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| This afternoon, we are tasting four California wines of a sort that did not exist fifteen years ago; fresh, light-bodied wines that work well with food, are good to drink tonight, and with moderate levels of alcohol. Decades ago, California winemakers did make wines that met these criteria, but things began to take a turn in a different direction in the late 70s. For a very long time, it seemed that the main driver of California wine was a commitment to more is better: more alcohol, more ripeness, more new oak, how do you like it, more, more, more. And yet if you are fortunate enough to find a well-stored bottle of good California red wine from the 1960s, let’s say Beaulieu Vineyard’s George Latour Reserve and examine the label, you will typically see ABVs around 12.5%. When you open the bottle, you will find a modestly proportioned wine inside, still with vibrant acidity, which has aged beautifully and does not taste oaky. I do not believe any of the wines we are tasting today will hold up as well as these old school wines, but they’re wines for today, not the tomorrow of fifty years hence. Nevertheless, they do harken back to a different era and different sensibility in California. Today we’re tasting wines that have one foot in the future, the other in the past. We are starting with a piquette made by Patrick Cappiello. Piquette is a simple, fresh, lightly sparkling wine made by adding water to pomace and fermenting the result – it’s what generations of French peasants used to slake their thirst, having sold off all their cash crop grapes or wine to others. It’s not a serious or profound wine, but something simple and evanescent, and that’s why we like it. Next, a light-bodied orange wine from our pal, William Allen, made from the weird-o trousseau gris grape. Trousseau gris is a color mutation of trousseau noir, a grape whose homeland is France’s Jura. Trousseau gris hasn’t decided if it is a white, pink, or red grape, as all three colors might exist on the same plant. Next, a new wine from Martha Stouman: a gluggy, carbonic macerated mix of nero d’avola, zinfandel, and valdiguié, and then to finish a more somber and austere note, Hank Beckmeyer’s Cedarville mourvèdre. |
| Monte Rio Piquette Mendocino 2019 Two Shepherds “Fanucchi Vineyard” Trousseau Gris 2018 Martha Stouman “Patatino” California Nouveau 2019 La Clarine Farm “Cedarville” Mourvèdre Sierra Foothills 2017 |