table adjacent to the tasting room. “Mostly restful” because I’m interrupted by a full twenty minutes of battle with an inquisitive (or hungry) bee. Anyway, a revisit:

Bonny Doon 2006 “Le Cigare Blanc” (California) – Honeydew melon, pear, spice, and tan earth rumbled with gravel. Warmth does not help the wine, though air seems to, so I’d suggest decanting and then the fridge. (9/08)

Sticky fingers

No more than twenty seconds after exiting my car, I’ve got a glass in my hand. In it is a dense, sticky liquid straight from a rumbling crusher a few feet above my head, with a good number of uninvited floaters: bits of stems, skins, seeds, and perhaps a few dozen fruit flies. There’s also a fair amount of the sugary goop on my hand, which means it’s now on the pen I’m using to take notes. Which means it’s also on my notebook. Which means the pages are getting a little sticky.

But there’s nothing to be done about it now, so I shove my nose in the glass and take a lusty sniff. Freshly-crushed grapes, with a bit of a edge to them. I sip, ignoring the potentially complexing elements of bug protein and stem roughage. Dense fruit, very sweet, but vivacious. It’s a wine in embryonic form, just waiting to be born. And it’s delicious.

Varner is a eponymously-named winery in the Santa Cruz Mountains, run by brothers Jim and Bob. Jim seems to handle the business side of things while Bob works the vines and the cellar equipment, though as with any family winery the actual practice is a little more collaborative than that. In any case, today Jim’s the one leading me around, while Bob grows increasingly spattered and spackled with the sticky residue of an ongoing crush. They’re bringing in chardonnay today, and in-between brief visits to chat, thief some barrel samples, or hand me a glass of fruit flies, Bob’s spending most of his time wheeling a forklift around the small parking lot, hoisting bins overflowing with grapes to an elevated platform, and then scampering up and down a ladder to check on his grapes’ plump befores and slurried afters.

But you wouldn’t know that there was a winery here unless you knew it. Local fiat disallows any hint of a public face, so access is only granted via appointment and the presence of someone with permission to open a forbidding gate. It’s not a matter of wanting to keep people out; Varner’s been given no choice in the matter by the civic worthies of Portola Valley. As a result, whenever the din of winemaking pauses – say for the workers’ lunch break – a peaceful isolation settles over the winery and its forested grounds.

Varner’s vineyards – which their business partner owns (see below) – were planted in stages beginning in the early eighties, and benefit from the Santa Cruz Mountains’ cooling effects, which assists in the preservation of acidity. In the Varners’ case, the stylistic intent came first and the vines came later, on a series of sites above the San Andreas Fault, though a few plots have been replanted as tastes and intents changed (for example, a block of gewürztraminer was supplanted by pinot noir). Two of the higher-elevation vineyards are on their own roots.

In the beginning, Jim & Bob spent a good deal of time selecting clones, including 115 and 777 for their pinot noirs, and a range of what Bob calls “old California clones” for the chardonnays. Subsequent plantings of the latter have been from a massale selection of those vines. And they try to take on “one creative endeavor a year,” which is sometimes a varietal exploration, and other times a speculative modification to technique, just to see what happens.

Experiments aside, Varner works very, very simply. Irrigation was gradually abandoned after the initial five years of vine growth (“our water patterns,” notes Bob, “are like natural deficit irrigation anyway”), and grapes are picked at around three tons per acre in temperatures between 50-60º. Back at the winery, each block of grapes is destemmed by hand, crushed, and pressed all in the same day. Varner’s particular vineyard sites don’t suffer from fog, but frost can be a problem…“though not this year,” notes Bob.

Yeasts and malolactic fermentations are natural rather than inoculated, barrels (a combination of medium-toast Allier and Tronçais, 1/3 new) are getting new wooden bungs for better control over oxygenation, and everything up to and including clarification is accomplished via gravity – no fining or filtration, just racking. Alcohols, which tend to hover around 14 to 14.5% (though 2008 has brought several wines under that threshold), are controlled in the vineyard, rather than with water or more technological means.

The tactile, sun-made-manifest fluid in my glass is chardonnay from the Bee Block, already nearing the end of its journey from grape to barrel, and from this site the Varners look for “peaches up front, lemon curd on the finish, and a sensation of chopped-up apples,” whereas the Amphitheater Block showcases its minerality in a package of less overt lushness. Pinot noir from the Hidden Block tends to show “perfectly ripe black cherry,” while the Picnic Block brings a crisper, yet still “perfectly ripe red apple” element into play. At least, that’s the intent. As we move into tasting, I’ll have the opportunity to judge for myself.

There are three projects here. Two, Varner and Neely, are just different names for the same range of wines; the latter is named after a third investor (who joins us midway through the tasting), though the label nomenclature differs between the two brands. The third is Foxglove, a larger, appealingly-priced label for purchased grapes that emphasize clean varietal character.

Varner 2007 Chardonnay Spring Ridge Home Block (barrel sample) (Santa Cruz Mountains) – Still thick and lush. Peach, apple, lees. Opaque. (9/08)

Varner 2007 Pinot Noir Spring Ridge Home Block (barrel sample) (Santa Cruz Mountains) – From a new François Frères barrel, 115 clone. Still wood-marked. Elegant. Spicy cherry (again, the wood influence). Seems lighter-styled. (9/08)

Varner 2007 Pinot Noir Spring Ridge Home Block (barrel sample) (Santa Cruz Mountains) – From a three year old François Frères barrel, still the 115 clone. Balanced fruit with light tannin. A mix of black and red cherry, strawberry, and perhaps some more exotic berries that I can’t quite put a name to. Very long. Grey soil. A persistent bit of wood influence lingers late on the finish, but it’s very minor in comparison to the new-wood sample of this cuvée. (9/08)

Varner 2008 Pinot Noir Spring Ridge Hidden Block (barrel sample) (Santa Cruz Mountains) – Actually, not even really a wine, as it was pressed just yesterday. Crisp apple with a touch of milk-soaked strawberry. Light. (9/08)

“This is a year to cut back on the oak,” notes Bob, in reference to the 2007s.

Neely 2006 Chardonnay Spring Ridge “Holly’s Cuvée” (Santa Cruz Mountains) – Very restrained. Apple and apricot, but not just the fruit…skins and other plant-parts as well. There’s good acidity and a lot of minerality. Medium-bodied, steady-state, pure, and fabulously balanced, but this needs more time to develop into what it’s becoming. (9/08)

Wine “can be balanced and [still] dull,” notes Bob, who looks for simultaneous “tension and equilibrium” in the end product.

Neely 2005 Pinot Noir Spring Ridge “Holly’s Cuvée” (Santa Cruz Mountains) – A blend of clones 115 and 777. Intense cherry…really more like an explosion thereof…with just a hint of tar. Vivid. Beautiful texture and huge, deep-black minerality. Starts bright and blinding, then turns structured in the middle, and finishes with supple gentility. (9/08)

“Interesting aromatics with lushness on the palate…that’s the goal of California pinot noir,” claims Bob.

Neely 2005 Pinot Noir Spring Ridge Picnic Block (Santa Cruz Mountains) – 777 clones on 5C rootstock in “the poorest soil on the property.” Dark blackberry, blueberry (both with seeds intact), and broodberry. No, that’s not a word, but it applies here. Lush indeed, but very well-balanced, and frankly gorgeous. Is that a little tail of licorice? Long, vivid, and intense. Impressive. (9/08)

Neely 2007 Pinot Noir Spring Ridge Picnic Block (barrel sample) (Santa Cruz Mountains) – Anise. Red fruit with black skins, or so it seems; definitely not the other way around. Beautiful acidity, long, silky, and supple. A fine particulate texture pairs with flawless structure. “We’re looking for an interplay between raspberry and dark red plum skins.” (9/08)

The chardonnays, according to both Jim and Bob, are built for around seven to ten years’ aging, but they’re less sure about an endpoint for the pinots. “Ten, fifteen years?”

Foxglove 2007 Zinfandel (Paso Robles) – 15% petite sirah, 14.6% alcohol. Big boysenberry fruit, with a nicely bitter espresso edge. A little short aromatically, but eminently drinkable. (9/08)

The Varners consider their work an always-interesting combination of art and science. And in fact, science is often paired with the duo’s occasional lapses into old-style California winemaker cant, e.g. their desire for “tannic equilibrium and some synergistic energy.” But both Varners describe their philosophy in an appropriately simple way, insisting that what they do is no more than “really paying attention to natural conditions.” Their wines – pure, complex, unadorned – reflect their sites, but they also exemplify this well-tested hypothesis.

Now if I can just get this chardonnay residue off my fingers…

Disclosures: lunch at Lavanda paid for by Jim Varner, several bottles purchased at a significant discount.

TN: God bless North America (BWE notes)

Tasting notes from the Boston Wine Expo. These were difficult tasting conditions, where speed and distraction were the norm rather than the exception. Thus, notes are brief at best, somewhat superficial, and cannot in truth be otherwise.

De Lille 2005 “Chaleur Blanc” (Columbia Valley) – Thick with wood and ripe fig, with stone fruit and peach/apricot syrup. Good, if exceedingly heavy and even a bit ponderous, in a ripeness-above-all New World style. (2/07)

Sterling 1976 Cabernet Sauvignon “Reserve” (Napa Valley) – Black pepper, plum, blackberry and tobacco. Rich, complex and beautiful, with fantastic balance. Remember when Sterling actually made good wine? Anyone? (2/07)

Sterling 1978 Cabernet Sauvignon “Reserve” (Napa Valley) – Somewhat tired on the palate, though the nose retains its charm: tobacco and old flowers. It hardens on the finish. This wine is, unfortunately, past its drink-by date. (2/07)

Whitehall Lane 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley) – Rich spiced plum, blackberry and ripe tannin, with a warm softness predominating. A balanced structure provides some backbone. Not bad at all. (2/07)

Ravenswood 2004 Zinfandel (Sonoma County) – Simple and obvious, showing spiced nothing. (2/07)

Ravenswood 2004 Zinfandel Teldeschi (Dry Creek Valley) – Structure over fruit, with red cherry and strawberry asserting a friendlier aspect on the finish. Fair. (2/07)

Ravenswood 2004 Zinfandel Barricia (Sonoma Valley) – Structured, with dark plum, black cherry and a brooding, heavy palate. It’s long, but things turn a little sour by the end. I wonder about the future of this wine. (2/07)

Ravenswood 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon (Sonoma County) – Very powdery, with graphite-dusted black cherry and blackberry. Heavy but pleasant. (2/07)

Ravenswood 2004 Zinfandel “Old Vine” (Lodi) – Dark raisin and ripe, concentrated plum and black pepper. Slightly hot, but carrying good intensity. (2/07)

Ravenswood 2003 “Icon” (Sonoma County) – Chocolate-coated raspberry dessert (except, of course, it’s supposed to be a dry wine). Grossly overoaked, with a bitter, nasty finish. (2/07)

Ridge 2005 “Three Valleys” (Sonoma County) – Full-bodied, showing plum and burnt coconut, with a shortish finish. Good, with helpful acidity. This seems more approachable than in the past. (2/07)

Ridge 2004 Zinfandel York Creek (Napa Valley) – Strawberry and concentrated plum with good structure and balance. Fine work. (2/07)

Ridge 2003 Geyserville (Sonoma County) – Dark and dusty, showing black cherry, blackberry and boysenberry. There’s an undergrowth of brambles and thorns here, and the finish – while long – is not free of wood and tar. Still, it’s otherwise balanced, and it could just be struggling with its youth right now. (2/07)

Ridge 2003 Santa Cruz Mountains (Santa Cruz Mountains) – Quite structured, with leathery blueberry and tobacco-scented cedar. Long and balanced, with a little bit of chocolate on the finish. This would be a fine cabernet in any portfolio, though here at Ridge it pales in comparison to the Monte Bello. (2/07)

Ridge 1999 Monte Bello (Santa Cruz Mountains) – Leather, tobacco and blackberry with leather and a slathering of American oak. This is tightly-wound and almost pulses with energy, as exhibited on a finish that fights and claws against fading. It’s a little surprising that there’s anything to taste here, because I’d expect this to be closed tight, but it definitely shows the promise within. (2/07)

TN: Birthday bacchanalia

Voyager Estate 2002 Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon (Margaret River) – Fruity and fresh, with fine, citrusy acidity brightening up some grapefruit, lime, lemon and gooseberry flavors. Very simple, but pure summer fun. (6/06)

A reliable summer sipper, though it was better at release. Some of these blends can age, but this doesn’t seem like one that did. It doesn’t matter, because newer vintages are really tasty young. Closure: screwcap. Importer: Serge Doré. Web: http://www.voyagerestate.com.au/.

Ridge 1992 Monte Bello (Santa Cruz Mountains) – Very tight, tannic and dusty when first opened…and this doesn’t change much with extended aeration. The “Draper perfume” (from the wood regime, the terroir and the aromatic high-altitude fruit) is still present, but plays only a loud supporting role to the other structural elements and to the emergent characteristics of the blend: hard dark cherries with lashings of cassis, some rosemary, black pepper, and a deep base note of the blackest earth. So while the primary, oak-driven sheen has receded, there’s still much more that needs to emerge from this dense, tannic shell; I’d say the wine is probably about halfway to maturity. And if this note sounds a little cold, it’s not an accident. I think the wine is potentially extraordinary, but it’s so unyielding at the present that it’s hard to form any sort of emotional bond with the elixir…something that I think is essential to the enjoyment of the very best wines. (6/06)

80% cabernet sauvignon, 11% merlot, 9% petit verdot. The critical accord on this wine is remarkable, with virtually everyone in agreement with Paul Draper that this is a potentially monumental Monte Bello with a long life in front of it (the one exception: James Laube of Wine Spectator, who thought it should be ready to go about six years ago). Critics’ tastes can, do, and should differ, so when one finds such unanimity of praise, the conclusion is obvious. Alcohol: 13.4%. Closure: cork. Web: http://www.ridgewine.com/.

Trimbach 1989 Gewurztraminer “Vendanges Tardives” (Alsace) – From a 375 ml bottle, and very nearly as good as late-harvest gewurztraminer gets. There’s sweet lychee syrup, luxuriant cashew oil, and ripe peach, but what stand out here are the waves of spice…first Indian, then of the sweet baking variety, then moving into something more exotically (but indefinably) Asian…that finally settle on some sort of fantastical meat rub with an accompanying and highly-spiced chutney. There’s plenty of sweetness here, but it’s offset by mild acidity and a more structurally important tannic scrape, and the effect is to render the palate impression somewhat dryer than the initial impression would indicate. On the finish, the aforementioned waves of spice roll and recede for what seems like forever. Beautiful, silence-inducing wine. Is it “ready”? Yes, though it’s also in no danger of slipping for the next decade, and possibly more. (6/06)

I’ve had this wine quite a few times, often paired with the same vintage’s “Sélection des Grains Nobles” bottling, and have reached the inescapable conclusion that this is a better wine. Why? Fairly simply, it tastes a lot more like gewurztraminer. The SGN is dominated by its botrytis, and suffers from even less acidity, which the VT absolutely sings with both its late-harvest qualities and its essential varietal and terroir-influenced characteristics. Though to be fair to the SGN, more time may simply be required. In any case, if you own both, the VT is definitely the one to drink now.

This is as good a time as any to tell one of my favorite stories: a few years ago, Seagram C&E (now absorbed by Diageo) hosted a bacchanalian event in New York, at which most of their Bordeaux estates and the other stars of their portfolio poured a rather stunning collection of wines. One of the results of this assemblage was that both fabled Château d’Yquem and Trimbach were in the same room; Yquem pouring their epic ’88 and ’90 Sauternes, Trimbach with a larger portfolio including the above-described bottling. Later in the evening, as the tasting wound to a close and producers started to drift from their stations, I found Yquem’s Comte Alexandre de Lur Saluces behind the Trimbachs’ table, chatting with marketers Hubert and Jean and sharing glasses of each others’ extraordinary wines. The count swirled, sniffed, and swallowed the ’89…paused for a moment, and then leaned towards Hubert. He seemed almost embarrassed, and yet there was a kind of subdued ecstasy on his face. In a heavily-accented whisper, but one audible to a few nearby eavesdroppers (including me), he rather shockingly declared: “this is better than mine.” I’ll never forget that. Alcohol: 14%. Closure: cork. Importer: Seagram Chateau & Estate. Web: http://www.maison-trimbach.fr/.