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It bugs me sometimes when I hear other wine writers and critics dissing California wine for being too big, too flavorful, too much. Disclosure: I live in Napa Valley, and I’ve lived about 40 percent of my life in California, so I do have an urge to support the home team.
The dissing sometimes strikes of condescension from people who learned about wine from a Eurocentric perspective and will never be able to acknowledge that a style different from the generally lean and underripe European profile could be desirable. So I defend the generally bigger style of West Coast wines, but I also like to point out that they make smaller wines here, too.
Last week at the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento, the West Coast wine industry’s biggest event of the year, one of the keynote speakers at the most heavily attended session of the week was a journalist from New York. He presented evidence from a survey that showed diners in high-end restaurants are starting to feel the same. One of his points was that people were getting tired of full-bodied wines including the big, “chunky” — his word — Pinot Noirs from the Russian River Valley in Sonoma and other California appellations.
That phrase knocked me back a bit. Because if there’s one place in California over the last 20 years where the wines are known for being elegant and classically balanced it’s the Russian River Valley.
So that night, over dinner at the Hyatt Regency next to the Sacramento Convention Center, I ordered a Russian River Pinot Noir to help me consider his point in proper perspective.
I found the J Pinot Noir Russian River Valley, and four of us finished two bottles by the end of the meal. It was not at all big or chunky, but to me was the equivalent of a tasty but very firm and appetizing Gevrey-Chambertin from Burgundy. It didn’t have an especially ripe aroma, and the flavors stopped short of being rich. It made me think of red cherries and raspberries, and the texture had a nice tang of acidity and tannin that sent my just-underdone grilled salmon sailing toward my stomach.
It was the perfect wine right then for our duck, salmon and salads.
Oh, but you would never pick this wine out in a blind tasting and give it high marks, say the skeptics. Well, I would and I have. Any interested consumer or critic can learn to taste for this style of wine, even when they’re not staring at the label and enjoying dinner.
Filed under: Critics/Competitions, Food Pairing
12 Comments
12 Responses to “In Defense of California Pinot Noir”
Please Wait
February 4th, 2008 at 8:00:38 PM
As a producer of Russian River Valley pinot noir, I stride to find a balance in my wines. I have found that some winemakers are opting for the ‘bigger is better’ attitude in pinots, and would agree with the NY publisher/keynote speaker that THOSE wines are ‘chunky’. Why would a winemaker stylize a pinot noir to resemble a syrah or zinfandel when those grapes are available for a much better price? Finding the ripeness in Russian River Valley pinot noir grapes is not as difficult as Oregon or Burgundy from year to year. We are blessed with amazing weather and soils here. The challenge in Russian River Valley is NOT ripeness, it is over-ripeness! Heavy handed winemaking has produced pinots from this area with so much alcohol and oak influence that without the bottle to give it away – or the hefty price tag – you’d never know you were even drinking the most delicate of red varietals. I know the J pinots well and agree they capture a balance between delicacy and complexity although sometimes miss the opportunity to express vintage characteristics. In short, I don’t feel it is accurate to stereotype Russian River Valley pinot noir as one style of wine. Just as each consumer has there own particular taste, each producer finds there own unique balance.
February 4th, 2008 at 9:26:19 PM
Thanks for this post. Pinots are very different–and should be–according to where they are produced. I also dislike the sense in which “California Pinot Noir” seems to be in the process of becoming a pejorative term. I like Burgundy’s Pinots–but I like those from California too. They are different–but difference is the spice of life. And I love the J Pinot Noir for precisely the reasons you cite here. The Fort Ross Pinot Noirs are another example of California Pinots that are far from “chunky.”
February 4th, 2008 at 10:28:16 PM
“Because if there’s one place in California over the last 20 years where the wines are known for being elegant and classically balanced it’s the Russian River Valley.”–THE MOMENT I READ THIS I CHEERED–and LOUDLY, I might add!! I’m “fairly” new to wine–I’ve been studying wine since 1999, when I drank my first red, a Shiraz from Australia, and thought I was just going to DIE! Little did I know, wine would become my passion over the next several years, which brings me to where I am now. I like to write about wine. I write short and sweet wine reviews for a site called http://www.winebeagles.com. By no means am I an expert, but my consistent wine tasting and wine writing has catapulted me into the TOP 5 Wine Beagles in the world… When it comes to Pinot Noir, I have reviewed several Russian River Valley Pinot Noirs–all with top honors. Why? Because I love the velvety fruit flavor and the smooth finish. It’s not as earthy as the Burgundies of France. I want to enjoy my wine experience, not be cut off by a short finish. Give me a RUSSIAN RIVER Pinot Noir any day, anytime!! Then I’m happy!!
February 5th, 2008 at 1:44:35 PM
It’s not clear from your post, Jim, whether the survey presented actually mentioned RRV Pinot, or if that was the presenter’s own addition. It would be interesting to see how the survey asked the question(s) about this issue (is it published anywhere?). I could see where some diners could feel that big, heavy reds like high alcohol Zins, etc could be tiresome to the palate, but RRV Pinot? Also, was this survey done only in NYC? I can imagine some significant regional differences here. In any case, I’m with you – RRV and other CA pinots can be and often are among the world’s finest – Viva le Californie!
February 5th, 2008 at 2:32:05 PM
Jim, I just read your response to Alfonso and I feel I need to clarify my response on being Italian. I too grew up in the Napa Valley and I am proud of being Italian. In the 1950′s when I was a kid I heard many folks comment in a negative way to my grandfather and great grandfather about being Italian and drinking wine. I guess it made me a little touchy.
n your article you certainly said nothing that was offensive so please forgive my outburst.
Regarding the Pinot Noir another great Italian hahahaha Joe Rochioli was the first to plant Pinot back in 1968 in the RRV. Westside road reads like Pinot row. Rochioli, Allen, Davis Bynum (until they sold out) Porter Creek and Gary Farrell to name a few and there are more. These guys all know each other and buy fruit back and forth. Allen is of course only a vineyard but shows up in the bottles of the others. Some of these wines do require a bit of bottle age to be great but this is also true for the great Burgundies. I think wine should be judged by the bottle not the source certainly not prejudiced by its location without evaluation, it is easy to stereotype and say blanket statements which are general and have no specific reference. This is just silly and gets people all excited and the reference has no basis. In fact Big and Chunky could be construed as positive descriptors if stated in a positive way! Sonoma and Napa have been targets of almost everywhere else for quite a while the tasting in Paris in 1976 started the whole thing and people’s feeling have been hurt on both sides every since!
I say here is to good wine wherever it is made and hats off to the wine maker too whoever he or she might be, lets drink the good stuff and let the distributors warehouse the rest!
February 5th, 2008 at 3:57:19 PM
In reply to Mark Koppen, the “chunky” reference was in a presentation by Joshua Greene of Wine & Spirits magazine. I don’t think he was overtly using it as a pejorative. Josh was interpreting the the most recent results of his magazine’s annual poll of fine dining restaurants to see which wines are selling best. He was making a bigger point that this slice of restaurants is reporting that diners in recent years are moving gradually away from big, rich wines toward lighter wines.
February 5th, 2008 at 7:49:07 PM
Having tasted and reviewed California Pinot Noir for many years, it’s my belief that the genre has never been better. Cooler vintages (despite global warming) have been giving us more balanced, lower alcohol wines for 3 years in a row, the vines are getting older, winemakers are mastering their learning curves in terms of vine management, barrel regimens, and winemaking decisions, and the wines are getting better and better. I can understand die-hard Burgundophiles dissing California Pinot Noir. But most wine consumers, I think, love these wines. California Pinot Noir has taken its place on the world stage and it’s there to stay.
February 5th, 2008 at 9:35:10 PM
Jim, thanks for the additional info – I certainly know Josh Greene and have a lot of respect for him and what they do annually at Wine & Spirits with their national restaurant poll and report. So – it will be interesting to read, and keep tabs on this to see whether it is a real long-term trend. And a thought just crossed my mind – could it possibly open the door for a new, influential wine reviewer who focuses on and prefers this style of wine?
February 5th, 2008 at 11:23:19 PM
Jim:
Coincidentally enough, I just published a post on my blog [http://wineinthevalley.blogspot.com/2008/02/mushrooms-and-feet.html] about a tasting of Burgundies that I attended at a great restaurant in Berkeley, and how they, compared to my winery’s Pinot Noirs, required a different vocabulary to describe them.
I agree with Steve Heimoff that the 2005 vintage of Pinot Noir is spectacular, capturing a balance of fruit and structure and wonderfully showing appellation differences. 2006 and 2007 will also have their cohort of spectacular wines, as well.
As I noted in my post, for me there is a difference between wines that are intellectually interesting (an obvious generalization, of course, but one which I apply to France), and those – from California – that are viscerally more exciting.
If I had to make a choice, I would choose the body over the mind more times than not.
Steven Mirassou
La Rochelle Winery
February 10th, 2008 at 11:47:06 PM
Steven, I love your comment. And, I should add, I have a bottle of your wine in my cellar which I am now looking forward to drinking even more! Your body/mind dichotomy is an interesting one and it certainly was an “Aha” moment for me. Burgundy may be more cerebral, but I love the animal pleasure of a wine that burrows right into your core and makes your toes tingle. So your analogy made lots of sense to me!
February 11th, 2008 at 7:47:15 PM
You know, I think some people just_are_Eurocentric for whatever reason – they learned about wine in Europe, they are European, or they are just really old school – it doesn’t necessarily make them evil (of course there are plenty of outstanding wines that come from the Old World) . And hey, more California (and Oregon, and South American, and South African, and New Zealand…the list goes on) wines for the rest of us!
February 17th, 2008 at 2:35:25 AM
Dr. Debs:
Thanks for the kind words. Do you have the same sense in respect to the issue of old vs. new wine? While I can understand the oooh and aaaah over an impressively old wine (I think it really has to do with the ‘idea’ that something as ephemeral as wine can withstand the ravages of the clock) in an abstract sense, the actual smell and taste of the wine…the experience of it…leaves me cold. Where is the mouth-wateringness?, the sense of youthful weight in the mouth?, again, the visceral pleasure?
Please let me know how you like the wine; I am honored to be included in your cellar.