WOPN 2025: Old Friends

One of the reasons I love going to World of Pinot Noir is that I've gone to WOPN before. Even better, many people I really like go year after year, or go AWOL for a few and then reappear and it's as thrilling as when the magician brings his missing assistant in a flash back to the stage. I love wine, obviously--just count the thousands of words I've spilled about it in my life. But I love people more. And lord knows, we need community right now. So thanks for all of that, WOPN. 

So what to my wondrous eyes should appear pouring at The Hilt table than Patrick Reynolds. I knew he had been working there for a few years now, but he will always be one of Santa Barbara's best bartenders in my head--even winning a Foodie from the Indy way back when--and he started the Farm-to-Bar Tuesdays at Wildcat/Bobcat with Shaun Belway. A man with impeccable taste and boundless creativity, he's always good for a few fun stories along the way, too. Plus, he was pouring Matt Dees' as ever norm-setting wine from The Hilt. This was winning WOPN bingo. (That got reinforced when the person tasting beside me was Don Schroeder, director of winemaking at Sea Smoke.)

It was a delightful flight of nine wines, so I won't write about them all. But some important lessons: evidently the talk around the water cooler, as Patrick put it, is Radian is Chardonnay, Bentrock is Pinot Noir. (Here's hoping I don't have it introduce you to two of Sta. Rita Hill's wildest, most wonderful vineyards.) Or to put it another way, Bentrock Pinot is a dog--"A wine that hugs you--thanks, I needed that!" while the Radian Pinot is a cat, and says, "No love until I kill you." That's all Reynolds. The festive and fabulous sparkling is hand riddled, so Patrick is happy they don't make more of it (it's at 125 cases now). And then the Estate 2022 Pinot, a blend of all three Hilt vineyards (Puerta Del Mar too) and a bit of Sanford & Benedict whole cluster, well, it's not as singularly distinctive but it is all the yummy, and it costs a lot less. Sign me up.

Even more than wondrous moment above, my orbs might have done the cartoon sproing out of my head when I spied Aaron Watty. The lucky of you might remember him from his days as a server at bouchon, or his very small production but high quality Big Tar Wines. Heck, I even wrote an Indy feature about a dinner he once chefed himself featuring his wines back in 2015. But he hightailed it from these parts for a bit, down at The Rose in Venice Beach. So to see him at the Joyce Wine Company Table was a delight. Turns out Joyce took over the rundown Ventana Winery in Soledad in 2020, and has slowly been restoring it, now with Watty's help as an assistant winemaker. 

The winery has a Joyce label that's all priced at $25 a bottle, "fresh, charming, easy drinking everyday wines," as they put it, from Albariño to Syrah. Then there's the Russell Joyce label, higher end, club member only, and also single vineyard goodies. I got to taste two of these, the 2023 Rusell Joyce Pinot Noir from Pelio Vineyard from the hilltops overlooking Monterey Bay on the Carmel Coast. "It brings the salinity I'm familiar with," Watty points out, comparing it to the fruit he knew from Duvarita Vineyard in Santa Barbara County. It was clean, fresh, bright. The 2023 Russell Joyce PN from Cortada Alta I liked even better, a hearty, very typical Santa Lucia Highlands, deep, dark berry Pinot from the highest elevation in the AVA. Watty told a great story of how Joyce could drive grapes carefully down the precipice-edged hill in perfect a little-to-the-left, a little-to-the-right correction balance, earning Aaron's trust, and paralleling the ways Joyce can finesse his way between tension and harmony with his wines.

Speaking of Aarons, it's always imperative to visit Aaron Walker from Pali Wine Co. at WOPN. (Yes, it seems I only hang out with really tall winemakers, now that I think about it, not that you have a photo of Walker here.) I've known him since he served wine in our house as part of the we need to bring it back again Indy series Make Me Dinner (and the unsaid, And Pour Me Wine) in 2013. My apology to him was he was my last table to visit on Friday, and I only hope I wasn't as blurry as my notes of the tasting are. The two big news item he share were that their Funk Zone tasting room was scheduled for a big remodel and that Pali in general is going focus more on their own Sta. Rita Hills vineyard, planted in 2012 in Gypsy Canyon. That direction bodes well based on my taste of the 2020 PN Pali Vineyard that nails what SRH can do; my notes was, "always what you want from where you want." Each of the 7 different clones used for this estate wine is hand-harvested separately and then fermented and aged individually, so Walker and his team can blend and balance as they see fit. That blend is then barrel-aged for a year-and-a-half in 50% new French oak, 50% neutral. The result is 100% scrumptious. Also notable was Pali's last offering from the renowned Fiddlestix Vineyard, a 2021, that practically vibrated with the tension of acid and fruit.

While Aaron Walker gets to focus on Pali's own fruit, Matt Brady continues SAMsARA's fine project--finding the best Santa Barbara sources and making the best wine possible from each. (Note I didn't get a photo of Matt or his wines, so the above image is from the winery's website--I'm such a writer first, or is that old guy first/last, who didn't grow up with social media--thankgod.) He even flipped the Hilt's water cooler script, pouring captivating 2021 Radian Pinot and 2022 Bentrock Chardonnay. Both exemplified what I've come to think of as SAMsARA's signature--each wine will surprise you with the depth of what it brings. I was going to say a kind of Phil Spector Wall of Sound but: 1) no one members what that means ("River Deep - Mountain High" anyone?), and 2) Spector was a crazy, murderous bastard, so why drag him into it. Brady's wine makes you want to contemplate, not kill, and then sigh in happiness considering their profundity. 

Speaking of profound, it would be hard to calculate all the good Karen Steinwachs has done for our region's wine industry. As you can see, she's not afraid to get her hand's dirty (again, not my photo). She's, and this list isn't exhaustive: a director and chairperson emeritus at WOPN; president of the Women Winemakers & Culinarians Foundation (who just had what looks like a great festival and I missed it all and I'm sad--my schedule is too crazy!); kindly helped staff the Santa Barbara Vintners table all weekend while other members off SBV were off in Korea and Japan, trying to build the SB brand there. She's always good for a few incisive quips but what's better, for making gorgeous wines as Seagrape Wine Co. At the SBV table she was pouring a 2022 Jump Up Pinot from Hibbits Ranch Vineyard. Matt Kettmann--speaking of old friends--wrote this about it in his 95 point Wine Enthusiast write-up: "Lovely aromas of raspberry, mulberry and black plum are decorated in complex waves of thyme and pepper on the nose of this single-vineyard expression from a vineyard just east of Lompoc. The zippy palate is brisk with pomegranate and raspberry flavors that are enlivened by sumac, cinnamon and blood orange touches." Exactly. Karen joked, "It includes all the clones [ten]. And yes, Michael Benedict was involved in its planting."

And yes, Gray Hartley of Hitching Post Wines was involved in WOPN. He and his partner Frank Ostini have been making SB Pinot for 40 years. (Heck, that was the year Mike Wallace grilled some rich New York jagoff about his future political ambitions on 60 Minutes.) Gray, ever with a twinkle in his eye, just loves making people happy with wines, and the occasional bad joke. For example, he told me that when people come up and tell him they knew of his wines before an Academy Award-winning film blew them and the Hitching Post restaurant up, he replies, "That's BS," and waits for their shocked expression before following up, "Before Sideways." While H-P's current releases were spot on, it's also good that at WOPN Hartley likes to open up older vintages to help prove SB Pinot manages just fine. After all, most of us don't cellar stuff away, especially given what real estate costs round these parts--square footage has to go to people sleeping and not wine bottle snoozes. One such pour was a 2001 from Fiddlestix Vineyard that was completely unbricked, fresh and fruit-driven to the point you would never guess it was old enough to drink itself. 

Heck, so is World of Pinot Noir at 25. Long may it pour/roar.

World of Pinot Noir 2023: Old Friends

Excessive and obsessive at once, World of Pinot Noir features over 175 wineries all focused (in theory, as there is always a stray chardonnay or pet nat or cab franc under some kind winemaker's table) on one stinking grape. Sure, pinot noir goes by other names, and let's not even get into clonal variations, of which there are over 40, many of which pourers will proudly enumerate for you as they splash your glass. But, c'mon, it's much ado about one varietal. I know more than one winemaker who shakes their heads sadly about the event, even if they make a pinot themselves.

So why does this annual spectacular, for many years running (when Covid allows) held at the ocean-side wonder that is the Bacara, continually enchant? Sure, it's true of other varietals, but pinot comes in many styles, seductive, elegant, brooding, so it's a wine for your many moods. Pinot is finicky and hard-to-grow, and we all love our problem children. Pinot is one of the most versatile food wines, profligate in its qualities that lead to perfect parings (salmon? Santa Maria tri-tip? sure!). Pinot is perfume, pinot is place. 

WOPN underlines all of that, especially in the Friday and Saturday Grand Tastings. This year, instead of emphasizing terroir by grouping wineries by region, each day was an alphabetical zag and zig of tables. Where you wind up, no one knows, as going in you realize you can't drink it all. So you visit familiar folks, especially when winemakers themselves are pouring. And you visit wineries you never heard of as it's good to expand your vinous horizons. And sometimes you just go to way more Oregon wineries than usual, as your +1 for the day has a daughter in college there. Reasons don't always rhyme.

With all that out of the way, let's get tasting. Last year I hit on the division of Old Friends/New Finds as an organization principle and I liked it so much, it's back this year. Consider it a tradition. I mean, it that's better than the weird post when I did parody of a Larry King column, no?

Speaking of king Larrys, of course I visited tercero's table to see where Larry Schaffer's pinot project was at two years in. Schaffer never lets his winemaking muse get bored--he's got 34 different wines for sale on his website right now, from Clairette Blanche to a carbonic Mourvèdre--and the new 2021 Pinot goes into bottle this week, so we were getting a barrel tasting. He insisted it was "just an inkling of what it was going to be," but a fine inkling it was, all fruit from Kessler-Haak. He only makes fascinating wine, and this Sta. Rita Hills gem is rich and promising.

Rich and delivering was the word across the board with tiny Montemar's production. This one-time garagiste operation currently produces upwards of 1,200 cases a year, still relatively small potatoes, but they get grapes from some of Santa Barbara's best sites. Take their standout 2016 Barrel Select--note they let wines sit a bit--made from 50% Radian and 50% Bentrock grapes. Such wildness and power from the far western end of SRH.

Another bottle singing at its slightly-aged peak was Seagrape's 2015 Mermaid's Pearl. It's no surprise Karen Steinwachs makes terrific wine, but this barrel select, made only in the years she thinks the vintage is worthy of the project, had a perfume and a depth they could lead one to drown. Oh, yeah, mermaid!

Age might be one of the keys when it comes to old friends, after all, as was very clear with the 3L format 2013 Pisoni Paul Lato was pouring at his table. Lato loves going big and old at WOPN, and it's a clever way to show off the structure of his wines. Refined but still with plenty of zingy black cherry fruit, this pinot offers a complexity, minerality, and floral lift that is lovely. 

I was going to try to leave out too much bragging about the glories of the media room, where about 100+ wines await journalistic contemplation, but did have to mention the Fiddlehead 2011 Fiddelstix in magnum that waited for us there. Press isn't really worthy of such goodness, the age giving the wine more earthiness and a soupçon of mushroom. Time is very good to some of us, as long as some of us are wine.

As classic pinot old-timers go, it's hard to beat Willams Selyem, and I've been a proud and glad member of their mailing list since the 1990s at this point. (I am old, too, you see.) They were pouring two of their still young but far from shy 2021s--their Russian River Valley blend from 10 vineyards and their Westside Neighbors. The first offered brightness, freshness, and some whole cluster punch, singing a song from basso to tenor. The Westside Neighbors got by on its aromatics, a big bunch of blueberry, and a stony long finish. Sometimes the classics are hard to deny.

Not that you shouldn't mess around with things, as Aaron Walker can attest to at Pali. Over Pali's brands they now make 50 different wines, and one that stood out was the 2021 Wild Series Sta. Rita Hills Pinot. Created primarily for restaurant lists and wine shops, the Wild Series wines (there's a Chardonnay, an orange and a rosé) are meant to move thanks to their pricing and accessibility and natural fermentation, neutral oak, hands-off approach. Turns out if you start with great grapes, everything will be fine.

And to segue towards the New Finds post, it seems fitting to stop at the Bonaccorsi table. Wine, of course, is memory, and in many ways each sip is its own elegy--singing its last praises as you down it. The tragic loss of Mike Bonaccorsi in 2004 could have been the end of the winery too, but first his wife Jenne Lee did more than carry on, and now Mike's brothers Rich and Joe are in charge. So when you're told the 2019 Fiddlestix is Joe's first wine "tip to tail," you know it's a moment of continuation, transition, and most importantly, beauty. To quote Jeb Dunnuck: "Smells and tastes complex, every sniff and sip revealing something else: intense raspberry, white pepper, watermelon, green tea, red licorice, kumquat, button mushrooms. An almost ethereal weight in the mouth; very lively and bright and beautifully textured, with a hard candy essence to some of the fruit, and a saline minerality toward the firm, tight finish."