April 6, 2005
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Pinot
is particular about where it grows. Our marine influence nurtures pinot noir
grapes. (Contributed photo)Grand Cruz
S.C. Mountains produce world-class pinots
Those hairy drives on one-lane, winding roads with big, old redwoods staring you down in the Santa Cruz Mountains are not only environmentally pleasing, they are the reason pinot noir thrives here.
As you gaze over wooded valleys and into the endless Pacific, know it’s that marine influence that helps nurture the pinot here.
"Way before ‘Sideways,’ the Santa Cruz Mountains was a pinot paradise," said Karen Hibble, laughing like she’s telling you something very obvious. Karen and her husband, John, run the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association.
"The Santa Cruz Mountains has grown a wide variety of grapes in the past, but I think increasingly, at least the coastal side, is getting recognized for the quality of its pinot noir. I think that will increase over the next few years," said Jim Schultze, who owns and operates Windy Oaks Estate with his wife, Judy.
Sunday marks a big day for pinot makers in the Santa Cruz Mountains. From 1 to 5 p.m. at Testarossa Vineyards in Los Gatos, more than 20 winemakers will pour at the first Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Paradise wine tasting.
Dave Moulton of Burrell School Vineyards in Los Gatos is chairman of the event and, along with many others, has spent two years trying to make it happen.
Their goal: enlightenment.
"This is an overdue opportunity to showcase what the Santa Cruz Mountains is all about," Moulton said. "We can grow it and make it into the world’s most famous wine. ... I am passionate about the idea of sharing our efforts to excel and allow the world to take notice."
The quality of pinot in the area starts to make sense when you look at average temperatures in April in France’s Burgundy region.
The weather in the perennial pinot producer of the world (with its Grand Cru and Premier Cru wines) reads like a typical Santa Cruz County report. Certainly Burgundy and the Santa Cruz Mountains have their differences, but that adds to the special product.
"Growing conditions are nearly ideal with cool nights and warm days, not too hot, and breezes off the Pacific on the west slopes of the Santa Cruz range moderate the temperature," Moulton said. "All this means more time on the vine to develop the flavor intensity and complexity without getting over ripe."
A paradise
Santa Cruz is a lot of paradises: surfer’s paradise, tree hugger’s
paradise, extreme leftist’s paradise, produce lover’s paradise, and so on. Not
only does this area draw the counterculture of society, its penchant for
producing good pinot brings out the quirky, eccentric winemakers willing to
undertake the task it lays forth.
Pinot is not for the timid or gun shy.
"We take what we call a minimal interventionist approach here," said Schultze of Windy Oaks.
Everything is done by hand at Windy Oaks. No pumps are used to transfer wine from vat to barrel, or barrel to bottle. Schultze believes this leaves the essence of pinot where it’s supposed to be: in the glass.
"The winery is all gravity," Schultze said. "While a good pinot noir has the elegance and complexity and layering to it, you can destroy a lot of those more subtle flavors very easily."
For purification purposes, a winery will often filter sediment from wine or fine it with something like egg whites. Not Windy Oaks.
"That’s relatively rare. In Burgundy quite a few people do it," Schultze said. "I did experiments with both and found that even the most delicate fining agent, like egg white, will remove some of the flavor and likewise with filtering."
‘Sideways’ popularity
Most winemakers and people in the industry didn’t need the movie
"Sideways" to know that pinot is an amazing and complicated wine.
Chardonnay, merlot, zinfandel, sauvignon blanc and cabernet sauvignon grow at a rapid, fruitful pace with virtually no regard for their surroundings. Not pinot.
It must be carefully nurtured into great wine. Unlike other grapes, pinot needs an ideal climate to thrive and must be made with the utmost care and diligence.
UC Davis devised a five-zone system for grape growers based on what varietals are best suited for certain climates in California. It’s centered around degree days, which are calculated from April to October. When the temperature exceeds 50 degrees in a 24-hour period, a degree day is born. So, 60-degrees Fahrenheit equals 10 degree days.
The best zone for growing pinot noir is Zone 2, which has 2,000 to 2,500 degree days per year, which is the Santa Cruz Mountains’ classification.
Still, that doesn’t guarantee a great product.
"Grape growing, despite all the research done at UC Davis ... is still very much a combination of art and science, which is one of the things I really like about it," said Schultze, who had about 2,150 degree days at Windy Oaks in 2004.
"There are a lot of things that are known, but there are a lot of things, maybe more things, that aren’t known in the scientific sense. And it is that combination of art and science that I think results in the highest quality wines and the most interesting wines."
Grape expectations
Rex Pickett’s character Miles from "Sideways" eloquently nails
pinot and all its complexity: "It’s a hard grape to grow ... it’s
thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early ... it’s not a survivor like
cabernet, which can just grow anywhere and thrive even when it’s neglected. No,
pinot needs constant care and attention. It can only grow in these really spe-
cific, little, tucked-away corners of the world. And only the most patient and
nurturing of growers can do it, really. Only somebody who really takes the time
to understand pinot’s potential can then coax it into its fullest expression.
Then, ahhhhh, its flavors are the most haunting and brilliant, thrilling and
subtle and ancient on the planet."
All those nice things Miles says about pinot are pretty much right on, except the "thin-skinned, temperamental" grape ripens early only when it’s grown in the least ideal climate. And that’s precisely why the Santa Cruz Mountains are so perfect for this varietal.
Schultze harvested in October 2004 (his normal time), a year in grape growing marked by late summer heat spikes which ripened much of California’s crop super early.
"Historically, one of the problems in California, is that pinot noir has been grown on sites that are too warm," he said. "When it’s grown on a site that’s too warm for it, pinot noir has a very uni-dimensional structure to it."
John Hibble of the wingrowers association agrees: "You get warmer climates in the valleys and shorter hang times and certain varieties like that just fine, but pinot noir doesn’t produce a great wine if it’s in that kind of situation."
A pinot tagged "watery" is a result of poor growth.
"As it goes, great wines can’t be made from bad grapes," Schultze said.
"In Burgundy, the smaller wineries in particular, don’t differentiate between grape growing and winemaking. They think of it all as one thing. That’s kind of our model," he said.
Passion for pinot
John Hibble believes making pinot takes a certain kind of passion. Lucky
for us, the Santa Cruz Mountains are full of those kinds of winemakers.
"I love making pinot," said Peter Bargetto of Soquel Vineyards, "but it’s the most difficult and challenging wine to produce."
That said, Bargetto produced an incredible pinot in 2003. It garnered a Double Gold at the San Francisco Chronicle’s International Wine Competition (which means it was tops on every judge’s list in its category).
About 75 percent of the 2003 Soquel Vineyards Partners’ Reserve Santa Cruz Mountains pinot noir was made from Martin Ray Vineyard fruit from Saratoga and the rest came from Trout Gulch Vineyard in Aptos.
Martin Ray has a distinct place in the history of pinot in the mountains. Along with Paul Masson (once called "The Champagne King of California"), Ray made mountain pinot famous. The vines on the Martin Ray property are the originals he planted 60 years ago.
Trout Gulch Vineyard is also well known for its pinot. The vineyard is farmed by Ryan Beauregard of Beauregard Vineyards in Santa Cruz. His 2003 vintage features a pair of pinots, one from Trout Gulch fruit and one from Wilder Ranch Vineyard fruit. Beauregard says Wilder Ranch may be the closest vineyard to the ocean, only about a mile from shore.
"Paul Masson had a lot to do with first bringing pinot here," John Hibble said. "He’s the one who named this line of mountains the chaine d’or, the chain of gold, because of the potential it had to grow great grapes. I think he was one of our early pioneers."
Price of success
There’s more chardonnay planted in the Santa Cruz Mountains than any other
grape and the same amount of cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir grow here. But
if pinot’s popularity increases to where it’s in as much demand as cabernet or
merlot, what will happen? Are there enough microclimates in the world to
support consumers’ desire?
"The more popular it becomes, the more you’re going to see people trying to raise it. That’s the bottom line," John Hibble said.
Cultivation of pinot in the mountains has a 100-year history and more and more winemakers are coming here with a passion to produce pinot. As its popularity increases other vines will be uprooted and pinot will take their place.
"There have been more people who’ve planted pinot over time and you’ll see more of that as people are looking for it," John Hibble said.
A lot of us are looking "Sideways" these days, but take a peek up the hill and there you will find something to die for: Santa Cruz Mountains pinot noir.
Contact Max DeNike at mdenike@santacruzsentinel.com.
Santa Cruz Mountains pinot noir producers
Here is a
sampling of pinot makers from the mountains. I’ve tried at least one pinot from
each of these producers and would recommend anyone try a minimum of five (or
seven, maybe 10). For a complete list of mountain wineries, visit www.scmwa.com.
· Bargetto Winery
· Beauregard Vineyards
· Burrell School Vineyards
· Byington Winery & Vineyard
· Clos La Chance Vineyards
· Clos Tita
· David Bruce Winery
· Hallcrest Vineyards and The Organic Wine
Works
· Mount Eden Vineyards
· Testarossa Vineyards
· Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards
· Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard
· Soquel Vineyards
· Storrs Winery
· Trout Gulch Vineyard
Windy Oaks Estate
Some places to find
local pinot noir
Shoppers Corner: 622 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz, 429-1804.
· Breadstix Deli and Wine: 7528 Soquel Drive,
Aptos, 688-1366.
· Soif Wine Bar and Merchants: 105 Walnut
Ave., Santa Cruz, 423-2020.
· Pleasure Point Wine & Spirits: 3750
Portola Drive, Santa Cruz, 475-0333.
· Cost Plus World Markets: 450 River St.,
Santa Cruz, 466-9188.
· Deluxe Foods: 783 Rio del Mar Blvd., Aptos,
688-7442.
· K Wine & Spirits: 708 Capitola Ave.,
Capitola, 475-9487.
For a listing of all Santa Cruz Mountains wineries, visit the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association at www.scmwa.com.
If You Go
WHAT: Pinot Paradise, a pinot noir tasting from the Santa Cruz Mountains. Gourmet restaurants will prepare hors d’oeuvres to complement the wines.
WHEN: 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday.
WHERE: Testarossa Vineyards, 300-A College Ave., Los Gatos.
DETAILS: 479-9463, or www.scmwa.com.