The Wonderful World of WALT...at Clos Pepe

Let's face it, not every winery's proprietor has been the US Ambassador to Austria. But if you took part in one of the World of Pinot Noir's kick off events for its 2020 fete, you would have had the chance to hear and meet Kathryn Walt Hall, who is the head of WALT Wines. The event, which is a mouthful (in both title and what you got if you had attended): "WALT Wines Presents Mile Marker 60: Clos Pepe Estate Vineyard Experience."

WALT took on a 15 year lease with Clos Pepe in 2015, committing to one of the more beloved properties in the Sta. Rita Hills. For instance, just its pond is this photogenic:

After a walk through the vineyard, just at the nascence of bud break (here's hoping all the rain forecast for the rest of March doesn't bring too much cold weather too), we settled in for a vertical tasting of this site with 30 acres of vines, almost all pinot noir (a darn good thing for a WOPN event). Think mostly Pommard clones as the base of most of the wines, with some 667, 777, and 115 for those more floral lifting notes, too.

The panel for the tasting featured Hall herself, WALT winemaker Megan Gunderson, Adam Lee from Siduri, who had made wines from the site for decades (and is a witty chatter, so who doesn't want him on their panel?), and Stephen Pepe himself. I won't bore with you all the details, not that the details are boring, but they go down a lot better if you're drinking the wines as you hear them. Suffice to say, Lee pointed out that with the slopes of the site and the ways some spots get more of the famed transverse valley winds from the Pacific a mere nine miles west, he didn't realize the diversity of the property at first in such a small area. He added, "And diversity means complexity--it's truly truly remarkable."

The lineup of wines proved him correct, even if the surprisingly warm early spring day and its sun perhaps warmed our samples a bit beyond the best pinot tasting temperature. The vertical included a block 6 barrel sample from 2019, so far from a finished wine, if certainly robust, and fermented in concrete!--sub-theme for the day, pinot-exploration! And then took us to the 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017, the current on-the-market vintage. No 2015, as that was a big frost year. The older wines were aging well, showing off the acidity typical of the region that keeps them lean mean red berry machines. The newer wines are that and even more FRUIT; as my Indy colleague in his Wine Enthusiast hat Matt Kettmann put it about the 2017, which he gave 94 points, "Powerful aromas of black cherry, tobacco, clove, chocolate and oak are heavy but pleasing on this bold style of pinot noir. The lush, delicious and potent palate delivers more of the same, with black-cherry and tobacco flavors sprinkled with crushed nutmeg and vanilla."

The one fascinating wild card was the first public tasting of Adam Lee's new project with Chateauneuf-du-Pape star Philippe Cambie, a 2019 Beau Marchais pinot from, of course, Clos Pepe Vineyard. Since it was Cambie's first pinot, he had no sense of the "right" way to do things and the wine, at least so far (it just went into barrel in November), seems to be a powerhouse. While, as I said earlier, the region's wines tend to age well thanks to their acidity, this pinot actually has tannins that should hold it up. But we are talking pinot that was on its skins for a long 48 days. Fascinating.

Then there was a feast grilled up by Frank Ostini and the Hitching Post II gang, and what could be wrong with that, especially with lots of the 2017 WALT to drink with it? Tri-tip over red oak with salsa and beans. And lots of other yummy things. We were very lucky. There was even a mini-concert by Anderson Daniels to end the event, a performer who channels Tennessee even if he's from Minnesota. Accents, sometimes they're hard to figure. Hard to deny a song called "Warm Up with a Cold One" at a drinking event, though.

Rockin' WOPN Eve

Somehow this is my 32nd blog post about the annual spectacular the World of Pinot Noir, which kicks off its 20th anniversary edition tomorrow with a few special events, one of which I'll be writing about tomorrow night after I attend it (think barbecue and pinot and the SYV). Recently I talked to one winemaker who in one way reasonably pooh-poohed the whole shebang, at least the Grand Tastings, by saying, "Everybody makes good wine now. It all tastes more the same than it doesn't."

"OK, the error bars aren't wide," I said. And later I realized I sohuld have said, "Wait, not OK! Goddam, the error bars aren't wide!" That is, we live in a golden age of deliciousness, so let's lap it up while we can (or until the Coronavirus wipes out any and all events where more than five of us gather in wine's name).

So let's think about how to celebrate, and if anything deserves celebration it's pinot noir (well, there's one more reason). It's easy to focus just on Friday's and Saturday's Grand Tastings at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara, as they are billed quite appropriately--100 producers on Friday, 120 on Saturday, most with more than one wine, some with things not even pinot (roses! whites! hard cider!!). I've discussed in previous years the best ways to approach a room that might as well have signs warning "Beware! FOMO Ahead!" at all the entrances. Since you can't do it all, drink water, eat some of the food, chat with pourers--many of whom are the winemakers themselves--make a plan for how to get something coherent out of it (chose a region or style ["Do you have anything with stem-inclusion?"] or only drink one vintage). OR approach it in a magical way and let a dice throw or runes or the alphabet guide you.

My guess is any way will be an interesting informative way. Drink deep, enjoy, take some notes. If only to see later how your handwriting deteriorates during an afternoon of drinking.

But you could skip the Grand Tastings, even. (Horrors!) Instead only go to a seminar or two and sit down and learn something. Just on Friday you could attend "What's Altitude Got to Do with It?" or "Siduri: 25 Years of Cruising the Pacific Coastline." How does the elevation of a vineyard affect what winds up in the bottle? How much of Adam Lee's incredible knowledge garnered over decades of winemaking can he share in one sitting? You could learn these things. And some of that you'll do through your mouth as you will have a guided tasting. That's just two of Friday's events.

Or you could just eat and have some wine with that. Let's look at Saturday, this time (note, this is far from covering everything about to happen, as you don't have the time for that). One dinner celebrates Bollinger Champagne and Calvisius Caviar, so if you ever wondered what the whole bubbles and fancy fish eggs fuss was about, and have a spare $350 (that's part of the fuss, surely), this dinner is for you. Or you could attend the 20th Anniversary Soiree Dinner, that's described as "an evening of epicurean delights, wine and dancing as you mingle amongst the legends of Pinot Noir and meet the rising stars." Two words: paella station. And more wine than you can shake your empty mussel shells at. 

Born in Babylonia, Moved to Sonoma--Siduri

Adam Lee and his wife Dianna founded Siduri Wines (Siduri was the Babylonian goddess of wine) in 1994, and since then their winery has become one of the best known producers of Pinot Noir on the west coast, working with 20 fine vineyards from Santa Barbara to the Willamette Valley. Things got so good, they even got to sell the winery to Jackson Family Wines last January--who says the big companies can only buy up craft brewers? Corporate insists they want Siduri to remain Siduri. Of course, that just means there's more financial oomph behind what the Lees want to do, which is, "letting the individual place show through in the wines and encourage people to be honest in their reactions to the wines," according to Adam. "If our Pinots have real personality then someone is going to prefer one over another and we like to hear that."

He gets to hear that often at World of Pinot Noir, where he's been coming for over a decade. He loves to attend to "catch up with old friends. Some of these friends are consumers, others are fellow winemakers. But there’s a general sense of friendship and joy in hanging out together."

While that camaraderie is something he looks forward to, he's less looking forward to what's up with the weather. "This was supposed to be an El Nino year and a season where we caught up from the drought," he says. "Yet, here we are going into early March, and my vineyards in the Central Coast still are in the single digits when it comes to rainfall. This obviously has me worried." Worries about weather lead to worries about yield, and low yields can be troublesome for a winemaker like Lee who owns no vineyards of his own, despite having worked with several for many years. Only time will tell how many grapes he can get his hands on.

As for what he'll be pouring Friday, tasters can look forward to "a 3 year side-by-side of the Ewald Vineyard, 2012, 2013, 2014," he says. "These have been three extraordinarily great years in California for Pinot Noir, and I thought it would be fun to see the differences in the wines from these vintages." While Ewald, in the Russian River Valley, might not have huge cachet, it turns out it's 4 acres tucked behind famous names Kistler and Dehlinger. That is, we all better pay attention.

Send in the Clones

You know it's gone past drinking to deep thinking when a winemaker on a panel says, "It's actually a cultivar, not a clone," and you don't hear a single snore. Of course, this serious moment came after an introduction by wild wit Peter Cargasacchi to the Sta. Rita Hills Winegrowers Alliance Wine and Fire Symposium's Pinot Noir Panel on Clone 115M that began, "Now that Area 51 has been declassified, we can tell you a little bit about Clone 115," and ended, "If I told you any more I'd have to kill you."

Want to read the rest then do at the KCET blog. (Which recently won the award for Best Food Blog in LA--thanks LA Weekly!)