• About
  • American Foodie: Taste, Art and the Cultural Revolution
  • Mindful Eating 2
  • Our Wine Review Philosophy

Edible Arts

~ Exploring the Aesthetics and Philosophy of Food and Wine

Edible Arts

Tag Archives: Santa Barbara Wines

Edible Arts Wine of the Year 2018

31 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Wine Reviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2018, Santa Barbara Wines, Syrah

captain-kierkI reviewed many great wines this year. The highest score, 96 points, went to the iconic Penfolds Grange Bin 95 Shiraz from 2003.  But everyone knows about that wine. Wine reviewing is really about discovery. Thus, my wine of the year is from the other end of the celebrity continuum, from a small lot producer in Santa Barbara County–

Central Coast Group Project’s Captain Kierk (AKA the Knightwalker) Syrah Ballard Canyon 2013

Central Coast Group Project is Scott Sampler, a former philosophy student and Hollywood screenwriter, who produces around 1000 cases annually in an industrial park in Buellton. He practices the dark art of uber-long macerations. This Syrah was on the skins for 101 days. The result is a luxurious blend of power and tenderness, a wine so intense and intimate it was like falling in love all over again.

I’m really too old for this stuff.

The name of the wine is a clever amalgam of Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, and Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (who called himself the Knight of Faith and loved to take long walks). If you’re curious about how all of this hangs together, well you just have to drink the wine. All will be revealed.

Here is my full review of the wine.

This is some of the most inspired winemaking I’ve come across—the whole lineup of several Syrah clones, Bordeaux varietals, Grenache, Mourvedre and a variety of blends is  interesting and delicious.

Wine Review: Central Coast Group Project “Behind the Purple Door” Syrah Santa Barbara 2013

04 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Wine Reviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Santa Barbara Wines, Syrah

This soon-to-be released wine is from one of the most distinctive wineries in California (see my profile here). Winemaker Scott Sampler’s vision is to make wines using ripe, California fruit and old world winemaking techniques. He macerates his reds up to 140 days before pressing just as they did years ago in Barolo.

Made from grapes harvested from a relatively cool site, White Hawk Vineyard near Los Alamos in Santa Barbara County, 20% of this Syrah was vinified whole cluster and all of it spends 101 days on the skins in neutral barrels before being pressed and bottled on the same day.

The result is a wine as deep as an ocean but with life ”errant and flamboyant” to rob a phrase from the poet Baudelaire. The reference to bawdy Baudelaire is appropriate. “Behind the Purple Door” references the film “Behind the Green Door”, which those of us of a certain age might remember as a popular porn film from the 1970’s. “Purple” of course refers to the color of highly extracted Syrah and the color of the prose needed to describe this wine.

Lush and full up front, acidity enters early and explodes, a quick crescendo of floral and mineral top notes with taut, drawn out tension. Juicy and mouthwatering, the seamless tannin/acid synergy adds great intensity to the wine, propagating prickly sensations with an underlying fineness of  grain imparting layers of texture on the finish.

Seductive aromas of blackberry, coffee, freshly turned earth, violets and a bit of crushed rock framed against a musky background, are joined by charcoal and mocha on the palate for an olfactory orgy worthy of Dionysius himself.

To be consumed only with a partner glowing with desire accompanied by the tumult and  mystery of Bjork’s Hidden Place.

Score: 93

Price: $79 (purchase here)

Alc: 15.4%

Review based on an industry sample. Updated on 9/9/18

The Art of Wine: A Conversation with Tyler Thomas of Dierberg and Star Lane Vineyards

05 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by Dwight Furrow in The Art of Wine

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Santa Barbara Wines

DB-Home-2

“You’ve got to make the wine the vineyard is asking you to make.”

It has become a cliché in the wine world that great wine is made in the vineyard. It’s been years since I’ve heard someone claim otherwise. That suggests a potential problem for the thesis that winemaking is an art. Managing a vineyard is, after all, farming, and although farming requires great skill and knowledge, it’s probably not an art. But spend a few hours talking to Dierberg’s winemaker, Tyler Thomas, and you will gain a whole new perspective on farming. Of course, Tyler’s obsessive attention to understanding, at a granular level, what his vineyards tell him is not farming in any ordinary sense.  Since arriving at Dierberg in 2013, Tyler has been mapping his vineyards block by block, row by row, paying close attention to how each section performs throughout the growing season. With the mix of soils, elevations, and aspects to the sun that mark the hilly terrain near Santa Barbara, a vineyard is not a homogeneous field but a patchwork of distinct plots each with their own potential. Unlocking that individual potential is Tyler’s overriding goal.

tyler thomasWhat happens in the winery is, of course, not irrelevant. Tyler would be the first to admit that his capacious, well-equipped winery gives him the room and equipment to vinify blocks separately giving him extensive control over the final blends. He will happily talk about fermentations, oak programs, pump overs, and all the other winery activities, but what he really wants to talk about are vines and their peculiarities which befits someone with a background in plant physiology. His encyclopedic, still-developing knowledge of what every vine is likely to do in a particular vintage bears a strong resemblance to a composer’s choice of which instrument should play a particular melody.  He’s also one of the most thoughtful winemakers I’ve met, sliding easily from talk about viticulture to ruminations on the purpose of wine or the importance of what he calls “human terroir” , the level of understanding and commitment that his staff brings to the job everyday.

Dierberg was founded by Jim and Mary Dierberg in 1996. They began making wine in Missouri as the owners of Hermannhof Winery, one of the oldest wineries in the U.S. Seeking a climate better suited to vinifera grape varietals, and after searching through France and Napa for promising vineyard property, they settled in the Santa Barbara area planting two vineyards in the coastal valleys and their Star Lane vineyard in the much warmer Happy Canyon, about 20 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean

They produce Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from their Santa Maria and Drum Canyon properties, and Bordeaux varieties, Syrah and Sauvignon Blanc from their Happy Canyon location that is also the site of their state-of-the-art winery. All their wines are single vineyard, estate wines and as Tyler describes them, are “built on a backbone of freshness, some sort of tension or supple quality.” (Here is my review of their Santa Maria Pinot Noir and their Star Lane Sauvignon Blanc.)

I recently spent several hours visiting with Tyler at the winery gathering information for a book about the creative aspects of winemaking. Much of our time together was devoted to driving around the perimeter of their Star Lane vineyard before tasting through their lineup of stunningly beautiful wines.

I should mention that Tyler doesn’t think winemaking is an art because, he claims, wine lacks the the expressive range of painting or music. As noted, he’s comfortable engaging in abstract philosophical discussion. Whether winemaking is an art is an argument for another day. However, the reference to the artistry of vineyard management is all mine. At any rate, the word “aesthetic” comes from the Greek word meaning “perception.” Tyler’s approach to viticulture perfectly captures the degree to which viticulture and winemaking is an aesthetic practice. That is the main take away point from this portion of our conversation, which has been lightly edited for clarity.

It took very little prompting from me to get Tyler talking about the philosophical aspects of winemaking:

Tyler: I ask myself these kinds of question about what’s the purpose of wine because it really helps me to do my job. Part of my job is to cultivate, with the Dierberg family, what our goals are. When we open a wine together that we produce from these properties 5 or 10 years down the road, we need to know if we were successful. The purpose of wine is to bring pleasure. It’s not art because it’s limited in expression. It’s not supposed to express melancholy. It’s about pleasure and about the property. If you don’t like the wine you won’t ask where it came from.

DF: What attracted you to this property?

Tyler: When I considered coming to Dierberg, I thought they had a special property. The question I asked myself was would it be possible to craft a wine hedonistically but that had a differentiating intellectual component that was also compelling, that was driven by the property itself. So how do you figure that out?  How do you determine whether the flavor profile was something we did in the cellar say vs.  what was coming from the property”? So one thing I advocated is that you really have to study the site based on what the vines are telling you, the physiology of the vines. I drive around looking for why is that darker green pattern in the center of that yellow pattern. It is hard to segment it when the block originally has been designed to be just one big vineyard. My role as the first generation with these vines is to study that, separate it if we can, so if we do have the opportunity to replant or redesign we can advance our quality because we can redesign more appropriately for the soil type.

DF: As we drove across the ridge looking down the Eastern slope of the vineyard,Tyler described the intensive, ongoing mapping project he initiated:

Tyler: In this case going up this level of elevation is going to create different temperatures. When I first got here in 2013 and was driving around in July, veraison was just starting and, down at the bottom, it was 100% green and up at the top it was 80% colored. So you see the white paint? I went up and down marking off where I saw a difference in ripening or vigor–smaller canopy, smaller leaves, looked more stressed–and I basically created a big circle in the middle, which we now call the midsection. See the darker green at the bottom? That is probably due to thicker, richer soils, a little more clay down there, a little better water holding capacity and cooler during the spring so it breaks bud later. While those have broken bud, those are just starting.

And so this is now 6 different sections. After several years of making observations, we now have a name for each block. That really embodies what we’re trying to do with the whole property.

DF: On the differences between new world and old world winemaking?

Tyler: Star lane is owned by one family. We put single vineyard Star Lane on the bottle. But if you know anything about growing grapes you know this is not one property. If this were Bordeaux or Burgundy there would be all kinds of crus. Unfortunately we don’t think that way in the new world. I went to UC Davis but was working for a Burgundian guy using California fruit, so I got this great complement to my original education by having a European mentor to create a different lens with which to view what I had learned. So we take a similar approach at Dierberg. We know this ‘’low 1” block. We know how it comes in, we know how it ripens and we know whether it’s as valuable as the top. It’s generally not as valuable. In good years it is, but in some years we leave it out of the blend.

DF: So I imagine this gets complicated at harvest deciding when and where to pick?

Tyler: The top section is particularly difficult. Because of low vigor I had to come pretty far down, but in this middle section they’re much farther behind. So then they [the pickers] have to walk all the way down during harvest to get the ripe fruit. We make several passes through the vineyard at different times during harvest.

When you get to where the saddle of this ridge is, there is more clay, more energy in the soil and that’s affecting this whole left side, the ripening pattern. It definitely gets riper faster because of drainage and sunlight pattern. There is a shadow in the morning because of this hill that you would think would create less ripening. But for whatever reason it ripens faster. I think it’s the low vigor of the soil where the yellow pattern is. There is not a lot of water holding capacity. I think some of the soil has been scraped off. The very top section was one of the first cabs we picked this year. This bottom section was picked 3 weeks later, maybe even more and not entirely to brix. It had the same or lower brix. We get lower sugar 3 weeks later! That’s’ the plant telling you something. And so we’re just following what it tells us.

My old mentor, the one I mentioned when I got out of school, used to say “you’ve got to make the wine the vineyard is asking you to make”. Now there’s a whole lot of assumptions there. You can say that and we say we all know that. But it takes years to figure that out and understand the boundaries and the spectrum of what you can experience over time.

This block is a microcosm of what we do with all of them whether it’s divided by variety, or within block divided by variety, or observations about the block, and its all driven by a goal. It’s not to create differences for difference sake. I would prefer not to do it this way, but we feel obliged to do it this way until we create more understanding.  By the end of harvest we have over 100 different lots in the cellar.

The monks and the various producers in antiquity were making selections and they had to be studying it. They knew there were certain areas that did better than others.

DF: How important is the science and the numbers when deciding which direction to take a vintage?

Where we have the advantage, once we see the differences we can analyze the soil, do some soil cores and see if that’s driving it. If that isn’t it then maybe it’s the temperature or maybe we have irrigation problems. But even when you look at the chemistries in the cellar, our understanding is still really basic. No offense to the scientists out there who have worked very hard to give us greater understanding. I can measure the tannin and know that this gives more tannin than that but it still doesn’t create the entire sense of what the wine is. I can measure the sugar, the acid, the PH, the malic, the amount of nutrients for the yeast that are there and my color and my tannins. Those numbers can be all the same but the wines are so different that the numbers aren’t driving the whole story. So you have to rely on tasting, your observations, and your experience.

That’s why we talk so much about our house palate prevention program. It’s easy to like the wine you’re making, too easy. You also don’t want to be so critical that you can’t sit down and enjoy a glass of wine but you’re your own worse critic because you don’t want to miss something. You’re relying so heavily on observation to understand the properties of your wine. You’ve got to make sure your seeing them accurately. It’s hardest for the winemaker to be the most objective person in the cellar but it’s the most important. And you have to work at it, tasting other peoples wine and empowering your team to be honest about what they’re tasting.

DF: How common is this detailed approach to understanding your vineyard? Do most wineries take this approach?

This close analysis of the vineyard is not as common as you might think. People are too quick to conclude that they’ve got it. Its really more mental work. I try to mentally touch every wine I have every day

Many thanks to Tyler for an informative and thoroughly enjoyable visit to this wonderful location. If you’re new to Dierberg wines, get thee to a wine shop.

Wine Review: Dierberg Vineyard Pinot Noir Santa Maria and Star Lane Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc

04 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Wine Reviews

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

pinot noir, Santa Barbara Wines, Sauvignon Blanc

Dierberg is one of the most consistently excellent producers of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the Santa Barbara area. But in addition to their two cool-climate, coastal vineyards from which their Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are sourced, their Star Lane Vineyard sits several miles inland in sun-drenched Happy Canyon, enabling them to grow Bordeaux varietals and classic, California-style Sauvignon Blanc. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are what they’re known for but their taut, sage-inflected Cabernet Sauvignon and this Sauvignon Blanc are stand outs as well. Wines made from grapes grown in the Star Lane vineyard are sold under the Star Lane label.

Winemaker Tyler Thomas is obsessed with a granular understanding of his vineyards and that attention to detail is evident in both wines under review.

Dierberg_SMV_Dierberg_Vineyard_Pinot_Noir_Bottle_Shot_WEB_Res_144dpiPinot Noir Dierberg Vineyard Santa Maria 2014

From  grapes grown in their Dierberg Vineyard located on the Western side of Santa Maria, this wine reeks of carnal, libidinous sensuality, starting with a warm kiss but finishing with some light, good-natured S and M.

A heady elixir of crystalline black cherry, strawberry, tarragon, and crushed rock, melds with freshly turned earth infused with faint barnyard aromas, all yielding a nose redolent of every imaginable possibility. As the wine sits in the glass, crushed rock shaded with subtle smoke becomes more apparent.

In the mouth, this is a robust, nearly full bodied Pinot Noir but it’s light on its feet with vibrant acidity framed by a mineral background. Tobacco leaf emerges at midpalate; dried cherry on the finish. Although the introduction is soft and luxurious, the tannins enter early and firm up the experience giving the wine an underlying, steely, taut line that locks in a trace of severity.  Soft and silky, but etched with gravelly luster it manages to embody exotic mystery, refined intimacy and playful vulgarity—a wine for all occasions.

Or to put it more succinctly, it’s Pagan Poetry.

Score: 93

Price: $44 (Purchase Here)

Alc: 13.7%

Technical Notes: 20% new French oak for 14 months, 25% stem inclusion.

Star_Lane_Sauvignon_Blanc_Bottle_Shot_WEB_Res_144dpiStar Lane Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc 2016

This is a pretty, focused, generous wine showing lemon, guava and some lurking jalapeno. But as you drink down the glass, vestiges of petrol seem to be hiding there giving this wine a reckless moment.

On the palate, an expansive, enameled opening quickly finds a seam of tense minerality leading to a clean, fresh finish, with a slight rasp in the texture giving the wine angular momentum. Good length with a saline character at terminus.

The gentle, cosmopolitan polish becomes provocative and strident, a wine of extremes that resonates with the haunting character of the octaves in the chorus of Pearl’s Dream by Bat for Lashes.

Score: 91

Price: $22 (Purchase Here)

Alc: 13%

Technical Notes: 30% barrel aged in neutral French oak.

The Art of Wine: Central Coast Group Project Captain Kierk (AKA the Knightwalker) Syrah Ballard Canyon 2013

06 Tuesday Feb 2018

Posted by Dwight Furrow in The Art of Wine, Wine Reviews

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Santa Barbara Wines, Syrah

captain kierkLow and slow usually applies to barbecue and Italian red sauce. Winemaker Scott Sampler thinks it applies to wine as well. A taste of this Syrah will make anyone a believer.

Most winemakers leave red wines macerating on the skins and seeds until fermentation is finished. In some cases an extended maceration is desired for an additional week or two in order to extract more tannin and flavor. Scott keeps the wine in contact with the skins for up to 6 months! This is very old school, the way traditional Barolo was made. The problem with those old Barolos was that all that extraction would make the wines so tannic they were undrinkable for 20 years. Somehow Scott Sampler manages to make wines that are rich and powerful yet soft and supple.

I don’t know how this uber-maceration produces such elegant wines. Conventional winemaking theory would advise against it.  In poking around winemaking manuals my guess is that the tannins form long chain polymers that eventually precipitate out of the wine if you macerate long enough thus softening the mouthfeel. Scott said the science isn’t well understood but whatever the explanation, this is a method that requires constant attention, lots of stirring to keep the cap moving, and delicate decisions about when the wine is ready. “The wines go through phases”, he said. They will taste awful one day and I think they’ll never come around. Two weeks later they’re beautiful.”

central coast group projectSoft-spoken and unassuming, Scott is quite literally a “garagiste” producing less than 1000 cases annually out of a tiny, cluttered space in an industrial park in Buellton, near Santa Barbara.  He thinks of his wine as made by a network that includes friends, family, truck drivers, field workers, philosophers, scientists, etc.—anyone who has had an influence on the final product. Hence the name Central Coast Group Project. Yet, despite these humble trappings  his wines are coveted by somms and are on the list of several fine restaurants in LA and New York.

Truth be told I was predisposed to like these wines. After all Scott was a philosophy major in college at Berkeley and a successful Hollywood screenwriter. He names this Syrah “Captain Kierk (aka The Knightwalker)” after a star-fleet commander and the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. What’s not to like?  (Kierkegaard called himself the Knight of Faith and loved to take walks; hence the name “Knightwalker”.) A long quote from Kierkegaard about productive walks appears on the bottle’s back label. Sampler is really into back story.

I had no doubt the wines would be interesting as we prepared to pay Scott a visit. What I did not expect was to be bowled over, knocked out, awe-struck by the sort of wine that can induce a religious experience. This is one of the best wines I’ve tasted in the U.S.

central coast group project 2An incredibly rich, complex nose showing ripe blackberry, balsamic, wet autumn leaves, violets, dark chocolate, caramelized bacon and a lovely sweet oak top note. You could get lost for hours in these aromas. But it’s the combination of power, breadth, and tenderness on the palate that sets this wine apart. The opening is meaty with robust dark cherry, but then turns soft and luxurious at midpalate, light on its feet despite the impression of immensity left by the depth of concentration. A bright, mineral seam develops, as the wine begins to finish, with emergent tannins drying yet soft as talc, very fine grained. As the wine evolves in the mouth it acquires great dynamic range, with fruit intensity persisting showing licorice notes even as the wine fades. At terminus, about 2 minutes in, it gains a kind of spectral presence as if you sense the ghost of what had transpired before.

This is not brooding. It has too much charm to brood. But it is dark and acquires an edge on the back end even as it melts in your mouth. A wine to think about. What is it doing? There must be a meaning here. There is deliberation, stately motion, finding new directions without letting go of the past, power without bombast.

A wine thoughtful and warm, yet majestic but with a touch of the demon, a sacred wine with an intensity matched only by Peter Gabriel’s Rhythm of the Heat.

This is 100% Syrah from Santa Barbara’s Larner Vineyard. Macerated for 101 days, including the native yeast fermentation, it sees two years in neutral French oak with 18 months on gross lees.

Hurry. Only 73 cases made.

Score: 95

Price: $75 (Purchase Here)

Alc: 15.5%

Wine Review: Alma Rosa Pinot Noir Clone 115 Sta. Rita Hills, 2014

13 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Wine Reviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

pinot noir, Santa Barbara Wines, Sta. Rita Hills

alma rosaDuring a recent stopover in the Santa Barbara area, I had a chance to visit one of my favorite Pinot producers, Alma Rosa Winery. Richard Sanford, the iconic Santa Barbara winemaker responsible for introducing Pinot Noir to the region in the 1970’s, sold his stake in Sanford Winery to Terlato in 2005. He then opened Alma Rosa to be the home of these gorgeous vineyard and clonal-designated wines.

The La Encantada Vineyard bottling is consistently my favorite. It is as pretty as a wine can be, graceful and charming, but with soul-stirring hidden depths. Since I reviewed the 2010 La Encantada a few years ago, on this occasion I’ll focus on a bottling featuring the 116 clone from that same vineyard. The 116 clone is probably the most widely planted of the Pinot clones because of its consistent yields and rich structure.

Robust red cherry on the nose is delicately threaded with a thrilling mushroom note. Dried herbs and traces of cinnamon make this more spicy than floral.

On the palate it’s rich and round but still supple and full of finesse, with seamless transitions and a broad, satin-like midpalate that builds in intensity forging into a finish showing beautiful pure fruit that persists even as it performs its slow fade. Just on the heavier side of medium body, the tannins are very refined and the acidity not especially prominent.

The earthiness and feminine quality give the wine an old world demeanor although it lacks the acidity of a Burgundian style and the rich, pure fruit is pure California.

These wines from La Encantada are more feminine than is typical of California Pinot Noir. Wines sourced from their estate vineyard El Jabali tend to be bigger with more vigorous tannins. Their new tasting room in Buellton now features a tasting menu that includes fine Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, and Chardonnay as well as small batches of sparkling wine.

Score: 92

Price: $55

Alc: 14.1%

No one captures earthy, resolute femininity better than Joan Armatrading. I saw her perform Love and Affection in 1980; like wine she gets better with age. The way the bass leads and anchors the musical phrases seems to focus attention of the purity of the fruit.

Ageing Report: Dierberg Estate Pinot Noir Santa Maria 2008

04 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Ageing Report, Wine Reviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

pinot noir, Santa Barbara Wines, Santa Maria

dierberg pinotWhen it is right there is no finer wine than a Pinot Noir but it’s hard to find one that ticks all the boxes. This one does. It is an aging beauty at the peak of its perfection.

Ripe strawberry jam, chocolate, and smoke-tinged mushroom are the dominant aromas, with a hint of barnyard, wisps of mint and the vestiges of vanilla playing minor roles.

On the palate, the initial impact is gentle but with an underlying, ingratiating richness that wins you over immediately . It acquires dimension midpalate as cola notes become more forceful, but then finishes with the texture of cashmere, the tannins now so delicately woven they’re but a spectral presence. Yet, the finish is surprisingly long given how softly the tannins and acidity sing in melodious rhyme.

Wu Wei, the Confucian term translated as “effortless action” describes the languor and ease of this wine.

It’s another data point in the debate over whether ripe California Pinot Noir will age well. When it was young I thought it was a bit over-ripe and I laid it down as an afterthought. But that ripeness has now become an asset contributing to its pliable tenderness.

Score: 94

Price: $42 at release

Alc: 14.1%

Neither bright nor crisp , it has a slow bluesy vibe like this Ellington/Strayhorn tune performed by Allen Toussaint

Windrun Pinot Noir and Chardonnay Santa Barbara 2013

08 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Wine Reviews

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Chardonnay, pinot noir, Santa Barbara Wines

windrun chardonnayOvid, the great poet of Latin literature wrote “A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man’s brow”.

Delicacy in wine is similarly fragile. It can be destroyed by excessive ripeness, too much oak, stray oxygen molecules, or chemical manipulation. In fact, in our age of big and bold, delicacy is a rare treat. These two wines from Windrun appear as delicate as a bee wing belying a firm foundation.

The Pinot Noir offers a sheen of floral aromas with unusual mint highlights  mingling with a blend of maraschino and darker cherries. Hints of tea, spice, and hazelnut  play in the background indicating a light Buddha’s touch with the oak. (It is aged in new and used French and American  oak  for 6 months) Not aromatically intense, but subtle and complex, this is a wine to explore. It you swill it you will miss what it has to offer. Dry and slender on the palate, leaving cranberry and rose water impressions, it has balanced acidity and very fine tannins that have surprising persistence. Absolutely fresh and mouth watering—a gossamer robe over sinewy structure.

Stylistically this falls between three stools: More complexity than the pure fruit expression of New Zealand, but without the earthiness and grip of Burgundian Pinot Noir, and certainly avoiding the brawn and bluster of most California samples, Windrun has found its own niche.  A really unique expression of California Pinot Noir. In my judgment that is worth a couple points.

The Chardonnay is very pretty and accessible. Light straw in color, pear, mango, and ginger aromas meld with a stealthy incursion of buttered popcorn, all providing contrast to the wet-stone minerality that leaps from the glass. Crisp and dry on the palate but with pleasing viscosity, the soft, ingratiating acidity announces the medium length finish with a bitter herb note lending interest. One of the new breed of California Chardonnays throwing off their heavily oaked past. Only 50% of the wine undergoes malolactic fermentation, and it is aged in large, neutral barrels preserving freshness.

Both wines have the character of paradox—delicacy and solidity. And isn’t it paradox that makes wine interesting?

Pinot Noir:

Score: 90

Price: $20

Alc: 14.1%

Chardonnay:

Score:  88

Price: $15

Alc: 13.8%

No one exhibits the paradox of delicacy and solidity better than Joanna Newsome.

Review based on industry samples

Wine Review: Zaca Mesa Syrah Santa Ynez 2009

10 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Wine Reviews

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

California wine, Santa Barbara Wines, Syrah

zaca mesa syrah Syrah has gotten worse press than Lindsay Lohan. What ‘s the difference between Syrah and gonorrhea? You can get rid of gonorrhea, according to the on-going joke among industry sales people.

What is the explanation for Syrah’s troubles? There is the morality tale: Syrah reached its peak in the early to mid-2000’s when everyone was excited by Australian Shiraz (the alternative name for Syrah). In order to keep up with demand and make loads of cash, the Aussies dumped a lot of inferior juice on the market so consumers now think of it as a cheap, overly sweet beverage unfit for serious wine lovers.

My guess is that Syrah is a bit of a lost orphan—not as elegant as Pinot, not as sexy as Merlot, not as complex or age-worthy as Cabernet. Regardless of what you like there is always something that does it a little better than Syrah, according to its detractors (the wonderful Syrahs from the Northern Rhone notwithstanding.)  But, truth be told, Syrah often suffers from too much distracting sweet oak that masks the fruit and becomes cloying after the first few sips.

Syrah’s ill repute is not entirely undeserved but it is probably time to revisit this grape because there are some good ones around, including this one from Zaca Mesa—one of the pioneers of Syrah in the Santa Barbara region.

Deep, concentrated blackberry and smoky, charred cedar give this wine a black heart. But all this darkness is set off by sage, sweet spices and a svelte texture with lively acidity that sits nimbly on the palate despite the big flavors. Think Jack Sparrow—a roguish pirate with surprising agility and a big heart. The finish is long and powerful, the tannins still a bit dense. This wine is drinking well now now but could use more time in the cellar.

The structure of this wine is secured by the disciplined berry flavors that persist all the way through the finish. The oak adds much depth but is always under control. Powerful and well-made, it avoids all of the pitfalls afflicting Syrah–a fine example of what Syrah can be when made by a top producer at this price level. Great quality for the price.

Score: 91/100

Alcohol: 14.5%

Price: $20

Follow @DwightFurrow

Alma Rosa Pinot Noir La Encantada Vineyard 2010

27 Monday May 2013

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Wine Reviews

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

pinot noir, Santa Barbara Wines

jeniffer connelly Gorgeous but dark and complex—no one gets a better brood on than Jennifer Connolly. From Dark City to Requiem for a Dream to A Beautiful Mind to House of Sand and Fog, she fuses beauty and innocence with occult, unfathomable mystery.

This wine from Richard Sanford’s Alma Rosa Winery in the Santa Rita Hills is my Jennifer Connolly wine.

Great wines have this capacity to enchant the imagination while satisfying the craving for intense flavor, and they do it effortlessly without a lot of flash and bombast. Cool subtlety refreshes the palate; the promise of boundless depth enlivens the mind; generosity warms the heart. A comprehensive experience only rarely achieved via consumption. For me, this wine succeeds.

Dark fruits, black cherry and plum, meld with generous allspice aromas supplemented by muted vanilla and dried flower accents. Unusual citrus notes play around the edges. The palate has a kind of slow-burn intensity enlivened by a blast of concentrated cola midstream that carries through a lengthy flavorful finish. With time in the glass wisps of smoke weave through emergent, subtle earth tones that will become more prominent as the wine ages. Darkly complex, there is nothing playful or frivolous here.

But belying this Orphic personality, it lays down in the mouth like a soft blanket exuding much grace and charm. Lively acidity that never turns sour; refined tannins with just enough grip to hold your attention, the poise and balance is extraordinary.

Alma_Rosa_PinotNoir_LaEncantada_2010-278x300 Richard Sanford who founded the Sanford Winery in 1981 was the first to discover the potential of Pinot Noir in Santa Barbara. He has since moved on from that winery that still bears his name. Alma Rosa is his more recent project—he is still at the top of his game. The winery is worth a visit if you’re in the area—tasting through the various clones and blends of Pinot Noir on offer is a fascinating education in clonal and vineyard variation.

Score: 94/100

Alc: 14.1

Price: $39

← Older posts

Search

Join the Food Revolution

American Foodie: Taste, Art, and Cultural Revolution

Get Our Guide to Wine Tasting in San Diego

Wine Guide to San Diego at Amazon

Categories

  • 3 Quarks Daily Column
  • Amuse Bouche
  • Aphorisms
  • Art and Food
  • Art and Wine
  • Contemporary Food Culture
  • Daily Blog Summary
  • Edible Art
  • Food History
  • Food Science
  • General Aesthetics
  • Monthly Newsletters
  • Philosophy
  • Philosophy of Food and Wine
  • Recipes
    • Appetizer
    • Bread
    • Dessert
    • Lunch
    • Main Dish
    • Salad
    • Side Dish
    • Soup
  • Restaurant Reviews
  • Roving Decanter Posts
  • San Diego Wine Events
  • San Diego Wines
  • The Art of Wine
  • The Creative Kitchen
  • The Ethics of Eating
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Wine Culture
  • Wine Reviews
    • Ageing Report
    • Budget Wines
  • Winemaker Interviews
  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

Visit Us On Facebook

Edible Arts

Promote Your Page Too

Like Us On Facebook

Like Us On Facebook

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Blogroll

  • Contemporary Aesthetics
  • egullet
  • Fermentation
  • Ideas in Food
  • Jamie Goode
  • Leite's Culinaria
  • Mindful Eating 2
  • Orangette
  • San Diego Wine and Food
  • Serious Eats
  • Smitten Kitchen
  • The Curious Cook
  • The Philosophy of Food Project
  • The Wine Elite
  • Vinography
  • Zester Daily

aesthetics aesthetics of food aesthetics of food and wine aesthetics of wine Aphorisms Argentinian wine art and food Art and wine Australian Wines blogging Bordeaux Cabernet Franc Cabernet Sauvignon California wine California Wines Chardonnay Chianti Chilean Wine Columbia Valley creativity food aesthetics food and emotions food and identity food and wine aesthetics food business French wine Italian Wine Italian Wines locavorism Malbec Matt Kramer merlot Monterey County natural wine objectivity objectivity and taste oregon wines Paso Robles Petite Sirah Philosophy of food Philosophy of food and wine philosophy of wine pinot noir Red blend Red blends restaurants Rhone Blends Riesling San Diego Wines Sangiovese Santa Barbara Wines Sauvignon Blanc Sonoma Wines Spanish Wine Spanish Wines Sparkling wine Steve Heimoff Syrah Tempranillo terroir Washington State Wines Willamette Valley wine aesthetics wine and art wine and emotions wine blogs wine business wine criticism wine education wine evaluation wine news wine science wine tasting Wine Writing zinfandel

Networked Blogs

NetworkedBlogs
Blog:
Edible Arts
Topics:
Food, Aesthetics, Wine
 
Follow my blog

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy