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Flight 2: Cabernet Sauvignon
Lake County’s proximity to adjacent Napa County – and strong advocacy from an influential grower, Andy Beckstoffer – has created considerable anticipation about how Cabernet Sauvignon will fare in the region. The second flight in our Appellation Discovery Tasting featured seven Cabernets from 2004 and one from 2005:

• Snows Lake Vineyard 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon “One” (Red Hills)
• Hawk Crest 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon (Red Hills)
• Steele Wines 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon (Red Hills)
• Wildhurst 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon (Lake County)
• Six Sigma 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon (Lake County)
• Guenoc 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon (Lake County)
• Wildhurst 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve (Lake County)
• Shannon Ridge 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon (High Valley)

Record of Proceedings

Followers of Lake County’s wine fortunes have been waiting for the other shoe to drop since 1997. That’s when Andy Beckstoffer, one of the premier vineyard owners and developers in northern California, purchased 2000 acres in the Red Hills area and announced plans for roughly 1000 acres of Lake County Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. He followed through by offering some of this fruit to other Lake County vintners for free, to encourage them to either start or increase their Cabernet production.

Many vintners, winesellers and critics accepted Beckstoffer’s endorsement, and it was not long before others were planting Cabernet in the vicinity. Few in the media bothered to note that Kendall-Jackson, which began in Lake County 25 years ago and still grows and crushes hundreds of acres of grapes there, declined to jump on the bandwagon. Nevertheless, a growing list of media stories continued to propagate the idea that Lake County Cabernet would make the region “the next Napa Valley.”

After tasting the eight Cabernet Sauvignons in the second flight, however, the Discovery Panel wasted no time in differentiating them from wines grown in Napa Valley. “These wines remind me more of [Cabernets from] Chile ten years ago,” said Spencer, who grows and makes several Lake bottlings (none from Cabernet) but whose winery and label are based in Napa Valley. One reason for this comparison, according to a majority of winemakers on the panel, was a distinct herbal quality. “There’s bell pepper all through these wines,” said Tapia-Meza, who began his winemaking career in Chile before emigrating to California. “It was acceptable [in Cabernet] in the past, but the green herbs need to be worked out of these wines.”

There were two other qualities in the wines that supported the comparison of Lake County Cabernet to Cabernets of the past rather than the present. First, the wines showed primarily red plum flavors rather than the current vogue for blackberry and black cherry. Second, they exhibited significantly less extraction of color, tannin and other chemical compounds that give modern Cabernet its big body and chewy texture. Panelists also noted that the wines by and large were “not elegant” and included “unpolished tannins” with some “alcoholic heat.”

Graham and Burch commented that because of Lake County’s high elevation and correspondingly cooler weather late in the growing season, it is not usually possible to achieve the super-maturity (aka “hang time”) that lower-elevation growers get by leaving Cabernet Sauvignon on the vine past physiological maturity. Said Burch, “the end of the growing season doesn’t linger up here, so we can’t extend maturation. We also can’t push the fermentation too hard [for extra extraction], or the wine loses structure.”

The Discovery Panel concurred that several wines exhibited promising characteristics, including round mouthfeel, silky texture, and good body. Two of the three wines considered most representative of this promise turned out to be 2004s from Wildhurst. The third wine, also from the 2004 vintage, was from Shannon Ridge in the High Valley sub-appellation.

The Confirmation Panel took a different tack on the Cabernet flight, looking for particular wines that panelists preferred over others. Perhaps not surprisingly, this led them to the wines that most resembled Napa and Sonoma: those with higher tannin and blacker fruit. As a result, the Confirmation Panel appeared more appreciative of the flight than the Discovery Panel. For example, Confirmation Panelists praised the “good acidity” in the wines, even though the pH of the wines averaged 3.74 – on the soft side.

What the Numbers Tell Us

The viticultural data provided few clues about what we tasted in the glass. Discovery Panelists agreed that vine age was the most unifying factor that might explain wine quality. The average age of the vines in the wines we tasted was just seven years, well under the average in established regions of Napa Valley and Sonoma County. None were older than nine years.

In contrast, other viticultural data, including harvest dates, sugar levels and pH levels, varied widely. Harvest dates, in particular, ranged across September, October and November. Winery practices showed little consistency as well. For example, some wines were aged entirely in new oak barrels, while others were aged only in neutral barrels; some wineries standardized on either French or American oak, while others combined the two. The only commonality regarding oak, it seemed, was that few of these Cabernets had succeeded in integrating it well.

Conclusions

“It’s early days for this grape in Lake County,” said Graham as the Discovery Panel of winemakers ended its discussion of the flight. Others agreed that it always takes time for vintners to determine optimum growing and winemaking practices in new regions. So, I asked, does this mean that it’s just a matter of time before Lake County is known as a great place for Cabernet Sauvignon? There was a silence, and then Tylicki said, “I don’t think anyone at this table would say that.”

This was a surprising discovery for your correspondent, and I waited for a dissenting voice. There was none.

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Flight 3: Mediterranean Reds
Based on scientific data and his extensive experience in Lake County, McGourty believes that the region’s high elevation, warm temperatures, and variable soils are well suited to such sun-loving red wine grapes as Petite Sirah, Syrah, Tempranillo and Zinfandel. Our third and final flight included 15 varietal wines from those four grapes, tasted in the following order:

• Langtry Estate 2004 Petite Sirah, Serpentine Meadow (Guenoc Valley)
• Shannon Ridge 2003 Petite Sirah (High Valley)
• Brassfield Estate 2005 Petite Sirah, Volcano Ridge (High Valley)
• Guenoc 2005 Petite Sirah (Lake County)
• Steele Wines 2002 Syrah (Clear Lake)
• Spencer Roloson 2004 Syrah Madder, Lake Vineyard (Clear Lake)
• Brassfield Estate 2004 Syrah Monte, Sereno Vineyard (High Valley)
• Wildhurst 2004 Syrah Reserve (Lake County)
• Gregory Graham 2004 Syrah, Crimson Hill Vineyard (Red Hills)
• Spencer Roloson 2004 Tempranillo, Madder Lake Vineyard (Clear Lake)
• Six Sigma 2005 Tempranillo (Lake County)
• Steele Wines 2004 Zinfandel, Catfish Vineyard (Clear Lake)
• Spencer Roloson 2004 Zinfandel, Madder Lake Vineyard (Clear Lake)
• Brassfield Estate 2004 Zinfandel, Round Mountain (High Valley)
• Wildhurst 2004 Zinfandel Reserve (Lake County)

Record of Proceedings

This third flight of the Lake County Discovery Tasting included wines from four different varietal categories (Petite Sirah, Syrah, Tempranillo and Zinfandel). Yet it created a surprisingly cohesive impression. The general features of these wines included:

"...a mix of ripe red and black fruit flavors, good extraction
of color and tannin, bright acidity to balance the sweetness of the fruit,
and effective integration of oak flavors into the wine."

The Discovery Panel also noted three additional, more distinctive commonalities among the wines.

The first of these, as Spencer termed it, was
“Lake County garrigue.” This latter term is a French word for the aromatic scent of drought-tolerant native plants on sun-baked slopes in southwestern France. My description here may not sound that appealing as a component of red wine, but wine-lovers in the Rhône River valley consider it a positive sign of terroir in many of the region’s Syrah- and Grenache-based wines.

“If you walk on our property [overlooking Clear Lake] in the afternoon when the sun is beating down, like it does most of the summer, you can smell that same mountainy, brushy quality,” said Spencer. “The French may have made up the word for it, but they don’t have a monopoly on the scent or the flavor. I think Lake County has it in equal abundance, and it’s a great quality to help people identify the region in the wine.”

The second distinctive note was “expressiveness,” a description used by several of the winemakers on the Panel. “Riper grapes give you more expressive wine,” said Burch, “because you can extract more [flavor and textural components] from them during fermentation and maceration.”

That’s another way of saying, Tylicki responded, that Mediterranean red grapes are well suited to Lake County. “We can make the kind of wines we want because these grape varieties are getting what they want – warm sun, cool nights, and rich volcanic soil,” he explained. Tapia-Meza added that proximity to water seemed to have an additional positive effect, because so many Lake County vineyards are within sight of Clear Lake, if not close to the lake itself.

The third characteristic that the panelists discussed was “rusticity.” Few vintners now like to describe their wines as “rustic,” which consumers might equate with “unpolished,” so I asked for more clarification. “Earthiness,” Spencer offered. “Down to earth,” said Graham, adding that winemaking tools today increasingly make it possible for winemakers to leave in or take out flavors such as leather, cedar, tobacco, wet leaves, and other “earthy” elements. “When you have ripe, expressive grapes to work with, you don’t have to take out the rustic flavors and aromas to make a polished wine,” Burch explained.

The Confirmation Panel made substantially similar comments when we gathered to discuss the flight. “These wines taste like Lake County,” said Peter Molnar. “They’re not delicate, but they’re not flabby or overcooked either. They have ripe flavor, structure and balance.” Hossin agreed about the garrigue, though he suggested that “warm pepper and spice” might be a more consumer-friendly way to describe it.

Both Molnar and Katie Regalia commented on the Syrahs in particular, comparing them favorably to Syrahs from Paso Robles – a place where vintners have long claimed a particularly advantageous terroir for the variety. McGourty described the Mediterranean reds as “California Technicolor wines, perfect for a rainy winter day to accompany pot roast and other heavy dishes.”

The Discovery Panel found six of the 15 wines in the flight to be representative of its composite profile for Lake County Mediterranean reds. This is a high percentage for a Discovery Tasting, and it suggests two things: (1) the region does provide some inherent quality to these particular grape varieties, and (2) you can taste that quality in the finished wine.

What the Numbers Tell Us

To check this result, we studied the vineyard, growing, and winemaking data for all 15 wines. The most surprising finding: while the Mediterranean red wines tasted more ripe and mature than the wines from our Cabernet flight, the average age of the vineyards (excluding two small, old Zinfandel parcels) was actually lower. Thus it’s not necessarily fair to ascribe green flavors observed in the Cabernets to immature vines – there was little evidence of such flavors in the Mediterranean reds.

As with the wines from our Sauvignon Blanc flight, harvest dates for the Med reds fell into a relatively narrow band (primarily the month of September). Most of the wines were grown in soil described primarily as “volcanic” rather than loam, clay or shale. The Brix and pH at harvest for most of the wines clustered near 26º and 3.79, respectively – data points indicative of the ripe sweetness we found in the finished wines. The data also showed that the great majority of the wines had acid added, usually at crush, which at least partly accounted for their good acid balance at bottling. In addition, a majority was aged in a mix of barrel types rather than just French or American or just new or neutral.

Conclusion

Overall, the viticulture data strongly supported the idea that Lake County is a naturally hospitable place for Petite Sirah, Syrah, Tempranillo and Zinfandel. The vinification data support the conclusion that winemakers seem to have come to a surprisingly strong consensus, in just a few years, on how to express that hospitality in finished wine. “When it comes to these wines and Sauvignon Blanc, I’d say we’re there,” said Graham. Spencer ventured an even more enthusiastic view into the future, saying “All we need now in Lake County is some more vine age and you’ll really start to see the identity develop.”

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"Appellation Signature" Reds from Lake County
The following red wines were identified as representative of Appellation Signatures for the particular grape variety. The winemakers picked these wines by consensus from blind flights at the Lake County Discovery Tasting by APPELLATION AMERICA:

• 2004 Wildhurst Cabernet Sauvignon (Lake County)
• 2004 Wildhurst Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve (Lake County)
• 2004 Shannon Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon (High Valley)
• 2004 Langtry Estate Petite Sirah, Serpentine Meadow (Guenoc Valley)
• 2005 Guenoc Petite Sirah (Lake County)
• 2004 Brassfield Estate Syrah, Monte Sereno Vineyard (High Valley)
• 2004 Wildhurst Syrah Reserve (Lake County)
• 2005 Six Sigma Tempranillo (Lake County)