VOL. 7 No. 4 (10/25/96)

Dear Faithful Subscribers:

The California Club’s Food and Wine Committee organized a wine tour of the Willamette Valley in Oregon which is home to some of the best pinot noirs in the United States. The group had dinner the first evening with Dick and Nancy Ponzi, who are one of the early pioneers of the Willamette Valley wine industry. The Vigneron sat next to Nancy Ponzi and was able to question/ interrogate her regarding her root stock and clonal selections. The Vigneron is in the process of making those decisions for Clos Pepe’s pinot noir vineyard which will be ordered now and planted in the spring of 1998. While discussing the romance of being in the wine industry and the benefits of such a lifestyle, Nancy Ponzi recalled one day early in their career when she and Dick and their only worker were sweeping out the winery floor in October during crush and it was cold, windy and raining. After doing this for several hours, the employee announced he was quitting since he could make more money waiting on tables and the work was a lot easier and warmer!! Nancy observed he was right!!

The group also visited the Willakenzie Winery which is a brand new gravity fed, state-of-the-art facility. While the group was going through its tour, the Vigneron managed to corner off to the side the owner and question/interrogate him (you can take the boy out of the law but not the lawyer out of the boy) about clonal selection and root stock. After the owner described his root stock and the several clones he was using - all of which Clos Pepe is using - he mentioned that there was another set of clones that they were planting but he was not free to discuss them at this point in time. The Vigneron said "Oh, you’re planting some 600 series!". The owner was visibly startled and quite surprised - when you have built a seven figure state-of-the-art winery, you tend to think you know more than a 13 acre wineryless vigneron. He wanted to know how the Vigneron knew such top secret information. The Vigneron recounted that Clos Pepe was going to plant a couple acres of the 600 series pinot noir clone - score one for Jeff N. and his Davis classmate at Bob’s winery.

During a lunch at the venerable Nick’s Restaurant in McMinnville, the Vigneron sat next to David Lett, who planted the first Vinifera Vineyards in Yamhill County and is recognized as the pioneer of the premium wine industry in the Willamette Valley. David ended up in the Willamette Valley because while at Davis in the early 1960’s, where he went to become a dentist and found the ecology classes more fun, he wrote a paper contending that you could not grow decent pinot noir in California because it was too hot - except perhaps Carneros and the Russian River Valley and that the only place to do it would be Oregon. His Davis professor didn’t think much of his paper and told him that he didn’t know what he was talking about. So as they say, the rest is history. When the bashful Vigneron mentioned to David that he was planting a pinot noir vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley, David first offered him condolences and observed that you can’t grown good pinot noir in the Central Coast because it is too hot as his Davis thesis had proved. The Vigneron responded in his understated diplomatic style that he probably looked only at the east side of the 101 and not the west side. In any event, the Vigneron responded that after a couple of years he would invite David down to see who was right or wrong. In the interim he would add David to the Clos Pepe Newsletter mailing list as penance. During the lunch David, in a discussion about the aging of Chardonnay, he mentioned that the he had done a vertical tasting of his chardonnays back to the ‘70’s and they were all holding up quite well. The Vigneron thought to himself he is yet to meet a winemaker who has made a bad bottle of wine or a bordeaux vintage that is not the vintage of at least the decade if not the century.

The group also visited the Domaine Drouhin, which is the American operation of the highly regarded and venerable French Burgundian producer. It is also a new state-of-the-art gravity fed winery. One of the things that Drouhin has done to get greater color during the fermentation is to use horizontal fermenting tanks with a helix screw that is rotated to break up the cap and since it is horizontal, there is much greater skin to juice contact, than in a vertical fermentation tank with punching the cap down. At the end of this tour the Vigneron, perhaps due to the absence of l’Agent, incurred the wrath of the distaff members of the tour by responding truthfully to a question. Due to the unfortunate death of the son of a neighboring winery, Domain Drouhin’s General Manager was not able to be at the winery when The California Club tour arrived. At the end of the tour, the Vigneron and three of the distaff members were walking ahead and about to board the bus when the general manager came running up and profusely apologized for being late and asked if the group wanted to taste some wine. The Vigneron, to the chagrin of the female members, said sure. An hour and several bottles of wine later the group departed. Since this was the last stop, the group arrived in plenty of time to change for dinner. The Vigneron still does not get what all the grousing was about baths and naps instead of tasting wine. In any event on the QT, to preserve domestic tranquility, the male members thanked the Vigneron for his candor.

Some of our faithful readers may be curious as to why l’Agent has not appeared in this description of the Oregon wine tour. Well its because, as usual, she was busy with the day job and in Ashville, North Carolina giving a speech to the American Employment Law Council. She did remind the Vigneron that even though she wasn’t on the trip he should not overindulge and behave as if she was there. The Vigneron commented to himself, "Sure, sure."

The Artist-in-Residence called the Vigneron to describe the end of the crush at the Babcock Winery and to ask if he could take a bottle of wine out of the vineyard wine refrigerator to the end of crush party at Babcock. He assured the Vigneron that he would not take anything too expensive but something that would be nice and be well received. The Vigneron said sure that was fine, and didn’t give it another thought. A couple weeks later, when the Vigneron was up at the Vineyard, the Artist-in-Residence came by and announced that he had purchased two cases of wines for him, one a syrah and the other a merlot. This took the Vigneron somewhat by surprise since the Artist-in-Residence is usually the recipient of wine gifts, not the giver. In any event, the Vigneron thanked him and continued working on the vineyard checkbook. Then the Artist-in-Residence noted that the white wine he had taken out of the vineyard wine refrigerator for the Babcock crush party was French and the Vigneron responded, that’s fine, there are some nice French wines there. The Artist-in-Residence then went on to note that it happened to be a well aged Le Montrachet, which the Artist-in-Residence didn’t realize at the time is the world’s most expensive white wine, until Brian Babcock noted that he thought it might be wasted on the crush crew. The Vigneron was his usual understated self and as is his wont did not respond. But he did muse that he thought he had already drunk that bottle and he must have forgotten there were two (or was it three?).

Early in September Frank G. and the Vigneron bottled their 1995 Santa Ynez Valley wine, 66% cabernet franc and 33% cabernet sauvignon. It was not in the same class as the gold medal 1994. However it did garner an honorable mention at both the L.A. County Fair and the Orange County Fair. Fortunately, there is always another vintage. L’Agent has tasted the ‘95 several times and called it "vile." The Vigneron ignored the first of these several insults but after the fourth, lacking Bill C’s presidential demeanor, exploded that insults never made a wine, and give the wine another four years.

In the middle of September, Frank G. and the Vigneron assembled their picking crew for the 1996 vintage. As usual, the picking crew was long on education - a doctor, two nurses, a lawyer, an engineer and the Artist-in-Residence - but short on strong backs and quick hands. As usual, l’Agent was occupied - she arranged for the carpenter who was going to hang the Clos Pepe Vineyards sign to be available only when the picking was occurring so she missed out on the fun. This year due to the grape shortage, Jeff N. had to use all of his wiles to find available grapes. We picked a ton of cabernet sauvignon from the Stolpman Vineyard (Mr. Stolpman also happens to be a lawyer in his day job from Long Beach and this year’s President of the California Bar Association). The Artist-in-Residence, after working four weeks as a cellar rat, aka gopher, at the Babcock Winery, is now an expert, as all of you know, from his addendum to the last issue of this worthy epistle. Since he is an expert, he spent the majority of the picking time regaling the picking crew with stories from his vast experiences in winemaking and other learned dissertations regarding grapes in general. Perhaps his loquaciousness comes from his youth, being an English major, or the son of a lawyer. In any event, the gift of gab - aka blarney - is one of his strong suits. Following the picking, we took a quick shower, which the Artist-in-Residence observed would not have been done at a "real winery" - during "real picking", and trucked the grapes to Chateau Guadagnini in Long Beach. After crushing and destemming the grapes, the Vigneron wolfed down Rosemary G’s traditional picking dinner of peppers and sausages to catch a 9:00 p.m. flight to San Francisco which was two and a half hours late. Frank G. meanwhile had to take a midnight red-eye to Minneapolis. The Vigneron and Frank G. were commiserating about the day jobs interfering with really important things like making wine. The Vigneron noted to Frank G. that he really had no excuse since he retired a year ago and he now works more than he did at Northrop and still hasn’t cleaned out his garage.

l’Agent commented - well, we have planted our Chardonnay vineyard and we won’t plant the Pinot Noir vineyard until 1998 so we can use our extra cash (a true oxymoron by an Occidental graduate whose first husband was Occidental’s initial first team all American - the VP was only honorable mention) for important things like a flag pole! l’Agent had already commissioned and purchased an appropriate vineyard flag. No, said the Vigneron, we have to select our root stock and Pinot Noir clones by the fall of 1996 and the vineyard nursery - much better business persons than l’Agent and the Vigneron’s day job, requires one-third down and progress payments before the vines are delivered. (At the day job l’Agent and the Vigneron do the work then send out a bill 30 days later and wait another 30 or 60 days before most clients pay. If they haven’t paid within 60 days, a polite letter is sent and maybe after 90 or 120 days a phone call is made and if payment is still not forthcoming, discounts are offered to clean up the matter. The Vigneron has come to the view that those with dirt under their fingernails might be better able to run his day job as a business.)

In any event, in doing the Chardonnay vineyard, the root stock and clones were relatively simple. There are two to three root stocks and a half a dozen clones for Chardonnay. The real issue is quality versus quantity. If you pick a poor clone or root stock, you can always compensate with Chardonnay by increasing the quantity and selling it to the Kendall Jacksons of the world. Most consumers when asked what kind of white wine they would like, 19 out of 20 times always say Chardonnay. Have you ever heard anyone asking for a Pinot Gris, Vignoier or a Reisling or a Gewurztraminer? Perhaps occasionally somebody will ask for a Sauvignon Blanc and if they are really trendy, they will say Fume’ Blanc.

When one is asked what kind of red wine he or she wants, the almost universal choice is Cabernet Sauvignon though now Merlot seems to be the trendy red; occasionally a Zin and almost never does anybody ever ask for Pinot Noir.

Pinot Noir is not an easy grape to grow, it is a shy bearer, does not like excesses of either sun or rain and is susceptible to quite a number of diseases. Besides being difficult to grow, it is difficult to make a quality wine but when made right, it is sublime and with no apologies to our Bordelais friends, it runs circles around Cabernet Sauvignon and its compatriots. Unlike a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Merlot, Pinot Noir does not need two to four supporting characters to fill in its voids and enhance its drinkability. Pinot Noir does it all alone and all by itself!

Sorry for another long digression. With Pinot Noir there are half a dozen root stocks and 1 to 2 dozen clones. The combinations are endless. With a limited bank account and only 14.2 acres for Pinot Noir the Vigneron and Jeff N. decided to try 2 root stocks, the 5C and the 1014. The other major root stock 3309, which is used in Burgundy, is not very resistant to nematodes and Jeff N. thinks they will be a problem at Clos Pepe. With 2 root stocks and 14 acres we were limited to at most 3 or perhaps 4 clones to have enough fruit to see if the clone or root stock really makes a difference. So we settled on 3 clones, a Dijon, a Pommard and one of the new experimental 600 series. One of Jeff N.’s Davis classmates is a winemaker at one of the major producers whose initials are R.M. and they have started a nursery and he was able to secure a couple of acres of cuttings. After about 2 to 3 decades, the Artist-in-Residence will be able to tell what a genius or idiot the Vigneron was based on which of the root stocks and which of the clones have done the best. l’Agent’s only comment was - if we are planting in 1998 why do we have to pay for it in 1996?? The flagpole is going in next week.

From time to time - really quite frequently - l’Agent is calling the Vigneron to task for his lack of business acumen. One of her pet peeves is that the Vigneron usually sends this worthy epistle to the recipient’s office address, generally the male member, instead of the home address. When confronted about this, the Vigneron replied that he was just really trying to save money and avoiding the postage by sending it through the interoffice mail, so that the l’Agent could use the extra cash for essentials like flag poles and grass. L’Agent recognizing that subtlety and tact usually do not work with the Vigneron, confronted the Vigneron with the truth that if you send it to the office, the recipient (usually with a y chromosome) reads it and throws it away (those of you who are guilty do not have to raise your hands) and our real discerning audience (aka those with a testosterone deficiency) never get to see it!! She concluded by reminding the Vigneron that 70%+ of wine is purchased by the female member of the household. The Vigneron walked away muttering what does that have to do with growing grapes and that explains why there is so much mediocre wine made.

The Vigneron being a plain spoken man who is not from Russell, Kansas has been queried several times about who is the "real" author of this worthy epistle. Most think it is l’Agent, though Bud does have a few adherents. Sorry Wes, no one believes it is the Artist-in-Residence. The l’Agent to her credit - it must be her Manse background - always responds to such inquiries that the Vigneron is the author, which is usually greeted with skeptical looks - although the l’Agent does take some credit for correcting his glaring grammatical and syntactical mistakes. Perhaps out of a sense of domestic tranquility, she has enlisted the help of her good friend, a former Bon Appetite editor who shall remain nameless but whose initials are J.O.D. a rising California judge, whose career may be in jeopardy if her contributions to this candid epistle were known, to help l’Agent edit it. After she was elevated to the bench, typewritten drafts are no longer acceptable to the Judge and her honor demands a diskette which she then revises and sends back to the Vigneron so he doesn’t know how she has pruned the vigor and flare of his writing style by correcting the grammar and making it syntactically correct as well as spelled correctly. Often l’Agent in her frustration comments to the Vigneron "Didn’t you ever diagram a sentence?" The Vigneron generally demurs to these broadsides and confides to Bud that he tried but could never quite read his writing and Bud said he has the same problem.

Well faithful readers, with these three musings from Clos Pepe’s muse - time to close.

Steve and Cathy and Bud

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