Wednesday 23 September 2015

The Winemaker and the Custom Crush

Back when I worked in Manchester for hangingditch wine merchants, one of our most popular wineries was Napa's Peter Franus. This was partly because my colleague Sophia Luckett adored the wines and would sell them to unassuming customers at any opportunity; she even hosted a winemakers' dinner in an underground, disused bank vault with Franus. The wines' popularity was also because of their forward, fruity style: these were wines that spoke loudly and clearly, true to their California origin.

Sophia visited Napa last week, exploring the genesis of some of the wines we once sold in the shop together. On her very last morning before braving the San Francisco traffic to get to the airport, we made something of a pilgrimage to visit Peter Franus's production facilities just a few miles north of Napa.

assistant winemaker Tim Dolven, Sophia, and Peter Franus


The experience was somewhat different from what we had been expecting. Rather than the romantic image of the winemaker slaving to make the perfect wine in dusty, dirty, ramshackle conditions that the name "Peter Franus" had evoked in far away Manchester, Franus makes his wine in a custom crush facility shared by forty other labels, together producing 400,000 cases a year. With his 4,500 cases, Franus is just a small cog in the machine, but the mechanical reality of winemaking was evident.

Peter Franus has been making wine for decades - he was winemaker at Mount Veeder winery from 1981 until 1992. He has had his own label since the late 1980s, but he has never had his own physical winery. He first used Mount Veeder's facilities, then others', before settling on Laird Family Estate in 2002, where he's still based.

Laird themselves make 25,000 cases a year, but their large and impressive facilities are mainly used for custom crush, an enterprise they established in 2001. Custom crush is a brilliant idea, mainly - I thought - used for amateur enthusiasts to make wine. It allows the latter to use the facilities of large, established operations without having to buy any of the equipment themselves, while drawing on the wineries' experience and expertise. They can be as active and involved in the winemaking process as they wish, or be completely hands-off and allow the winery to produce the wine for them.

Peter Franus isn't the first producer I've met who has used custom crush facilities at other wineries to make wine. Waits-Mast, an excellent producer of Sonoma and Mendocino Pinot Noir, first started making their wine this way, although they now have their own (shared) production facilities in San Francisco. What surprised me about Franus continuing to use a large operation like Laird's is the lack of control it affords him over the winemaking. Everything is done by Laird rather than Franus, albeit under his instructions: the pressing and crushing of the grapes, fermentation, any treatment of the wines in barrel, bottling. The only thing Franus has to take charge of is storing and selling the wines.

Does this make the wines less 'authentic'? Everything is still done as Peter Franus and his assistant winemaker Tim Dolven ask; he buys the grapes from his favoured vineyards around Napa; the wines are aged and blended as he wants; they are bottled under his label and taste recognisably his. Franus also follows the philosophy of intervening as little as possible in the development of a wine. I still find it difficult, however, to imagine many other serious winemakers willingly ceding so much control to such a large operation.

In the meantime, Peter Franus is becoming increasingly popular in a UK more attuned to California's wines - in fact, very little of his wine is sold locally. Compared to the extortionate prices many Napa wines fetch, they present very good value. We got to taste several of his wines, mainly from the barrel.

2015 Chardonnay

Still fermenting in its barrel and a little bit sweet and grapey. Even at this early stage, though, it was possible to sense its potential: there was already a bit of spiciness from the oak, with rich stone and tropical fruit flavours. The wine will also undergo some malolactic fermentation.

2014 and 2015 Albariño

It's very unusual to see Albariño in Napa Valley. The grapes are sourced from a vineyard just south of the city next to Highway 29, where it's not that far from the cooling maritime influence of San Pablo Bay. This allows the wine to maintain its acidity and gives it a saline quality that makes it surprisingly similar to those of wet Galicia, which Albariño is native to. Even though the still-fermenting 2015 was a little bit sweet, it was still possible to sense the stony, drying acidity that was more immediately apparent in the bottled 2014.

2014 and 2015 Zinfandel

From a vineyard on Mt. Veeder, these two wines had the rich fruitiness typical of the grape but with noticeable tannins from the cooler altitude. The 2015, again still fermenting in its stainless steel tank, tasted like acidic, fruity, tannic grape juice; the 2014, ageing in oak, now tasted like wine, and a very good one at that.
 

Tuesday 8 September 2015

Szamorodni

One of the great winemaking regions of the world is Tokaj. First mentioned in the fifteenth century, the wines are made in north-east Hungary near the Slovakian border. The area was the first to create rules to oversee the production of its wines, including on the use of manure. The most famous wines are sweet, but as I wrote in a blog late last year, there is considerable variety to the wines, with some extremely good dry wines being made from Tokaj's most important grape, Furmint.

Over the centuries, many different styles have emerged, from bone dry to the syrupy sweet Eszencia - at up to 600g/L of residual sugar, it was used as a medicinal in the nineteenth century. While I was studying for my Diploma Unit 3 exam, I became interested in one of the styles called Szamorodni, because it's aged under a film of yeast like a fino. I tracked down a bottle, but, as there was no chance of it being in my Diploma tasting exam, I only just got round to drinking it.


Szamorodni

The grapes used for sweet Tokaji are dried, shrunken, and often botrytised, carefully picked very late in the harvest (historically, on the third hoeing). In contrast, grapes for Szamorodni are not specifically selected, instead being a mixture of healthy, shrivelled, and botrytised berries. Very popular in Poland in the early 1800s, Szamarodni means "as it comes off the vine" in Polish.   

Szamorodni can be made in both a dry (száraz in Hungarian) and a slightly sweet (édes) style. Although it has the same name, the dry style is quite different from the sweet. Dry Szamorodni is aged in cellars covered with a mould called Claspodorium cellare; it also has a layer of yeasts, which are native to the area, on top of it, protecting it from oxygen and other bacteria. Over the ageing period, alcohol evaporates from the wine without any water loss, meaning that the wine loses half a percent of alcohol. Unlike a fino, there is no fortification, although alcohol is naturally high (at around 14%) due to the sugar content in the shrivelled and botrytised grapes.


Samuel Tinon Szamorodni Száraz 2007 ($45.99; 500ml)

Samuel Tinon is a Frenchman who travelled all around the world - including Jerez and Jura, where similar wines to Szamorodni are made - before settling in Tokaj. The wine was aged on its lees for six months, before spending five years in small oak barrels. It's best served at cellar temperature, so refrigerate for 20-30 minutes before serving.

The oxidative nature of the wine could be smelt as soon as I opened the bottle: potent, nutty, and, for want of a better word, sherry-like. A light amber colour, on the palate it was richly textured, more like an amontillado than a fino, with baked apple and crème brûlée flavours. In fact, as the wine opened up, the aromas made me think of a just-developing palo cortado. The Furmint and Hárslevelű grapes also provide naturally nutty and spicy aromas, such as marzipan, all-spice, and paprika. A quite extraordinary wine: reminiscent of different styles of sherry, but with higher acidity and more aromatics from the grapes. ✪


with cheese


I tasted the Szamorodni with three different cheeses - manchego (thinking of the sherry connection), gouda, and English cheddar. I thought the rich, nutty texture of the wine would complement the manchego particularly well, but it may be that the two were both too dry together. Instead, it was the English cheddar - quite a simple one bought in a supermarket - that worked wonderfully with the wine: the crumbly creaminess of the cheese softened the nutty, oxidative wine while also soaking up the rich, creamy flavours.  

This Szamorodni was a complex, engaging wine that makes me want to seek out other examples. Despite being drawn to it by its similarities with fino, it was nevertheless something very individual. Aged in small oak barrels in mouldy cellars from grapes grown on volcanic soils, it was different both from the famous sweet wines of Tokaj and the classic wines of sherry. Expensive, unusual, and great with cheddar: my kind of wine.

Thursday 3 September 2015

Oregon: Confused but not Dazed

When I recently visited Jim Clendenen of Santa Barbara's Au Bon Climat, he described Oregon as the most confused place on the planet. As a fellow Pinot Noir (and Chardonnay) producer, he found it hard to understand why so many producers were searching out difficult sites that result in low yields and, consequently, high-priced wine. The emphasis on difficult sites may produce individual wines with distinct character, but it makes it almost impossible for producers to run a commercially successful business, at least on a scale that allows their wines to be known out of the state.

Two years previously, I had visited Willamette Valley - Oregon's most important wine-producing area - and I understood what Clendenen meant. Many wineries were making expensive, single-vineyard Pinot Noirs, all of which were very good but at prices which were difficult to justify. I thought that Oregon producers needed to diversify the range of their wines to make them both more affordable and engaging. This week I attended a tasting of Oregon's wines in San Francisco called Pinot in the City, and I was interested to see just how Oregon had progressed in explaining itself to the outside world.

a little history


Oregon's winemaking history is young, beginning in the 1960s. The major protagonist in its development was David Lett, who died in 2008. He studied at UC Davis and decided, against his professors' advice, that Oregon was the best place to plant his favoured Alsace and Burgundy varieties. He planted Pinot Noir in the Dundee Hills - now the prime AVA for the grape - in 1965, establishing Eyrie Vineyards, still Oregon's best and most distinctive producer.

Sometime later, in 1979, his 1975 Pinot drew attention at a Paris tasting: Robert Drouhin of Burgundy was so impressed that he entered the same wine into a more formal tasting in Beaune the next year, where it came second only to Drouhin's own Burgundy red. Oregon, an obscure, Pacific state, was all of a sudden on the international map for Pinot Noir. Robert Drouhin took his admiration further, encouraging his daughter, Véronique, to work in Oregon after completing her oenology degree in Dijon in 1984. Three years later, Domaine Drouhin of Oregon was established with Véronique as the winemaker. That French backing further cemented Oregon’s reputation.

The last few years have seen an astonishing growth in the number of producers, including those from elsewhere in the US and France. Despite the growing industry, the state’s wineries remain very family-orientated: both a virtue and a vice.

Domaine Drouhin

Pinot Noir


As a cool-climate grape, Pinot Noir is not an obvious fit for the USA. California’s Pinots were until recently fruity, oaky, made like a light-coloured Cabernet, which is one of the reasons why David Lett and others decided Oregon was a better fit for the grape. The cool, and often wet climate certainly suits Pinot Noir, and it now dominates plantings. Of all the New World Pinot Noir regions, Oregon is the one that produces wines most similar to Burgundy: high acidity, lightly ripe red fruits, with earthy game flavours even in the younger wines. However, I am not sure that Oregon producers have the confidence to allow the grape to speak for itself: many of the wines I tasted at Pinot in the City were aged in 40% new French oak. In some cases, this use of oak was well integrated, but in many the oak was too obvious, resulting in over-aggressive, spicy flavours. Oregon’s coolness and its variety of soils don’t necessarily need that much intervention.

Nevertheless, I drew two positive conclusions from the tasting. The quality of the Pinot Noirs was consistently high, even if too much oak was being used. Moreover, although Oregon is a young wine region, enough producers go back long enough to demonstrate the longstanding quality and substance of the state's Pinots. I tasted several library wines, dating back to the 1990s (including a giant 1994 Methusalem). The spicy game I encountered in the younger wines had matured into a measured, animal earthiness, with both red and black fruits fresh enough to make the wines still immediate and appealing. It may well be that Oregon's Pinots are, rather like Burgundy's, best laid down than drunk young.

Pinot Noir at Adelsheim (2013)

other grapes


Nearly two-thirds of Oregon's grapes are Pinot Noir. No other major wine region has such a dependency on one variety - only New Zealand with its Sauvignon Blanc comes close. Where there's Pinot, there should be Chardonnay, but Oregon has a chequered history with the grape. Chardonnay clones more suited to California were initially planted so that most producers became convinced that the grape could not succeed there. One exception to this was David Lett, who planted his own cuttings taken from European vines planted in the 1930s: Eyrie's Chardonnays are still some of the best, ageworthy, and unique white wines from anywhere in the USA.

In the early 1990s, the French came up with an answer for Oregon's Chardonnay issue: clones of the grape taken from Burgundy, popularly called Dijon Clones, which were much more suitable to Oregon's climate. Scarred by their experience with Chardonnay, too few producers take advantage of these clones, but those that do make exceptional Chardonnays, with crisp, dry acidity and an almost raw texture. I believe that Chardonnay offers an alternative future for Oregon but only a handful of producers seem to dare to share that vision. I don't like to encourage yet more wines from such a ubiquitous grape, but Oregon has the potential to make Chardonnays that can compete with the world's best. Adelsheim, one of Oregon’s older producers, Domaine Drouhin, and Bergström are wineries that demonstrate the potential in the state.

I tasted more white wines than I was expecting at Pinot in the City. Many of them were Alsace grapes, with Chenin Blanc, Grüner Veltliner, and Viognier thrown in. Although producers are focusing on cool-climate grapes, for such a young region there needs to be a focus on one or two white grapes which sum up the state. With Pinot Noir, that’s how Oregon has come to be known around the world. Chardonnay fits the bill as a recognisable white grape that consumers can identify with, but so does Riesling. This is a grape that the US struggles with, but Oregon's cool, long growing season should be ideal for the grape, making the state's stand out from the rest of the country. At Pinot in the City, only one producer brought a Riesling; another, Chehalem, which makes excellent examples, brought a Grüner Veltliner instead.

There is also another side to Oregon that is rarely tasted outside the state. Cool, wet Columbia Gorge is an AVA shared with Washington, not that far from Portland but further inland - and one that Washington winemakers seem to use and understand better than Oregon’s. As Oregon reaches further from the ocean it becomes desert-like, sharing more AVAs with Washington (particularly Walla Walla and The Rocks District, which is entirely within Oregon but also entirely within Walla Walla, one of Washington’s best-known AVAs) and Idaho. To the south of the Willamette Valley, towards the dry heat of California, are more wine-producing areas, where Syrah and Spanish grapes like Tempranillo and Albariño are of interest. These AVAs are little known outside the state, and remain relatively underdeveloped.

the future


It's both perverse and arrogant of me to predict the future of the wines of a state I haven't visited in two years, or to offer advice. But Oregon is such a distinctive state, producing wines like nowhere else in the USA, that it could offer a more vibrant, varied, and challenging selection of wines than it currently does. My advice, for what it's worth, is:
  • use less new oak for Pinot Noir
  • make more good-value, friendly, yet still quality Pinot Noir
  • concentrate more on Chardonnay
  • experiment with Riesling for further variation
  • for the time being, forget all other white grapes, especially Pinots Gris and Blanc
  • start marketing the wines properly
  • what about the rest of Oregon? Washington seems to understand its shared AVAs more, while the south of Oregon is overlooked. Get those wines into the market, as they may represent better value and give more variety.
Oregon needs to get over its Pinot Noir obsession, even though it produces such good, international quality versions of the grape. It needs to back up those wines with variety and choice. Rather than making wines for their own pleasure, Oregon needs to think about a much wider audience.

tasting highlights


Adelsheim Caitlin's Reserve Chardonnay 2013 ($45) ✪✪✪✪✪
Belle Pente Estate Reserve Pinot Noir 2011 ($48) ✪✪✪✪✪ and 2004 ✪✪✪✪✪
Bergström Vineyard Pinot Noir 2013 ($85) ✪✪✪✪✪
Chehalem Reserve Pinot Noir 1994 (magnum) ✪✪✪✪
Domaine Drouhin Arthur Chardonnay 2013 ($35) ✪✪✪✪
Erath Pommard Clone Prince Hill Vineyard 2009 ✪✪✪✪✪
Yamhill Valley Vineyards Reserve Pinot Noir 1994 (Methusalem) ✪✪✪✪