World of Pinot Noir 2024: New Finds

Welcome back to hearing about me ramble around a giant Bacara ballroom in search of vinous pleasure at 2024's World of Pinot Noir Friday Grand Tasting. I will suffer the red-stained maw for you all. I've already posted about Old Friends, so this post we turn to New Finds...even if I cheat a bit with the first two.

Old friend Phil was kind enough to pour me the 2021 LaBarge Pinot at the Santa Barbara Vintners table. LaBarge produces up to 2K cases a year from the farthest western edge of the Sta. Rita Hills, where everything is under the direction of Pierre LaBarge IV (a name made for wine, no?). The Pinot, which I called "chewy, in a good way," loves the number 32, as that's both the percentage of new oak and percentage of whole cluster. Definitely a wine now on my radar, and I'm eager to taste their Albariño, Grenache, and Syrah soon.

I'm always eager to taste what Greg Brewer is doing, and even if he was traveling and not at his WOPN table, I had to drop in anyway, especially for a taste of his Machado Vineyard Pinot--there's no greater, strange uncle Old Friend than that multi-dimensional wine. Brewer-Clifton gets a spot on New Finds thanks to the latest edition to his line-up, the 2021 Perilune Vineyard Pinot, and it's fortunate I had a sip at WOPN as it's already sold out--and not yet released! The 120 acre Sta. Rita Hills site is above Melville at a slightly higher elevation, and lends itself to a bit crunchier, wilder, more herbal expression of Pinot. Brewer just never stops wowing.

I feel a tad funny including a winery that's been around since the year Bill Clinton appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg* to the Supreme Court as a New Find, but I will anyway. (Here's hoping admitting to your own ignorance is a winning personality trait, Dunning-Kruger be damned.) Talisman is all about Pinot, although it may be a rosé or a Pinot Blanc. Although they started teensy, they've only grown to still pretty tiny--3600 cases a year. But that's characterized by a passion-driven, an outsider might suggest whimsical, approach--they now typically craft 16-18 wines annually from 12 diverse and unique vineyard sites, from Carneros to Anderson Valley. Marta Rich, "proprietress," as her card puts it, was pouring herself, and happy to yank special bottles from under the table. A sure way to win a wine-lover's heart.

That bottle above is a 2017 Adara Vineyard Méthode Ancienne - RC Selection. So while Adara is a vineyard they often source in the Napa side of Carneros, this was a 1.5 barrel production, 100% whole cluster, foot stomped. Truly a creamy, spicy, exotic delight. How rewarding to see folks not just make wine that seems focus-grouped into existence.

A very different kind of passion project is Sonoma's Wren Hop. This is a winery for people who like big, BIG Pinot but still spit out Meiomi. We're talking 100% New French Oak. And lines from their website--and indeed, one of the principals has a marketing career (but can we imprecate a soul for that?)--like, "Structured wines showcasing muscle and grace with a touch of egomania." Or this description of the buxom pleasures of the 2021 Night Bulletin, and I quote en toto as I love it so much: "News that arrives in the middle of the night is never good. Godzilla was known for nuclear fueled, fire breathing midnight attacks on Yokohama. How unsportsmanlike. Our announcement is on the quieter side. This wine was havested in the calm of night when only the sound of pillow punching is audible. Night harvest leads to cold clusters with arrested sugar development and big flavor. That's bulletin worthy. This is a brooding strawberry rhubarb monster. Look for aromas of hibiscus tea and cinnamon stick, followed by ripe red berries, vanilla bean and toasted cedar. You are free to shriek now."

What's cooler is each blend of well-chosen Sonoma fruit gets is vintage-specific name, never to be used again. Shoulder Devil and Double Clutch will not return. To stress the narrative they hope each bottling suggests, the evocative labels are meant to mimic book covers--there are even "spines" as part off the art work. What's wrong with wine that's fun, and perhaps a tad slutty?

A different kind of novelty caught my attention at Norris--the location on their sign read "Ribbon Ridge." I had to ask. Turns out it's the smallest AVA in Oregon, 3.5 by 1.75 miles, in the Willamette Valley. (My ignorance this time doesn't feel too mighty.) In addition to Pinot, they specialize in Riesling, so you have to respect that. The Pinots are the complete flip side from Wren Hop, all about the diaphanous veils of cherry and currant and earth and mushroom doing a delicate dance. What's more, they were pouring a 2022 White Pinot Noir, too. While not unusual for Oregon producers, it's still rarely seen in CA, so its elegant grippiness always entrances me.

So it seems we've moved to the white wine section our program. Not that Madson doesn't make Pinot Noir, but the pourer at their table claimed "I think this is the best wine we've ever made," so who am I to disagree? Plus I found much to love in that 2022 Ascona Vineyard Chardonnay (with 5% Aligote). The 2,500 foot elevation Santa Cruz Mountains site provides minerality and tension and saline, but the lemon drop and quince fruit shines, too. Plus, they suggest it "pairs well with roasted poultry and New Yorker cartoons." I'm all for Roz Chast-onnay. Madson makes a great argument that natural wines can be clean and brilliant. And their website devotes an entire page to Carbon Offset, so let's toast to not roasting the planet along the way.

And my last winery to highlight, Oceano, even offers a non-alcoholic wine, but we'll leave ∅ for another time (although I did hunt down the HTML code for that, so please, some props). Oceano, in SLO, farms Spanish Springs Vineyard--the closest vineyard to the Pacific in all of California. Yep, there's some marine influence. Co-founder and co-winemaker Rachel Martin leans into all the cool climate attributes of the fruit, so the 2021 Chardonnay is lithe and lovely (no malo, of course), picking up all sorts more tropical notes, from kiwi to lemongrass, along with a more typical lemon-lime chardonnay profile, not that it goes Viognier on you or anything. It does goes to show the range of what we know can grow with every sip.

*And Mitch McConnell, just for Amy Coney Barrett, can rot in hell. Nothing to do with wine, but can't help myself.

CA Shindig at the Shore

What could get more California Wine Festival, Santa Barbara edition, held this past weekend, than this view? How much could anyone argue with that?

True enough, there's so much going on--vendor booths hawking clothes, cakes, candles and more, a "Best Tri-Tip in the 805" competition, live Caribbean music from the band Upstream, booths offering beer--its emphasis is almost more on fest than wine. But wine ultimately is all about good times, making memories, enjoying. So the Festival had that down.

Not to downplay the wineries present. The event really does span the state, from Navarro Vineyards in Anderson Valley all the way to a host of wineries from Temecula with a stop at the Tri-Valleys tasting table (that's Livermore, btw), so you could taste all sorts of varietals. It does provide a kind of odd portrait if you hope to make some more conclusive opinions about the vinous state of our state, but there was plenty delicious to be had, from old faves like Navarro and Napa's Cuvaison and Paso's Austin Hope to newer discoveries (at least for me) like Mizel Estate, in the Malibu AVA, or Goldschmidt Vineyards, pouring elegant, built for aging Bordeaux varietals from Alexander Valley and Oakville.

Call me a homer, but of course some of the best showing pours came from right here in Santa Barbara, and I could have happily camped at the Santa Rta. Hills Wine Alliance table, which kept bringing out different wonderful gems as the afternoon went on, from Loubud sparkling to Pinot Noir from Dragonette, Brewer-Clifton, and Montemar. When I wind up turning one down as it's just an SRH and not a Radian Vineyard, well, we are pretty lucky, you know?

The main section of the fest certainly offered plenty for carnivores, what with all the samples for the tri-tip contest right inside the gate (each festival-goer got a vote). Other food was dotted throughout the spaciously laid out area in Chase Palm Park, giving people plenty of room (even if there's always somebody who parks himself--yes, it's generally a dude--at the front of the wine sample line to chat and drink through, folks behind him be-damned). Some you could buy--those cakes at SiSi Cakes sure looked delicious--and some you could sample, as they lured you into a purchase, like the super tasty crackers at Savory Bites. 

We were lucky enough to score VIP tickets, and that section of the festival offered even more upscale eats, even better, more from Santa Barbara, too. (OK, I really am a homer.) From Blue Owl's fried rice to Finch & Fork's wheat blini with Santa Barbara Smokehouse salmon, green olive, agro dolce, and bachelor button, many a taste tempted. Special credit to Finch & Fork for making something you could just pop in your mouth--people don't think through the ease of eating issues for festivals enough. Sure, it's great be generous, but if half the bigger bite you prepared ends up on my shirt, I won't think super kindly of you, restaurateur.  

That's not to say other food didn't also impress--the faux nigiri offered by Fysh Food was not just scrumptious, but also sustainable (please tell me our oceans won't be empty of fish by 2048), and Rosalynn Supper Club, which I'm probably not hip enough to eat at in LA itself, had two flavor bombs, a scallop with cilantro roasted scallion chimichurri, green Szechuan peppercorn, aged soy, and red chili oil, and a "flank steak" that was actually pork, seared and served with a mix of passion fruit herb sauce, Nam Jim, fish sauce, This chili, mint, Thai basil, and cilantro. Just the full listing of the items should make it clear how wild and rich these offerings were.

To be honest, throughout the festival, the vibe was a bit more LA than SB, with lots of folks so well-dressed and prettified that I joked many were likely to be the next victim on a season of White Lotus. But that's just me being provincial. A fun time was had been a lot of folk. I just assume many of them wound there way to the nearby train station and went south afterward.

A lucky few of us also had the opportunity to continue the party at an after event at nearby winery Skyenna. All thanks to sponsors Sommsation, who helped set up the wine and food pairings at the after-party (as that's what they do), and Hexclad, who also helped sponsor the VIP section and gave the cooks there some beautiful pots and pans to cook with.

Julia Child Birthday Dinner Sings at the Canary

 

Julia Child spent the last years of her life here, so of course Santa Barbara is still throwing her birthday parties — this past Sunday, August 15, would have been her 109th. 

The Santa Barbara Culinary Experience, in partnership with the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, celebrated in a variety of ways, the capstone being a blowout dinner on the Canary Hotel rooftop featuring Finch & Fork’s recently hired executive chef Craig Riker.

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

WOPN 20 a la King

There's just so much to take in over two days of Grand Tastings (and one 20th anniversary soiree dinner) at World of Pinot Noir that it suddenly hit me--there's no better way to respond than with a notes column like those wonders Larry King used to do for USA Today, delicious fervid fever dreams of name dropping, non sequiturs, anomalies, anachronisms, and the occasional rightness of a stopped clock. That sounds like right up my tin pan alley (see, I already did one!). So I figured I might want to try to channel the master of the hit and ellipsis run.

Not every second day of an event begins with a guy in line proudly complaining he's got pinot thumb and pinot finger; listen Bud, just don't have them pour on your hand...No one understands value anymore--what is up with people bidding more on a silent auction item than its worth?...Have you drunk too much or just enough when someone says "angular fruit" and you say yes? (thanks FEL)...Why do winemakers say, "We make a ____ we want to drink?"...I wrote a sentence I want an ellipsis after...Is Jenny Williamson Dore one of the nicest people in the business? Even I'd be less a curmudgeon if I poured the delicious Foxen line--their 2015 La Encantada is the pinot smell of the Sta. Rita Hills...Missing old friends like Balletto, Longoria, Dolin, Failla...Happy to catch up with old friend Matt Dees at The Hilt table...Too easy to get to; guess hipsters only know him from Jonata...

His photo (not the one of him above, obviously) of a Mickey Rooney-sized cluster of pinot from Radian in his palm got us reminiscing about Andre the Giant...That Radian, by the way, a five course meal in a 750 ml bottle all by itself...Had a lovely catch-up with Greg Brewer about a fancy dinner none of you got to attend while I sipped one of the last four bottles of 2006 Brewer-Clifton Cargassachi Vineyard he had stashed--it aged better than Angie Dickinson...Struck me funny the Domaine Chanson guy says "They require age, a lot of age," when France is the country that inspired the film Gigi--rrr, that Leslie Caron...Speaking of French, definitely knew what they meant when pouring the Liquid Farm 2017 Radian Vineyard and said, "That's the coup de grace right there."...If you're like me you might think pennyroyal is a Bond girl, but it's actually related to mint and if you grow your grapes near it, yep, minty...thanks for that hot tip, Anderson Valley's Goldeneye...The Peake Ranch rascals snuck in their 2017 Bellis Noir, no doubt not a shout out to the Mekons Rico Bell/Eric Bellis but a pleaser of a syrah/grenache blend...Are the Mekons the least likely band you expected to see in a wine story?...Bitter? Accurate? Both? (Walter Winchell could do it.) The pourer at Louis Latour asserted, "The New World is, 'I'm going to give you everything right now.'"...Maybe not any air travel from Uncle Sam for a month...People line up for Kosta Browne pinot like they were getting the latest LP from the Chairman of the Board for free with it, but for my ducats I'd down their 2015 "One Sixteen" chardonnay instead...Man does not live by red alone (sorry Bernie, Uncle Joe's got you)...Ever since that UTI it's been Ocean Spray in the morning for this scribe, but in the evening, I'd sure go for a 2014 Sea Smoke Sea Spray...I still don't get why the French "own" Champagne--have they tasted tasted this stuff?...With this COVID-19, it might be an era for as little skin contact as possible, so the Maggy Hawk 2018 Edmeades white pinot noir might be a hit! very fresh...Remember to hang with friends for soirees--so hard to meet people when a roving sax man plays over the DJs deep tracks...Why can paella never have both the mussels and the clams done equally well?...One is always a bit over done, like a Larry King parody turning into an Andy Rooney riff...Ice, ice, baby...

The Wild, Wide World of WOPN

Illustrating a story about a 2018 World of Pinot Noir Grand Tasting (that's their adjective, and it isn't just puffery with more than 150 producers usually pouring at least two wines each...see, it takes a grand amount of even parenthetical words to describe the grandiosity) with a single bottle of wine might seem perverse, but in this case I promise it isn't. There's my first taste of a very long day (this will actually be two blog posts, it's that long a day into night) last Friday at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara, and I choose it specifically because its winemaker was sitting next to me. That would be Karen Steinwachs, who people probably know better from Buttonwood, but then she's got this even smaller designer label to make pinot and chardonnay, and she just happens to be on WOPN's Board of Directors, too. That mostly means she does a lot of work and can talk to the press and say clever things (very much so--she's one of our wittier winemakers).

Turns out the media room makes you very glad you're media; call me fake news all you want, I'll just be over here pouring myself another sample of delicious pinot. Like Seagrape's 2015 Jump Up, a perfect expression of the magic of the Sta. Rita Hills--both light on the balls of its feet and a bit ballsy, too--think Gene Kelly jammed into a bottle. Sure there's cherry, spice, pomegranate, but it's how every tasty bit adds up to a greater whole that makes the wine so lovely.

And that's the best way to think about the somewhat daunting event. You enter into Bacara ballrooms that look as big as a football field, and while some of that is tables of food and cheese and lots of Fiji water (hello plastic, goodbye sustainability), most of it is producers pouring wines and stories. You might walk in just as Santa Barbara legend Richard Sanford walks in, and you feel all historical--he spotted greatness here (well, not at the Bacara--you know what I mean) before nearly anyone. So you go drink at the Alma Rosa table, and he tells you "It's fun again, George," as he's the kind of man who remembers your name and uses it, and times better be jolly as the wines are joyous, especially the 2015 Barrel Select he shares that's blueberry, blackberry, violet, but more than anything, delicate.

But there's so much to taste there's no good way to list all my notes, not even the highlights, like Greg Brewer pouring a 2007 Ampelos Vineyard pinot (yum!) as he discusses the 10-20 year out sweet spot he believes our local pinots find, using a metaphor of flowers that when you get them they aren't quite open and full yet, and then dead the very next day, no, he sees Brewer-Clifton wines opening and opening, growing into their beautiful bloom.

And, of course, WOPN's not just local wines, because why buy the cow when the SYV's a car-ride away? (I think I mixed a bad metaphor there.) No, you can try a producer like Nimrod from Hungary, where the volcanic soil leads to a more minerally wine, and perhaps a better cuvee with only 20% pinot, but mostly built on kekfrankos, and I'm not trying to be wise to say that's just Hungarian for Blaufränkisch, but now you can see how far from just pinot we are, let alone Santa Barbara. 

Of course you've got people like Josh Klapper from Timbre sharing a hard cider (very refreshing, especially amidst all the cherry/berry bursts elsewhere), and tables pouring regions/AVAs for you--Morgen McLaughlin was back in town repping Willamette Valley and their typical Oregon earthy-shroomy notes, for example--and soon you run into people you know, and people you just know as you've met them at another table, and everything is a bright bow of delight. 

That's what a grand tasting can do for you--prove pinot is doing very well and you can do better if you drink enough of it.

A Wide Wide World of Pinot and More

(photo credit: Jeremy Ball)

There's no such thing as a World of Pinot Noir in Santa Barbara without the two gentlemen in the photo above, so let's start with them, which is pretty much what I did Friday at WOPN since there they were as I entered the ballroom at the Bacara. How can you not want to visit Gray Hartley and Frank Ostini from Hitching Post? Yeah, Yeah, movie, blah blah blah. We're talking guys who make killer juice and seem to enjoy it more than practically anyone and therefore you better too. They were kindly pairing up 2007s and 2014s of Julia's, Highliner, and Bien Nacido, and what we quickly learned was SB pinot does age well (we learned this again when Rick Longoria poured his 2013 and 2008 Fe Ciega).

OK, so the danger with any review of a WOPN weekend is diving so quickly into the details you forget the broad strokes, plus, simply put, so much great wine! I'm not going to write about every luscious swirl and sip, and frankly I admitted early on Friday in my notes "you're going to run out of adjectives for lovely, George," and late on Friday I wrote, after inhaling deep on a Brewer-Clifton 2008 Sta. Rita Hills, "I want to smell like this--everyone would love me!" That was Friday. I was back Saturday too, and at that point was reduced to pleasured grunting, practically.

One important thing to stress first: if you didn't realize it, we live in a golden age of pinot noir. First, cause people know what they're doing with it now, even in California where we've only had decades and not centuries like those lucky French to practice. But you can even get fascinating stuff from Spain (try Alta Pavina) or Austria (Weingut Wieninger). Second, because the world is one big market until someone messes that up (no tariffs, please). Third, who knows where our climate goes in a world where the EPA is run by someone who doesn't believe in the EPA? (I'm looking forward to that first atheist pope.)

 

 This year's WOPN was also a stunning showcase for what people are doing with the fruit from Gap's Crown on the Sonoma Coast. Expression, Guarachi, Lutum, Ram's Gate, Black Kite, Saxon Brown--the brilliant wines just kept coming from this spot that hits some magic warm enough yet sea-breeze-cooled calculus. It's never really cheap but it's always luscious.

Then there's these lessons, too--perhaps we're supposed to be looking at chardonnay from Santa Barbara anyway. The folks who were semi-sneaking pours of it delighted (well, Sonoma's Hirsch did too), and part of that was just the break from more cherry and berry; think of the chard as palate cleanser, if better than any sorbet. But winemaker Matt Dees from The Hilt insisted, "The chardonnay is so much better," and he could be right. 

Or it could be all the wine is better in so many fine hands, from old-timers like Lane Tanner, pouring a 1991 Lane Tanner pinot that still held some fruit and fascinating graphite, to Square Peg, dryfarming pinot in Sonoma in the middle of a zinfandel vineyard. Because then there's even something like Dolin's non-WOPN pour, The Blue Note, a Bordeaux blend...from the hills above Malibu. Like I said, it's a wonderful, unbelievable world.

Drinking Red, White, and Blue

This most patriotic of weekends tends to leave me in a tough spot, as it seems to me there's nothing better to drink while picnicking than rosés. But you can't be a commie pinko on the 4th now, can you? Plus I just wrote about rosés, so you need some new suggestions to fuel your Fourth. I figure, why not be a true American and go simple? Here are ways to drink red, white, and blue for this weekend.

Want to read the rest then do so at KCET's Food Blog.

What's in a Glass? Testing Riedel

Let's face it -- convincing people that they need to buy not just one, but multiples, of your product, is brilliant business (and if you don't believe that, Ty Warner has some Beanie Babies to sell you). That must have been crystal clear to the Riedel Family, especially when Georg Riedel decided that different varietals of wine required different glasses to be enjoyed fully. As the tenth generation of what he calls "a dinosaur entrepreneur family of Europe," Riedel spreads the gospel of varietal-specific glassware, as he did at a recent symposium sponsored by the Santa Barbara Vintners for wine industry folk in Solvang. "I am in command of the liquid flow to your palate," he told us as we sat before our own sets of three of his glasses. "And you'll say, nonsense...bullshit."

Want to read the rest then do so at KCET's Food Blog.

Wines for the Winter Holidays

As the last of the year's days turn more to darkness, we fill our calendars with holidays celebrating the solar return. Let there be light: Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, even Festivus, for an airing of grievances is really just one more way to make things brighter. Until that happens though, we might want some extra-warming wines, even here in California, where winter is the chance to happily gaze at distant, snow-capped mountains. That means wines with some serious alcohol levels, which has been a bone of big contention in the wine world for the last few years. (Check out the In Pursuit of Balance manifesto as one salvo in the direction of moderation.)

Want to read the rest then do so at KCET's Food Blog.

Bubbles at the Beach

If you're going to decide to throw the only wine festival dedicated solely to sparkling wine in the United States, you might go even further out and have a "real" mermaid there too. That's what's on the bill for Bubblyfest by the Sea, happening October 24-26 in Pismo Beach. There'll be a cocktail event, seminars, and of course tastings -- one of which will feature a tent with a mermaid waiting for you to pose beside, and then if you hashtag your photos (#bubblyfest) you can even get a print for free (social media just keeps moving, doesn't it?).

Want to read the rest then do so at the KCET Food Blog.