California - what I've learnt

Wines born of sunshine and heat are fruit driven and higher in alcohol. They tend to be richer and fuller in fruit, particularly the chardonnays and Bordeaux varieties. This does not mean they are simple wines, as in most cases they have a higher acidity to balance out the fruit and alcohol. Winemaking techniques are fairly universal. They don't do anything different in the winery or out in the vineyards that distinguishes them in particular. What speaks volumes is the quality of the fruit and the expressions of terroir. The problem is when winemakers do too much to interfere with the fruit, attempting to exert their influence on the finished product.

Outside The Hitching Post made famous by the film 'Sideways', in Santa Ynez California 

Within California there are as many variations of region and site as there are in Australia, which means there are endless styles and varieties. California isn't doing anywhere near enough Spanish, Portuguese or Italian varieties as they should. The vast majority are French, with the exception of zinfandel (Croatian). Premium wine in general is a little more expensive than Australian premium wine. There is also more of it. Wine clubs and mailing lists are really important here. In very crowded regions like Napa and Sonoma, a productive and successful wine club is vital for survival, and they all seem to do very well. Operating outside the three-tiered system means they can offer huge discounts on wines, but it is also about offering exclusivity and special treatment, something Americans are really into.

In the cellars of Opus One in Napa Valley, California

Wine tourism is very different here. Very few wineries serve food compared to Australia, and almost all of them charge for tastings. Depending on where you are and the nature of the tasting, you can expect to pay between $5 and $50, Napa being the most expensive. The approach is less a marketing expense to allow potential customers to try your wines, and more a revenue raising venture. When you consider that the Napa Valley is the second most visited place in California, it would be silly not to capitalise on it. The pours tend to be more generous though, and people often share tastings. The legal limit being 0.08 helps a bit too.

Enjoying fine food in Santa Rosa, California

In my humble opinion, these are the regions I think produce the best varieties;

Chardonnay - Russian River Valley
Viognier - Mt Harlan
Rhone white and red blends - Paso Robles
Syrah - Carneros
Pinot Noir - Anderson Valley
Zinfandel - Dry Creek Valley
Cabernet - Sonoma
Cabernet blends - elevated sites away from the coast, e.g. Spring Mountain and Montebello

The Silicon Valley one day after Steve Jobs died, Montebello California 

Alsace or Burgundy, you be the judge (Anderson Valley, California)

The Anderson Valley suffers somewhat from isolation, as every road into it is very windy and narrow (which makes for great driving, actually). There isn't a large population living there either, so drawing people in is very important. Luckily they are blessed with some of the best fruit in California, both wine grapes and table fruit like apples. Post-Prohibition this region was established until the early '70s and so they are younger than most regions in the state. The key varieties here are pinot noir (the best in California in my opinion), and gewurtztraminer.

Tasting at Goldeneye Winery

Goldeneye range

Goldeneye Winery has no relation to James Bond whatsoever, just to clarify. After establishing wineries in the Napa Valley, Dan and Margaret Duckhorn decided to explore the potential of pinot noir, and chose the Anderson Valley to do it. Since the first commercial vintage in 2000, Goldeneye wines have established themselves for being world-class expressions of site and variety. Having tasted through the range which includes a sub-label, an estate wine and three single vineyard wines, I can see why they are so sought after. I can say with some confidence these were the best pinot noirs I tasted in California. They walk in ballet shoes on the tightest thread between too light and too heavy, too much fruit and too much savoury. They are so well balanced and delicate you could be forgiven for thinking they were simple. Whilst cabernet has a structure similar to that of steel girders, these pinots have an almost spider-web like structure, so fine but so strong. The wines are also my preference for enjoying with food, as I tend to go for more Cote-de-Beaune style than Cote-de-Nuits. Simply a revelation.

Lula range

Further up the valley was Lula, only in it's second vintage and very small (1300 cases). The wines here showed a lot of potential, and I tried the first of many pinot noir roses for the day. The zinfandel was very good, but the pinot was a little extracted and hot. Next door was Drew Wines which had been recommended to me by several people. Unforunately they were closed, even though the sign said open Thursdays to Mondays. Busy time I guess, vintage and all. Not far away was Toulouse Winery, named after the breed of goose, not the town in France or the 19th Century French artist. Whilst the new tasting room is being finished, they are conducting tastings in the winery, right next to fermenting pinot noir. The gewurtztraminer was the best wine here, but the pinots were pretty good too.

Pinot noir ferments at Toulouse

Back in 1974 when there were only two wineries in the Anderson Valley, Navarro Vineyards and Winery planted their first gewurtztraminer vines, seeing the potential for Alsatian varieties. They take risks and do some interesting things here, including blending riesling, gewurtztraminer, pinot gris and muscat into a traditional Alsatian style. When you taste the wines you can see what the family saw nearly 40 years ago. The second winery to establish in the Valley was Husch Vineyards, also planting gewurtztraminer and pinot noir back in 1972. The wines aren't as good, but they do have some variety and the sweet wines are very nice.

Navarro tasting room

Gewurztraminer vines at Husch Vineyards

A number of people had suggested visiting Roederer Estate, established by the champagne house in 1982, as they produce the best sparkling wine in California. Whilst the fruit character was undeniably California in style, the yeast autolysis is much better integrated than other sparkling wines I have tried. Interestingly this was very pronounced when comparing the 750ml Brut MV and the magnum of the same wine. The vintage wines had great elegance and balance, but the still wines were probably the most insipid I have tried. They would be better used as base wines for the sparkling wines.

Roederer Estate Jeraboam

Click here to see more photos from Day Two of Mendocino County.

Honesty is the best policy (Mendocino and Lake Counties, California)

First of all, Mendocino and Lake Counties are both beautiful. Secondly, some of the best wines I have tried came from fruit grown in Mendocino County. The major problem with Mendocino and Lake compared to other regions, is it's remoteness (2.5 hours from San Francisco instead of 1 hour for Napa and Sonoma), and it's size. These aren't problems that I have personally, it was actually nice to be visiting wineries where I was the only one there. They are problems with wine tourism though, and the area needs to draw more people up from the Bay area to have them try and buy the wines. So if you ever come to California, I highly recommend making the trip up North, beautiful scenery, people and wines.

Saracina vineyards

Heading back down the 101 I first stopped into Nelson Family Vineyards, which is a small operation that makes wine from only 5% of their fruit. The wines are just OK, nothing special, but they do some interesting things such as an orange muscat and an ice riesling (not from Mendocino). Saracina next door was established by the oldest of the Fetzer dynasty, and the wines here were better. Slightly more restrained and elegant in style, the malbec was great, but the best was probably the roussanne viognier blend. The cellar under the hill was a pretty cool location for a tasting too, and Damien was nice enough to recommend some wineries to visit whilst in the area.

Saracina tasting room

A Mexican migrant to the USA, Cesar Toxqui worked his way up through the Fetzer empire starting as a vineyard hand, and eventually graduating to assistant-winemaking duties. He started his own brand and now makes a range of wines entirely from contract fruit. The wines are all excellent food-friendly styles, and even includes a non-vintage red blend made in the solera-style that includes a different blend each year with the previous blend.

Cesar Toxqui Pinot Noirs

Changing plans mid-afternoon, I decided to drive down to Lake County which is just next to Mendocino. Back in the '60s Clear Lake was a popular destination for tourists from the Bay Area for camping, watersports, and gambling. That was until they opened the interstate that drew people to Lake Tahoe, which straddles California and Nevada. The locals in Lake County are trying to draw people back to the area, and one way they are doing this is through world-class wines.

Gregory Graham

After many years within a large wine company making large quantities of wine for other people, Gregory Graham established his own winery on the southern shores of Clear Lake. When I visited on a Sunday afternoon he was plunging syrah in small fermenters himself, always nice to see. One of the benefits of being so hands-on and producing wines in such small quantities means that you can charge very reasonable prices. This is one of the secrets of the industry the large companies don't want consumers to realise. It also means that most of the wines need to be sold direct, whether through the tasting room or wine club/mailing list. Greg gave me some great insights into the business and pointed out that a maritime climate actually gives cabernet the green edge to it, probably why I prefer Yarra Valley cabernets.

Gergory Graham Cinder Cone

Along with Benziger, one of the wineries heavily promoting the biodynamic story in California is Ceago. Located on the northern shores of Clear Lake, Ceago was established by another Fetzer (hard not to find Fetzers in Mendocino and Lake), Jim Fetzer. The family business grew to 2.5 million cases between 1968 and 1992, and was growing 1200 acres of organic grapes. In 1993 Jim established Ceago vineyards as a biodynamic vineyard and the first commercial vintage was in 2001. Similar to the Benziger and Frog's Leap wines, the idea is that biodynamic and organic fruit better expresses the terroir, and Ceago continues this trend. The best sauvignon blancs I have tried in California have all come from these types of vineyards.

Click here to see more photos from Day One in Mendocino County, California.

Sirah that aint Petite (Dry Creek & Alexander Valleys, California)

My second day in Sonoma County had me heading further North into the Dry Creek Valley. As the name suggests the climate is a lot drier and warmer with quite cool nights. If I were to compare it to a region in Australia, it would be similar to Bendigo. The two most important varieties here are zinfandel, that classic California grape, and petite sirah. It wasn't until I came to Dry Creek that I was reminded that petite sirah is another name for durif, the famous Rutherglen grape. This made a lot of sense and of course I felt a bit silly for forgetting.

Breakfast of champions

Having visited Ridge Vineyards Montebello South of San Francisco, I was keen to visit the Lytton Springs winery to try some more wines. At Lytton Springs they naturally produce zinfandel, but they specialise in single-vineyard expressions of zinfandel, and commonly blend other varieties with it. The wines are all priced well, and are very well-made, apart from one minor thing. I found them to be generally hot with alcohol. The interesting thing about this is the fact that I have tried wines thus far that have had higher levels of alcohol that haven't appeared hot. I'm not sure what it was about many of the Ridge zinfandel based wines, perhaps they didn't have the fruit to support the alcohol, but they were hot and a tad extractively course. As you can imagine this was disappointing after having such a profound experience at the Montebello vineyard.

Ridge Lytton Springs

Ridge Lytton Springs vineyards

Just down the road is Dry Creek Vineyard, the first commercial winery to be established after Prohibition in 1972. It is still a second-generation family owned and operated winery that was originally inspired by the chateaus of the Loire Valley in France. The labels of the wines almost ironically have images of sailboats on the ocean. The wines themselves are very solid performers, representing value for money, but I felt they were very safe wines. Whilst they have a significant pedigree, and I admire the fact they are still family owned, the wines are very clean and straightforward. The chenin blanc and merlot were pretty good, but otherwise nothing to get excited about.

Dry Creek Vineyards

The previous day I had been recommended to visit Mounts Family Winery to try authentic expressions of zinfandel and petite sirah. Mounts have been growing grapes expertly in the Dry Creek Valley for 60 years, selling their fruit off. They now set aside about 20% of their harvest to make wines themselves, and they are most definitely authentic. The wines are big, and I mean huge. Ripe and extractive, quite alcoholic and bold. And yet they manage to hold everything together, I can't really explain how. The syrah rose is the best rose I have tried here, bone-dry and slightly savoury. The grenache is in the rich Barossa style, the cabernet is a powerhouse and the petite sirah would put Rutherglen to shame. I like the understatement and the willingness to make wines in this style, trends be damned. Whilst they might not be the kind I would choose from a wine list to go with food, they are good wines and shouldn't be embarrassed about it.

Mounts Family Winery

Mounts range

A. Rafanelli have been around for over 100 years in Sonoma, growing grapes that for many years went into jug wine, like most of Sonoma. It wasn't until the 1970s that they began making their own wines for commercial sale, and they focused on three varieties; zinfandel, merlot and cabernet sauvignon. The wines have a cult following, with a 1 year waiting list to purchase. They only take appointments to taste (which they interestingly don't charge for, one of the only ones), and they don't read emails so don't bother sending them. The wines are as robust and bold as any other I have tried in California (or Australia for that matter), but they have a really nice balance and layers of complexity. The cabernet in particular is very dense and dark, but would age exceptionally well. The rustic charm of this winery is undeniable, and it could easily be dropped in Tuscany and not feel out of place.

A. Rafanelli vineyards

A. Rafanelli tasting room

Before heading to Mendocino I poked my head in at a really cool Dry Creek Valley commune of tasting rooms. They are mostly very boutique operations, producing less than 5,000 cases, so I was intrigued. The first I visited was a winery named Papapietro Perry, which is quite a mouthful, try and say that after a bottle of wine. Specialising in small-lot wines from numerous sub-appelations, their key variety is pinot noir. I was mightily impressed with the pinots, but I think they had the best zinfandel I've ever tasted. It was very delicate and savoury, an actual food-friendly zin! It's possible that my preference for elegant cooler-climate wines may have clouded my judgement, but I'd been tasting all day so leave me alone! The other winery I checked out was named Kokomo, which make very honest expressions of regional wines that you'd never quibble over the price. It's a friendly tasting room in the actual winery, but this time of year tends to attract the fruit flies which are a nuisance!

Kokomo winery and tasting room

Click here to see more photos from Day Two of Sonoma County, California

This is more like it (Chalk Hill & Russian River Valley, California)

Driving up through the Sonoma Valley towards Santa Rosa, it was good to be out of the Napa Valley. Not that it wasn't nice, it's just wall to wall vines and a winery every 250m. Being out in Carneros and Sonoma Valley was a return to terroir, with actual site selection for planting and smaller, more understated wineries and tasting rooms. It isn't until you continue North into Sonoma County you realise how beautiful this part of California is, and although it is as busy as Napa from a tourism perspective, the roads aren't chock-a-block with cars as the region is more spread out, with larger sub-regions. The sub-regions of Sonoma are the Russian River Valley (home of pinot noir and chardonnay), Dry Creek Valley (home of zinfandel and petite sirah), and Chalk Hill and Alexander Valley (home of everything else).

Rodney Strong Vineyards

Sonoma County is a big area to cover, and doesn't even include Sonoma Valley, so it was a shame I was only there for two days. The first place I visited was in the Chalk Hill AVA, and was recommended to me by someone on Twitter. Rodney Strong Vineyards has a first class tasting room with a self-guided tour around the winery which explains the entire winemaking process and gives a great overview of the Sonoma history. The fruit for the wine comes from throughout Sonoma County, and are clearly the best sites for the specific varieties/blends. The style of the wine is consistent with Californian wine being fruit forward but they have a nice restraint and balance to them, particularly the Bordeaux varieties. There are several single vineyard cabernet sauvignons which are excellent, and make you wonder why you would pay so much for some Napa Valley cabernets. Rodney Strong is a sustainable business, and have a large bank of solar panels which completely power the winery.

Copain tasting room

Having almost no experience with Californian wines in Australia makes it difficult to know which wineries to visit; it's not as if they are imported in great volume and there are experts in Australia I could ask. This means than I am mostly going on recommendations from the locals, and therefore I visited Copain on recommendation from my host at Rodney Strong. Copain is a very small operation focusing on single vineyard expressions of the Mendocino region. The wines were quite exceptional and were certainly more elegant than I had come to expect from Californian wines. The pinot noirs in particular impressed me, and served to make me look forward to visiting Mendocino even more. My only regret in visiting Copain was that I was only in Sonoma County for two days so was more interested in trying wines from that region. It's always good to try high-quality wines though.

Copain wine tasting

Rochioli Vineyards & Winery is a third-generation family owned and operated Russian River Valley winery, which harks back to post-Prohibition era 1938. The oldest vines interestingly enough, are the sauvignon blanc vines, and produce a very sought-after wine which sells out in a few months each year. Rochioli only produce a few estate grown wines from four varieties, which include a chardonnay, a pinot noir and a house blend of zinfandel and petite sirah. They are all very good expressions of site, and surprisingly good value. The tasting room is lovely and the staff there are very welcoming and warm. They were nice enough to call ahead to a winery for the next day who are appointment only and don't read emails, so you have to call them.

Rochioli winery

The next winery I visited sort of confirmed a rumour I heard a while ago, but couldn't really believe. I had heard that there were wineries in California who were intentionally introducing or encouraging the fungal disease Brettanomyces (Brett) to give their wines an aged and/or old-world quality. Brett is generally considered a fault as it can dull the fruit in wine and give the aromas and flavours a slightly band-aid sour quality. In small quantities it can be considered a complex character, but for very precise and clean palates in the Australian wine industry it is almost always detected as a faulty wine.

I don't want to name the winery, but it was in the Russian River and most of the wines were good, classic Californian styles. The pinot noirs across two vintages were introduced as having Brett added, which shocked me a bit. To my nose they were obviously faulty, and to use this as a selling point was a little distressing. When I enquired as to the introduction of Brett into the wine, they said it wasn't introduced, but it wasn't eliminated either. The discussion related to the complex quality of French wines, which to an extent I agree with these wines have Brett in them, but it is a lot less common now that better practices in hygiene have been introduced. To suggest that these wines were more complex because of the presence of Brett I found slightly offensive, and was very disappointed that it reflected poorly on their neighbours who were making very clean and commercially sound wines. Controversial to say the least.

Sandy soils in Kistler Vineyards

My final visit for the day will probably be one of the most memorable of my entire trip. Kistler Vineyards are a cult icon producer in California, and have been compared to Burgundy on numerous occasions. They are famous enough that I have had the opportunity to try their wines twice in Australia, one of the only Californian whites I had ever tried. The winery was established in 1978 by Steve Kistler as Winemaker/Viticulturalist and Mark Bixler as General Manager, and quickly established a reputation for producing some of the best chardonnay in California. Depending on vintage there are as many as 12 different wines, mostly single-vineyard wines made from a careful selection of the best parcels and barrels. The winery itself is state-of-the-art, sparing no expense. They only use indigenous yeasts in the fermentation process, use the finest fine grained French oak (mostly from Francois Freres), and ferment the pinot noir wines in small batch open-top fermenters. The vineyard on which the current winery is built is on a rootstock not resistant to phylloxera as the sandy soils prevent it living in the soils.

Kitsler winery

Mark Bixler was generous enough to respond to the email I sent him, even though they are not open to the public. It was my good fortune that he had recently travelled to Australia and discovered many outstanding local pinot noirs and chardonnays, and was keen to chat with me about them in general. I was honoured to be invited to his house for dinner, which was awesome and filled with audio technology you would be more likely to see in a science fiction film. His cellar is a converted garage that he extended into the hill so it is underground, and he has an amazing collection, including an extensive range of Burgundian wines. He invited me to set aside anything I would be interested in trying, which flabbergasted and humbled me. I settled on such wines as a 2002 Guigal La Turque Cote Rotie, much to my protestation that it would be too young, but Mark insisted. Meanwhile he set aside some Kistler and other Californian wines.

Kitsler Cellars

We opened several wines and had a great deal to discuss about wine. Mark has had amazing experiences in his career and has met some amazing people. As I was driving I had to be careful not to drink too much, which was difficult as the wines were so good. There were several sauvignon blancs and blends that we looked at, several local and one Marlborough, which to me was a great example but still obviously Marlborough, which I had to justify that my patriotic genes meant I didn't get excited by it. Mark had pulled out several wines from a tiny producer from St. Helena in the Napa Valley named Morlet. They source fruit from key locations in Northen California to produce in small quantities Californian expressions of very French style wines. The La Proportion Doree is a traditional Bordeaux blend of sauvignon blanc, semillon and muscadelle, and is one of the more complete wines I have tried so far.

Some of the white wines we tasted

The Kistler wines themselves are unashamedly Californian, not trying to ape the French style by picking unripe fruit to make a more lean wine. The chardonnays are very rich of fruit and 100% malolactic fermentation, and have a lot of new oak. This does not make them heavy or buttery in the least, as the acids are more than capable of holding it all together. They are intense and complex, but have an elegance and balance not seen often in California. At a masterclass I attended in Melbourne before I left one of the Kistler single-vineyard wines was included, and was universally trashed by several prominent figures in the wine industry, as being an outdated over-oaked and overly-rich style. I found this assessment to be totally narrow-minded and wrong, as they are clearly an expression of the sun and warmth of the California coast, and also appeal to a different palate. The wine was being compared to very austere examples of Australian chardonnay that see very little oak and malo, and subsequently this wine was considered not as good. Not impressed guys...

A few of the red wines we tried

The Kistler Pinot Noir I tried was intense to say the least. It was a very dark colour, having some serious maceration from cold-soaking for several days. The nose was bold and fruity but not hot at all, something not uncommon in Central Otago pinots. On the palate it was not at all heavy, but quite soft and voluptuous. The fruit as expected was in the black forest and cherry region, but the 100% new oak was perfectly integrated. This is a big style of pinot that can only be produced in the new world, but an outstanding example. It was interesting to compare the Bergstrom Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley with it, which showed more earthy savoury concentration. Now looking forward to Oregon as well...

It was pretty late by the time we sat down to dinner through all the tasting and talking. The dinner we enjoyed was welcome respite from all the meat and carbohydrates I had been having, as it was almost entirely organic vegetables and some cornmeal with shitake. The 2002 La Turque was indeed showing very young and tight, having some supple tannins but rocking neither Marks nor my world. After getting an introduction to Marks giant audio visual set-up I had to excuse myself as it was late and head back to my motel. It was a great evening of wine geekiness, and I felt privileged to have had the opportunity to meet him. If you ever have the opportunity to try Kistler wines I'm sure you'll understand how special they are.

Click here to see more photos from Day One in Sonoma County

The other Napa (Los Carneros, California)

Although still part of the Napa AVA, Los Carneros is a very different beast. It is closer to San Pablo Bay so has more coastal breezes, and the fog is pushed into the Napa Valley from here. So although it is a lot cooler, there are more sunshine hours for a much more even ripening. There are two major varieties here, pinot noir and chardonnay. Countless wineries in the Napa Valley source fruit of these varieties. In fact every chardonnay I tried came from Carneros. The region feeds into the Sonoma Valley, and thus Carneros actually has feet in both Napa and Sonoma County.

Hyde de Villaine is a partnership between Larry Hyde who planted his famous vineyard back in 1979 in Carneros, and Aubert de Villaine who married Larry's first cousin Pamela, and is the winemaker at Domaine de la Romanee Conti. Their goal is to find a truly iconic and unique expression of California, and the winemaker since 2002, Stephane Vivier, is succeeding at this in spades. The winery itself is located in Napa town, but the vineyard is in Carneros. It is difficult not to compare the wines to their French counterparts, but in style they reflect their origins significantly.

HdV Vineyards tasting

Compared to the majority of the chardonnay I have tasted thus far, their is an elegance of fruit in the HdV wines and a minerality that is quite amazing. More than any other chardonnay I have seen these are ones that deserve to be aged. The merlot cabernet blend is hauntingly similar to a great St. Emilion with fantastic acid and tannin structure. The highlight for me was the syrah, treading that very fine line between showing elegant varietal fruit character, and not over-expressing the savoury spice elements. It is one of the most complex syrah wines I have tasted outside of the Rhone, and I'm sure that sounds very unpatriotic but its true. It was really fun wine-geeking out with AJ Fairbanks, Pamelas nephew and General Manager, and I hope I can catch up with him again at some point.

Yeasts in the Saintsbury winery

Dick Ward and David Graves were Masters of Oenology students together at the University of California Davis Campus, but met in a beer-making course. Together they decided to establish a wine business together, but it wasn't until the 11th hour they decided to name the winery after their favourite wine critic, a turn-of-the-century Englishman known for his aruldite pontification. Their focus today is on chardonnay, syrah, and the king is pinot noir. They have two estate vineyards they source from, and have growers throughout Carneros and even the Anderson Valley which straddles Sonoma and Mendocino. They have a modest production, but their single vineyard wines are astonishingly good, and amazing value.

Saintsbury Stanly Ranch Pinot Noir 2008

The chardonnays surprised me a lot because they were the first to have a pure citrus fruit expression, whereas most of the others had an element of melon and pineapple in them. Whilst my personal tastes aren't towards the earthy, smoked meats and grainy qualities of Carneros pinot noir, I can appreciate the quality in the Saintsbury pinot noirs. Once you get into the single vineyard pinots in particular, they have a very silky and supple nature to them. My favourite to be honest was actually the Anderson Valley Cerise Pinot Noir 2009, partly as the others were all 2008 and the '09 vintage was better for reds, and partly because of the expression of fruit. The Anderson Valley Pinot Noir seemed to have much brighter, lighter and tighter fruit, red cherries and strawberries and a bright fresh acidity to it. The peppery syrah was fantastic, coming from the Sonoma Valley. It was very generous of the guys at Saintsbury to invite me to join the winery team for lunch, and show me around the winery during such a busy period.

Lunch with the Saintsbury 2011 vintage team

As I headed up towards Santa Rosa where I am staying for two nights I stopped in at Benziger Estate in Glen Ellen. Benziger has been in the Sonoma County area for over 30 years, and it is a true family enterprise. For many years Benziger have been at the forefront of biodynamic and organic viticulture, not only in the US but all over the world. The first thing you notice as you come down the driveway are various non-grape plants between rows of vines. This practice is designed to introduce natural fauna that protects the micro-climate (hence the vineyard) from disease and pests, and allows the vines to produce better fruit more consistently, without the use of chemicals and additives. Benziger convinced their contract growers to convert to sustainable green practices, certain that would produce better fruit, and it is hard to argue when you taste the wines. The Bordeaux blends in particular show depth, velvety tannins, complexity and intensity that puts most of the Napa Valley wines to shame, and is about half the price. The 2008 vintage for the Tribute is superlative for the price, a steal at only $80.

Benziger vineyards

Benziger Biodynamic Discovery Trail

Click here to see more photos from Los Carneros.

These guys know wine tourism (Napa Valley, California - Day Three)

My final day in the Napa Valley started with a visit to Shafer Vineyards back in the Stags Leap District. Shafer dates back to 1972, around the same time that Stag's Leap Wine Cellars were established and before the Napa Boom post-1976 Paris Tasting. You most definitely can't say that John Shafer was jumping on the bandwagon. He left a career in the textbook publishing industry to establish a vineyard to grow grapes, and took his time to re-establish the site before producing his first vintage in 1978. From the beginning the wines gained much attention, and they have been producing their flagship Cabernet from the same vineyard for over 25 years.

Shafer winery

Visits to the winery to taste are only by appointment, twice a day. A tour and sit-down tasting of the wines, which total a retail value of over $450, costs $45. This sounds like a lot but it is not uncommon in California, charging is standard practice, and the Napa Valley is generally more expensive than other regions. Considering the private and exclusive nature of the tasting, and the quality of the wines it is not surprising that numerous wine critics have praised Shafer for their tasting experience. This is certainly helped by the quality of the wines. Structurally the Shafer wines are some of the best I've seen, and they manage to allow the fruit to express without intefering with oak and alcohol. They are very intense in fruit character, not uncommon in Californian wines and therefore are unmistakably New World in style. The other guests who enjoyed the tasting were fervent admirers of the wines, travelling from as far as Boston to sample the wines.

Shafer wine tasting

As some might know Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola has been in the Californian wine industry for quite a while now, and it is hard to go into a liquor store here and not see at least one of his many wines. He purchased Inglenook Estate, one of the first wineries in the Napa Valley, back in the 1970s and in the 1990s renamed it Rubicon Estate. The original chateau built on the property houses the cellar door and wine museum, along with some of FFCs movie memorabilia. It's a pretty slick set-up, and the chateau feels like something out of Europe but not in a fake way. There are so many other things for sale there its easy to forget you are in a winery. I declined tasting there as it was a bit too charming for me.

Rubicon Estate

Cakebread Cellars was established in 1973 by Jack Cakebread, a professional photographer. Their chardonnay is legendary in the US, and is not only completely recession-proof but they are forced to allocate due to overwhelming demand. The visitor centre is split across various areas, centrally located in the original winery. The wines are very pure varietal expressions, showing good consistency across the range, but the zinfandel was definitely my favourite. The winery is beautiful, built from cedar and with a natural warmth to it. They have a cuisine school running all-year-round, and it would be a fabulous place to hold an event. No weddings, sorry guys!

Cakebread Cellars

Part of the Louis-Vuitton Moet-Hennessy Group which includes Chandon California and my former employers Chandon Australia, is Newton Vineyard in the Spring Mountain appellation. Newton was originally established by Peter Newton (who founded Stirling Vineyards in 1964), and his wife Dr. Su Hua Newton (a former protegee of Coco Chanel). The vineyards at Newton are quite extraordinary, hugging the very steep contours of the mountain. I had tasted the wines and seen pictures when I worked for Chandon Australia, but being there makes it totally different. The cellar is housed under a glorious garden, being a member of the wine club here would definitely have its perks when events are held at the winery.

Newton Vineyards

Being part of LVMH has its benefits. Some of the sales and display tools designed for Newton are truly exceptional, and in many cases sustainable too. The connection to Chandon California also means they can have food matches by Perry Hoffman with the wines. The Unfiltered range are in the full and bold fruit expression style of Napa Valley, but are totally in balance. The Unfiltered Chardonnay is very famous for being poured at events at the Whitehouse, and isn't as rich and buttery as I remember it, its actually quite elegant. The tour and tasting here is one of the best I have been ever been on, and it is a lovely secluded place to visit away from the hustle and bustle of the valley floor.

Newton tasting

Click here to see more photos from Day Three of the Napa Valley, California.

Wine in them hills (Napa Valley, California - Day Two)

Bright and early on my second day in the Napa Valley I drove up into the Spring Mountains, hoping that the weather would improve, as my first day had been rainy and gloomy. I had corresponded with JJ McCarthy from Cain Vineyard and Winery before I left, and arranged to visit at 8:30am, so I got a really great view from a lot higher up. The Cain vineyard is at least 650m above sea level, whereas the Napa Valley floor is only about 200m, so elevation is clearly on their side. The soils on Spring Mountain are also a lot tougher, so the vines have to work harder to find water and nutrients to thrive. One of the first things I noticed were fewer and smaller bunches of fruit than in the valley floor. Tasting the fruit was thrilling, as it is the first time I can remember actually tasting terroir in grapes, and the cabernet sauvignon tasted like wine!

Cain vineyards covered in fog

Cain produce only three wines. The Cain Five is named as such because it uses a blend of the five classic Bordeaux varieties; cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, petit verdot and malbec. The Cain Concept - The Benchland is the little sister to the Cain Five, vinified the same way but tends to have more cabernet sauvignon. The Cain Cuvee is a very experimental wine, a blend of two vintages to create a soft approachable blend consisting of almost 50% merlot, and also blends valley floor with Spring Mountain fruit. The wines were exceptional reflections of their origins and were definitely not in the full-bodied, heavily extracted, high-alcohol and overly oaked wines one would expect from the Napa. The Cain Five in particular showed nuances of earth and savoury spiced meat characters, and was very subtle and elegant. At $100 a bottle is was probably one of the best value I tasted in the region.

Cain Five and Cain Concept

I had been recommended several wineries in California by some winemakers back in Australia before I left. One of these wineries was Miner Family Vineyards, located in the Oakville sub-region on the Silverado Trail. Miner produces a great range of wines, and they source fruit from several regions in California for their wines. Their Bordeaux variety based wines understandably come from their own and other Napa Valley vineyards, they source viognier from Madera (not Madeira), their sangiovese comes from Mendocino, and their pinot noir comes from the Santa Lucia Highlands. Dave Miner clearly has identified these regions as producing exceptional fruit for these specific varieties. The wines are very good, quite full and fruit driven examples, but not heavy or alcoholic. They have a really great Champagne-inspired cellar where they store their barrels, and their direct marketing wine club program is probably one of the best I have seen.

Miner cellars

From here I headed down to Clos Du Val, one of the wineries also included in the 1976 Paris Tasting for their 1972 Cabernet Sauvignon. I was fortunate to have tried their entry level wines back in Melbourne and was very impressed that even at that level they were expressing their origins. The original winemaker when established in 1970 was Bernard Portet, brother of Dominique Portet, who both grew up in Bordeaux where their father was a technical director of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild. The brothers clearly have Bordeaux in their blood, Dominique settling in the Yarra Valley and Bernard and in the Napa Valley. The focus at Clos Du Val is naturally on the Bordeaux varietes, and they are the only winery I visited who utilised semillon in a SSB blend. The Stags Leap Cabernet Sauvignons were outstanding, and the Reserve Cabernet Sauvignons even better. The winery is a lovely chateau inspired building, and the vineyards utilise numerous viticultural techniques.

Clos du Val viticultural management

Stags' Leap Winery, part of the Treasury Estates group, is located on a truly historic site. It dates back to the mid-1800s and had a varied and interesting background. It was actually one of the original owners that named the estate the region is named after, from a Native American legend of a stag that would escape hunters by leaping off a precipice into mist-covered valley. At one point it was run as country accommodation and during prohibition a "Speak Easy" was secretly run in the cellar. One of the first in-ground swimming pools was built here, and during WW2 the pool was used by servicemen for its healing properties whilst on furlough. The cellar under the hill was excavated by Chinese migrants who worked on rail-roads as they were experts in explosives. The wines today are very good fruit-driven wines, and utilise Rhone-varieties to make rose and red blends. It is a great tour, particularly for its historic significance.

Stags' Leap Winery

Often confused with the previous winery I visited, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars who were established around the same time as Stags' Leap winery were re-established, is just down the Silverado Trail. It was this winery who won the 1976 Paris Judgement with their 1973 SLV Cabernet Sauvignon, only their third vintage! Now owned by Chateau Ste Michelle and the Antinori family, Stag's Leap produce exceptional wines from exceptional vineyard sites. Consequently several of their wines are exceptionally priced, but still reasonably considering some of their neighbours. Many of the wineries included in the Paris Tasting are celebrating the 35th anniversary, and Stag's Leap are no exception. The SLV Cabernet Sauvignon is an extremely contemplative wine, very brooding and dark with balance and length, and I heartily endorse it if you can find any.

Stag's Leap Wine Cellars

Click here to see more photos from Day Two in the Napa Valley.