17
Feb
2011
0

A Fond du Lac kind of guy

While Ken Wright was passing along knowledge that stimulated our brains and pouring us wine that aroused our palates, he told us a story that warmed our hearts.

Once upon a time, there was a young man who had grown up in Wisconsin ““ Fond du Lac and Racine ““ and decided to head for California and learn about wine. He worked hard, as Upper Midwesterners tend to do, but couldn’t earn enough money to start his own business.

Then he met a man who had sold ties, millions and millions of ties, and gotten rich enough to want to start his own winery, even though nobody in his family knew anything about the biz. The winery would not be in Napa or Sonoma, but the vinferous backwater of Carmel Valley.

So they struck a deal: The Wisconsin guy would get the winery firmly rooted in terms of vineyards and winemaking. After five years, they would bring in an outside assessor, who would determine how much the operation was worth, and Mr. Fond du Lac native would get a percentage.

And that’s how Ken Wright Cellars came to be, with Wright getting seed money from Robb Talbott of Talbott Vineyards to pursue two dreams: starting his own operation and making pinot noir.

Why pinot? “I can’t think of anything I’ve ever eaten or drunk that defines where it comes from as well as pinot noir,” Wright said. “Some cheeses come close. 

Spoken like a true Wisconsonite.

When Wright decamped in the Willamette Valley, there were about two dozen wineries; today there are about 600. He hooked up with Freedom and Canary Hill vineyards in ’87 and Shea in ’91, and has been bottling wine from them ever since. Fifteen years ago, Wright stopped blending and stuck with single-vineyard wines.

All the while, he marveled at how wildly varying the conditions can be in Oregon. “We have never had two years alike,” he said. “Something different happens every year. I mean, that’s farming. 

When we visited in mid-August, toward the end of a remarkably cool summer, the grapes were still tiny and green. “I’ve been walking the vineyard for weeks, looking for color,” Wright said, “and the other day I said screw it, this is like waiting for a pot to boil. 

Even in a tough year, Wright’s strong focus on soil management means that his post-harvest role is “to be as transparent as possible, to be as protective as possible of the vineyard. My job is to not let anything get going in the wrong direction. People have made crap from great grapes. 

That does not mean a non-interventionist approach. In sunny years, which can produce higher sugars, “you have to add water or you have an unctuous wine.  Wright pays less attention to briox and more to pH, which, he said, “drives the ability of wine to age, and of everything else on the planet to age. 

“In the end you have to be true to yourself and make what you love and hope things work out. 

In the meantime, Wright figures, let’s go snowboarding! He owns 14 boards, and his wife Karen is a world-class ‘boarder in her age group.

Clearly, you can take the lad out of Fond du lac, but “¦

14
Feb
2011
0

The good earth dude

For journalists, winery visits tend to be predictable (and pretty cool): some face time with the owner, winemaker or an attractive stand-in and some tasting time with wines the hosts believe/hope will make a lasting impression.

But I had no idea what to expect on a late-summer visit to Ken Wright Cellars in Carlton, Ore. First off, rather than the usual one-on-one, there were eight of us, including my way-better half and three other wine-loving couples. Then someone told me that it was very unusual for Wright to spend time with any visitors.

Finally, we were on the winemaker’s docket just after a tasting with the Wine Advocate’s Jay Miller (left), a potential stress-inducer for our host.

While we waited for Wright, we sampled his wines, which were both delicious and fascinating. His Meredith Mitchell bottling is as good as any domestic pinot blanc I’ve encountered, with a rare combination of green and gold apple flavors and a seductive finish.

The four pinot noirs were all from the stupendous 2008 vintage. And that was about all they had in common. Oh, except for vividly expressing a sense of place, evoking the ground from which they had sprung.

Which meant that different people had different favorites. One friend favored the Carter Vineyard, a deep, dark beauty; others raved about the more acidic Canary Hill or the more generous Abbott Claim. I admired all three, but my favorite was from the Savoya Vineyard, bold but mysterious, with equally strong doses of earth and dark red fruit.

Amidst our gurgles of delight, in walked Ken, wearing a smile — Miller must have enjoyed the wines — and clothes that made it clear what he considers the most important part of his job.

“It’s all about farming,” he said. “Any idiot can make wine. Farming is hard. What I have learned is that everything you love in wine happens in the vineyard.”

But rather than just tell us, Ken Wright showed us, taking us up to a couple of his vineyards in the hills. “The sweet spot here is 300 to 600 feet elevation,” he said on the way up, “high enough that the soils are not too deep and there are no frost issues.” 

When we got to the first vineyard, he pulled out a large sketch pad and showed how the subterranean plates had merged waaaay back in the day, how floods from an unimaginably ginormous Montana lake had created a different type of soil below the hills’ volcanic dirt.

“If high-school science classes had been like this, we’d all be geologists,” I whispered to my wife.

And then he got to the crux of the matter: the dirt as he found it, and how he set out to make it healthier. But just when he might have been expected to trot out the “o” word, out came an “n” word.

“Organic farming doesn’t produce the best nutrition. What we really should be demanding [rather than organic] is better nutrition,” Wright said. “When plants don’t get what they need nutritionally, they struggle. Those kinds of plants are always the first to get diseases, to get insects.

“Nature is not kind to weak things. ”

So during “24 years of trial and error, with a lot of failure,” Wright has started and (literally) nurtured relationships with 10 vineyards. He was the first vintner to do a bottling from the now-renowned Shea Vineyard.

“Their fruit was disgusting,” he said. “It smelled like canned green beans. The plants were OK, but they needed new trellising and nutrients.” 

So we picked out three blocks and paid the Sheas by the acre, rather than the grape tonnage. Then he set about working the not-so-good earth, often selling off the grapes while his “dirty work” took hold. “In the early years the wine lacks precision, lacks clarity,” he said

At Shea and subsequent sites, Wright has injected live micro-organisms into the soil, “things that are slow to degrade and over the years, with rain, etc., they work their way down into the soil. Sites that are nutritionally deficient, it takes 4 or 5 years to get it right. 

“You have to wait until the vine engages the mother rock. Once it extends itself to the mother rock, then it draws in these attributes all of a sudden — clove, tobacco. Eighty percent of our farming is underground, making the micro-organisms happy all along the root area. Micro-organisms need carbon, and they get their carbon from plants; in exchange they give potassium, magnesium, copper.”

A bonus: “Complex soils have amazing antioxidants. ”

And they produce, at least in this case, amazing wines.

PART II: A singular focus, and some beautiful relationships.

13
Feb
2011
0

Free to choose

I am fairly certain that capitalism and democracy have some serious compatibility problems. But I do believe in the free market, and have been marveling at what it has done to retail prices in the wine world since the economy went semi-kaputski.

A lot of waaaay-overpriced wines started showing up at less ridiculous tariffs, and some wineries that had gotten complacent, or been commoditized by conglomerates, had to seriously slash prices at the lower ends. Sometimes the latter course didn’t make a difference. Plonk, after all, is not a bargain at any price.

But the combination of tough times and grape gluts put a severe hit on perhaps capitalism’s best friend, brand loyalty. Often in the past 2-plus years, it hasn’t mattered how much someone had liked a spendy wine, especially in the $20-$60 range: Consumers simply started looking elsewhere.

I had done this years earlier with a $50-ish wine. In the late ’90s, I stumbled across a wonderful Central Coast red blend from Treana: hearty and delicious, with great depth and length, and a good value at around $30. I drank it regularly for a few years. Then, with the 2001 vintage, the price made a Michael Jordan-like vertical leap, from $32 straight to $52.

I’m not sure if I stopped buying it because the abruptness (and arrogance?) of a 63-percent hike chapped my ass, or if I just felt as though it flat-out wasn’t worth the new price. A little of both, probably. Regardless, I haven’t bought a bottle of Treana since.

Recently I received a sample of the wine (now designated Paso Robles rather than Central Coast). I’m not as big a fan of its jammy style as I was back in the day, but the 2007 has really tasty fruit, lovely tannins and the depth and length that I recall.

So I can recommend the wine because it’s really good, but I probably won’t be buying any myself. My “brand loyalty” went away seven years ago when the tab leapfrogged.

And while I’m surprised that Treana has been able to maintain the $52 tab — although cheaper alternatives are available — through recent tough times for others, I’m not displeased. Obviously, other consumers have remained loyal to the brand — and that’s the beauty of the free market, for all concerned.

13
Feb
2011
0

Excellent queries

Matt Kramer is as good as it gets in the wine-writing world. His latest masterwork includes questions I have asked before, either in conversation or in print. I’ll use this link, since I think the original, at Wine Spectator’s site, might be subscriber-only (can’t tell since I am a subscriber).

And since I can’t link to my 2008 column on syrah because a certain newspaper website’s search engine is amidst a desperately needed overhaul, I’ll reprint it here (especially since nothing has changed, and I am now, as I was then, just as flummoxed as Mr. Kramer):

Syrah still struggles to catch on, inexplicably

Que, syrah? In contemporary parlance, that translates as “what up, syrah?” and it’s a question that perplexes many wine lovers, present company included.

Wine folks have been saying that syrah was going to be “the next big thing” for, oh, about a decade. Hasn’t happened. And no one I talked to could explain why.

Stores don’t get behind the wines, a distributor would say. Customers just don’t seem to want it, or prefer a cheaper shiraz (the Australian name for this varietal), a merchant would counter. What they agreed upon was that it has nothing to do with the quality of the product, that there are some seriously tasty syrahs coming from California and Washington at sundry price points.

But a lot of them are gathering dust at local distributors’ warehouses. The Rocca Family syrah won universal raves at a recent wine symposium in Napa, Calif., and even has a local connection (Mary Rocca was once a dentist in Rochester). For several years, friends, family members and yours truly have been wowed by Spencer Roloson’s syrahs, especially La Herradura, at restaurants in San Francisco and Nashville.

But just try finding these wines at a local store or on a restaurant wine list. (Better yet, ask your favorite merchant to
get you some.) Both retail for about $50, which ain’t cheap. But most good Napa cabs sell for more than that, and while I’m quite fond of those wines, syrahs are vastly more interesting, varied and food-friendly.

Indeed, in the $25 to $50 range, West Coast syrah kicks the collective back ends of cabernets, merlots and pinot noirs. These wines are almost universally rich, deep, spicy, structured and nuanced. That’s one reason winemakers love this varietal and continue to plant and make it, even when their profit margins are much higher with cabernet.

Among brands well worth seeking out are Ojai, Qupe, Copain, JC Cellars and two Sonoma wineries owned by former Minnesotans, Bella and Duxoup. At a higher price point ($65 or so), the Cayuse from Washington and Shafer’s “Relentless” are superb.

And yes, there are less spendy syrahs — Cline, McManis, Cycles Gladiator — that provide a fitting introduction to this legendary grape.

How legendary? Well, the Aussies call the grape shiraz after the Persian town from whence it originated, according to some. That’s open to debate, but we do know that the world’s oldest wine sample — dating to 5000 B.C. — was found near Shiraz, now Iran’s fourth-largest city.

Whatever its origins, the grape found its way to southern France, where it has found profound expression in the northern Rhone region, most notably those labeled Cornas, Cote Rotie and Hermitage (not to be confused with Grange Hermitage, Australia’s foremost shiraz). In the southern Rhone, syrah is one of the blending grapes used in Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

Just over a century ago, a Rhone nursery wedded syrah and a grape called peloursin to create petit sirah, which is also known as dourif and … well, now I’m starting to understand why consumers might be confused about syrah. Thankfully, there’s nothing befuddling about what’s in the bottle.

13
Feb
2011
0

Trust me on this one

I love this piece, even though (and in some ways because) it casts wine bloggers in a less than flattering light.

A new poll has found that consumers in several countries trust buying advice from merchants more than bloggers. In the United States, the figure is 80 percent.

There are many excellent wine bloggers, doing great work. And there are more than a few bad merchants out there, uncaring or ignorant. But here in the Twin Cities, at least, I have found most wine-mongers, especially at independent stores with at least some wine focus, to be smart, passionate and eager to share what they know with customers.

That’s why on numerous occasions in my Star Tribune wine column (most recently here), I urge readers to develop and nurture relationships with at least one wine-store person. To be open and honest about likes and dislikes. To come back to the store and share with said person what you enjoyed (or not) about a wine he/she recommended.

That’s why such a merchant should be trusted more than yours truly or any other writer in any forum: because they know you — having been told your predilections on flavors and price points — in ways that a blogger never can.

Of course not all customer-salesperson relationships work this way. In the end, the, uh, gullible consumers will get what they deserve whether they follow a random blog or a random wine-monger. Same for the smart patrons, the ones with good instincts about people and the good sense to share what they know and like.

13
Feb
2011
0

Hamming it up

For years now, I’ve been wanting to do a component tasting, the kind where you have bowls of cherries and dirt and mushrooms and rose petals and mint and other elements that can define pinot noir, then sniff them and the wines. By almost all accounts, it’s a great way to learn how to identify these aromas in a wine, for good.

Well, without even trying, I semi-accomplished that goal during the past week. It started with a gathering at our house last weekend, when we cut up and served a buttload of Honey Baked Ham (from the eponymous outlet) on rolls. I didn’t try to see how that worked with any of the wines, although I’m guessing it would have rocked with the always-delicious Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc-Viognier that was on ice but never got opened that night.

So last night, I was sampling some wines, and my way-better half (and often way-better taster) said “this smells just like Honey Baked Ham.” She was spot on.

Not only that, but the Predator Old Vine Zinfandel from Lodi tasted uncannily like … Honey Baked Ham.

The clove and smoke and fatness and residual sugar (honey?) were all there.

I am fairly positive that our brains would not have made that connection if we had not been slicing and eating that same food a few days earlier.

Which makes me more determined than ever to have one of those component tastings ASAP. Might have to go in another direction than pinot, though, since we’re a ways from being able to get at actual dirt here in Tundraland.

13
Feb
2011
0

OMG(oodness)

It could be said that Trinitas Cellars is taking a striking new direction with its Christianity-laden approach to wine. Or it could be said that the winery is coming full circle, given the role monks such as Dom Perignon played in the cultivation and making of wine.

Either way, Trinitas deserves props for transparency, for wearing its faith on its bottle sleeves, er, labels. It’s a natural progression for founder Tim Busch, described on the winery’s website as “co-founder of the Magis Institute, which sponsors a host of spiritual endeavors including retreats, ethics training, and wealth stewardship forums.”

Among the wines in Trinitas’ portfolio are Psalms, a 50-50 semillon-sauvignon blanc blend; Rose’ary, a pink offering from Mendocino, and a zinfandel called ratZINger, which is both another groany pun in the zin world and perhaps the first wine on the planet named after the current pope. (The Sanford-Benedict Vineyard, while revered by many, predates this particular Holy Father’s ordination.) A blurb on the zin from the Trinitas website:

“In his first papal encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI underscored that love of God and love of neighbor are inseparable — they both live from the love of God who loved us first. This wine is crafted in memory of Monsignor Thomas J. Herron, close friend and collaborator of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who lovingly labored for the Gospel until his death on May 2, 2004. May you and your loved ones experience God’s love.”

If nothing else, the wines should have a ready-made client base, to be served with wafers on Sunday mornings.

13
Feb
2011
0

Different drummer, indeed

The other day, the headline on a blog post by the Wine Spectator’s Tim Fish caught my eye: “What does it take to make an $8 wine?”

So when I had lunch later that day with winemaker Jim Tonjum, I couldn’t resist opening our conversation with basically the same question re. his Different Drummer wine. It’s about as nice a $12 California cab as you’ll find, with bright food but a touch of Old World dryness and elegance.

“It’s fairly simple,” he said. “The first thing you do is you don’t own a winery. Because If I owned a $9 million winery, this wine would be $25.”

I’m gonna like this guy, I thought.

“My idea was to spend the money in places that bring the most quality,” Tonjum continued.

That, of course, would be on the grapes. So Tonjum leases space for the winemaking, does his own racking and uses a custom bottling company.

Having spent most of his working life at Beringer and seen prices of everything in Napa balloon exponentially over the decades, Tonjum knew he would need to look elsewhere for “excellent quality grapes at reasonable prices.” The east side of Paso Robles fit the bill.

One of the first things he learned at Beringer about inexpensive wines stuck with him in his drive for quality and value: “It was a lot easier to sell a better wine at a higher price than a lesser wine at a lower price.”

So how does one get a better wine at a lower price? “You don’t have to give up one iota of quality when you’re not paying for an expensive winery.”