Play the Sonoma Pinot

It's easy to stereotype California, which makes it so exciting to be confounded by those stereotypes. 'California is hot and uniform; its Pinot Noirs are as a result big, jammy, and shouldn't be made.' Although there's still much Pinot Noir being made which is too fruity and unsubtle, it's clear that California is increasingly capable of producing Pinots that can compete on an international level. This is because California is certainly not hot and uniform, but consists of a series of microclimates that winemakers are seriously exploring with exciting results.

where?

To give an example of the different climates of California that don't conform to geography, my one favourite area for Pinot Noir has long been around Santa Barbara - less than two hours north of Los Angeles. Here the coastal AVAs of Santa Ynez and Santa Rita are cooled dramatically by coastal fogs to the point that Santa Rita is the coolest AVA in California. I haven't visited Santa Barbara yet, something I hope to rectify.

Now Sonoma, north of San Francisco, is attracting attention for its Pinots, as well as its Chardonnays. Sonoma folk make a big play on how cool a climate Sonoma County has, in order to emphasise the area's suitability for the classic Burgundy grapes. Compared to Napa, it is cooler - the ocean fog isn't interrupted by mountains - but it has still reached more than 30ºC when I've visited in recent weeks. However, the temperature drops sharply at night, and the fog lingers in the morning - and the land by the ocean is particularly cool.

Sonoma is divided into several AVAs, which can be confusing. Sonoma Coast AVA is the source for great Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes, including for Napa producers, but it extends much further inland than it should. Russian River Valley AVA has also been extended so that it flows into the Sonoma Coast AVA as well as encompassing the small Green Valley AVA. Further to the north are Dry Creek Valley AVA, where some great, intense Zinfandel is made. Beyond Sonoma county to the north are Anderson Valley AVA, home of some of the best vineyards for Pinot Noir, and Mendocino, a diverse area with some particularly cool spots for Pinot.

Many of the best producers are located in Russian River Valley, even if they source some of their grapes from other AVAs, often from Anderson Valley in Mendocino County to the north. It's a beautiful, secluded area, with roughly laid, winding roads tracking through forests and fields. The major city is Santa Rosa; smaller towns, with tasting rooms and inviting restaurants, are hippyish Sebastopol and self-consciously well-to-do Healdsburg.

producers

Joseph Swan

Joseph Swan, established in the late 1960s, is one of California's great maverick wineries. The GPS takes you elsewhere and if you do manage to find the winery it's likely to be in a state of pleasing confusion. The wines, now made by Swan's son-in-law Rod Berglund, manage to be both weird, funky, and slightly oxidised yet hypnotic, enticing, and unforgettable.

There are several single-vineyard Pinot Noirs made, all exceptional and, despite the purpose of this blog to highlight the characteristics of Sonoma Pinot Noir, completely individual and like nothing else. Saralee's 2011 ($39) is a dark, intense wine that powers its red fruits through with peppery spices and savoury notes. The Great Oak 2010 ($36) is more floral and perfumed and less spicy, its fruits more curranty. The Trenton View 2011 ($38) is more of a classic Pinot, with strawberry aromas; intense but nuanced, with a dry, peppery finish. The Cuvée de Trois 2011 ($30) is a combination of these three styles: intense, weighty, slightly difficult, but full of delicious berries.

Littorai

Littorai have recently been receiving a lot of attention as the leading light of the "New California," although winemaker Ted Lemon has been making wine since the 1980s. He studied at the University of Dijon, where he gained an interest in wine; by his early 20s, he was Burgundy's first ever American winemaker. He returned to the US to work in Napa, where he became disillusioned with conventional winemaking practices which led to an interest in biodynamics. With his wife, he started looking for the perfect site to make Pinot Noir and Chardonnay; although they began making their own wine in 1993, it wasn't until 2003 that they bought their own property.

Littorai are biodynamic in all but name, with flowers, plants, and beehives to maintain a flourishing ecosystem; so particular is the set-up that the bees are a specific pollinating only, non-stinging, and non-honey producing species. Production is small and hands-on - when I visited, the first grapes were coming in from the harvest, overseen personally by Ted Lemon.

Most of the Pinot Noirs are single-vineyard, but the Sonoma Coast 2013 (c.$40), which has just been bottled, is a combination of their vineyards from the second pressing of the grapes. It's a friendly, forward Pinot, with tart raspberries and cherries and a slight savoury feel. The Savoy Vineyard 2012 ($65) is from Anderson Valley; smoky, toasty, with soft, ripe, red fruits, and white pepper and sage on the savoury finish. Haven Vineyard on Sonoma Coast was the couple's first purchase in 2001; the 2012 ($90) is earthier and gamier, with more gripping tannins, spicier with a lightly chewy finish. My favourite of the wines I tasted was from Hirsch Vineyard, which has become one of the leading vineyards in Russian River Valley for Pinot Noir. Littorai were the first to bottle from the vineyard in 1994, leading to a longstanding relationship. The 2012 ($70) has an interesting combination of smoke and earth with rose petals. The tannins are bigger and chewier: this is quite a big, aggressive wine for a Pinot Noir, but well structured and firm.

Ant Hill Farms

Located on a converted dry fruits factory site in Dry Creek Valley, Ant Hill have been going for over ten years. It's just three friends who work in the wine industry, together making single-vineyard Pinot Noirs and some (excellent) Syrah. Like all makers of Pinot Noir, everything they do is very particular - hand-picked and -processed grapes, vineyards fermented separately, grapes cold soaked before fermentation to extract flavours, 40% of the grapes fermented in whole clusters - a figure which has gone up, to get different tannins from the stems - with a slow, steady MLF after pressing which doesn't finish until spring.

Comptche Ridge 2012 ($50) comes from a northerly vineyard in Mendocino, just six miles inland. This is cool climate without a doubt, and it's reflected in the wine: austere, earthy, medicinal, and mineral, a drying finish offset only by a high acidity. The fruits are very reserved. Peters Vineyard reflects the confusing nature of Sonoma's vineyards. Just southwest of Sebastopol, it's at the intersection of Russian River Valley, Green Valley, and Sonoma Coast; it's also part of Sebastopol Hills and in the Petaluma Gap, through which cooling winds blow - both of these are potential future AVAs. Again, this is cool climate, for it was once thought too cold to grow grapes; instead, the land was used for dairy and apples. The vineyard is near Littorai, where the Gold Ridge soils are light, fine-grained, fluffy, and porous. The wine ($55) itself is more forgiving than the Comptche Ridge, with more apparent red fruits, a savoury Pinot smell, and nice spices on the palate. Tina Marie Vineyard is in Russian River Valley and on my visit some of the grapes from this vintage were already undergoing cold soak in the unglamorous plastic bins. This is a friendlier climate, producing smokier wines; the wine ($55) is chewier and jammier, with more candied fruits.

As with many of Sonoma's Pinots, all of Ant Hill Farm's wines are food-friendly; I was given a bottle of the Demuth Vineyard 2012 ($50), from Anderson Valley, whose spicy, floral, gamey aromas complemented perfectly the duck cassoulet at Grace's Table in Napa a couple of weeks later.

Cartograph

A brief visit to their tasting room in Healdsburg introduced me to this winery's superb Pinot Noirs. Once again, there is a concentration on the characters of different vineyards. Perli Vineyard is 600m high in Mendocino Ridge AVA, where the vineyards have to be above 300m, above the fog line and with plenty of exposure to the sun on the steep slopes. A light, upfront wine at first, the 2011 ($48) has a surprising grainy, gripping, bitter mouth: a good introduction to the winery's approach to creating wines that are delicate and full of depth and complexity at the same time. In contrast, the Russian River Valley Pinot Noir ($38), from two vineyards, Leonardo Julio and Floodgate, is exposed to fog, creating an earthy, almost stinky wine, with rose petals and raspberries and a dusty, dry finish. The Floodgate Pinot Noir 2011 ($40) is much darker and denser, with blackberries and blueberries as well as strawberries; producing what the previous wine was hinting at, with subtly gripping tannins, a smoky, barnyard feel, and a lightly spicy finish.

Senses

A winery that's just three years old and still very much finding its way: there's only a Chardonnay and a Pinot Noir currently produced. Like Ant Hill Farms, coincidentally, Senses are three friends making wines on the side from their day jobs. Again, it's a hands-on job, though they've been helped by one of the three's family owning a farm with a disused vineyard, which they now get their Pinot Noir from. They've also received quite a bit of help from neighbouring wineries Red Car and Dutton Goldfield - Sonoma is a definitely an area with a strong community feel. The 2012 Pinot (c.$40) is a clear indication that the winery has lots of promise: red fruits that are developing a darker texture as the wine ages, with a long, spicy finish. The enthusiasm that the Senses team express for their Pinot Noir in particular is both justified and characteristic of every winemaker in Sonoma: the wines are still unknown, full of promise, and at the start of an exciting future.

For all that Sonoma and its various AVAs are producing great Pinot Noir, each winery - and each wine - has its own distinct character, expressive of philosophy, vineyard, and vintage. This makes the area difficult to define and pin down, but that's how it should be; already Pinot aficionados - who are a picky, geeky bunch - are seeking out their favourite vineyards and wineries. This is an area that's going to get more and more interesting and is one to follow.