One sign of a good wine book is when I find something on nearly every page to blog about. By that standard, Benjamin Lewin’s In Search of Pinot Noir is a very good wine book.

Besides being a handsome publication, physically speaking, and well graphicked with superb maps and charts, In Search is written with plenty of informed opinion. I like opinion and even attitude from a wine writer, but only when the writer actually possesses a vast well of knowledge. There are plenty of opinionated wine writers out there whose knowledge suffers from, shall we say, de paucité. When Mr. Lewin, who is an M.W., contends something, it has the ring of truth.

There is an irony at the heart of his book, or maybe an inherent contradiction is the better way to put it. This is not Mr. Lewin’s fault. Rather, it is due to his honesty and perceptiveness that it found its way into the book in the first place. One could suggest that the first duty of a wine book on Burgundy is to celebrate the terroirs of the Côte d’Or, and generations of writers have risen to the occasion, repeating truths they heard from others. This, Mr. Lewin reverentially does, in his discussions of Chambertin, La Tâche and the rest. But he does something else that is rare and refreshing: he raises the question (which he is candid enough to imply has no final answer), Are the historic variations between these wines due to actual terroir, or are they due to differences in the human approach to growing grapes and making wine (including, significantly, ripeness levels, stem inclusion in the fermentation and the amount of new oak)? For, make no mistake, if it is the latter, then not only is our historic understanding of the various vineyards of Grand and Premier Burgundy build on sand, but so is the entire notion of terroir, which as we all know has been appropriated from France to California, especially when it comes to Pinot Noir.

I love that Mr. Lewin testifies to the difficulty of cracking this issue. On the one hand, he can’t quite bring himself to say that “The concept of terroir is B.S.” That would be a bridge too far; besides, he evidently doesn’t believe it. But, having studied his subject matter long and hard, he knows that every theory of Burgundy is shattered by experiences of individual bottles that are the exception to the rule. Read this book, and the take home lesson is that the notion of terroir in Burgundy–specifically, of hard and firm vineyard characteristics–might be true from a bird’s eye view, 500 feet in the air. But get down into the tall grass, and it begins to fall apart, when the wines of two different proprietors, made from grapes grown right next to each other, are so different. Nor is Mr. Lewin enough of an apologist for terroir to claim to find a common thread running through these wines. He might say there seems to be one, but he might also say there doesn’t. Good for him.

What this means for the theory of Pinot Noir terroir we’ve created in California over the last 30 years is that it’s nowhere near as simple as it seems, or as producers of highly coveted wines want you to believe. One of the most frustrating and troubling experiences of my career has come when I’ve tasted with producers who claim that there are vast, solid and obvious differences between single-vineyard Pinot Noirs, when I myself cannot perceive them. Of course, when you’re with a highly regarded Pinot Noir winemaker who tells you how different (say) Cargasacchi Vineyard is from Mount Carmel, you tend to believe him, and you tend to look for the differences he is describing. It isn’t surprising when and if, therefore, you actually find those differences.

What’s scary is when you taste these wines objectively and do not find differences. Then you’re forced to come to one of only two possible conclusions: either you’re a bad taster–and who wants to admit that?–or the person who told you about those vast, obvious differences between vineyards was himself mistaken. Or, if “mistaken” is too prejudicial a word, then he was seeing things that don’t exist because he wanted to. I suppose there’s a third possibility, now that I think of it. It may be that a winemaker who consistently tastes the wines of various vineyards, year in and year out, blind and not blind, as part of his job really will learn to detect the subtle distinctions between them that the majority of us, no matter how gifted, cannot. This shouldn’t be surprising, any more than if your neighbor down the street had identical twins, and you were unable to tell Peter and Paul apart, at least during their childhoods. “What? You can’t see that Pete is totally different from Paul?” dad might ask. “Actually, no, I can’t,” you want to reply. “They both seem the same to me.” (But you don’t want to be rude).

Once again we bump up against the principle of uncertainty, by which what we perceive is relative to how we examine the data. This isn’t to say that there are not ironclad differences between, say, Wllliams Selyem’s Allen Vineyard Pinot Noir and their Estate Pinot Noir. There may well be, because although these two properties are quite close to one another on Westside Road, they are obviously different places. And Bob Cabral, who must live as intimately with these wines as he does with his own family, may well learn to be particularly sensitive to their differences. But that doesn’t mean he would be as sensitive to the differences between Cargasacchi and Mount Carmel, since he does not routinely taste their wines. So do the differences between them, as expressed by those who know them best, actually exist? Probably yes. But do they matter to the rest of us? Probably no.

What the critic looks for–even if he cannot consistently detect the characteristics that various vineyards are said to exhibit–is the quality of the individual wine in the bottle. There may well be an underlying, everlasting quality to any wine from the Cargasacchi Vineyard. Peter Cargasacchi, an eloquent man and superb grapegrower, no doubt could express it convincingly. But one would be hard pressed to taste Cargasacchi bottlings from Siduri, Dragonette, Cargassachi itself, Ken Brown, Brewer Clifton and Loring side by side and come up with a pronouncement that holds true across all of them and across all time, unless it’s something so bland–like “all the wines are deeply concentrated”–that it could apply to most good Pinot Noir vineyards. I could, I suppose, comb through years of notes for every Cargasacchi Vineyard Pinot Noir I’ve ever tasted and see if there are words or concepts that apply to all of  them. I should then, however, have to comb through reviews of all other Pinot Noirs I’ve tasted, to see if those same words or concepts popped up with the same frequency, before I could honestly write that the Cargassachi Vineyard alone is marked by those qualities. (For example, minerality, or crushed Indian spices, or firm tannins.) But I don’t know if we’ll ever have, in California, an example where one Pinot Noir is described as consistently feminine and another as consistently masculine. Too much depends on vintage variation, on age of vines, on clones and growing decisions, on ripeness, on maceration and fermentation techniques, on yeasts, on barrel type and length of aging and so on. In Burgundy, of course, they arrived at their famous conclusions centuries ago, and they may have been accurate then. The strength of Mr. Lewin’s book is that he shows how difficult it is now to hold onto those conclusions, much as even a diehard Burgundian may want to. And if it’s hard in Burgundy, it’s just about impossible in California.

That our notion of what constitutes “the good” in wine is connected to a particular zeitgeist seems undeniable and unavoidable. One hundred and fifty years ago Pinot Blanc and/or Chardonnay were added to the best red wines of Burgundy “for superior finesse.” Nor were the red wine grapes of the region mostly Pinot Noir, as they are today. “Even along the Cote d’Or, Gamay [Beaujolais] occupied almost a third of plantings” in the 1850s for such vineyards as Clos de Vougeot, already by then one of the most famous wines in the world and one that helped send Burgundy’s reputation to the top of the heap. The reason vignerons used these varieties was because they knew that Pinot Noir, by ltself, made a wine that was too light, in both color and body (often little more than a rosé), to satisfy the consumer’s taste. “We have abandoned the production of pale-colored wines to conform with the taste of foreigners,” a head of Vougeot recorded, as early as 1763. Nearly a century later, when this practice of adding other grapes to Pinot Noir was at its peak, a certain Dr. Lavalle wondered if it came “at the expense of finesse and bouquet, and perhaps aging?”.

If this sounds eerily familiar, it’s because it’s pretty much the same debate we see happening today with respect to Pinot Noir (and, to some extent, with Cabernet Sauvignon). There’s a school of thought that the “California” style of Pinot Noir–which is to say, fairly high in alcohol, dark in color, robust in body and fruit-forward–does not properly represent “classic” Pinot Noir, as it has been produced in Burgundy for centuries. But, as the above suggests, the notion of “classic Pinot Noir” is a myth, existing only in the heads of certain romantics who do not know their history.

In fact, “The trend towards darker, heavier [Pinot Noir] intensified during the first part of the nineteenth century,” writes the author of the fine new book from which the above quotes and information were taken, In Search of Pinot Noir, by Benjamin Lewin, a Master of Wine. One cannot read it without realizing that there’s nothing new about today’s debate. It’s been going on for centuries, and should force us all to pause and consider. Those who argue that Pinot’s true “character” is expressed, say, only below 14%, and only through being 100% unblended, really need to answer how it is that Burgundy’s historic legend rests largely on Pinot Noirs that were blended with other, full-bodied varieties, simply because the people who bought it wanted a wine that actually tasted good, rather than one that conformed with some pre-formed concept in their heads. Nor was the debate in Burgundy confined to the 18th and 19th centuries. Lewin quotes a French expert who said, as recently as 1949, that “The finesse of wine made from Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris is superior to that made of Pinot Noir alone”; and he [Lewin] even cites first-hand gossip that the practice of blending a little Pinot Gris into red Burgundy (by “mistake”) continues unabated today.

So we are left with but one conclusion: that at any given moment in time, there is a zeitgeist that determines what we consider quality in wine. Today, in Pinot Noir, the zeitgeist is schizophrenic: a small cadre of experts and elitists insists that Pinot has to be low in alcohol and rather frail in body, in order to be considered high quality. On the other hand, a sizable number of consumers–the people who actually buy the stuff–joined by a sizable number of critics (including me) holds that Pinot Noir can express its essence when made across a spectrum of styles. Who knows whether or not some well-known California Pinot might have been “boosted” by the addition of a little red or white wine? If someone gave you a Pinot Noir you thought was fantastic, and then told you it had 5% Pinot Gris, would you decide you didn’t like it? This is not to say that a low alcohol Pinot Noir (which we will presume to be unblended) cannot stun. Nor is it to say that a high alcohol Pinot Noir has necessarily been blended. Most, I trust, have not. But I wouldn’t care, either way. Only a purist would object, based, not on the impact the wine made on his palate, but on the knowledge of how it was made. Purists are thus revealed to be ideologues; and ideology is just what this old world doesn’t need, in wine, politics, religion or anything else.

I was thinking why I haven’t given as many high scores to Pinot Noir as to Cabernet Sauvignon, when I realized there’s a perfectly good reason. Can you guess why?

It’s not because I don’t believe California Pinot Noir isn’t as great as Cabernet. It is, although Cabernet’s been great for a much longer time than Pinot. And I don’t think it’s because I have some preconceived notion that Pinot Noir can’t score as highly as Cabernet, although I admit that, if I did have such a notion, I might not be consciously aware of it. People have asked me why Sauvignon Blanc (for example) never scores as highly as Chardonnay. Is it due to something inherent in Sauvignon Blanc, or something in me?

Well, Sauvignon Blanc is a topic for future reflection. Right now, the answer to the question why I don’t score Pinot as highly as Cabernet is because Pinot Noir goes wrong much more often than Cabernet. And I do mean at the highest levels.

A grape chemist can explain to you why Pinot is a more transparent wine than Cabernet. There are some critics out there who like to throw around technical terms, like anthocyanins, without a proper understanding of what they are or do. I’m not one of them. I’ll let the enologists deal with that, if they agree to stay away from reviewing wines.

But Pinot is more transparent than Cabernet. Cabernet is a heavy wine. It’s tannic and full-bodied, and often very oaky, and sometimes, when I’m tasting a Cabernet, I imagine a large, furry animal in my mouth. With such a wine, flaws can be hidden, to a reasonable degree. A little too much or too little acidity? There’s room in Cabernet for a margin of error either way. Tough tannins? Cabernet is forgiving. To some extent, you want tough tannins in a proper Cabernet, which is what makes it ageable. Some herbaceousness indicating less than properly ripened fruit? Not a problem. There’s generally so much fruit in a California Cabernet that a touch of green olives and herbs is welcome. What I’m looking for in Cabernet is richness, and I find it more often than not in Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, which is why I’ve given so many (Vine Cliff, Araujo, Alpha Omega, Venge, Krutz, Au Sommet, Paul Hobbs, Vineyard 7&8, Macauley, Long Meadow Ranch, Moone-Tsai, Staglin) such high scores this year alone.

But the margin of error for Pinot Noir is considerably narrower. Or maybe a better way of saying it is that Pinot Noir is so transparent that, ultimately, it’s the most unforgiving variety. There was a book a while back, The Heartbreak Grape, about Josh Jensen, at Calera, and “a heartbreaker” is exactly what Pinot Noir is. Pinot either is perfect, or it isn’t. And the sad truth is that 99.99999% of Pinot Noir is never perfect, meaning that there is an almost existential certainty that when you taste one, no matter how great it is, you’re going to mourn the fact that something, somewhere, is wrong.

It could be anything. For me, when acidity is off in Pinot Noir, it’s jarring. Too much, and the wine has a mean, nasty streak, like a yappy little dog that nips at your ankles. I hate that, and will take 5 or 6 points off a Pinot for that reason alone. And don’t tell me that high acidity will help a California Pinot age. It won’t–especially when the winemaker added it after the fact.

A little sweetness in Cabernet isn’t a flaw and, as a matter of fact, can be a virtue, if you have a California palate, as I do. Almost all the wines I listed above taste sweet. Cabernet wants that lush, chocolatey richness; it tolerates it well, the way a big-boned person can look good while packing away a few extra pounds. But sweetness in Pinot Noir sticks out like a sore thumb. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lowered a score because the wine turned sugary at the last moment.

The herbaceousness I mentioned that can be good in Cabernet is a severe minus in Pinot Noir. Just a trace of green, from unripe seeds or stems or whatever, can overwhelm an otherwise nice Pinot, making it sharp and minty. Not good. On the other hand, too much caramelized oak on Pinot is the worst thing in the world. I think you could probably give a good Napa Cabernet the exact same new oak treatment as a Pinot, only in Cabernet’s case it would be fine, whereas the Pinot would be a disaster.

I’ve gone through only a couple differences between Pinot and Cabernet, but the bottom line is that Pinot is so fickle and finicky that it screams out every possible little thing that’s wrong with it. Cabernet seduces and charms. It’s easy to fall in love with Cabernet and have a great time with it, never noticing little flaws because it’s so entrancing. And that’s why I give more high scores, and higher scores, to Cabernet Sauvignon than to Pinot Noir.

People are always asking me, “What’s your favorite wine?”, to which I invariably reply, “The one I’m drinking now.” If they press me, I’ll say Champagne (or sparkling wine). If they really want to get down with me, I’ll tell them Pinot Noir.

I decided some years ago I liked California Pinot Noir even more than Cabernet Sauvignon, but I was never entirely sure about it. Whenever I tasted a great Pinot Noir, I’d be thrilled not only with the wine itself, but with an appreciation of how far, how fast this variety has come in California. It would have been inconceivable in the 1990s for me to have preferred Pinot over Cabernet, and I think the same could be said for most of the working critics of that time. However by the late 1990s, certainly by the early 2000s, if someone knowledgeable had said they thought Pinot had overtaken Cabernet, at least nobody would have suggested a forced trip to the psycho ward.

As much as I’ve liked Pinot, the reason I wasn’t quite sure it was my favorite was because every time I did a great Cabernet flight, it would blow my mind and remind me once again that Cabernet had been my first love and, while I might have flirted a bit with this racy young upstart, Pinot Noir, I was destined always to return to Cabernet. Dance with the one that brought ya, the old saying goes, and it was Cabernet Sauvignon that had brought me to the ball.

So I went into the database today so see what my top wines have been so far this year, and, not surprisingly, Cabernet Sauvignon dominates the list. The top 5 are all Cabernet or Bordeaux blends. What is surprising, though, is that two of them are not from Napa Valley! Those would be Stonestreet’s 2007 Rockfall and Verité’s 2006 La Joie, both astounding wines. Of course, one could argue that both of them are from the west-facing slopes of the Mayacamas Mountains, separated only by an accident of geography from being in Napa County, instead of Sonoma County.

My #6 wine was Williams Selyem’s 2008 Litton Estate Pinot Noir, a wine I’ve loved ever since I first tasted it. (The name henceforth will be Estate, not Litton.) It’s a big Pinot Noir, not for the faint-hearted, and I guess you could criticize it for not being “Burgundian” enough, but that’s not a criticism I share. My #7 wine was a sweetie, Dolce 2006, and it should never be surprising to see Dolce appear on anyone’s top list. It’s consistently one of California’s great dessert wines. What perhaps is a little surprising is that my #8 wine is a sparkler: Schramsberg’s 2004 J. Schram Rosé, possibly the greatest California sparkling wine I’ve ever had the pleasure to review. After that, we revert back to Pinot Noir for the #9 wine, Joseph Swan’s 2007 Trenton Estate, which with its acids and tannins reflects its southern Russian River Valley roots. In tenth place, last but not least, is Qupe’s 2006 X Block “The Good Nacido” Syrah.

This list makes me happy and proud. It certainly wasn’t premeditated for me to have Cabernets, Pinots, a sweet wine, a sparkling wine and a Syrah in my Best of 2011 (so far) list. But there you are. What it tells me is how well California is doing in many different varieties, at least at the upper tier.

After that Qupe Syrah, #11 is another Syrah, Donelan’s 2008 Richards Vineyard, from Sonoma Valley. But get ready for this: #s 12-22 are all Cabernet Sauvignon or Bordeaux blends. I don’t see another Pinot Noir until #27, the Babcock 2009 Microcosm. So I guess I’d have to say, if you make me put my hand on a Bible in a court of law and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth concerning my favorite wine, I’d say, “Based on the evidence, it would be Cabernet Sauvignon.” But in my heart of hearts, I wouldn’t really believe it.

Oz Clark has it just about right when he says the big California style is here to stay.

The British wine-writing wordsmith, one of the world’s most successful wine book authors, accuses the “wine chatterati” of getting it all wrong in their mistaken conclusion that there’s a revolution in California away from high alcohol wines [back] toward the lower alcohol, less ripe wines that they–the chatterati–consider more balanced and elegant.

I’m glad the word finally has filtered across The Pond. I’ve been saying it for years: this supposed “trend” toward lower alcohol wine is largely a fiction invented and perpetuated by writers who (a) wish it were true and (b) need something sexy to write about in their columns and on their blogs.

You, dear readers, would be surprised and appalled to learn about the pressures on writers to discover trends and report on breaking developments in the world of wine. This pressure comes from editors, who want to put the word “new” or “trendy” in every headline and on every front cover. A headline like this:

NEW LOW ALCOHOL TREND CATCHES WINEMAKERS BY SURPRISE

is much catchier than this:

MOST WINES CONTINUE TO BE MADE IN THE USUAL FASHION,

but the latter headline, while true, happens to dull and un-newsworthy. What’s a writer to do when the trend he wishes were happening isn’t? He just goes ahead and cites it anyway, and is able to trot out enough examples to make his claim sound credible (often by the popular but suspect practice of “quote shopping”).

In the case of a “trend” toward lower alcohol, the names of Cathy Corison and Copain are often cited as proof that wines–at least, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir–are being made lower in alcohol. But these writers almost never point out that Corison and Copain are outliers. The reason we single out their wines–justifiably, for they are incredibly good–is because they’re so different from 90% of the other high-scoring Cabs and Pinots that are not low in alcohol.

I myself haven’t done a scientific analysis of the approximately 10,000 wines I’ve reviewed in the last 2-1/2 years (I have no way of doing so), but I can tell you, as someone who has to double-check the alcohol-by-volume level (according to the label) of every one of those wines before it goes into Wine Enthusiast’s database, when it comes to Cabernet and Pinot Noir, the number “15” is a lot more common than the number “13” (as in 15.4% vs. 13.5%). The number “14” marks the highest quantity of these wines, but in my opinion most wines labeled as 14.5% alcohol (the majority) are higher than that, often considerably so, given the TTB’s rather slippery allowance of a degree of difference. So let us dispel the notion that California wines are getting lower in alcohol. They’re not.

Now, having said that, there are complications. Coastal California is undergoing a cooling trend. The temperature in Napa Valley is not getting hotter (and if you have data to contradict me, please send it). The last six vintages have been cool, 2009-2010 severely so, and 2011 may be following suit; the upshot being that a cooler vintage will, overall, result in lower alcohol wines. But not by much, “cool” in California being a relative term; and even in cool years, we have heat spikes that raise brix by several degrees overnight. Then too, we have no idea whether or not many Cabs and Pinots are actually being produced at 15%-16% and then having their alcohol reduced through a variety of means. Your 14.1% Cabernet may have started life out considerably higher, and then gone to see the equivalent of a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon for a tummy tuck and facelift. Do you consider a manipulated 14.1% wine “low alcohol”?

Bottom line: Be wary of predictions that California wines are getting lower in alcohol; certainly not Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley. Consumers (and critics) have stated over and over that they like the big, voluptuously ripe style (I certainly do, if it’s balanced). That gives producers absolutely no incentive to change, which is why they won’t. Kudos to Oz Clark for telling it like it is.

It wasn’t inevitable that I could wrap my head around a low alcohol California Pinot Noir, for the simple reason that low alc Pinots historically haven’t been very good. They’ve been overcropped, thin little things, showing more tannins and tobacco than fruit. When California learned how to make Pinot Noir rich, it did so by making them ripe, hence my years of high scores for Pinot Noirs in the 14.5% and up category. I relished the richness and opulence of, say, Goldeneye, Merry Edwards and Lynmar, none of which have been shy in alcohol. I liked the weight, the velvety mouthfeel, the density, not to mention the marvelous fruits that rolled through the finish. These were Pinot Noirs I thought were serious, and they merited serious scores.

Then there is another expression of Pinot Noir that clocks in under 13.9%. Copain 2009 Monument Tree, many if not most of Au Bon Climat’s and Babcock’s, a Lioco 2009 Hirsch that’s a mere 13.5%, ditto for a Tyler 08 Clos Pepe. Yesterday I tasted and reviewed Ghostwriter 2009 Woodruff Family Vineyard Pinot Noir, from the Santa Cruz Mountains, that was 13.5%. These wines are considerably lighter than the 14.5% and up boys. Paler, too. But they are very good and deserve their high scores. It made me wonder how one Pinot Noir could be pale and light-bodied and boring while another can be pale and light-bodied and scrumptious. It’s all about stuffing, isn’t it? And that’s the glory and genius of great Pinot Noir–how it can be the most ethereal thing you’ve ever tasted, and also at the same time be explosive. With Pinot Noir as with no other variety does my vocabulary struggle to come up with oxymorons: delicate power, airy potency, silky depth. I’m not saying my palate preference is moving away from the 14.5% crowd, as many other critics seem to be doing. I’m just saying I’m gaining a new appreciation for a lower alcohol Pinot Noir that manages to be at the same time complex and rich. These cool vintages we’ve been having may give us more of them in years to come.

* * *

I’ve been keeping my eye on Lot18 lately. That’s the website that sells a handful of wines at deep discount for a limited period of time. I’ve been hearing about it, and then on Sunday (yesterday) Jon Bonné had an article on Lot18 on the front page of the Chron’s Food & Wine Section called “A wine site flexes its muscle.” Jon had generally good things to say about it, although he did point out that Lot18’s offerings can be “a release valve for inventory.” Jon also nailed something Lot18 does that only a practiced eye, like Jon’s, would catch: that the critical reviews may “bypass a rating for a blurb on the vineyard or winemaker–not the specific wine.” The example Jon uses is when he quotes Philip James, Lot18’s (and Snooth’s) founder, as claiming it’s okay to say a wine was made by “the same guy who made Robert Mondavi’s Cabernet” even though the wine in question isn’t a Mondavi. It’s almost like saying, “This Russian River Valley Pinot Noir is actually made within sight of the famous Williams Selyem Winery.” It’s glitter-by-association and has nothing to do with the actual wine in the bottle.

It’s also troubling to me that so many of Lot18’s reviews are by the wine’s winemaker–for example, Marco DiGiulio, on Hidden Ridge’s 2006 55% Slope Cabernet Sauvignon. I grant that $25 is a good deal off the wine’s release price of $40. But I reviewed that wine in April, 2010. Here’s what I wrote, in part: “It may be a little too ripe for its own good, though, as it’s pretty jammy. For some reason, the winery lowered the price considerably from the 2005, which was a much better wine.” Not having tasted the wine lately, I can’t say I like it or not. But I wouldn’t pay $25 for it without an assurance it was fresh and complex and has benefited from the extra 14 months in bottle. This does seem to be, to requote Jon, an “inventory valve.” There’s a place for such practices, but caveat emptor has to be the guideline for consumers.