By coincidence, I had lunch the other day with Rob Mondavi (from Folio Fine Wine Partners) and dinner that same night with Genevieve Janssens, Robert Mondavi Winery’s longtime winemaker. Rob is the son of Michael and grandson of Robert. So I’m in a Mondavi state of mind.

I’d never met Rob, but connected with him recently for my story on the Atlas Peak AVA, for January’s Wine Enthusiast. Rob wanted to show me his top wine, M by Michael Mondavi, made from their 16-acre vineyard on the mountain. Since I’d obviously known Robert Mondavi and Michael Mondavi, I looked for signs of them in Rob. Couldn’t find any, until he laughed. Pure Mondavi! That big, wide smile, the crinkly blue eyes, the energy.

Folio is an interesting company. It’s a hybrid: part “agency” (Rob’s word), which is their distributor side in which they represent other brands, and part production of their own brands, including M by Michael Mondavi. They just released the ‘06, which I’ll review in the Enthusiast. The 2005, now sold out, is a sensation. The ‘07 — which won’t be out for another year — is possibly even better.

Rob’s energy and potency are qualities he must have inherited. He is quite visionary but also realistic. When Folio was first conceived, nobody could have imagined this recession, or how deep and long it would be. Rob was a straight shooter in that respect. Sure, times are tough, and M by Michael Mondavi, at $195 a bottle, is not the easiest sell these days. But Rob has pertinacity built into his dna. This is a family with an eye to the long haul. They’re not trading in on the last name. No tricks, no stunts. While the distributed wines pay the bills, Rob and Michael fine tune their own wines — and in the end, fine wine will out.

When I saw Genevieve Janssens that night, it was to participate in “an interactive soil tasting.”

I must admit I had never taken a wine glass half filled with dirt, added a little water to make mud, then swirled and sniffed, the way you do with fine wine. But what an extraordinary experience it was.

They had three soil samples: one from Bodega Bay, out by the coast, one from Fremont, in my county of Alameda, and one from Mondavi’s To Kalon Vineyard. The object was to pair each sample of mud with a different foodstuff grown in that dirt. The Bodega Bay mud went with a cheese made from goats that grazed on the land below. The Fremont mud went with green peas grown there, while the To Kalon mud paired with Robert Mondavi’s 2007 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. To say that there were similarities and echoes of aroma (and not, obviously, of taste!) is an understatement. If the object was to persuade us that it is not only the structure of soil, but also its smells, that contribute to wine (and cheese, and green peas), the experiment definitely succeeded.

Genevieve presided over dinner with her usual aplomb. She is a living extension of her mentor, whom she always refers to as Mister Mondavi. Robert was a born marketer. It was in his soul. He understood the importance of having a simple message and then driving it home repeatedly. (Politicians, too, do the same thing.) In his case, the message was that wine, food, art and life are all part of a whole. What connected them, he asserted, was passion. “Passion” also is a word Genevieve uses often. She confided that it is part of her mission to elevate To Kalon to the status of an undisputed First Growth. No argument from me.

It’s easy today for Millennials to not realize that, once upon a time and not that long ago, wine and food, in America, barely mattered to most people. American food sucked. Frozen food had taken over, followed by McDonald’s. There were some old-fashioned French restaurants, but nobody went to them. When average Americans ate out, it was Chinese or Italian (which meant spaghetti and meatballs and veal Parmagiana). Nobody drank fine wine. The culture was heathen and, yes, vulgar.

Robert Mondavi helped to change that. So did Julia Child, and it’s little wonder that the two of them teamed up, late in their lives, to create COPIA. Now here we are, with a vibrant, energetic Genevieve passionately carrying forth Mister Mondavi’s message, while a young, invigorated Rob Mondavi, with his Dad, is pushing the legacy in new directions. La Vida Mondavi continues.

R.I.P. Tony Curtis

“Be careful what you wish for!” That’s what Rob Mondavi told me at lunch yesterday. He was referring, of course, to the heat — the baking, relentless heat that’s caused records to topple from the North Bay to L.A., which recorded its hottest day ever: 113.

I’d been complaining about the cold since last winter. Cold, wet Spring, cold, foggy summer, the vines weeks and weeks behind schedule. Then California had a few days of heat a month ago, and a lot of stuff got baked. Then it got chilly again. Everybody was worrying, especially in the North Coast, because just around the corner are the winter rains.

And now this!

My colleague, Joe Roberts, at 1WineDude, reported today on the heat. I had the same instinct yesterday, when I asked my winemaker friends on Facebook to report in from their regions and let me know what’s happening. Judging from some of the replies, things are looking up:

Jason Haas, Tablas Creek, Paso Robles: Things are accelerating a little, but the vineyard still looks in good shape…high temperatures at Tablas of 105 (today), 104 (yesterday), 101 (Sunday) and 97 (Saturday) aren’t really that unusual for late September. It’s cooled off nicely, into the 50s, each night. I’m more worried for places/grapes that don’t usually get hot. San Luis Obispo hit 110 yesterday (!).

Jeremy Kreck, Mill Creek, Russian River Valley: Sugars are really starting to move after stalling out for a couple weeks. We’re bringing in Sauvignon Blanc, and I expect to roll right into the Gewurz, followed by the Chard. Flavors are really starting to develop as well.

Eric Keating, Keating Wines: I think this heat helped overall. Took a berry sample of my Beckstoffer Georges III Rutherford valley floor Cabernet, 22.9 with pH of 3.40. Tasting nice, acid still high at the moment. Still a bit behind. With 1-2 days more of this heat… …followed by dry, moderate weather for a couple of weeks, it could be a great vintage. My mountain fruit (Rockpile and also Mayacamas on the Sonoma side) is a little different. Those vineyards were waaay behind and absolutely needed this heat. The previous two vintages, my Napa Cab was the last to come in, and this year it could possibly be the first. Short answer, in my opinion, this heat not only helped but was necessary in most cases.

Dan Tudor, Tudor Wines: we’ll be picking soon. The heat hasn’t been too bad in the Santa Lucia Highlands.

Karl Wente, Wente Bros., Livermore Valley: Moving things along quite nicely. Not too hot and a welcomed change from generally cooler weather. Chard all ready or close and merlot right behind.

Laura Zahtila, Zahtila Vineyards, Napa Valley: From Calistoga – it got to 107 degrees here today. We’ve been hydrating the vineyard for the past couple of days. Also walked our growers vineyard in Dry Creek this morning. The heat wave a couple of weeks ago really burned up some crop. Wish we could have some low 90′s to finish this off. Still about a week to 10 days before harvesting zinfandel.

John M. Kelly, Westwood Wines, Sonoma County: Might get young-vine Pinot up to 23 Brix by Friday. Soil profile is dry – we’re irrigating. Will be interesting to see if our earlier predictions for high natural acids pan out for the reds.

Stacy Vogel, Napa Valley: The heat helped our chardonnay with a nice final jump in ripeness. Bringing in all CH from Stagecoach Vineyard today and tomorrow, with most of Carneros not far behind. Finally!

Darek Trowbridge, Old World Winery, Sonoma County: First time I’ve ever picked Pinot Noir this late and the flavors are extraordinary! Zin and Chardonnay we have to remove the sunburn…

Karen Steinwachs, Buttonwood, Santa Ynez Valley: Well…we needed a little heat, but this is ridiculous. Next time you come to Santa Ynez, Steve, don’t bring 108 degrees! SRH is picking now (mine is all in), but Chard still ripening. Sauv Blanc in Happy Cyn mostly picked – I’m starting my pick in the LOD on Thursday. Sugars rising, but acids also still high. Weird. I agree with Darek – berries all taste amazing!

Richard Davis, Londer, Halleck and Calstar: ask me again in a week, trying to get stuff to ride it out and picking where it won’t

Gary Agajanian, Agajanian Vineyards, Central Valley: Temperatures in the high 80′s to low 90′s are the best. The extremes are difficult to manage. Grapes in the cool regios either got burned because of excessive leaf pulling , or benefitted if the canopy was intact. The grapes in the hot regions, said “what the f___!, you call this hot? This is normal.”. So, instead of 3 weeks behind, we are only two weeks. Overall quality will be good and clean, but you must be on top of it to get the best quality.

Mike Brown, Cantara Cellars, Lodi: Harvest has been great in Lodi. The heat is speeding up a slightly late harvest, with moderate alcohol levels and great acid.

[Steve again]
In non-Facebook conversations, vintners also weighed in to me:

Matthias Pippig, Grassini and Sanguis wineries, Santa Ynez Valley: The recent weather has everyone a little panicked now, but after touring all of my vineyards this morning, I have to say so far so good. The numbers haven’t jumped too dramatically but development has definitely been affected positively after the long cool (non-)summer.

Genevieve Janssens, Robert Mondavi Winery, Napa Valley: We have some baked fruit, 15-20% loss on Sauvignon Blanc. Pinot Noir is dehydrated a little, not too bad, finishing this week. Petit Verdot, 70-80% dehydration, lost it bigtime. Raisins. Cabernet Sauvignon is great, like nothing happened. Chardonnay is fine, too. Malbec dehydrated like the Petit Verdot. Merlot is okay, fine.

When I first began covering California, it’s safe to say most of the wine industry didn’t know much about me or Wine Enthusiast (although that’s certainly changed!). We were the upstart, the new kid on the block. And like all new kids, we had to prove ourselves. It wasn’t easy, but I was up for the challenge. I was then deep into the study of traditional Japanese karate, going for my black belt. I knew what it meant to prove yourself: you had to fight. You had to dodge attacks, parry blows, be nimble and crafty, and go on the offensive. You had to expect the unexpected. That was the way to win.

Back then — around 1993, 1994 — I knew what winning meant. It meant making the magazine respected. It meant making it matter. But I knew, also, that these things don’t happen all by themselves. That’s too much to expect. In karate, there’s a Japanese term, do, that means, roughly, the “way” or “path.” When affixed to the word “karate” (which itself means “empty hand”), the term becomes “karate-do,” or the way of karate. (The study area is called the dojo, the place where the do is practiced.) Karate-do is opposed to “karate-jitsu.” “Jitsu” refers merely to the technical aspects of karate. You can practice karate-jitsu; you may even get good at it; but to truly achieve karate’s heights, you have to practice karate-do.
By analogy, I understood that I needed to practice wine writing-do. I had to travel the wine path, live the wine life, commit myself 110%, in the sense that a Zen Buddhist needs to practice meditation and other spiritual arts in order to travel the true path of Zen. (In fact, Zen Buddhist thought has had a profound impact on Japanese martial arts.)

What did practicing the do of wine writing mean? The founder of modern Japanese karate-do, Gichin Funakoshi, wrote his famous Twenty Precepts about 100 years ago. These are the ground rules governing the thought and conduct of the karate-ka, or practitioner of karate. I began by applying his Precepts to my own situation. For example, Precept #9 states “It will take your entire life to learn karate, there is no limit.” That helped me to realize that no matter how long you remain a student of wine, there is always more to learn. It’s a good lesson in avoiding smugness and complacency. Precept #5 is “Spirit first, technique second.” This means that the wine writer may not be a technical expert, but what counts more than expertise is spirit, passion, drive. Precept #6 is “Always be ready to release your mind.” In karate, this means to have no fixed ideas, but to be fluid and supple, so as to be able to react to any external situation. In wine writing, I related this to many things. Being on the road, for example, which can be exasperating, frustrating and even dangerous, but offers unparalleled opportunities for learning and building relationships. Releasing the mind also means understanding that a $20 wine can be better than an $80 wine.

This is closely related to Precept #4: “First know yourself before attempting to know others.” I realized that earning the respect of the men and women of California for Wine Enthusiast meant, first and foremost, earning their respect for me, since I was the magazine’s public face. Nobody will respect a man who doesn’t know himself. Instead, they will pity him.

I won’t go through all twenty of Funakoshi’s Precepts, except to say that my favorite is #12: “Do not think that you have to win, think rather that you do not have to lose.” The two are quite different. If you feel that you have to win, you will be aggressive, which makes a man hard, overly ambitious and unlikeable. If you feel, instead, that you don’t have to lose, it makes you humble, and grateful for every little success that comes your way. It gives you the self-confidence to know that, for all your limitations, you can do whatever you set out to do, because that’s a gift life gives to each of us.

Does what a winemaker is feeling at the time he makes the wine somehow enter into the wine, through some mysterious process of emotional osmosis? I don’t mean to get all metaphysical, but this question arose, rather powerfully, during my recent visit to Santa Barbara, and I’ve been thinking about it.

I was tasting with a well-regarded producer. We were reviewing a range of his Chardonnays, dating back to the 2001, which was remarkably fresh. He remarked that he had crushed the wine on a date he would never forget, one that had made him profoundly sad at the time, and still affected him to the point of bringing tears to his eyes.

Sept. 11, 2001.

As his eyes welled, I replied, somewhat insensitively, “Well, I’m sure we won’t taste your feelings in the wine.” What I meant was that I assumed that what I would taste in the wine — in any wine — was the product of all the objective factors that physically made it what it was: variety, viticulture, enology, terroir, vintage, acidity, alcohol, tannins, age, storage condition, and so forth.

As soon as I spoke, I could tell I shouldn’t have. The room (there were four of us present) fell into an uncomfortable silence. The winemaker seemed at a loss for words. I was embarrassed. I didn’t want him to think that I had discounted his experience, since I hadn’t, or hadn’t meant to; I’d merely expressed the view that it didn’t seem likely that his emotions had transferred themselves into the wine, unless they had resulted in him performing acts of omission or commission that were the direct results of those emotions.

So I told him that a day or two after 9/11, I was at a consumer wine event in Monterey. There were 40 or 50 people present, who had paid some pretty good money to do a wine-and-food thing. They were laughing and drinking and partying, which made me feel horrible, considering the trauma our country had just gone through. So I asked a friend of mine, a local winemaker, to ding his glass and request a moment of silence. (Today, I would do it by myself, but nine years ago I didn’t have the self-confidence.) The reason I related this to the Santa Barbara winemaker was to reassure him that I, too, had been devastated by 9/11.

Well, it didn’t do much good, because I felt like an ass for the rest of the day. I still do. I have a tendency to run my mouth off before my brain can think. But I’ve also been wondering if the winemaker’s feelings really did go into the wine, somehow or other.

I don’t know quite how that would work. It doesn’t make logical sense. It would seem that everything the winemaker did must have been something he would have done regardless of what he was feeling. But the winemaker himself believes it, and he is a profound winemaker whose sensitivity is such that every critic who has ever written about him notes it. He is also an intellect who thinks long and deep about philosophy. So his views are not to be dismissed.

That 2001 Chardonnay was quite a wine. It was pristine, the way his Chardonnays always are, and reflected the minerals and acidity of Santa Rita Hills in a transparent way. I should mention that it was unoaked. It also seemed timeless. Not that it didn’t show its age; it did. But it was still sleek and toned.

Of course, once I understood how much that wine and the date of its crush meant to the winemaker, I took the time, out of respect for him, to look for extra qualities in it. Was it clearer, more focused, sparer than his other Chardonnays? His Chards always are minimalist; was the 2001 austere to the point of a haiku, or a Japanese sand garden in which a few strokes of the rake express more than all the flowers in an English garden?

I won’t go so far as to say I detected sadness in the wine. That would be carrying poetic license too far. But that 2001 Chardonnay was so transparent, like spring water from a Sierra stream, so mute and mysterious, like an obelisk or (something I thought of later) a Rothko painting, so neutral, in the sense that it was like a mirror held back to your own eyes, that at one point I likened it to a Rorschach test. I told the winemaker that it was a wine in which a person would find, not what the wine said, but what was happening inside the person’s own heart. I think the winemaker liked that. At our most profound moments, silence is really the overriding value. There was in fact a profound silence emanating from that wine.

I don’t know if that quality of silence came from the winemaker’s state of mind on 9/11, or from my imagination. I don’t know if I would have found it had I drank the wine from a paper bag in a flight of older Chardonnays at home in Oakland. But I do know the experience made me think about things in great wine that will never be defined. They say some winemakers pour their heart and soul into a wine. Maybe it’s true in more than just a metaphorical way.

Still in Santa Ynez, with the Big Temperature Warmup scheduled for today. Yesterday I visited and tasted with Matthias Pipping, the winemaker at Grassini, who’s also doing his own thing with Sanguis. Terrific and compelling wines. Then over to Nick DeLuca at Star Lane and Dierberg wineries, in Happy Canyon. From there to Doug Margerum at Happy Canyon winery as well as his own brand, Margerum. I’ll have a Happy Canyon piece on Wine Enthusiast’s website shortly, so will just say that these folks are betting on Bordeaux varieties, and they advance their case, for me personally, every time I do a little tasting. But they still have their work cut out for them, and I said so.

It’s not always easy saying things to a winemaker that aren’t flattering. They’re human; I’m human; it can be awkward. But if they ask, then in the spirit of candor I must answer. We all see things from our unique vantage points, and it can be helpful to see yourself, and your work, from another person’s point of view. Of course, what you do with that feedback is up to you.

Lots of talk about the vintage. Like I wrote yesterday, people down here in Santa Barbara don’t seem as worried as they do up north. Lots of talk, too, about social media. Where’s it going, what should they do with it, what’s it worth. But mostly we talked about grapes and winemaking.

The subject of “natural” arose a lot. What is a “natural” vineyard? Is it one in which you use no herbicides or pesticides? In which your canopy management techniques are held to a minimum? Is an old-fashioned head-trained vine more natural than a trellised vine? No easy answers. The wines I appreciated yesterday were the more “interventionist” ones. I know we’ve visited this topic before, and undoubtedly will again, but if the object of a wine is to be delicious, then the winemaker should do whatever it takes to make delicious wine! I just don’t understand applying an ideology to winemaking.

It struck me also that you can be ideological about not acidifying, but if you’re picking your grapes really ripe, in order to attain flavor, then the natural acidity is going to drop, and the resulting wine — no matter how much flavor it has — is going to be heavy and lifeless if you don’t acidify. We also talked about watering down. Nothing wrong with that. If you’re overweight, then you go on a diet. Again, when ideology trumps pragmatism, the wine suffers.

This morning I am suffering from a surfeit of gnocchi and Doug Margerum’s M5 Rhone blend, both of which I had too much of last night at Grappolo. I ate at the bar, which is a cool place to watch the frenzied chefs do their thing, throwing pizza dough, flaming things, and avoiding crashing into each other with the finesse of dancers.

Today, much excitement. My big, “secret” interview, a visit with Bill Foley at Lincourt, tasting with Chad Melville, then a get-together with Sashi Moorman out at the wine ghetto in Lompoc. I’d more or less dropped contact with Sashi for a few years, until he started making the fantastic Pinots at Evening Land, so it will be nice to pick things up.

I’m very glad about our new system at Wine Enthusiast wherein Virginie Boone will be tasting most of inland California, freeing me up for the Coast. I’ll be able to travel more and focus in on what some of these coastal winemakers, like Sashi, Matthias, Nick and Doug, are doing, with their own small brands as well as the brands they consult with.

Finally, I want to highly recommend a new book: “Oldman’s Brave New World of Wine,” by Mark Oldman. Don’t think it’s for beginners just because he phonetically spells out how to pronounce words (e.g., Faiveley = FAVE-uh-lee). There’s terrific basic information here about grape varieties and regions, and Oldman is one hell of a good writer.

Have a good weekend!