Drewism: 2008 Harvest Report, At Least One Good Australian Shiraz, and California ‘Shock’

Well, the 2008 harvest is finally here, after a very long, hot, dry and smoky summer.  I’m certainly looking forward to bringing in all of our fruit, and wrapping up what looks to be another stellar year for Californian wine.  Despite the early frost events which damaged vines up and down the state, the 2008 growing season has been more or less ideal for much of the central coast, even with a few late heat spikes and numerous wildfires contributing to horrendous air quality for several weeks. 

 

A lot of people have been asking me if I think wildfire smoke will have an effect on the grapes and subsequently the wines coming from them.  I can only say that there is very little evidence where that has been shown to be the case.  I recently read an article out of U.C. Davis that discussed the interaction of grape skins with smoke residue, ash and grime, and how through prolonged exposure, the grape itself might actually absorb these substances during the early phases of its maturation process.  I doubt this could have taken place in much of Monterey, even though several of my vineyards are located very near to wear the Ventana Wilderness Fire and Basin Complex Fires took place.  The smoke from these fires simply didn’t hang around long enough to coat the grape berries much if at all, and regardless, I think that the berries’ skins were still too tough and turgid at the time for any absorption to take place.  But we will have to wait and see.  Other wine regions adjacent to longer-lasting wildfires (such as in the Sierra foothills and far North Coast ) could see much different effects on their wines.  The truth will be told in the glass, I guess.  Smokey aftertastes, did you say?

 

In any event, this years’ harvest looks to be comparable in quality to last years, if not more so.  Extremely low rainfall (yet again) produced some very small berries, and these are resulting in much more concentrated fruit flavors than in ’07 (smaller juice to skin ratio).  But tonnages are down by as much as 25% in many places statewide, indicating that prices will be much higher when the 2008 vintage eventually comes out.  We’ll have to wait and see if the lower yields produce the quality in Pinot Noir that we’re striving for, but my winemaker is extremely confident that it will.  Lower yields, for those who don’t know, means less fruit is produced per vine, which means that a single vine puts that much more effort into developing and maturing each berry cluster.  Thus, each cluster should be that much more intense in flavor and in tannin, and (hopefully) so should the wine.  Typical Pinot Noir yields in the Central Coast are between 5 and 6 tons per acre, but this year could see barely half that.  There’s already that indication from the Pinot we picked last week for Sparkling wine (7 tons/acre in 2007 vs. 4.5 this year).  What does this mean to you?  Your bottle of 2008 California Pinot Noir in the $10-15 range will be an extremely good buy (see Chalone Monterey Pinot Noir, Concannon Central Coast Pinot Noir, Melville Pinot Noir). What does it mean to your wallet?  It will no longer cost $10-15.

 

Very quickly, I wanted to share with you a great wine that I had the other night.  After bashing Australian Shiraz in a previous column, I thought it fitting to recommend one here.  I picked up the 06 McWilliam’s Hanwood Estate Shiraz at Safeway because it was $6.99 on special, and because I hadn’t had a good Shiraz in a while (not that I was expecting much, especially for $6.99).  But I took the gamble.  And guess what?  It was really good!  Lots of dark cherry fruit, with plum, currant, tobacco, and cedar, and even a hint of mint chocolate at the end.  Overall, the flavors were well-balanced, and the wine was not overly oaked (as is the case with most Australian Shiraz, at least to this drinker).  It was a very pleasing wine, and at 13.5% alcohol, you could actually drink this one by itself (whereas most Aussie Shiraz needs a slab of meat alongside to balance the searing alcohol levels).  Interesting tidbit: that very same day I opened up a recent issue of Wine Spectator and saw this exact wine in the Smart Buys section, reviewed at 91 pts.  Not too shabby.

 

Switching gears again, I saw the movie “Bottle Shock” last month.  Though I was pretty appalled at the portrayal of various characters in the story (read George Taber’s book Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine for a more accurate representation of Steven Spurrier, et al), it was nice to finally see Napa Valley wineries, and Chateau Montelena in particular, finally get some widespread credit for their triumph at the now-famous 1976 Paris Tasting.  For those who don’t know the story, Montelena and several other then-fledgling California wineries went up against the big boys of Burgundy and Bordeaux in a blind tasting before a panel of entirely French judges, with California winning top honors in both the red and white categories.  The movie loosely follows this tale of how the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay outscored the competition, while humbling the French at their own game.  Proprietor Jim Barrett, his son Bo, and their winemaker at the time, Mike Grgich, leveraged those 1976 results to become some of the most familiar names in Napa Valley (though Grgich is left out of the movie completely).

 

Fast forward 32 years and Chateau Montelena is now sold to the owner of the legendary Bordeaux property Cos d'Estournel.  Rumors of the sale had been circulating through Wine Country for several months, but the potential deal conveniently came just days before "Bottle Shock" opened in early August. "Everybody who knows me knows I've made a long and happy career of getting back at the French," Jim Barrett said in an interview with The SF Chronicle, immediately following the release of “Bottle Shock”.  Financial details for the deal were not disclosed, though this article claimed “despite initial reports of a sale price of $110 million…estimates placed it as high as $150 million.”  The Barretts will continue to work hand in hand with the new owners through 2010, but its future after that remains a mystery.

 

The sale is only the latest in several high-profile sales of well-known California wineries.  Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, whose Cabernet was the other big winner in the Paris tasting, and Duckhorn Wine Company (my old stomping grounds), were sold about a year ago for $185 million and a reported $250 million or more, respectively.  Duckhorn, in particular, was sold to Paris-based spirits retailer Pernod Ricard, a company who this year also announced the acquisition of Swedish-based V&S Group (which includes the Absolut Vodka brand), making it the world's largest beverage group next to Diageo.  The Robert Mondavi Winery was sold to global conglomerate Constellation Brands in 2004 for roughly $1.35 billion.

 

I can’t help but feel that this particular sale is a little like the French trying to buy back their dignity, though it also serves as a reminder to those of us in the wine biz that the weak dollar has made even the most American of brands appealing to foreign investors, especially ones with deep pockets.  Wines from California no longer seem to have that young, fresh and exuberant style they did 30 years ago.  The establishment has been shaken; the so-called “new” wines coming out of California 3 decades ago were only considered as such because they were, well, not French.  But today, that is only the tip of the iceberg.  More and more buyers are looking to foreign markets for investment in even ‘newer’ new-world wines (see South Africa, Chile/Argentina, Australia/New Zealand).  We are seeing some wonderful new expressions of both traditional French varietals as well as lesser known ones from all of these places, and I have no doubt that other, less-traditional regions will also be explored in the future.

 

This is not to say that Californian wines are over-the-hill; quite the opposite in fact.  In the last decade there has been an infusion of new blood in the California wine world, with many unknown regions producing high-caliber wines from varietals never before planted.  This is certainly the case with Bonny Doon Vineyards, based in Santa Cruz, whose proprietor and maniacal uber-hippie Randall Graham is churning out some glorious Roussanne, Grenache Blanc, Syrah Noir, and Marsanne (some from vineyards I manage), as well as Cal-Ital crossovers such as Nebbiolo and Barbera.  Greg Brewer and Steve Clifton are creating a new definition for California Chardonnay from their low-yielding vineyards in Santa Barbara County , and Paso Robles is widely considered nowadays to be one of the best areas for growing Zinfandel statewide.  Even Lodi and the Livermore valley are producing some very high quality Cabernets and Merlots, and at a fraction of the cost of their counterparts in Napa and Sonoma.

 

So don’t give up on California just yet, even if the French are buying it all back.  This phase of selling wineries to foreign holders, though tragic, may actually turn out for the best, especially in cases like Chateau Montelena (who has had a hard time turning a profit in recent years because of money woes).  California is firmly etched on the international wine map, and with a vision for producing new wines from new varietals, should only strengthen its reputation as a world-class wine producer for years to come.