Pinot Noir

'The Most Noble Grape on the Planet' -- WD Hagen

A healthy crop of Pinot Noir going through 'veraison', or 'berry softening'

This picture shows a healthy crop of Pinot Noir going through 'veraison', or 'berry softening'.  Notice that the grape clusters on the left are already dark and soft, while some near the 'head' of the vine are still green and hard.  At this point, the vines continue to turn sunlight into sugar (within the grapes) and as the sugar levels go up, the acid levels begin to drop.  The goal for the grower (and the winemaker who will vinify the grapes) is to pick the crop when the sugars reach 23-25 degrees Brix, or roughly percent sugar, while the acid stays strong enough (3.2-3.4 pH) to ensure a wine with structure and backbone.  The grower and the winemaker are not the only ones watching the grapes turn color.  Birds begin to flock around the vineyard when the grapes turn black -- and are more likely to attack the 'red' grapes than the 'white' ones.  Pinot noir is insidiously difficult to grow because of powdery mildew pressure in the cold climates where it is grown and the thin skins that are susceptible to splitting in rain or if given too much water.  Pinot noir is rarely grown and vinified to perfection, but when everything comes together in the bottle, there are few pleasures in life that can match it.

The Romanee-Conti vineyard in Vosne-Romanee, Burgundy (France)

This is the Romanee-Conti vineyard in Vosne-Romanee, Burgundy (France).  Burgundy is the 'home' of the Pinot Noir grape -- it has been grown in this area for more than a thousand years.  This small vineyard (about 4 acres) produces the most vaunted Pinot Noir grapes in the world.  Wine from this vineyard sells for about $1000 per bottle for the currently available vintage.  Why is the Romanee-Conti Pinot Noir so much better than grapes grown in other vineyards?  Most experts would say it's the location, soil and climate -- what the French call <<terroir>>.  Note the perfect hillside orientation -- south by southwest facing exposure to catch every bit of sunlight from sun-up to sunset.  The French will also point out that, in their not-so-humble opinion, that Pinot Noir is a 'ghost' grape in that it 'disappears' in the wine.  In other words, Pinot Noir is the greatest 'grape vehicle' for showcasing the soil and climate of a specific site -- the grape 'disappears' and what you taste is the soil and the climate of the vintage.  Pinot Noir makes vastly different styles of wine on every plot of ground where it is grown.  Only 100 yards away from the Romanee-Conti Vineyard, (La Tache Vineyard) the grapes make a different style of Burgundy wine that sells for less than a third of the cost of Romanee-Conti.

California Pinot Noir

California Pinot Noir is a different 'animal' than French Pinot. Californian Pinot Noir wine tends to be fruitier with less minerality and complexity than Burgundy or Oregon.  I find most California Pinot to be 'fruit-forward' while the best French stuff is more earth-forward or terroir-based.  Oregon Pinot noir tends to be earthier and funkier than California wines, but not as fruit forward.  The New Zealand Pinot noirs I've had seem to be closer to California in fruit but with some of the Oregon funkiness and more vintage variability than California.  Above is a picture of fermenting Pinot Noir grapes (must) that have been crushed, soaked, and innoculated with RC-212 yeast -- which is a yeast that is cultured and basically 'imported' from Burgundy.  While the grapes ferment, the winery crew (Wes, Ariel, Angela or Ron) 'punches down' the fermenting grapes, mixing the juice and the skins three to five times a day to ensure that maximum color and flavor extraction occurs.  These fermenting grapes filled the entire winery with a bright cherryish aroma.  The grapes are pressed in an Italian-made hydraulic basket-press after the sugar has been converted to alcohol by the yeast, and the resulting wine will stay in French Oak barrels 12-16 months before bottling.

Chardonnay

"The Most Noble White Winegrape -- Mostly Grown in the Wrong Place" -- WD Hagen

Clos Pepe Chardonnay winegrapes

These are Clos Pepe Chardonnay winegrapes -- ripe, harvested fruit from the U.C. Davis 5 'clone'.  These were the last grapes to be picked during the 1998 Harvest.  These grapes were harvested in mid-October, very late, as a result of El Nino and a relatively cool Summer with a bit of inopportune rainfall.  Note the golden, amber coloring on many of the berries.  This is a result of leaf-thinning in the 'fruiting area' of the vine -- more sun on the fruit means more floral phenolics, or flavoring compounds, in the grapes, and in the wine.  We are lucky out in the Santa Rita Hills area (Between Buellton and Lompoc in Santa Barbara County, California) because of our extremely cool growing season.  In almost any other area where Chardonnay is grown, these exposed clusters would have burned into raisins. Because Chardonnay is almost synonymous with 'white wine' these days, greedy vineyard owners plant Chardonnay on sites that are completely too warm.  One reason why Clos Pepe will be unaffected by the 'sea of Chardonnay' that has been planted in California, is that we are among the very few that have planted Chardonnay where it actually belongs -- in fog-shrouded, super-cool coastal areas where the vines actually struggle to get the clusters fully sweet and ripe.  In this way, the acids in our grapes are unusually strong and tart by California standards, so that even at high ripeness levels (around 24 degrees Brix), our Chardonnay stays right between 3.0 and 3.2 pH.  These are numbers that even Chablis and the Cote de Beaune have a hard time matching.  Clos Pepe grapes exhibit super ripeness for a massively fruity, round wine bursting with apple, citrus and tropicality, with the zippy acid structure usually restricted to fine Chablis or White Burgundy.

The most celebrated Chardonnay vineyard in the world -- Le Montrachet

This is a picture of the most celebrated Chardonnay vineyard in the world -- Le Montrachet.  Perched between the boundaries of Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet, this 2.1 acre planting produces the most expensive and rare white wine in the world.  Chardonnay, like Pinot Noir, is a noble grape -- meaning that it is never blended with other grape varieties.  It stands on its own brilliantly -- and comes complete with complexity, intensity, color, and an unmistakable varietal characteristic.  Blending Le Montrachet Chardonnay with another varietal would be tantamount to applying spray-paint to a Van Gogh canvas.  Wines from Le Montrachet are long-lived, and develop an intense, honeyed flavor that can be buttery, nutty, and massive in the mouth -- so intense it might taste sweet, until the finish hits you with a wallop of bright, clean, acid that proves that the wine is dry.  This is Chardonnay at its best.  Vignerons in this area of Burgundy tend to use new French oak barrels to age their Chardonnay -- while further to the West, in Chablis, the wine is made more commonly without oak, and exhibits a wonderful minerality and austerity that is often lacking or obscured by the winery practices of Burgundy proper.

Chardonnay vines, U.C. Davis Clone-4, growing in sandy-loam soil at Clos Pepe Vineyards

These are Chardonnay vines, U.C. Davis Clone-4, growing in sandy-loam soil at Clos Pepe Vineyards.  This picture was taken in the late afternoon, facing south, a day after the grapes were harvested.  You can see that the north-south row-orientation allows the afternoon sunlight to drench the west side of the canopy with late-day sunlight.  This is important, as sunlight is the most important factor in ripening the fruit.  Note also how the vineyard floor between the rows is clean of competing weed species and that the leaves are beginning to 'senesce' or die and are beginning to fall on the ground.  Also recognize that the vines have been trained and positioned vertically (up) so that all of the growth is tucked into 'positioning wires'.  In this way, the vines do not 'sprawl' out all over the place and shade the fruit.  Shaded fruit tastes vegetal, and has more problems with mildew and botrytis.  Chardonnay is very thin-skinned, and is famous for being extremely suspectible to all types of fungus -- specifically powdery mildew -- which can wipe out an entire years' crop if not checked with an open canopy and pre-veraison applications of sulfur.