California Pinot Noirs
It is impossible to consider the cultural history of California without considering viticulture. Among its superlatives, the golden state is the top wine-producing state in the nation. According to recent statistics from the US Department of Commerce, California houses 44 percent of the nation’s vineyards and wineries and provides almost 90 percent of total domestic wine production. It is not an exaggeration to state that wine and wine-making are as important to California culture as the gold rush, the missions, the ocean, and the movies.
The history of wine-making in California roughly parallels that of the practice in the thirteen colonies, allowing for distinctions between two patterns of settlement and the continent that separates the coasts. Pacific coast settlement was largely a result of Spanish Catholic missionaries moving north from Mexico after arriving from Europe. There are records of vineyards being planted in what would become California as early as the 1680s, but the first documented evidence of sustained plantings is circa 1779. These grapes were likely indigenous varieties for, as with the east coast, imported European vines took some time to acclimatize to the new world. There is evidence that the first successful Pacific harvest of European grapes occurred in the Los Angeles vicinity in the 1830s. Within twenty five years, mission plantings had led to harvests in northern California, where the area that would become known as Napa and Sonoma evidenced a noticeable hospitality to viticulture. Both the California wine industry and the geographic and cultural core of it were established.
California wine making became a cornerstone of American commerce and a player on the world epicurean stage. California wines performed the then unheralded feat of taking gold medals over the old world competition at the 1889 Paris Exhibition. Though it did not do so without damage, California wine-making weathered Prohibition. Within five years of the repeal of that act, the first of the modern parents of the California wine industry had begun to reinvigorate Napa as a powerful force in the economy by concentrating on what it was growing in the fields and fermenting in the cask. By 1965, the legendary Robert Mondavi had opened a significant new winery in the valley, and the rest, we note as we raise our glasses in a toast, is history.
The influence of those wine-makers can’t be overstated, especially not by a lifestyle writer. Although wine is made in all fifty states, California is the heart and soul of American viticulture not just by the volume of the crush but by the extent of the influence. Fittingly for the state that also gives us entertainment and its attendant cultural impact, California winemaking exerts a significant influence upon the American table. It is the core of the casual chic style of entertaining that, let me tell you, is overwhelmingly how Americans entertain in the home. Wine is everywhere in California, from grocery store to gas station, from terrace to lunch counter, from cliffside to seaside to poolside. Californians toss off the phrase “glass of house” as unthinkingly as southerners drawl “ice-tea” and New Yawkers bark “coffeemilk.”
Of that California crush, the three most cultivated grapes are those we immediately associate with California wine: Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel. But as you know from your repeated viewings of Sideways, the grape that has come to exemplify California wine-making is Pinot Noir. Pinot Noir is a fussy, small-yield grape that requires deftness of handling but can respond profoundly in the pour. Many sommeliers, oenophiles, and drinkers regard wines made from Pinot Noir as among the most exemplary achievements of the craft. Pinot Noir is an important grape worldwide, notably in France, Italy and New Zealand, but at the world tasting table, American Pinot Noirs from the Pacific coast are influential. Notable of these are the Russian River AVA, the Los Carneros AVA, the Santa Rita Hills AVA (all California), and the Williamette Valley AVA (Oregon).
Like any diva, this grape is no less popular for being temperamental, and if it requires devoted handling, it so often delivers in performance. There is no better introduction to the showstopping capacities of California Pinot Noirs than the 2009 and 2010 vintages. For very different reasons, each vintage is spectacular. The 2009 growing season was so perfect that the wines that resulted made serious waves in the wine world, as one bottle after another was universally declared stellar. It is rare praise and for that matter rare accord that most wine experts agree that any bottle from the 2009 vintage will be a standout. Conversely, and perfectly in tune with the contrary nature of this grape that is both demanding and pleasing at once, the 2010 season was extremely challenging, and while one can't buy the vintage as one can with the 2009, a high percentage of 2010 bottlings are dazzling. As a rule of thumb, the 2009 wines are bright and polished, with just exactly the perfect haunting nuances that one should expect from a well-handled bottling of this grape's juice. The best of the 2010 wines are voluptuous and assertive, with sturdy, almost textbook, frameworks and surprisingly playful flavors.
As noted in a previous Thanksgiving wine column, any guest who wishes to should have a seat at your Thanksgiving table, and that includes red wines. Though we associate Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay or white blends as pairing well with turkey with the trimmings, the common red pairing is Pinot Noir. Based on ongoing tastings of these two vintages, here is my list of suggestions for California Pinot Noirs to serve at the Thanksgiving table. Please note that prices for Pinot Noirs display a range as wide as their flavor profile, and the success of these two recent vintages is not without its influence on cost. Some of these wines cost more that what I typically recommend at Urban Home, but the qualification for including wines for this holiday list is that they merit the mention. That said, most of these wines are priced reasonably enough that you can serve quintessential California wines at your American table.
Although I had heard about Merry Edwards Sonoma Coast bottlings, I had my first taste at the considered, and considerate, hand of the sommelier at one of my favorite restaurants. This pour reflected the finesse with which this legendary wine-maker delivers her art. The 2010 Pinot Noir is rich and supple, unfolding a depth of flavor one associates with a ripe French red. A bright pop of berries greets the palate before sparkling over a creamy core not unlike the burnt sugar top of a crème brulee. The depth of the flavors evokes the Burgundian power of this grape in the way that expensive French perfume makes you think of the Champs Elysees. When one hears that a Pinot Noir should “haunt,” this is the quality being referred to.
A tasting bottle of Calera Pinot Noir Central Coast 2009 came into my hands last spring during a weekend wine tour in the Central Coast. That was a rainy, cozy weekend -- typical for springtime in wine country -- and the appropriate context to discover this wine. Calera's bottling demonstrates this grape's otherworldly ability to deliver terroir. It's desirable to find a Pinot Noir that exhibits minerality, and this wine proceeds as if from a wet woodland, with the clear green light of fern and bark on the nose and a solid center of orchard plum and black raspberry. Anyone who’s awakened to a Sunday morning cloudburst in the Santa Ynez valley to find it followed by a rainbow will recognize both the sunshine in this bottle and the storm. But it is such a vivid pour that its most important quality is its ambassadorship.
Upfront, Melville Santa Barbara County 2009 delivers a spicy, peppery punch so muscular that it verges on Cabernet Sauvignon territory. But the pour pulls back before it actually encroaches, and fluidity within breadth of expression is another hallmark of this grape. A succulent, even beefy quality unfolds from the peppery nose, before settling into the corral with herbs, citrus and heavy stone fruit. Some will experience this wine as being too aggressive, even discordant, but I found it lush and compelling. Some will argue that this is a wine with an identity crisis, but I think it displays depth of expression. This wine reminds me that, while Cagney was famous for his fists and his tommy gun, he won his Oscar as a song and dance man.
Parker Station Pinot Noir Central Coast 2010 is a graceful, affordable gem. It unfolds in the glass with an intense bouquet of berries and wildflowers before displaying a lively interplay of cherry, plum and clove, all nestled in an acid framework as polished and exotic as a sultan's rubies. This wine is generous and pure, displaying a gleaming spectrum of flavors on the palate and a luscious claret concentration in the glass. It is affordable and extremely well-suited not just to turkey but the auxilary of dishes that arrive at the Thanksgiving table, from greens to lasagne. Of all the wines on the list it is the most hospitable, and that quality makes it a welcome guest.
Finally, I took advantage of this column to re-taste three Pinot Noirs that I have recommended previously. Loring Wine Company is one of my favorite producers. Their small-batch wines are carefully crafted and labeled by AVA and vineyard, so availability is dependent on the release based on those microclimates. Among their blends, the 2010 bottling from the Russian River Valley displays an elegant mingle of berries and spice that is ripe, aromatic and dense. During the wine weekend mentioned above, I revisited the Hitching Post twice, both for their steak and for their standard-bearing Pinots. The local legend Highliner is as sturdy as ever, with the '10 vintage displaying a hearty toastiness. Monterey-based Castle Rock produces among the best reasonably priced wines at the American table. They do this by sourcing good grapes and then handling them well. Their Monterey and Central Coast bottlings display the delicious, abundant red fruit that make these wines dependable not just at the register but on the palate. Wines from all of these vintners remain appealing, and I expect to continue to recommend them.
The history of wine-making in California roughly parallels that of the practice in the thirteen colonies, allowing for distinctions between two patterns of settlement and the continent that separates the coasts. Pacific coast settlement was largely a result of Spanish Catholic missionaries moving north from Mexico after arriving from Europe. There are records of vineyards being planted in what would become California as early as the 1680s, but the first documented evidence of sustained plantings is circa 1779. These grapes were likely indigenous varieties for, as with the east coast, imported European vines took some time to acclimatize to the new world. There is evidence that the first successful Pacific harvest of European grapes occurred in the Los Angeles vicinity in the 1830s. Within twenty five years, mission plantings had led to harvests in northern California, where the area that would become known as Napa and Sonoma evidenced a noticeable hospitality to viticulture. Both the California wine industry and the geographic and cultural core of it were established.
California wine making became a cornerstone of American commerce and a player on the world epicurean stage. California wines performed the then unheralded feat of taking gold medals over the old world competition at the 1889 Paris Exhibition. Though it did not do so without damage, California wine-making weathered Prohibition. Within five years of the repeal of that act, the first of the modern parents of the California wine industry had begun to reinvigorate Napa as a powerful force in the economy by concentrating on what it was growing in the fields and fermenting in the cask. By 1965, the legendary Robert Mondavi had opened a significant new winery in the valley, and the rest, we note as we raise our glasses in a toast, is history.
The influence of those wine-makers can’t be overstated, especially not by a lifestyle writer. Although wine is made in all fifty states, California is the heart and soul of American viticulture not just by the volume of the crush but by the extent of the influence. Fittingly for the state that also gives us entertainment and its attendant cultural impact, California winemaking exerts a significant influence upon the American table. It is the core of the casual chic style of entertaining that, let me tell you, is overwhelmingly how Americans entertain in the home. Wine is everywhere in California, from grocery store to gas station, from terrace to lunch counter, from cliffside to seaside to poolside. Californians toss off the phrase “glass of house” as unthinkingly as southerners drawl “ice-tea” and New Yawkers bark “coffeemilk.”
Of that California crush, the three most cultivated grapes are those we immediately associate with California wine: Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel. But as you know from your repeated viewings of Sideways, the grape that has come to exemplify California wine-making is Pinot Noir. Pinot Noir is a fussy, small-yield grape that requires deftness of handling but can respond profoundly in the pour. Many sommeliers, oenophiles, and drinkers regard wines made from Pinot Noir as among the most exemplary achievements of the craft. Pinot Noir is an important grape worldwide, notably in France, Italy and New Zealand, but at the world tasting table, American Pinot Noirs from the Pacific coast are influential. Notable of these are the Russian River AVA, the Los Carneros AVA, the Santa Rita Hills AVA (all California), and the Williamette Valley AVA (Oregon).
Like any diva, this grape is no less popular for being temperamental, and if it requires devoted handling, it so often delivers in performance. There is no better introduction to the showstopping capacities of California Pinot Noirs than the 2009 and 2010 vintages. For very different reasons, each vintage is spectacular. The 2009 growing season was so perfect that the wines that resulted made serious waves in the wine world, as one bottle after another was universally declared stellar. It is rare praise and for that matter rare accord that most wine experts agree that any bottle from the 2009 vintage will be a standout. Conversely, and perfectly in tune with the contrary nature of this grape that is both demanding and pleasing at once, the 2010 season was extremely challenging, and while one can't buy the vintage as one can with the 2009, a high percentage of 2010 bottlings are dazzling. As a rule of thumb, the 2009 wines are bright and polished, with just exactly the perfect haunting nuances that one should expect from a well-handled bottling of this grape's juice. The best of the 2010 wines are voluptuous and assertive, with sturdy, almost textbook, frameworks and surprisingly playful flavors.
As noted in a previous Thanksgiving wine column, any guest who wishes to should have a seat at your Thanksgiving table, and that includes red wines. Though we associate Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay or white blends as pairing well with turkey with the trimmings, the common red pairing is Pinot Noir. Based on ongoing tastings of these two vintages, here is my list of suggestions for California Pinot Noirs to serve at the Thanksgiving table. Please note that prices for Pinot Noirs display a range as wide as their flavor profile, and the success of these two recent vintages is not without its influence on cost. Some of these wines cost more that what I typically recommend at Urban Home, but the qualification for including wines for this holiday list is that they merit the mention. That said, most of these wines are priced reasonably enough that you can serve quintessential California wines at your American table.
Although I had heard about Merry Edwards Sonoma Coast bottlings, I had my first taste at the considered, and considerate, hand of the sommelier at one of my favorite restaurants. This pour reflected the finesse with which this legendary wine-maker delivers her art. The 2010 Pinot Noir is rich and supple, unfolding a depth of flavor one associates with a ripe French red. A bright pop of berries greets the palate before sparkling over a creamy core not unlike the burnt sugar top of a crème brulee. The depth of the flavors evokes the Burgundian power of this grape in the way that expensive French perfume makes you think of the Champs Elysees. When one hears that a Pinot Noir should “haunt,” this is the quality being referred to.
A tasting bottle of Calera Pinot Noir Central Coast 2009 came into my hands last spring during a weekend wine tour in the Central Coast. That was a rainy, cozy weekend -- typical for springtime in wine country -- and the appropriate context to discover this wine. Calera's bottling demonstrates this grape's otherworldly ability to deliver terroir. It's desirable to find a Pinot Noir that exhibits minerality, and this wine proceeds as if from a wet woodland, with the clear green light of fern and bark on the nose and a solid center of orchard plum and black raspberry. Anyone who’s awakened to a Sunday morning cloudburst in the Santa Ynez valley to find it followed by a rainbow will recognize both the sunshine in this bottle and the storm. But it is such a vivid pour that its most important quality is its ambassadorship.
Upfront, Melville Santa Barbara County 2009 delivers a spicy, peppery punch so muscular that it verges on Cabernet Sauvignon territory. But the pour pulls back before it actually encroaches, and fluidity within breadth of expression is another hallmark of this grape. A succulent, even beefy quality unfolds from the peppery nose, before settling into the corral with herbs, citrus and heavy stone fruit. Some will experience this wine as being too aggressive, even discordant, but I found it lush and compelling. Some will argue that this is a wine with an identity crisis, but I think it displays depth of expression. This wine reminds me that, while Cagney was famous for his fists and his tommy gun, he won his Oscar as a song and dance man.
Parker Station Pinot Noir Central Coast 2010 is a graceful, affordable gem. It unfolds in the glass with an intense bouquet of berries and wildflowers before displaying a lively interplay of cherry, plum and clove, all nestled in an acid framework as polished and exotic as a sultan's rubies. This wine is generous and pure, displaying a gleaming spectrum of flavors on the palate and a luscious claret concentration in the glass. It is affordable and extremely well-suited not just to turkey but the auxilary of dishes that arrive at the Thanksgiving table, from greens to lasagne. Of all the wines on the list it is the most hospitable, and that quality makes it a welcome guest.
Finally, I took advantage of this column to re-taste three Pinot Noirs that I have recommended previously. Loring Wine Company is one of my favorite producers. Their small-batch wines are carefully crafted and labeled by AVA and vineyard, so availability is dependent on the release based on those microclimates. Among their blends, the 2010 bottling from the Russian River Valley displays an elegant mingle of berries and spice that is ripe, aromatic and dense. During the wine weekend mentioned above, I revisited the Hitching Post twice, both for their steak and for their standard-bearing Pinots. The local legend Highliner is as sturdy as ever, with the '10 vintage displaying a hearty toastiness. Monterey-based Castle Rock produces among the best reasonably priced wines at the American table. They do this by sourcing good grapes and then handling them well. Their Monterey and Central Coast bottlings display the delicious, abundant red fruit that make these wines dependable not just at the register but on the palate. Wines from all of these vintners remain appealing, and I expect to continue to recommend them.
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