A Russian River Pinot Noir tops this week’s list, followed by a pair of Napa Valley Cabernets, 3 Chardonnays from the Santa Rita Hills and one from Carneros. Rounding out the list are two Syrahs, one from Santa Rita Hills and the other from Dry Creek Valley. As usual, you’ll find my full reviews and scores in upcoming issues of Wine Enthusiast.

Williams Selyem 2008 Litton Estate Vineyard Pinot Noir. Tasted blind alongside a dozen other Pinot Noirs from the winery, the Litton bottling stood out for sheer depth, complexity and class. I gave the ‘07, the first vintage from Williams Selyems’ first estate vineyard in the Russian River Valley, a perfect 100 points. Case production not revealed, alcohol 14.2%, $100

Joseph Phelps 2009 Eisrébe Scheuebe. The variety is a German crossbreed of Silvaner and Riesling. Phelps artificially freezes the grapes before pressing to create an ice wine, and an absolutely stunning one at that. It’s one of the best dessert wines in California, and will age. 800 cases, 8.5%, $50

Joseph Phelps 2007 Backus Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. The famous vineyard is in Oakville, and the wine displays the classic structure and ageworthiness of that commune. Will age for decades. 1,300 cases, 14.5%, $250. Kudos also for Phelps’ 2007 Insignia.

Kuleto Estate 2006 India Ink Cabernet Sauvignon. Grapes come from the winery’s hilly estate in the Vacas, above the Silverado Trail. Nice to see this property back in form after some off years. 303 cases, 14.7%, $80. Praise also for the winery’s Frog Prince and Villa Vista Cabs.

Diatom 2009 Babcock Vineyard Chardonnay. Diatom is Greg Brewer’s visionary Chardonnay project. The wine is unoaked and unbelievably pure and crystalline. 100 cases, 15.5%, $48. Pretty much as good is Diatom’s ‘09 Huber Vineyard Chardonnay. Both wines hail from the Santa Rita Hills.

Melville 2009 Clone 76 Inox Chardonnay. Mr. Brewer makes the list again as winemaker of this fabulously rich, exotic and crisp Chardonnay. No oak was used (“inox” is French for stainless steel). 872 cases, 14.1%, $36

Jaffurs 2008 Ampelos Vineyard Syrah. The vineyard is in the Santa Rita Hills, and the wine, while a bit high in alcohol, shows a cool-climate pepperiness. It’s big and rich and dry. 103 cases, 15.2%, $46. Good scores also for Jaffurs’ ‘08 Upslope and Thompson Vineyard Syrahs.

Vineyard of Pasterick 2005 Syrah. This little-known Dry Creek Valley producer turns out very good Syrah year after year. This ‘05 is quite rich, showing some age and drinking beautifully now. 387 cases, 15%, $38

Foley 2008 Barrel Select Chardonnay. Another spectacularly good Santa Rita Hills Chardonnay, only this time it’s rich in buttered toast and vanilla cream from oak barrels. 330 cases, 14.6%, $35

Peter Franus 2009 Chardonnay. Rich, oaky, minerally and laden with tropical fruit. A real crowd pleaser from the Napa side of Carneros. 86 cases, 14.1%, $32

Had coffee yesterday with a winemaker named Darek Trowbridge and his assistant winemaker, Steven Washuta. Darek owns the brand Old World Winery, up in Sonoma County. He’s related to the Martinellis, and founded Old World when he learned that there was no place in that winery for him.

Darek told me he hadn’t put much time or energy into marketing Old World, a mistake he’s now out to rectify. He was describing his dreams and visions, when suddenly it occurred to me that Darek wasn’t just speaking for himself. He was speaking, albeit unwittingly, for an entire generation of young winemakers, men and women who are embarking on the adventure of a lifetime. They’re coming out of V&E school, or perhaps transferring into the wine business from other careers, and entering a field filled with challenges and stress, at possibly the worst time to launch a winemaking career in recent history; but they’re game for anything. I watched Darek’s handsome face as he talked about winemaker dinners, his small distributor in Louisiana, his and Steven’s nascent efforts at social media, people he buys grapes from, the production level he hopes to achieve, and I thought about the many young winemakers I’ve run into lately, from Santa Barbara up through the North Coast. They’re all so hopeful and enthusiastic, so filled with energy and ideas, willing to endure just about anything to realize their dreams. And it struck me that, of all occupations in the world, making wine has got to be the most optimistic.

I’ve been meeting a lot more of these younger winemakers who have been below my radar, after the magazine divided California up into inland and coastal tasters, leaving me freer to sink down into the coast and meet these small, exciting producers. When I put the word out, via my blog, Facebook and personal contacts, that I was in search of this more or less hidden level of winemaking activity, I wasn’t sure what the response would be. In part, I feared that the smaller, younger producers wouldn’t be interested in a print magazine writer reviewing their wines in the traditional way. Because of my experiences writing this blog, I’ve been exposed, and rather strongly, to an anti-magazine attitude out there, on the part of Millennials who feel that everything that needs to be done can and should be done through social media. It wouldn’t have surprised me, then, to learn that a newer generation of winemakers had no interest at all in connecting with me.

Instead, it’s been exactly the opposite. Everywhere I go, people seem interested in making my acquaintance, and I am certainly delighted to make theirs. It’s been reassuring to find out that actual (as opposed to digital) relationships still matter in this business.

I’m going to work very hard at cultivating these new relationships. I want to help these younger, less well known winemakers achieve success. I still get irritated by the snobbery out there on the part of certain sommeliers, writers and, yes, some winery owners, who promote the same old stable of aging elite brands and turn up their noses at everyone else. I was talking just yesterday to a P.R. guy, an old friend, who just got a job with a super-famous Pinot Noir house in Sonoma County. They’d never sent me wines to review. I asked if that could now change. My friend said no, they just don’t send wine to anyone. To no one, I asked? Well, he said, they send to Spectator. I replied, live by Spectator, die by Spectator. It’s so 1990s, so yesterday, such an anachronism in a wine world that’s forward looking and thinking and open to change.

So, to all my new winemaker friends, present and future, here’s looking at you, kids.

Had lunch yesterday here in Oakland at Ozumo (fantastic Japanese food) with Nancy Light and Gladys Horiuchi, two friends from Wine Institute. I’ve known both for many years; Gladys, communications manager, has always been so helpful to us working reporters, and Nancy, communications director, handles what much be a stressful job with poise and lightness. I asked them what’s up these days at W.I. and they said the #1 and #2 priorities for the institute and Robert Koch, the president and CEO, are defeating HR 5034 and, here in California, defeating Proposition 25 and passing Prop 26.

They asked me if I was writing about HR 5034 and I said no. There are bloggers who know far more about it than I do — Tom Wark obviously is one — and why should I weigh in on a topic about which I am less informed than others? It’s distributors that are behind the HR 5034 threat. The entire wine, spirits and beer industries are united against it, Gladys and Nancy explained. It’s a non-partisan issue, with Democrats and Republicans both for and against it. It’s clear that the anachronistic distribution system is breaking down and will dissolve one of these days, but the wholesalers, who are a very powerful special interest, will fight tooth and nail to preserve it. Bobby Koch apparently is spending a lot of political capital and money to defeat 5034. More power to him.

As for the California propositions, 25 essentially would allow the state to raise taxes and fees with a simple majority vote, instead of the 2/3 supermajority now required. True, the initiative’s sponsors claim that the 2/3 threshold would be maintained in order to raise taxes, with the simple majority needed only for passage of a state budget. But this seems like a complicated and potentially slippery slope these days, when municipalities are scrambling to find every dollar they can. If the state can pass a budget with a simple majority, it seems obvious that taxes or fees or whatever you call them could be increased on alcoholic beverages, including wine, with a simple majority. And with the wine industry in such a fragile state, that’s the last thing we need. So I’m voting no on 25, even though that puts me in the company of conservatives. Most liberal groups are in favor of Prop 25.

Prop 26 would lock in the 2/3 supermajority and make it pertain not only to taxes but to the kinds of fees imposed by local governments, e.g. hazardous materials fees or fees on alcohol retailers. This is a complicated issue, since it has to do with the difference between a “tax” and a “fee,” and it also calls into question the power of the California Legislature to interpose itself into strictly local budgetary affairs. To the best of my understanding, if Prop 26 passes, the state would have to approve, by a 2/3 supermajority in the Legislature, any California taxpayer paying a higher tax on anything, with most “fees” being re-defined as taxes. That means, for example, that if San Francisco decided to pass a nickel-a-drink law, the California Legislature would have to sign off on it by a 2/3 supermajority.

Once again the pro-26 crowd is largely the business and anti-tax community, while those against it argue that it will help Big Oil and Big Tobacco. I wish it was easier for average voters like me to penetrate through the fog of political ads, arguments and counter-arguments and to know how these propositions really do or don’t address the issues. It always seems like a guess. I’m not entirely comfortable voting no on 25 and yes on 26, but I will.

Around this time every year I go a little vintage crazy. My vintage diary, which I’ve kept annually for a long time, reaches a crescendo as the harvest draws to its inevitably dramatic close. (I strongly recommend budding wine writers to keep a vintage diary.) Then there’s my annual update on past vintages, due to my esteemed editor, Tim Moriarty, in mid-November. Once you assign a score to a vintage, you can’t just let it stand forever; rejiggering of vintage assessments is part of the wine critic’s job. Finally, I have to write my detailed analysis on the current, just-completed vintage, in this case the bizarre, memorable 2010. So I am thinking, obsessing, fixating on and about vintages.

In looking back, I see I haven’t been particularly kind to 2006 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, which I rated a respectable but not exciting 90 points. It kind of got lost between  the 2005 and 2007 vintages, both 95 points, and both of them so flashy right out of the gate. So I decided to re-review 2006 Napa Cabs, now that I’ve tasted about 750 of them. (By re-review, I mean re-review my notes, not retaste the wines.)

In my 2006 vintage diary I wrote “cool, dry and late,” the second such year in what has now become six consecutive years of cool, late harvests (although you wouldn’t describe 2010 as “dry”).

But “cool, dry and late” was a general assessment. Closer up, there was more detail. Spring had been rainy, so even though most of the growing season was dry, there was a lot of moisture in the soil that did not evaporate due to the cool temperatures. A potent July heat spell broke the pattern, the heat shutting the vines down and further pushing off the ripening process for Cabernet, in most cases well into October. But, except for light sprinkles around Oct. 1, the month finished dry; on Nov. 2 I wrote, “First real rain statewide of the season…the latest rain I can remember…”. By then, of course, the Cabernet had been picked.

As I look at my individual reviews now, four years later, they’re actually pretty good. I scored about 250 Cabernets 90 points or higher, roughly one-third of all I tasted, a high average for a vintage. By contrast, that was less than the 50% of all 2007 Pinot Noirs I scored at 90 points or higher, which is why I called 2007 the greatest Pinot Noir vintage ever. There’s no chance I’ll call 2006 the greatest Napa Cabernet vintage ever, but clearly, I underestimated it. I can see, over the course of several revisions, that I penalized the wines for not being flashy and opulent. I now realize that the ‘06s traded those qualities for elegance and, in many cases, ageworthiness — qualities that can be hard to recognize in a young Cabernet.

My highest scoring Napa Cabs came from all over the valley. They included blends (the 100-point Cardinale), single-vineyard wines (Krutz Stagecoach, Piña Buckeye), mountain wines (David Arthur Elevation 1147, Kendall-Jackson Highland Estates Napa Mountain, from Mount Veeder) and Cabs from the flats (Peju H.B. Vineyard, Lail J. Daniel). So it’s hard to generalize where in Napa Valley did best, except to say that all the vineyards were farmed as impeccably as any on earth.

Prices were high. My least expensive 95-point or higher wine was $40 for the Vinifera Cab, but costs rose quickly after that; 13 of 30 were in the triple digits, topping out at $225 for that Peju H.B. One other thing of note is the number of lesser known wineries with very high scores: Napa Angel, Krutz, Hestan, Baldacci, Pina, Parallel, Vinifera, Sabina, De Sante, Hunnicutt, Roy Estate. That’s an interesting development. Many people might not realize it, but Napa Valley is the most intensely fermentive (no pun intended) wine region in California. It has the most new brands turning up, doing exciting things and wowing more often than not.

Bottom line: I’m upgrading my rating for the Napa 2006 Cabs. It was a better vintage than I thought.

As most of you know, I’m very anti-snob when it comes to wine. I champion everything, whether it’s Two Buck Chuck or the most expensive rarity, because there’s a place for everything in our complicated world. But, let’s face it, there are standards. All wines are not created equal. And one wine that is not equal is white Zinfandel.

Now, I don’t want to be misinterpreted here. Anybody who likes white Zinfandel has a perfect right. Some wonderful wineries (Gallo, Woodbridge, Sutter Home) make respectable white Zins, and more power to them. I’ve given my share of Best Buys to white Zin in Wine Enthusiast, and if you handed me a glass at a party, I’d drink it with whatever food was around.

But white Zinfandel cannot be considered a great wine. It’s not meant to be a great wine. Even its manufacturers concede that. They usually use Zinfandel grapes from the Central Valley (which is why white Zin typically has a “California” appellation) that may be cut with other, cheaper varieties. They use press juice. They leave a little residual sugar in, to satisfy Americans’ sweet tooth. It generally costs less than $10, hardly the province of great wine.

No, white Zinfandel is a wine for people who don’t understand fine wine, don’t care to, and don’t need to. I’m not putting them down. I’m just saying that there is such a thing as quality in wine, it objectively exists, and white Zinfandel is not terribly high on the quality scale.

Which brings us to this post by Tim Hanni MW, Wine Industry Owes Sweet Wine Drinkers a Huge Apology.

Tim says he paired up with a Cornell associate professor to conduct a consumer study. They found that it’s not lack of sophistication that makes people prefer sweet white Zinfandel to better wines. No, it’s “physiological differences in human sensory anatomy.” People who like white Zin are born that way. That’s why the “wine industry owes sweet wine drinkers a huge apology.” We’ve told them for years that they’re functionally uneducated about fine wine, when it turns out that all we’re doing is insulting them for the way Nature made them. This is a form of discrimination whose not-so-subliminal message to white Zin lovers is that they’re inferior — a message that “alienat[es] a large segment of consumers…”.

Whoa. We’re treading on a culturally sensitive area. You’re not supposed to diss anybody’s choices anymore, because if you do, you’re being insensitive. I might feel that, living as I do in a dense urban neighborhood, it’s incumbent on me to be quiet and not antagonize my neighbors with loud noise, especially at night. But if somebody wants to drive down the street at 2 a.m. blasting a CD at 100 decibels, hey, who am I to criticize? That’s their right, isn’t it?

Actually, no. A person who drives through a crowded neighborhood playing loud music at any time is a lout who wasn’t raised right. I could say the same about a range of social misbehaviors, but you get the point. There are, as I said, standards. There have to be, or society crumbles. And wine also has its standards.

The truth is, just because lots of people like something doesn’t make it right. Many people may prefer white Zinfandel over a dry wine, but a well made dry wine is objectively better than a sweet white Zinfandel. Nor do I believe people are born with a predisposition to liking sweeter wines, as Hanni’s study claims. I think the wine industry has had it right for the last 50 years; the wine learning curve goes like this: start with sweet white or pink wines, advance to drier whites, then to lighter reds, then to dry, fuller-bodied reds. (And, my whiskey friends would add, “Then go on to Scotch and bourbon.”)

So when Hanni quotes a wine marketer as saying, “It will require some major changes in attitudes, wine education and the correction of worn-out stereotypes and myths” to get over our beliefs about white Zinfandel drinkers, I disagree. I don’t think it’s a stereotype that white Zin drinkers are unsophisticated about wine. I don’t think I have an attitude toward them. Nor do I agree with the study that “this finding offers the wine industry a great opportunity to develop an overlooked but large and accessible market segment and to expand wine consumption.” The wine industry hasn’t overlooked white Zin drinkers. It’s known for decades that the white Zinfandel crowd is a “large and accessible market” to try and educate upward. There’s nothing new or breakthrough about that. Gallo, Woodbridge and Sutter Home understand that in their bones, and deserve huge congratulations for helping to move consumers up to better wine via the portal of white Zinfandel.

It’s also crazy when Tim writes, “White Zinfandel drinkers are often the most sensitive tasters.” I don’t believe that for a second and I don’t think anyone reading this does. Maybe the researchers pulled that rabbit out of their study’s hat, but come on. It just shows that you can come up with anything you want when you send a professor off to find something. If white Zinfandel is for the most sensitive tasters, consider me the dullest taster around.

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