World of Pinot Noir 2024: Old Friends

I'm a horrible hypocrite, dear reader. While I suggested in my preview post that you MUST HAVE A PLAN to attack World of Pinot Noir grand tastings or you might get lost in crazy clonal seas, what I did on March 1st was anything but. I started just on walkabout. I stopped at tables with people I liked, as interested in chatting as tasting. I drank at tables without "customers," both feeling sorry for the pourer gazing out hoping to lure someone in with eye contact and simply to have plenty of room to stand. The wineries were arranged in alpha order, so I couldn't focus on regions too easily, and didn't bother. And then I was sure to hit someone every so often with some sparkling, just to Scrubbing Bubbles my palate a bit. (Much fancy water in retro-futuristic aluminum cans was consumed, too.)

I did do some math--well after I got done tasting, as wine breaks brain computational function--to discover I averaged a new taste of wine every 3 minutes and 15 seconds. So no matter how any particular pour invited me to linger, I moved on faster than a cad in a romance novel. Just so you know. 

I'm also going to lean on my favorite organizational method for tackling a Grand Tasting, breaking things down into Old Friends and New Finds (that is, new to me, far from a cutting edge sharpener). 

Phil Carpenter is far from old, but he's a dear friend, and no one has a job better suited for him. The man loves wine and adores the ones from SB in particular, and then got hired as the Director of Operations for Santa Barbara Vintners. Score! He got to pour SB wines from folks who didn't pony up for their own tables this year, and that meant stunning wines like a Barden 2020 Radian Vineyard. Of course Doug Margerum knows the region's wine as well as anyone after his years at Wine Cask and running futures, but he seems get just better and better making wine, too. This Radian sang with the forlorn vineyard's wildness. His Barden 2020 Sanford & Benedict was equally the epitome of its vineyard. There are far worse old friends than Phil and Doug, indeed. 

If you've read my wine scribbles you know I have an affinity for Anderson Valley wines, that sweet spot of coastal influence in Mendocino County. (It's also a great off-the-beaten track place to visit, free from crowds and national brands.) As I haven't had a chance to get up that way in a while, it's convenient when they come to me at WOPN. I was sure to taste at the Maggy Hawk table, and was rewarded by a 2018 Afleet they led me to write the note, "Jay-sus!" So if you care for a holy experience, look no further than this winery that likes naming things after racehorses. I can't do better than their own notes (even if this verbiage is for the 2020 vintage): "Wonderful breadth, depth, and personality in spades. Afleet incorporates four distinct blocks from the vineyard and incorporates 60% whole cluster fermentation to craft a wine with a variety of aromatics. Mandarin, stargazer lily, guava and saffron aromas mingle and develop over time. Stem tannin circles the outer edges on the texture and leaves the mid-palate fresh and juicy." OK, I probably couldn't tell apart the scent of a stargazer lily from Lily Gladstone, but I'll take their word for it.

I get a transition handed to me because Maggy Hawk's winemaker Sarah Wuethrich previous worked at Copain, the next winery I want to mention. Although physically situated in Sonoma, Copain has long worked with Anderson Valley grapes, and they nailed it with a 2022 Les Voisins Rosé. My notes say the grapes are from Yorkville Highlands, a slightly warmer AV spot, and while the wine is a pale pink, it's far from bashful on the palate, not anemic in any way. I also adored the 2020 Sealift Pinot from Sonoma County just below the Mendo County line. But at 1200 feet. Pomegranate and raspberry bursts out of the glass, so much fruit, but then the acid hits you like a velvet hammer--I mean that in the best of ways. Somehow all that flavor sits in a 12.5% ABV package. 

Speaking of places I don't get to nearly enough, France. So this WOPN I had to make my annual pilgrimage to the thoughtful men of Louis Latour. You own the most extensive Grand Cru acreage in Burgundy, you just might know what you're doing, especially when you've been working that land since four years after the guillotine came down on Marie Antoinette. It's a vivid education in Old World vs. New Pinot styles, tasting their three wines. They make you think about flowers and stones as much as cherry or plum. Each also got a bit more complex and fuller, ending with a 2020 Corton Grand Cru "Clos de la Vigne au Saint" that you would want to spend a week or two studying. It's wine for contemplation, and thoughtfulness does not throw shade on delight. At a suggested retail price of $190, I am happy for my sips.

Circling back to the almost local, one of last year's New Finds gets to be an old friend, now--I even was sure to taste it in the media room. A mere 1.5 miles from the Pacific near Avila Beach, the family-owned, organically farmed Topotero Vineyard is where Haliotide grows Pinot for their 2020 Extra Brut Rosé. Sparkling wine is their passion--it's all they do--and that focus shines in every bottle. If you could turn shortbread, strawberries, white peaches, and cream into a wine, it would be this--salt and yeastiness, fruit and richness.

Margerum's Dawn of a Mute-Age

Sure, ÜBER-talented (get it?) winemaker Doug Margerum can get away with pointing without being rude. I mean, here's a man who can bake wine and not just get away with it, but sell it to you and make you like it. A few weeks ago Doug presented his latest vinous creation, Mute-Age, at a special series of rolling press tastings (to keep us all safe from COVID-cooties) on the veranda of the super swank Alcazar Suite at Hotel Californian, high above his usual Funk Zone Margerum Wine Company tasting room. He even made sure there were bites to be had, the luxurious chocolate creations of Mike Orlando's Twenty-four Blackbirds Chocolates. It's moments like that afternoon that Santa Barbara is built for--all that's delicious to eat and drink and then you get so much to drink in with your eyes, too. (Just look at the photo again, which doesn't do the glorious afternoon justice. And god, do I miss getting to go out.)

So, what the heck is Mute-Age, you may ask? If it sounds all French to you you're right; it's a play on mutage, which is a way of making sweet wine by, yep, baking it. Doug put some of his Grenache (which is delicious on its own, of course, so that certainly helps as a place to start) in 34 liter demi-johns--think very large tear-drop shaped bottles--and left it on the roof of his winery in Buellton. What he was doing is what the French do (minus the Buellton part, of course) to make Banyuls, their well-regarded dessert wine that comes from near the Spanish border. You see, baking the wine makes it inhospitable to its yeast, which then quit turning sugars into alcohol. More sugar = desserty goodness. In particular, it makes a great match for chocolate, which is actually a tough thing to do with most red wines, despite what years of crappy Valentine's Day pairing might have pretended. Tannins on tannins just means your tongue gets mugged.

But sweet wine, that's a different, happy story. Doug, who does quite a few wine dinners every year (in a normal year, of course), wanted to have something he could pair with a restaurant's chocolate creations, and since he loves tinkering with classic styles (see his Marc or his Amaro that we'll get to it a minute), creating a VDN or Vin Doux Natural was, uh, natural to him. (VDN just means the mutage happens after maceration of the grapes.) The good news is you don't need to know any of the process, which seems partially magically anyway--Doug admitted when they tried the juice a year into its aging on the roof it wasn't showing any Banyul characteristics--but at two years, voila! What you do need to know is it's delicious, rich and unctuous, still holding its now even deeper plum and pomegranate fruit, and a perfect match with Twenty-Four Blackbirds 75% Kokoa Kamili from Tanzania.

Knowing he had to give us more than one taste of something, and having not merely a chocolatier but a chocolate maker at his side, Doug also provided tastes of some of his Amaro. Based on this year's Tales of the Cocktail, amaro might finally have crossed the tipping point from a bartenders' favorite plaything to something more casual cocktail imbibers ask for. Of course, Doug's been making his for seven years based on when I first wrote about it, a delightful if indeed bitter (that's what amaro means after all) mix of fortified wine, aging, and more botanicals, barks, and roots than in a witch's treasured recipe. 

In the multi-varied world of amari (that is the plural), Margerum's sits pretty dead center; it matches well with a Lucano or Ramazzotti, say, if you know some of the more available Italian ones. For those not big bitter fans, it might curl the hairs of your tongue a tad (oh, you know what I mean), but it's nothing like some of the more astringent amari, and far from the medicinal getting-used-to that's Fernet-Branca. Turns out Margerum Amaro also has a great Twenty-Four Blackbirds pair: a 75% Palos Blancos from Bolivia. Wet your whistle with some Amaro, then slowly let a bite of Palos Blancos melt in your mouth and you suddenly are tasting the most delicious Raisinette ever, or so it will seem. I can only imagine the movie you should watch while having this culinary one-two punch (maybe something gorgeous and wistful like Wenders' Wings of Desire?).

And to pile on, Orlando is making an Amaro truffle you can buy at the Maregrum tasting room. You want those, too, the most adult of decadent delights.

Htiching the SB Wine Wagon to Some Amazing Pioneers

I'm going to try to tell the story of an event in a single bottle. Last Saturday (11/23) was the Third Annual Heritage Tasting held by the Pioneers of Santa Barbara County, a fantastically temperate fall day at Pico in Los Alamos. (Quick digression--do you want Chef Drew's praline bacon with some Lindquist syrah? Well, do you want the taste equivalent of a millionaire dollar lotto card on your tongue?) And sure, the winemaking starpower was there, with Richard Sanford and Fred Brander and Karen Steinwachs and Doug Margerum, for instance, along one row of tables so tight they couldn't swing a wine bottle without conking one of their compatriots.

And that's just the start of all the goodness that Morgan Clendenen, organizer, cheerleader, wrangler, planner, rogue viral video content maker, promoter, brought together for this spectacular shindig to remind us of them that got us here. You can go read the list at the website, but we're talking back in the days before our AVAs were subdividing like mops for Mickey Mouse to fight.

What anyone there most learned, however, is pioneers don't just get encased in amber. Nope, this group just keeps pioneering--messing with hops in their Sauv Blanc, making one of the first Amaros in the U.S., figuring out how to tame, but only enough, the wildness of an extreme vineyard site like Radian.

That pioneering knows enough, though, not to forget. (Wise winemakers watch paralleling the folly of the tyro creative writer who ignorantly declares, "I don't need to read what's come before--I am new!") So look above at what Frank Ostini and Gray Hartley are doing now--a Chenin Blanc. Frank is quick to point across the tasting at Louis Lucas pouring his own Lucas & Lewellen Wines, saying he was smart enough to hang on to some 40 year old Chenin vines amidst the more profitable chardonnay (because, you know, give the people what they white want). And now Hitching Post is making Forerunner (a lovely forwards and backwards cap-tipping name, no?), a snappy blast of pear, persimmon and a zip of lime zest. Pioneering indeed.

Sip This: Margerum Syrah 2017

After years of buying great grapes from others to make his wines, Doug Margerum signed a long-term lease at Honea Vineyard a couple of years ago so that he could better create his own estate wines.

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

Sip This: Honest Poetry GSM 2016

What pours from the bottle is certainly honest, but the claim “bottled by Swordplay Wines, Buellton” is at the least a tad deceptive, for the winemaker is the über-talented Doug Margerum.

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

That Terrific Taste of the Town

This Sunday, September 10 (12pm-3pm) is the annual return of one of Santa Barbara's finest fundraisers--Taste of the Town. (Tickets still available--go to that link.) Now in its 36th year (for some perspective, 1981 was the year Ronnie Reagan was inaugurated, for the first time), TotT supports the Arthritis Foundation, and there's no better way to help raise money to fight chronic pain than eating and drinking well. I had the opportunity to email interview Laura Kath, local PR maven (and arthritis sufferer), who offered the lowdown on this year's event.

Kath calls it "the incredible opportunity to meet area chefs, vintners, culinary, wine and food legends and legends in the making—in a one-of-a-kind magical setting AND raise needed funds to help find the cause, cure and provide hope for more than 50,000 people in Santa Barbara County with an arthritis diagnosis. Best blend ever!" 

Turns out Kath has been volunteering for AF since year 5 (1986), and she points out, "When I first started, there were more restaurants/caterers than wineries and we didn’t have any craft breweries or distillers at all, for example! The culinary and wine scene has evolved so much over the last 36 years here in Santa Barbara County and Taste of the Town really reflects all those changes including the emphasis on locavore, farm-to-fork and certainly more great wines."

That adds up to 19 restaurant partners and 37 beverage partners for 2017. And it's an incredible mix of veterans and fresh faces, too: think the likes of  Chef Brenda Simon and Ca'Dario and Michael's Catering and Renaud's and The Nook on the food side with the likes of Brander and Cutler Artisan Spirits and Potek and Press Gang and Refugio Ranch and Third Window on the drink side. We are very lucky to live in Santa Barbara.

The event also features honorees, from medical and youth honorees from the community to foodie folk, even with a lead vintner honoree. This year that's Doug Margerum of Margerum Wines. "The Taste of the Town selects an area vintner who not only has made a significant impact on the local wine industry but whose leadership has helped establish Santa Barbara as one of the world’s premier wine regions," Kath explains. "In addition to being recognized as one of the top vintners, Doug has been recognized for his excellence in the restaurant business." (Of course he's owned the Wine Cask twice now.)

It turns out Doug and his wife Marni were also crucial help in finding this year's culinary honoree, Mark Strausman. Their recommendation earlier this year led the TotT committee to discover "Strausman's outstanding culinary career AND that he also has an arthritis diagnosis and is very committed to the cause of being a champion of YES for the Arthritis Foundation!" says Kath. Strausman has led a storied career as one of New York's most heralded Italian-focused chefs, turning the restaurant at Barney's into one of Manhattan's top party spots.

Of course one of the greatest charms of the event is its location in Riviera Park, the home of UCSB way back when. The entire 2017 event is in the late philanthropist Michael Towbes' memory, and Kath stresses, "Michael Towbes and his family’s support of the AF has been outstanding over four decades and crucial to the success of Taste of the Town event since he has donated use of Riviera Park venue since the beginning. No other charity event has been granted the gift of this extraordinary setting—it makes Taste of the Town Santa Barbara spectacular!"

Harvest 2016 Report: Great Grapes, Good Numbers

2015 put the fear of god into many winemakers, if god is someone who doesn’t like grapes. Yields were down across California, often 50% down. The dreaded drought that began in 2012 continued, and while the quality of the grapes was strong, their amount was scant. “As much as we hate the drought,” Doug Margerum of Margerum Wine points out, “The struggling vines are giving us some pretty magnificent fruit to work with.”

Wat to read the rest then do so at the Santa Barbara Vintners Association blog.

Sip This: 2015 Margerum M5 White

Margerum Wine Company 2015 M5 White: It just had to be a matter of time before Doug Margerum would release a white partner to his Rhône blend M5 that seems to be sold by the glass in every other restaurant in Santa Barbara County. Just like its red relative, the white M5 is luscious on its own but is really meant to pair with food (hence the red’s omnipresence on those wine lists).

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

Sip This: Margerum Rapporte Pinot Noir

Margerum Rapporte Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills 2014: Doug Margerum’s desire to honor his recently deceased dog, Patches, and create a project to help all animals led to this young, tasty pinot noir. 
Sourced from primo Sta. Rita Hills vineyards, including Radian, La Encantada, and Sanford & Benedict, and blended with the help of Whole Foods wine specialist Gina Cook, the wine has a bit of bite on first opening the bottle, but how fitting is that?

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

The Many Wines of Margerum

It only just seems like you can't throw a rock in Santa Barbara without breaking a bottle of wine made by Doug Margerum. I had him explain his busy, busy slate -- and he's also still co-owner of the beloved Wine Cask restaurant too, with Mitchell Sjerven- - in a recent email interview. "I, of course, make wine for my labels -- Margerum, Barden (Barden is my middle name) and these are the wines (pinot noir, chardonnay, and syrah) that are from Santa Rita Hills, and Cent'Anni (a partnership [centered on Sangiovese] with the vineyard owner). The Margerum wines are poured in the Margerum Tasting Room and the Margerum reserve wines, Barden and Cent'Anni, are poured at MWC32. I am the wine maker for Jamie Slone Wines and Happy Canyon Vineyards. I also consult for La Encantada Vineyard."

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

Whole Foods' One Wine Program in Southern California

It seems that if Whole Foods comes a-calling you can't say no if you're a Central Coast winery. Make that even one in Temecula, as Fallbrook that far south has been part of the One Wine program. "We get to come in and cherry pick the barrels," Roger Fawcett, Whole Foods Market Southern Pacific region specialty associate coordinator, explains. "And then the wines we produce are exclusive not just to Whole Foods but to the region" -- you can't purchase these outside of southern California. Even better, the line is set up to keep wines moderately priced: no bottle breaks that $20 barrier that pinches the wallet a bit. And you're not going crazy if this sounds like a program Whole Foods did called "Collaboration" -- that was the just Santa Barbara-focused, and not quite as inexpensive precursor to One Wine.

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

Margerum Amaro -- When Bitter Is Better

There's the old saw "It takes a lot of beer to make good wine," but Doug Margerum, owner of and winemaker at Margerum Wines, suggests, perhaps, a new saying: "It takes a lot of Amaro to recover from prodigious good wine consumption." Margerum first got interested in Amaro -- the bitter yet beloved Italian digestif -- at wine events. "A lot of sommeliers drink a lot of Amaro, especially Fernet-Branca," he says. "But my interest in Amaro really peaked visiting Italy and tasting homemade Amari. After a huge meal and staying up all night and indulging, the evening always ended with Amari." He knows he is on shaky medical grounds, but wants to insist the Amaro helps settle one's system. If nothing else it shows the insight of the Italian culture with their words for love (amore) and bitter (amaro) so close in sound they're practically a slip of the tongue.

Want to read the rest then do so at the KCET blog.

Prime Rhine Wine Time

What a quality gustatory experience worth is both a tough and easy question to answer. In some ways, it's worth whatever a person is willing to pay, if that's not too tautological. I mean, if people stopped going into debt to eat at the French Laundry (it's $270 a person, now, sans tax, tip, alcohol), Thomas Keller would have to rethink the business model.

The same is true for wine, too, and wine has had to make a bit of an adjustment of late, what with the economy tanking and all. In general wine-sellers (no, not cellars) would tell you recent years have meant a highly bifurcated wine market--you had to sell your grape juice for either under $20 or over $75. Death to the middle class, as it were.

So you might wonder if the high end stuff is still any good, or is just there so folks can show off. And, sometimes, it really really is that good. Case in point Chene Bleu, a new house in France that had a small tasting in Santa Barbara the other night. Turns out they've hit it off with the Wine Cask's Doug Margerum, who is even making a wine of his own under his Margerum label from their grapes, a rose´ they had sadly run out of by the time I got to the tasting. Especially since Chene Bleu's own, a 60% Grenache, 40% Syrah blend (Margerum's is 100% Grenache), was lovely, the sort of thing Provence does so well, both flavorful and malleable, if that makes sense, calling out for food of all sorts. That wine, $30, not cheap for a rose´, but in this portfolio, definitely the entry drug, as it were.

The tricky part is Chene Bleu is top-of-the-line through and through. Go check out the website, if you don't believe me, one of the best designed I've seen in a long time--elegant, info rich, ripe with gorgeous photos, abetted by judicious use of video. They're also working at a bit of a deficit, as they're outside all the named appellations--neighbors to Gigondas and Chateauneuf-du-Pape, but even more into the magnificent Dentelles de Montmirail. That lacey limestone backdrop means their vineyards are isolated and protected and unusual. And the soil is nutrient rich.

You get to taste all that in the bottle, even when the bottle costs $100. They also like to bottle-age, so are just releasing a 2006 Abelard (90% Grenache, 10% Syrah) and a 2006 Heloise (65% Syrah, 32% Grenache, and 3% Viognier), while still insisting the wines are mighty young. Nicole Sierra-Rolet, who was presenting the wines from the winery, went even further, claiming the Abelard really needed to decant, and was a brilliant second-day wine. That said, it would be hard to imagine any making it past the first evening, it was such a gorgeous mouthful upon the bottle opening, rich red berry flavors and a persistent and pleasing pepper in the finish.

So, if you've got some spare hundreds, you won't go wrong here. Or make sure you've got some rich friends, and advise them as to what to buy.