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.

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.

First, I apologize to readers. This site was down most of yesterday, due to issues at my web hosting company.

* * *

It’s already been widely reported that California’s 2009 grape harvest was the second largest ever — 4.9 million tons, more than any other harvest except 2005, which “crushed” all previous records. (To put this number into context, that is 44% more grapes than were crushed in 1988.) Conventional analysis suggests that high-end wineries will take a hit, since “[I]n the coastal areas, there really is too much [product] at this point,” according to the well-known grape broker, Bill Turrentine, who added, “high end wineries in Sonoma and Napa counties suffer [from] a glut of fine wines almost no one thinks they can afford to buy.”

This is not particularly good news for “cult” wines or those just below cult status that aspire to super-ultrapremium prices. For the last 1-1/2 years (which is to say, since the economy collapsed), I’ve been astounded by the quantity of $50 and above wines that continue to pour in to me for review. “Who are all these people, and how are they staying in business?” I asked myself. Now, there’s additional pressure on them: the grape and wine glut from 2009.

What wine and region comes to mind when someone is predicting difficulties for “high end wineries?” Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is the correct answer (those of you who guessed right win a free lifetime subscription to this blog). So let’s drill down and see just how much trouble N.V.C.S. is in.

Statewide, the ‘09 Cabernet crush (441,563 tons) was up 35% over 2008, which was not a small crop by historical measures. Of that, 55,000 tons, or about 12.5%, was grown in District 4, which is Napa County — more than any California region except for District 11 (the northern San Joaquin Valley, but we don’t care about Central Valley Cab, do we?). That means Napa Valley is going to be churning out an ocean of 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon, starting in about a year and continuing (for late releasers) through 2013.

In the just-issued, official “Grape Crush Report” (preliminary) for the 2009 California crop is a section that’s always worth reading: “Base Price Paid to Growers.” It essentially summarizes individual dollar deals from growers to producers who buy grapes. While there were some pretty cheap transactions ($350 a ton for District 4 Cabernet? I wonder where those grapes came from?), most of the grapes went for between $6,000-$11,000 a ton. The official “weighted average” for Napa Cabernet was only $4,743 per ton, but that average is skewed low by the cheap grapes, which will end up in inexpensive bottlings that have little impact on high-end Cab. By contrast, the weighted average for District 3 Pinot Noir (which includes Russian River Valley and Sonoma Coast) was just $3,039 — and we know how expensive those bottles are.

Now, my good friend, Pierce Carson, wrote in last week’s St. Helena Star that, due to “grape prices holding their own,” even this large harvest won’t significantly lower bottle prices. Pierce interviewed Vic Motto, a grape and wine finance guy whom reporters like me have turned to for many years as a source of information. Vic’s prediction was nonchalant. “(A recession) is never permanent. The wine we’re making today will be sold tomorrow — we’ll see what tomorrow brings.” He was, if anything, optimistic about Cabernet’s future.

I’m not so sure. I have a feeling deep down in my gut, as Turrentine seems also to, that these high prices cannot hold. And if cult Napa Cabernet begins to tumble (which, in fact, it already has), how long will it take before the downward pressure hits Sonoma County, Paso Robles, even Santa Barbara County?  “[T]he economics of the wine business are still much better than most industries,” Pierce quotes Motto as saying. That may be true, in the sense that owners (many of them wealthy to begin with) are able to tread water, so they’re not in the dire straits of, say, the auto industry. But what about consumers? They are in dire straits. Even a multi-millionaire owner can’t afford to absorb big losses year after year.

My feeling is that, by this summer, we’ll have a greater understanding of how much damage was, or wasn’t, caused to Napa Cabernet by the Recession and, now, 2009’s big crop. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn of more bankruptcies, more sales, more dumping at Costco or wherever. Also, consider the fickleness of the consumer, who’s always looking for the latest critical darling. As I look over my highest-scoring Napa Valley Cabs since last Fall, I see brands such as Hestan, Redmon, Napa Angel, Knights Bridge, Piña and Sabina. These are not exactly household names. In other words, there’s a whole new crop of new (or relatively new) producers chasing, or should we say threatening, the more traditional boutique brands. Is there room for everybody? Not in my opinion, and not in reality. As MSNBC online reported just yesterday, “Napa Valley is facing the worst wine downturn since the early 1980s. Premium wines priced between $50 and $125 were ‘a dead zone’ in 2009, according to Silicon Valley Bank’s annual wine market report…”. I can’t see that changing in 2010. Something’s gotta give.

And this just in:

Where will Hardy land? That’s been the question over the ultimate job destination of Mr. Wallace, who won Murphy-Goode’s Really Goode Job. We now know: “I am passing along a press release to your email that announces Michel-Schlumberger’s unique partnership with the winner of the Really Goode Job, Hardy Wallace. He is moving into our winery where he will be writing about his experience living at a winery in addition to his other pursuits…”. That’s the word from Jim Morris, who works for Schlumberger. Same job, different location. Is the pay still ten grand a month? Enquiring minds want to know!

And this too

I’ll be doing a really nice, different kind of wine tasting at Old Crow Tattoo, in my neighborhood, on Sat. Feb. 20, starting at 8 p.m. The address is 362 Grand Ave. Stop by. I’d love to see you!

Over the weekend, I finished a story on Cabernet Sauvignon that will appear in an upcoming issue of Wine Enthusiast. I found myself typing these words: Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is pretty much as good as it can get — at least, it’s hard to see where it goes from here.

It’s not a thought I’ve entertained consciously before, at least, not in those precise terms. As so often happens with writers, when you’re on roll, pecking away at the keyboard (or even using a rustic old pen and paper), the thoughts just seem to come from outer space, and you sometimes find yourself writing the damndest things. Of course, every reporter has (or should have) a built-in alarm system warning him if he’s written something unsupportable or just plain stupid. So when I wrote this, I sat back, re-read it, re-re-read it again, and wondered:

1. What prompted me to write that in the first place?
2. Should I allow it to live and see the published light of day?

Because, let’s face it, it’s a controversial statement.

Napa Valley is royalty. It’s America’s Bordeaux and Burgundy, rolled into one. And a commoner doesn’t criticize royalty, not unless he’s prepared to be taken to the Tower of London and have his head chopped off. So what do I mean by saying that Napa Cabernet is as good as it can get?

Background: When I first started interviewing winemakers whose wines I had given very high scores to, one of my favorite questions was, “How much better can your [fill in the blank wine] get?” I mean, if a Cabernet earns a 95 or higher, it is, more or less by definition, a perfect wine, and there’s nothing more perfect than perfection, is there?

And yet the entire premise of Napa Valley Cabernet is, and always has been, better and better.

Well, these certainly are wines that have become spectacular in recent years. You really do have to wonder where their evolution will take them. I know some people who don’t like the Napa cult style, which is based on super-mature grapes (with consequent low acidity) and generous dollops of new oak. They’re entitled to their opinion; I happen to like it.

But when you’re on top, you never dare stay still, for fear of being shoved aside by a competitor. Mercedes-Benz doesn’t rest on its laurels but builds better cars all the time. The New York Yankees don’t rest on their laurels. The United States of America doesn’t rest on its laurels, but endeavors to become “a more perfect union” with each passing day. So if you’re Harlan, Shafer, Joseph Phelps, Spotteswoode, you have to be thinking ahead.

These extraordinary wines don’t seem to have a way to get better, only worse (say, from a bad vintage or some hideous mistake in the winery). I guess some people might say the way to make them better is to achieve ripeness at lower brix levels, which is a magic bullet that could be resolved with new strains of yeast and, I suppose, better clone-rootstock matching. Still, the theoretical destination of “ripeness with moderate alcohol” is a bit of an illusion. California isn’t Bordeaux and never will be. These are always going to be big, rich, juicy wines.

So to my second question: Should I allow this statement to live? Well, I just did, didn’t I, by publishing it here. If anybody in Napa gets all sniffy poo about this, I hope they’ll enlighten me, because I really am not seeing where these wines go from here. Is Bordeaux better than it was in 1961 or 1928 or 1874? It’s probably less tannic but an argument can be made that, no, it’s not “better,” just different. Somehow the Bordealais have managed to keep their image vital and coveted even though their product hasn’t really changed much over the years. That’s Napa’s challenge: As things stay the same there, but improve in other regions, they’re going to have to constantly re-persuade the public that they’re special and different and still worth the premium they request. No easy task, especially in this economy.

My San Francisco wine tasting group met again yesterday, in our usual haunt at Pier 19, just north of the Bay Bridge, and with a fine view of the span arching so gracefully to Yerba Buena Island. The theme was old Cabernet; beyond that, our host, Gary Cowan, of Fine Wines International, told us nothing. As this was an extraordinarily educational tasting for me, I thought I’d share the results here.

There were 9 wines. I knew instantly that #1 was very old. From the pale color and, even more, the maderized smell and taste, I guessed it to be 1960s Napa Valley. In fact, it was 1973 Castlerock Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine was a forerunner of today’s Yates Family/Napa Redwoods Estate, and the grapes came from Mount Veeder. I scored it 92 points “for historical interest…a ghostly remnant from another era.” (Words in quotes are from my notes during the tasting. Prices are retail, as determined by Gary.)
My ranking: 5. Group ranking: 7 ($N/A)

#2: Another old Cabernet that I found “dried out, bitter, dead.” Most of the group agreed with me, but one of us loved it. It was 1970 Chateau Montrose (which Parker called “unquestionably a 40-50 year wine”). Well, it is nearing 40. I gave it 86 points, out of respect for its “curiosity” value.
My ranking: 7. Group ranking: 9 ($250)

#3: Yet another old Cabernet, but “still with some sweetness…charming.” Maderized, yes, but “buttery-sugary. Marzipan.” It was Freemark Abbey 1974 Bosche. I gave it 93 points, despite some still-hard, bitter tannins.
My ranking: 4. Group ranking: 6. ($150)

#4. This was my last place wine, and the most polemical of any our group ever tasted. It earned 3 firsts, 3 ninths, 1 eighth and 1 fourth. I couldn’t get past the burnt rubber smell. It was 1990 Ridge Montebello, a wine I had not tasted previously, although I had given the 1991 95 points. It is very difficult to explain how and why a group divides down the middle on such a wine. I gave it 70 points, “undrinkable.”
My ranking: 9. Group ranking: 4. ($225)

#5. I didn’t care for this wine, either, mainly because it was dominated by a curiously deadening aroma of mold. Others perceived the same. It wasn’t TCA. It was also hard and tannic. It was the 1984 Joseph Phelps Eisele, from the vineyard in Calistoga, and I gave it only 83 points.
My ranking: 8. Group ranking: 8. ($195)

#6. I called this “solid, old-style Cabernet” and judged it to be from the 1980s. “Bone dry, tannic, with old-style blackberry, currant and cedar flavors.” It was quite a good wine, with some life ahead, and I gave it 91 points. It was Heitz’s 1985 Martha’s Vineyard.
My ranking: 6. Group ranking: 5. ($250-$325)

#7. With this wine we entered a much younger era. The tannins were entirely different from the previous wines: softer, rounder, more refined. The wine was 1992 La Jota “Anniversary” Cabernet, and I gave it 94 points for its “dense, powerful, concentrated” structure. I was reminded that by the early 1990s the era of tannin management (bladder presses, riper fruit, canopy management) already was underway. It was a beautiful wine with still a good future.
My ranking: 3. Group ranking: 1. ($195)

#8. This wine seemed older than #7, although Gary usually arranges the wines from oldest to youngest. It was paler, and certainly more brittle and lighter in body. Yet I loved its elegance, its almost tea-like delicacy, and the floral-sandalwood and cherry flavors. It was 1990 Cos d’Estournal, a beautiful old Bordeaux. “Enjoyable and complex.” I scored it 93 points.
My ranking: 2. Group ranking: 3. ($255)

#9. This was my highest-ranking wine, but by the end of the tasting, I probably would have scored it a little lower. It was the 1991 Beringer Chabot Vineyard Cabernet, and I initially gave it 94 points for its sheer, Napa-esque muscularity. The primary fruit was just beginning to evolve to more mature bottle notes. A great Cabernet that seemed far younger than 18 years. This led to a discussion about allowing wines to air before you rate them. For example, the #1 wine — the 1973 Castlerock — continued to gain in aromatic complexity after 2 hours in the glass; I would have scored it higher had I tasted it later. Some of our group argued for future wines, especially older ones, to be put in glass at least 2 hours before we taste them, to let them breathe. This isn’t a bad idea.
My ranking: 1. Group ranking: 2. ($225)

Gary followed the tasting by treating us to an astonishing white wine: von Othegraven 2008 Altenberg Riesling Kabinett Erste Lage, from the Saar. It was a near-perfect Riesling, off-dry and minerally, with a tang of citrus, tangerine, flowers and honey. And what acidity! The alcohol was 8.5%. Gary plans to retail this beauty for $28. A steal.

I’ll be going down to Monterey this Friday for the Great Wine Escape Weekend, which Wine Enthusiast co-sponsors; Saturday night is our big Wine Enthusiast Signature Winemaker Dinner. This year it’s 5 courses, each prepared by a chef from a different venue (PlumpJack, the Intercontinental Monterey, the Food Network, the Carneros Inn and the Intercontinental’s pastry chef). There will be 2 wines with each course, i.e. 10 wines in all, which means I’m going to have to set limits; otherwise, I’ll be slurring my M.C. words by night’s end! It’s happened before…