We wine writers who visit winemakers have lots of different choices of how to spend the time. One thing you can do (which I suspect most writers do with winemakers) is to taste the wine. That’s not my favorite thing, because to tell you the truth, I don’t feel I can be completely objective. Sometimes you’re in a cold cellar and the winemaker siphons the wine right out of the barrel. It almost always tastes pretty good under those circumstances. Other times the winemaker will line up bottles and glasses anywhere that’s available: the lab, the tasting room, his office, even on top of a barrel. At any rate it’s hard for me to properly evaluate a wine when I’m sitting with the person who made it.

Another thing you can do with winemakers is to let them take you on a tour of the winery. At this point, I’ve been on so many winery tours, I have bottling lines and fermenting tanks coming out of my ears. These days, when a winemaker walks me through the winery, it’s not uncommon for him to begin by saying, “You’ve probably seen a million wineries,” to which I silently think, Yes, I have, but I would never say that. Instead, I let the winemaker point out whatever he wants (I’m a polite guest). But really, the technological side of a winery has never much interested me (although the architecture does. I can just as easily appreciate a luxurious winery as a shed with a tin roof).

You can also walk through vineyards with winemakers. I like that because it takes me to the heart of where wine is made: the rows of grapevines that produce the grapes that make the juice the yeasts ferment into wine. But after a while, all vineyards begin to look alike. I know that’s heresy to those trained in the art and science of canopy management, but that’s how things are with me.

So what do I like to do with winemakers? I like to drive with them. Specifically, I like piling into the passenger seat of the winemaker’s vehicle (often an SUV, 4-wheel drive or pickup truck) and letting the winemaker do the driving. Winemaker vehicles are usually dirty and in disarray. You know how you sometimes apologize to a visitor because your house isn’t quite as tidy as it might be? Winemakers do the same, although I always tell them not to, because I could care less. Take a look at the inside of a winemaker’s car. Maps, gadgets and junk all over the place. Dried clots of earth on the floormats. Empty soda cans and water bottles. Clipboards on the dashboard, sunglasses and cell phone and pencils and pads and keys and boxes of tissue and little broken bits of metal and plastic. The inside of a winemaker’s vehicle is a veritable junkyard, but it’s a place I love to be.

Where do we drive? Typically around the property and/or the appellation. That’s what I really like to do with winemakers. They can tell me all about the hills and clefts inbetween the ridges that let the maritime influence filter in. They can point out that outcropping of limestone, that jumble of stones, or the way a bench rises suddenly from an alluvial plain. They can show me their neighbors’ vineyards. We can drive to high points where you can see for miles and miles and from that aerial vantage point gain an appreciation of an AVA’s physiognomy (if that’s the right word). Of course, you can do all this driving yourself, on your own, but then you can’t pay proper attention, and a winemaker is the best tour guide in the world. Winemakers know their appellations like they know the palm of their hand. (One of the nice things about chatting while driving is that, because it’s so casual, sometimes there’s some good gossip, oops I mean news, to be had.)

I was reminded of this because I just read my notes of my drive-around the southern Santa Rita Hills with Richard Sanford. One thing that struck me about that appellation was how quickly its vineyards have become famous. Ten years ago everybody knew about Sanford & Benedict Vineyard and Babcock, but who had ever heard of Cargasacchi, Fiddlestix, Fe Ciega, Richard’s own La Encantada, Sea Smoke, Clos Pepe, Melville, Mt. Carmel, Rancho Santa Rosa, Carrie’s, Huber? (I know I’m forgetting others.) Look how well-known they are today. There’s not another appellation in California whose vineyards have come so far, so fast.

I like winemakers anyway, most of them, and somehow they seem more themselves when they’re behind the wheel of their own vehicle.

Richard Sanford and I spent the morning tasting and talking about the Santa Rita Hills and his fabled career. Lest you know him only for his Alma Rosa Pinot Noirs, particularly from his La Encantada Vineyard, his twin white Pinots — Gris and Blanc — with their natural crispness — are worthy of your attention. The latter is rich, the former sleek as a Brancusi swirl of steel. More on Richard at another time.

From there my friend Sao Anash whisked me up to Bien Nacido where four fabulous chefs — Matt and Jeff Nichols, Frank Ostini and Rick Manson — prepared a Santa Maria-style barbecue to put all previous barbecues I’ve even seen to utter shame. Bien Nacido’s Miller family were my hosts, and my gladness was diminished only by the absence of Nicholas, the “face” of Bien Nacido Vineyard and someone whose joy in life is infectious. After lunch it was back down to Los Olivos for a visit and tasting with a winery I’ve followed for a long time, owned by one of the premier wine families of the Santa Ynez Valley, Gainey. It is about this tasting I want to concentrate in today’s blog.

I’ve given quite high scores for many years to Gainey’s wines, and the barrel samples they offered me certainly didn’t disappoint and in fact raised the bar higher. We went through various samples of block-sourced 2009 Chardonnays that did and did not go through the malolactic fermentation. If you’ve never had that exercise, do so. Here’s a non-ML that’s so crisp and savory in fruit it makes your mouth water. Then there’s the ML version and, as I said, almost apologetically, “I know we’re not supposed to say the word ‘buttered popcorn’ but…”. They smiled. A touch of that movie theater treat is great; too much would be a disaster. But Gainey has seldom if ever been guilty of “too much” of anything, or “too little” either.

It was the 2009 Pinot Noir clonal tasting that excited me and, to be blunt, challenged me. Usually I grill winemakers. This time it was the other way around, courtesy of one of Gainey’s longtime winemakers, and a person I decided I liked way back when I first met him, Kirby Anderson. The four clones we went through were Pommard, Swan, 667 and 114. (Well, I guess technically the first two would be called “selections,” not clones.) Kirby made me explain my impressions of each. My spiel went something like this:
“From left to right [i.e., Pommard to 114], we went from fruitier and lighter to denser, more full-bodied and weightier.”

Kirby: “Right. What fruits did you find in the 114?”

Steve: “No fruit, in fact. I wrote: ‘tannic, beetroot, dry, sassafras.’”

Kirby: “Very good. The 114 is earthy.”

Steve: “That’s what I meant by ‘beetroot.’”

Kirby: “What else?”

Steve: “The Pommard was all cranberry-cherry. Also very spicy. The Swan reminds me of Russian River: cherries, cola, raspberry. The 667 is deeper black cherries, with greater structure.”

Kirby: “And overall?”

Steve: “None of them is complete in itself.”

Kirby: “Mix the Pommard with the 114.”

I did so, and said, “A more complete wine. Fuller, richer. But still, something missing.”

Kirby: “Add a splash of Swan.”

I did, and said, “The most complete wine yet. Very nice. But still, something missing.”

Kirby: “What’s missing?”

I thought. The middle was a little hollow, and the wine, good as it was, trailed off to a quick finish. I said so, and Kirby said, “Good. So what is it missing? How would you fix that?”

I thought. What’s he driving at? Does he mean it needs a splash of Swan? Or some other clone? My mind went blank. In such circumstances, with others around the table watching the wine critic suddenly being critiqued, there was dead silence. Of course, all you can do is be honest — transparent, in our current vernacular — and admit bafflement.

“I don’t know, Kirby,” I said. “You’re the winemaker. You tell me.”

“Oak!” Kirby beamed, triumphantly. He’s got great twinkly eyes and a dazzling smile but now his eyes were twinklier, his smile more dazzling than ever.

I had thought he was asking me how to fatten and length the barrel sample through the addition of other samples, but of course he was entirely right. The wine needs the 8 or 10 months of partially new oak barrel aging that will complete it. I just hadn’t been thinking “outside the envelope” or, as it were, beyond the table. I asked Kirby to tell me 4 things that oak barrel aging does to Pinot Noir to make it better. Kirby gave me five:

- texture
- richness
- structure
- weight
- length

I’ll say one more thing about the Gainey tasting. They know that, with rare exceptions, I have never liked Santa Barbara Cabernet Sauvignon from anyone (although I’ve been praising Gainey’s Merlot since the 1990s; Merlot doesn’t need as warm a temperature to ripen as Cabernet). But this time they had a bunch of barrel samples of Cab and they also had assembled their entire Cab team around the table: John Engelskirger (the longtime Napa vet who consults for them), viticulturalist Jeff Newton, and their Cabernet winemaker, young Jeff Lebard. And, of course, Dan Gainey was there. Hmm, I thought, this could be ugly. If I have to complain about the Santa Barbara veggies, it will be embarrassing to everybody.

Well, I didn’t. The clone 337 and clone 15 Cabernets were very fruity and rich, not a trace of veg. Then they gave me a barrel sample of a blend of ‘09 Cab and Petite Verdot. I swirled, sniffed, tasted, repeated, repeated a third time, and looked up. All eyes were upon me.

“This is, quite simply, the best Santa Barbara Bordeaux-style red wine I’ve ever had,” I said. They told me it will be even better when they’re finished with it, after probably adding Merlot (a no-brainer) and maybe some Cabernet Franc, then aging it for 16-18 months in 50% new oak.

Lots of things can happen between cup and lip, so we’ll see. But the 2009 Gainey, which will probably have a proprietary name, is a wine I hope I’m going to be able to review someday.

But then it was on to dinner, another barbecue, this time up at Fess Parker with two of my favorite Santa Barbara people, Eli and Ashley Parker, who had another trio of chefs — Joanne and Eddie Plemmons and Kevin Hyland — pile on an incredible, amazing, unbelievable table of grilled chicken, tri-tip, you name it. I’ll be writing all about Santa Maria-style barbecue in an upcoming issue of Wine Enthusiast.

I leave today for a week on the road. First it’s to Shell Beach, on the beautiful San Luis Obispo Central Coast, for the World of Pinot Noir event, which Wine Enthusiast co-sponsors, and to which I’ve I’ve gone every year since the start, except for once when I was sick. To me, WOPN represents how to do a wine event at a high level of quality and efficiency. Granted, it’s not for everyone: it’s expensive and rather small; in other words, it’s not a ZAP tasting at Fort Mason! But for a working writer like me, it’s manna from heaven. You get to go to incredibly informative seminars, led by brilliant people who know what they’re talking about. You taste as much wine as you could possibly want. You meet old friends, make new ones, and catch up on all the latest news and gossip. Best of all, once the valet at The Cliffs Resort takes your car upon arrival, there’s no more driving until you go home, three days later! Yay! As someone who absolutely, positively does not drink and drive, that’s a godsend.

After WOPN, I continue south, to Santa Barbara County and specifically to the lovely little town of Santa Ynez. I’ll be there for a few days, working through a big, blind Chardonnay tasting. I love big blind tastings, but only when they’ve been very carefully planned out in advance, and include related wines about which something is known (variety or type and region being most important). This is called tasting in context. Only when you are comparing apples to apples can you truly determine a wine’s qualities. Only then, also, can you hope to make terroir generalizations. I’ll be tasting through the Chardonnays from all Santa Barbara’s regions (Santa Ynez Valley, Santa Rita Hills, Santa Maria Valley, Happy Canyon [if there are any Chardonnays from there, which I don't think there are] and the non-appellated areas), and hopefully regional distinctions will appear. But this isn’t as easy as it might once have been. Winemaking styles are so similar (malolactic fermentation, ripe grapes, new oak, acidification, sur lies aging and battonage) that terroir nuances tend to disappear under all that intervention. I’ve never been entirely comfortable making sweeping pronouncements about different AVAs anyway, the way some critics do. There are too many variables that prove the opposite. Still, reaching regional conclusions has its place and is valid, up to a point. The consumer likes reading about regional character, and it makes for interesting, everlasting thinking and conversation. But even if I don’t find clear regional distinctions in Santa Barbara, I’ll be happy, because I love Chardonnay, and they have many fine ones down there.

One item worth mentioning: I have been getting lots and lots of wines sent to me for review that I previously reviewed, in some cases more than a year ago. At Wine Enthusiast, we don’t re-review previously reviewed wines, except under very limited circumstances. So why are so many people resending previously sent wines? The fact that they are shows me that they’ve been unable to sell those wines. If you have to resend the same wine a year after it was first released, you must have piles of it gathering dust. More proof of this is offered by the fact that, in many instances, the wines sent the second time around are priced 10%-30% lower than the first time around. There’s a bloodbath out there, and I don’t see it getting better before this summer, at least.

Every time I start thinking that Paso Robles has turned the corner on red wine, along comes a bunch that makes me think the bad old days never went away.

First, the good news. I talk up Paso Robles all the time, especially in Napa Valley. You’d be surprised at some of the “names” to whom I say, “They’re doing some fiercely good stuff down there.” Many of them — Napa vintners — are freaked out by the collapse following the third quarter of 2008. For the first time ever, they’re looking over their shoulders; even Paso Robles, for all they know, might be a contender. So they listen. It reminds me of when the French Rhônistes came over here, in the early 1990s. They weren’t exactly worried about the Californians, but they’d heard distant rumblings…maybe they should find out for themselves what was going on.

Napans would do well to pay attention to Paso Robles. We are in game-changing times. Napa Cabernet is not immune to a market turnaround. A Toyota moment always threatens, or threatens to threaten; the current recession may already have dealt a serious blow to über-Cabernets. There’s a lot of Southern California money invested in Paso, the way that Silicon Valley goes to Napa. If there’s a lesson to be learned from Paso Robles — young, aggressive, ambitious — Napa’s smart winemakers want to learn it.

There’s plenty of evidence on the Paso side. At their best, Paso reds are juicy-good and balanced, and if that means they spent a little time inside a spinning cone, so what. Saxum is a good example of how delicious these wines can be, but, as Saxum is so rare and expensive, perhaps a better example is Vina Robles. To  name just one, I reviewed their Signature red blend (Petite Verdot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah) last Fall, gave it 93 points, and might have gone higher, I suppose, had I let it play with the air in the glass; but at some point in reviewing, you have to close each chapter and get on with the next.

So that’s the good news, but then come those awful Paso Robles reds, and once again I despair. No names, please. This blog is not the place for that (you can look up my reviews in Wine Enthusiast’s database, and it won’t cost you a penny). There are wine companies down there that charge $30, $40 and more for red wines that are so terrible, I think of quitting my day job and becoming a coal miner. What goes wrong in Paso Robles?

a. Overripe grapes. There is nothing more disgusting than inhaling a wine and getting a lungful of raw, harsh port.
b. Thinness of fruit due, I suppose, to overcropping. I have nothing against 15% alcohol, in and of itself, but when there’s not enough fat on those bones, the wine is hot and disagreeable.
c. Bizarre acidity. I imagine some winemakers add stuff out of a bag because the wines are too soft. Nothing like unnatural tartness to make the palate gag.
d. Residual sugar. A longtime bugaboo of mine.
e. Uneven ripening. Sometimes you get asparagus. Not pleasant.
f. Uneven tannins. This probably comes from inferior viticulture or from problems at the sorting table (if there is one).

Why do these things happen in Paso Robles but seldom in Napa Valley? I put the question up on my Facebook page and got some interesting comments. Matt Garretson, who used to make wines in Paso, said, “The issue isn’t so much with the raw materials (which are every bit as good, if not better), but has more to do with the intentions/talent of the grower/winemaker. Far too many posers there, IMHO.” Another commenter, John Danby, noted, “Part of the reason you get some less-than-stellar wines in Paso is that it’s still relatively affordable for the dreamers (gotta love ‘em), making their own wine and finding their way along. In Napa, if you can afford to be here, you can afford the consulting winemakers, etc.” I agree with both statements.

Paso has its work cut out, but they’ve shown enough critical mass of intelligence and fortitude that I retain hope. Anything can happen.

After dinner last night we had a “post-prandial” tasting of older Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons. As this was not a formal tasting, I made only token notes, and confined myself pretty much to a single consideration: How’s it drinking? Is it too old, still young, or just right? My findings didn’t surprise me: in general, Napa Cab is best drunk young — say, below 8 years.

Here are the wines, with quick comments:

Oakville Ranch 1998: too old
Juslyn 1999: hard, dur; may not be ready.
Truchard 1999: overripe, pruny
Corison 2000: lovely. We had this wine last month in NYC and it was really good.
Keenan 1994 Hillside Estate: on the down side
Peju 1999 Reserve: too old, leathery
Dalla Valle 1995: extraordinary. Near perfect. Still plenty of time.
Jones 1997: old-fashioned, dry. A puzzle. Could develop.
Farella-Park 1995: raisiny, tannic
Trefethen 1981: dried out
Duckhorn 1991: dried out, raisiny
Spring Mountain 1987: old, dry, tannic

Also there was the 1WineDude himself, Joe Roberts. We were talking about how so many people think that, just because a Cabernet comes from Napa Valley and is old, it’s got to be good. Not!

A few notes, after the first day of the WWS: Ran into Alder Yarrow at check-in and sat with him at dinner. It was nice to see Eric Asimov looking hale and hearty. The seminar’s director, Jim Gordon, is my editor from the old days, and it’s always a pleasure to see him. Saw a few other familiar faces, but most of the people were newcomers to me.

“What’s the word? That’s the mystery.” Thus spake Frances Mayes (”Under the Tuscan Sun”), the keynote speaker, describing how to describe a 30-year old Barolo. Finding the right word is the wine writer’s challenge, obligation and joy. Ms. Mayes correctly reminded us how hard that can be, and that the writer must not rest until he knows his copy cannot be improved.

Several panel members pointed to the analogy between the “sense of place” the writer tries to create, and the “sense of place” of a wine, i.e. terroir. I’ve never been as convinced as some that a single vineyard is necessary for a great wine. I think a great wine can be blended from different places. That’s just me. I know lots of others disagree.

Today we are off to the Culinary Institute of America for a bunch of workshops, including one led by my old buddy and former Wine Enthusiast colleague, Jeff Morgan, and one by Karen MacNeil, who was kind enough to write a dust jacket recco for my first book, A Wine Journey along the Russian River. Also speaking will be Michael Bauer, the S.F. Chronicle’s Food and Wine Editor and restaurant reviewer; he will, I trust, be out of disguise. My own panels are on Thursday; I’ll report on them on Friday morning.