March 24, 2010:Bud break on a head-trained zinfandel vine in the Dante Dusi Vineyard, just off Highway 101 on the West Side of Paso Robles.
Showing posts with label Zinfandel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zinfandel. Show all posts
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Spring in Paso Robles
March 24, 2010:Bud break on a head-trained zinfandel vine in the Dante Dusi Vineyard, just off Highway 101 on the West Side of Paso Robles.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Standing on the Ridge
98 Lytton Springs Vineyard, bottled 12/99
El Niño delayed the 1998 growing season by an entire month; late August brought an unseasonably early rain and some water damage in the clusters. We opened the vines to light and air, and thinned repeatedly over the next forty days as soon as any damaged fruit appeared. Aided by fine weather, we had clean, very ripe grapes at harvest. Intense fruit, a rich structure, and firm tannins characterize this lovely vintage, which will be at its best over the next five to six years. Alas, the severe thinning has resulted in significantly smaller quantities than usual.— PD [Paul Draper] (11/99)
Now there's 750ml less....
I've always liked Ridge's packaging, from the short silver capsule that lets the winery and vintage info stamped on the cork show through the bottle neck, to the crisp, minimalistic styling of their label's typography and layout. I also like Paul Draper's liner notes, driven by marketing as are all such label talkers but, much more than most, also informative and inclusive of some meaningful information.
There was a time when I also might have said that I've always liked Ridge wines. But as my preferences have changed over the last ten or twelve years, my relationship with Ridge has become one based more on respect than on unabashed admiration. The wines are absolutely well made and expressive — I think it's fair to say they're standard bearers — but they just don't deliver the pleasure they once did, at least not to me.
A side effect of this shift in my tastes is that I still have a decent little cache of Ridge wines, mostly from the mid- to late-90s, resting in my wine fridge. So, when friends from the neighborhood trudged over for a post-blizzard dinner this weekend, bearing gifts of bacon-wrapped filets mignon, I figured it was due time to make a cellar sacrifice.
California Dry Creek Valley "Lytton Springs," Ridge Vineyards 1998
~$25 on release. 14.3% alcohol. Cork.
One of the things I have always respected about Ridge is the ability of their wines to age. Five years beyond the drinking window originally recommended by Ridge proprietor Paul Draper, the 1998 Lytton Springs is still chugging right along, with another five or ten years to go, easy. What's happened over the last ten years in bottle? Well, the wine still does show some of its characteristically raisin-rich Zin notes but on a frame that's grown narrower with age. In a way, that's let a certain elegance show through that, if my memory of long ago consumed bottles is at all accurate, was somewhat less evident earlier on. Now, spicy yet subtle red berry fruit intertwines with cedar and tobacco leaf aromas; a firm yet supple tannic quality and still bright, medium-acidity help the wine achieve its sense of balance. It paired just fine with the richness and smokiness of the beef and bacon, not at all too high in alcohol to work with food.
So what's not to like? For me, and I've said it here before in similar but slightly less kind terms, it's the indelible oak signature born by nearly all of Ridge's red wines. American oak, in particular. In spite of the elegance that's emerged from the good raw materials of the Lytton Springs Vineyard, and in spite of the life that continues in the bottle, there's a wood-driven, cedar-y character that dominates the wine. It doesn't totally obscure the fruit; it just makes it much harder for the fruit's voice and, one could argue, the vineyard's voice, to be heard. It's part and parcel of the Ridge winemaking signature. I just have a harder time swallowing it than I once did.
* * *
Elsewhere in the blogosphere....Wolfgang Weber recently wrote a piece, which I think deserves your attention, on the apparent prevalence of cork taint in Italian wines. If there's one thing that the Italians, and most European wineries for that matter, could learn from their US counterparts, it's the value of shelling out the dough for high quality corks.
Also, the frequency with which my wine blogging peers and I seem to find ourselves on similar topics at similar times is a never ending source of amazement. Point in case, I stumbled upon Lyle Fass's recent post about Opus One and, you guessed it, changing tastes regarding oak influence, while taking a break from writing this piece. It's worth a read too, especially for Lyle's take on cowboy boots and suits.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Urban Winemaking at Dashe Cellars
Ask any hundred people what they consider the heartland of California wine country and Napa will no doubt top the list, followed closely by Sonoma. Ask the same group – and this implies the participants have at least some basic familiarity with the subject matter – about California’s new frontier and I’d hazard a guess that Santa Barbara or Paso Robles, maybe the Santa Rita Hills, would come out ahead. Yet more and more, some of the most compelling wines being produced in California today are coming from winemakers based within the urban landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area.The godfather of this “new school” is no doubt Steve Edmunds, who’s been producing characterful wines that buck the trend of over-saturated, Californicated fruit since 1985 and doing so right in the heart of Berkeley. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that his neighbors at Edmunds St. John include the likes of Alice Waters and Kermit Lynch…. On the more freshly cut edge of the movement is the Natural Process Alliance, leading the locavore, low impact and natural wine front from its headquarters in Santa Rosa. Sandwiched between those two – both geographically and chronologically – is Dashe Cellars.
Michael and his wife Anne Dashe produced their first Dashe Cellars release, a Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel, in 1996. Over a dozen vintages later, they’re going strong, having slowly but surely garnered praise from the traditional wine press – they’ve made Wine & Spirits Magazine’s Top 100 Wineries list on several occasions – as well as from, more recently, natural wine cognoscenti. In 2005, Mike and Anne moved their winery to its current home in an industrial district of Oakland where, in the shadows of I-880, they share a 16,000 square foot warehouse/winemaking facility with JC Cellars. Dashe now produces approximately 10,000 cases (120,000 bottles) of wine per year, about 85% of which is Zinfandel.
During my recent trip to San Francisco, I had the chance to catch up with Mike and to visit Dashe Cellars in the full tilt of autumn harvest season. I’ll let the pictures, captions and tasting notes below tell the story. For more information, check out the Dashes’ website and be sure to (re)visit the interview I did with Mike earlier this year for 31 Days of Natural Wine.
Dashe Cellars shares a barn-red, relatively no-frills warehouse (located at 55 4th Street in Oakland, CA) about 60/40 with JC Cellars.
JC works the new barrels (look ma, no stains) to the left of Dashe’s three foudres, while Mike’s production inhabits the remainder of the warehouse, populated primarily by racks of older barriques and the ubiquitous phalanx (not pictured) of stainless steel fermentation tanks.
As mentioned above, we visited during a very busy day in late September, at the heart of NorCal harvest season. This was the second of three truckloads of grapes of the day for Dashe. The first, Petite Sirah, had arrived in the morning hours. This load of Zin arrived shortly after we did in the early afternoon, while a third truck pulled up with the day’s final delivery of Zinfandel just as we were saying our goodbyes. The Dashes, who own no vineyards themselves, source their fruit from primarily organic farms, with which they have long-term contracts, in the Dry Creek, Russian River, Alexander and Potter Valleys of California.
With freshness always foremost in mind, the fruit is moved quickly from the truck to the bin turner in half-ton crates. The process is pretty much business as usual, with Mike and his crew aiming to keep handling and manipulation of the fruit to a minimum. All fruit is hand sorted to remove leaves and any sub-par grapes, not to mention the occasional earwig. From there, it's on to the crusher/destemmer, from which the crushed juice is gently pumped into the waiting tanks inside the winery. All of Dashe's wines see a high percentage of whole berry fermentation; however, all of the Zins – and other wines at Mike's discretion – also receive a dose of press juice (that's Mike's pneumatic press in the bottom right photo) to ensure enough structure to support their ample fruit.
Back in the winery, the work is all focused on keeping the wines pure and expressive, with as little manipulation and adulteration as possible. Mike and Anne do much of the work themselves, helped by a rotating group of interns from enology schools such as UC Davis or by visiting wine makers from other regions. Mike commented that his interns are nearly always shocked to find that very nearly nothing is added to the fermenting and aging wines. Dashe ferments all of his wines, including the white and rosé, on their native yeasts. No commercial yeast, enzymes, acids or other additives/adjuncts are ever used (and Mike does not believe that cross-contamination occurs from the commercial yeast strains being used in the same warehouse space by JC Cellars). A small dose of sulfur dioxide is added at crush and again, though only if necessary and never for "L'Enfant Terrible," at bottling.
Mike is particularly happy with (and proud of) the results he's getting with the three foudres he purchased new from Tonnellerie Rousseau. The majority of Dashe's wines are still aged in older barriques but Mike plans to move more and more toward aging in larger casks as time and cash flow (those foudres are expensive) permit.
Our pals from Monterey, Steve and Stacy, had visited Dashe a few months earlier, not long after reading my interview with Mike, so they were already well acquainted with the wines. While pouring us tastes of a few of his current releases, Mike regaled us with some pretty hilarious stories of his past days writing technical user manuals for Atari. I guess a winery profile like this wouldn't be complete without at least a couple of tasting notes, so:
- 2008 Dry Riesling, McFadden Farms, Potter Valley (13.8%). Very ripe, round aromas of yellow plums and pineapple. Firm acidity. Succulent. Not as bracingly mineral as I might like but a very fine Cali Riesling.
- 2008 Grenache, Dry Creek Valley (13.8%). California Grenache under 14% alcohol? Yep. Very fresh, vibrant red berry fruit. Aged in old wood only. Gentle tannins and, for Grenache, good acidity. This reminded me very much of the style of Mike's "L'Enfant Terrible" Zinfandel. Lighter, brighter and fresher than more typical CA varietal expressions.
- 2008 Zinfandel "L'Enfant Terrible," McFadden Farms, Potter Valley (13.8%). California Zinfandel under 14% alcohol. Yep. The fruit for "the wild child" is sourced from the same cool, high altitude farm from which Mike purchases his Riesling. Macerated strawberries and pepper on the nose. Brightly textured and fresh, though a bit richer than the '07 version. In 2007, 280 cases of the 600 case production of "L'Enfant" were sold at The Slanted Door. As hinted at in the Grenache note above, Mike is considering creating other "L'Enfant Terrible" bottlings in the coming years.
- 2006 Zinfandel, Florence Vineyard, Dry Creek Valley (14.5%). Produced from young vine fruit. Super ripe on the nose and palate, full of raisins, chocolate and plum pudding but balanced by crunchy tannins.
- 2007 Zinfandel "Old Vines," Todd Brothers Ranch, Alexander Valley (14.7%). From 50 year-old vines. This was a stark contrast to the Florence Vineyard bottling; a much more elegant, structured style, showing coffee, licorice, blackberry and dark chocolate notes but on a finer, more restrained frame.
- 2007 Late Harvest Zinfandel, Dry Creek Valley (14.1%). Harvested at 40 brix, finished at 9% RS. Mike allows the fermentation to stop naturally then filters the wine to remove any yeast cells (and to prevent the possibility of re-fermentation) prior to bottling. Pretty damn tasty served, as the Dashes did, with a nibble of dark chocolate.
Clearly less comfortable at the computer and cash register than amongst the barrels, Mike called his wife Anne down from the winery office to meet us and help with our end of visit purchases. In case you've ever wondered about the winery's logo, I can now unequivocally confirm that Mike is the monkey and Anne is the fish.
Dashe Cellars is just a short walk from the Merrit Lake BART station, a quick drive across the Bay Bridge from downtown San Fracisco, and is also easily accessible from the greater Oakland and Berkeley areas. (We popped over to West Berkeley for pizza and beer at Lanesplitter after our visit.) Their tasting room is open to the public Thursday through Sunday from noon to 6:00 PM.
Dashe Cellars
55 4th Street
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 452-1800
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
NorCal 2009, Day Three: or Yes, I Went to Monterey for Rosh Hashanah
The irony doesn’t escape me. I’d gone from the suburbs of Philadelphia to, well, the suburbs of Monterey to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. At least it seems ironic to me. Perhaps I’m just ignorant of the depth of Judaic culture in the Monterey bay area. In any event, it was pure coincidence that my trip happened to coincide with the beginning of the Jewish New Year. I’d gone for vacation, to relax, drink and eat of course, and, more importantly, to visit friends, some of whom just happen to take their high holidays pretty seriously.
While most of our day on Friday would be spent shopping and prepping for the evening’s feast, we did manage to keep the morning free to explore some of the natural beauty in the environs of Monterey. Images of the breathtaking vistas and windy roads of the California coastline tend to be conjured first when thinking of this part of the world, but there’s a different kind of beauty, perhaps even more pacific (yes, the pun’s intended), to the arid interior of the northern Central Coast. During a loping, two-hour hike that criss-crossed Fort Ord and adjoining acreage overseen by the US Bureau of Land Management, only a bobcat (far too quick for my camera yet very cool to spot), the occasional jay and scampering lizard, and a few other nature lovers shared the landscape with us.
Smart enough, at least I’d like to think so, not to shop hungry, we sated our hike-driven hunger with a lunch of fish tacos and shrimp burritos in downtown Monterey, followed by a stroll around the marina.
A classic local scene: California sea lions have made a permanent sun worshipping station of the breakwater along the Monterey pier. Less common were the swarms of jellyfish, not little guys, mind you, but big suckers, the size of basketballs and sporting waist-length dreadlocks of potential nastiness.
Lunching and tourism done for the day, we finally buckled down to the biz of preparing din-din. Dinner would start with a loaf of round challah (not raisin, all sold-out) served with honey, the shape of the loaf and sweetness of the accompaniment both symbolic of health and happiness in the new year to come. The rest of the meal would be less traditional, perhaps, but still very much in keeping with the spirit of the holiday and the observance of culinary customs.
My pals had gone off to visit Dashe Cellars after reading my interview with Michael Dashe a while back and had come back with a cache of 2008 L'Enfant Terrible, a bottle of which we happily dispatched while working in the kitchen.
As seriously as my pal Steve takes his holidays, his observance (happily) doesn’t extend to diving into the depths of Kosher wine, so we were able to put together a pretty decent little line-up to accompany the meal. In spite of my general distaste for grocery store wine shopping, I did find wine worth drinking at the local Whole Foods, including something I’d been meaning to try anyway, the Touraine Sauvignon from François Chidaine, one of the products of his recent expansion into the négociant end of the wine biz. Mind bending juice, no, but at $12 a bottle it’s a solid value and made for a nice pairing with roasted tomato and pecorino bruschetta. The star of the night, wine-wise that is, was undoubtedly the 2008 Bandol Rosé from Domaine de Terrebrune, one of the little gems I’d picked up at Kermit Lynch’s shop the day before. Firm and herbal, I’d love to check in on it a few years down the road but it was hard to say no to now. Spot on with Stevie’s orange-braised artichokes and the fillet of halibut I grilled up and topped with olive tapenade.
The evening's dead soldiers.
So, happy belated new year to those of you who observe. And stay tuned for more CA adventures to come.
While most of our day on Friday would be spent shopping and prepping for the evening’s feast, we did manage to keep the morning free to explore some of the natural beauty in the environs of Monterey. Images of the breathtaking vistas and windy roads of the California coastline tend to be conjured first when thinking of this part of the world, but there’s a different kind of beauty, perhaps even more pacific (yes, the pun’s intended), to the arid interior of the northern Central Coast. During a loping, two-hour hike that criss-crossed Fort Ord and adjoining acreage overseen by the US Bureau of Land Management, only a bobcat (far too quick for my camera yet very cool to spot), the occasional jay and scampering lizard, and a few other nature lovers shared the landscape with us.
Clockwise, from top left: California oaks more than dot the landscape, looking old and wise yet lacy and fragile, their beauty enhanced yet their health undermined by adornments of hanging moss. Recently abandoned cliff swallow nests, built under the eaves and ceiling of a decaying pagoda, part of an abandoned military picnic ground on Fort Ord. A playground of another type, built and showing the signs of regular use by the local BMX crowd. From flat and wide open to hilly and twisting, the trails here are great for both hiking and fast, relatively non-technical mountain biking.
Smart enough, at least I’d like to think so, not to shop hungry, we sated our hike-driven hunger with a lunch of fish tacos and shrimp burritos in downtown Monterey, followed by a stroll around the marina.
A classic local scene: California sea lions have made a permanent sun worshipping station of the breakwater along the Monterey pier. Less common were the swarms of jellyfish, not little guys, mind you, but big suckers, the size of basketballs and sporting waist-length dreadlocks of potential nastiness.
Lunching and tourism done for the day, we finally buckled down to the biz of preparing din-din. Dinner would start with a loaf of round challah (not raisin, all sold-out) served with honey, the shape of the loaf and sweetness of the accompaniment both symbolic of health and happiness in the new year to come. The rest of the meal would be less traditional, perhaps, but still very much in keeping with the spirit of the holiday and the observance of culinary customs.
My pals had gone off to visit Dashe Cellars after reading my interview with Michael Dashe a while back and had come back with a cache of 2008 L'Enfant Terrible, a bottle of which we happily dispatched while working in the kitchen.
The evening's dead soldiers.So, happy belated new year to those of you who observe. And stay tuned for more CA adventures to come.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Interview with Michael Dashe
The following interview originally appeared at Saignée as my contribution to Cory Cartwright's 31 Days of Natural Wine. For any who may have missed the interview there, here it is in its entirety.
While answering Cory’s call for contributions to 31 Days of Natural Wine was easy, coming up with what to write about took a little more work. Rather than dipping into the archives or revisiting a long familiar producer, I decided to push my own envelope a bit, to write about something at least a little outside of my Eurocentric norm, something where I could learn a little too. And then it came to me. I’d had a nice chat with Michael Dashe of Dashe Cellars at a Michael Skurnik portfolio tasting earlier this year. Mike’s wines had left me with a very favorable impression, an impression that’s been supported by subsequent experiences with several of his wines at the dinner table. So a few emails and phone calls later, the following interview was born.
DMcD: To get us started, would you tell us a little about yourself and about Dashe Cellars?
MDashe: Dashe Cellars is a husband and wife (and a French-American) winemaking team—we were married and started the winery in the same year, 1996. Our idea was to make balanced, complex wines from distinctive vineyards, using as natural as possible winemaking techniques. We’ve grown into a 9000 case winery located in an urban setting, in Oakland.
Together, Anne and I have quite a bit of winemaking experience. I worked for over eight years as assistant winemaker at Ridge Vineyards, and worked short stints at Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, Cloudy Bay, Far Niente, Schramsberg, and Roudin-Smith wineries. Anne is a University of Bordeaux-trained winemaker who worked at Château La Dominique, Chappellet Winery, and Remy-Martin in Napa (Carneros Alambic).
DMcD: Given the scope of Cory’s “31 Days” project, what’s your take on “naturalness” in the context of wine?
MDashe: We’ve always been believers in non-intrusive winemaking—we make wine without getting in the way of the purity of the flavors, and we have since we started the winery 13 years ago. I use native yeasts to conduct fermentations, use low levels of SO2, don’t mask flavors with new oak, and don’t manipulate wine unduly. I’m against “industrial” winemaking techniques with which the goal is to make consistent wines at the cost of individuality and complexity.
That said, we’re not dogmatic about natural winemaking. I’ve tasted many, many wonderful natural wines, but I’ve also tasted natural wines that taste like a poorly run experiment. We feel the goal should be to make the most authentic wine possible by selecting great vineyard sites and not getting in the way of the flavors, but also to make well-made wines.
DMcD: Though I know you produce Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache, Riesling, etc… I tend to think of Dashe Cellars as specializing in Zinfandel. Why Zin? Or am I wrong to think that?
MDashe: We do specialize in Zinfandel. When I was working at Ridge Vineyards I met some great growers of Zinfandel, most of who were working with old-vine fruit. Some of our vineyards are 80+ years old—it’s really a privilege to work with fruit like that. I’ve always felt that Zinfandel can make incredible wines when grown correctly and not harvested too ripe. I’m on a personal quest to make Zinfandel-based wines that can stand on the world stage as great wines that have wonderful personality and can age well. Call me crazy, but it can be done.
DMcD: How did the time you spent at Ridge influence your decision to go it on your own, and how, if at all, does it continue to guide your winemaking decisions?
MDashe: I owe a tremendous debt to Ridge Vineyards and Paul Draper for exposing me to a wide variety of fruit sources and to traditions of natural winemaking. I think Paul is an innately soulful winemaker, who completely respects his vineyards and is one of the great proponents of natural winemaking in the US. After 8 ½ years working at Ridge, I wanted to go out on my own – mostly because I didn’t want to be the oldest assistant winemaker in California. Paul Draper was extremely supportive of my creating my own winery. And yes, I use many techniques I used at Ridge for my own winemaking style—things like using native yeast, submerged-cap fermentations, techniques to limit tannin extraction from seeds, etc.
DMcD: You’re in the distinct minority in California in choosing to ferment all of your wines (if I’m not mistaken) on their native/ambient yeasts. What inspired that decision? Do you ever use cultured yeasts? If so, why?
MDashe: I do use native yeast fermentations, almost exclusively. At Ridge Vineyards almost everything is fermented on native yeast, and I felt the results were dramatically positive. I started Dashe Cellars using native yeast fermentations. There have been times in the past when all the grapes were coming into the winery at once, due to vintage conditions, and if I absolutely had to have tanks available I would inoculate with yeast so that fermentation would finish and I’d have a tank available. That never happens now, because we have more fermentation space. We’ve purchased enough tanks (and I’m using these wonderful 900-gallon foudres made from French oak) so that I no longer need to force tank space. So now we’re a 100% native yeast winery.
DMcD: It may be fair to say that you’ve received more attention from natural wine aficionados for “L’Enfant Terrible” than for the rest of your wines combined. First of all, tell us about “L’Enfant.” What first inspired you to produce it? Does the attention it gets frustrate you at all?
MDashe: One of the nice things about being around for a while is that you can make a wine for yourself—to make a wine that you think would be a great wine to drink—and not worry that it will drag down the winery because it might not sell. We know that people out there trust us to make wines that are interesting, and our customers are willing to try new things from us because they have faith in our winemaking abilities.
L’Enfant Terrible came out of our desire to make a wine that was like the wines we love from Europe, that are complex, soft, balanced, lovely, wonderful wines to go with food. Anne and I love higher acid, lower alcohol wines from Europe and wanted to see if we could make something that was more like a wine from Morgon or Fleurie. We were encouraged by friends like Mark Ellenbogen, the wine director of The Slanted Door (in San Francisco). Mark had mostly European wines on his list, because he felt that the cuisine didn’t go well with a lot of Californian wines. He called me out of the blue and asked if I thought I could find an organic Zinfandel vineyard that could make (for lack of a better term) a “more European-style” wine like those I knew he liked. I had just the previous day been visiting high up in the hills of Mendocino County, where I get my organic Riesling, and had seen a very unusual Zin vineyard. I tasted the grapes and they had great flavor (and very little color!) and had thought it would make an unusual wine. After getting the call from Mark, it seemed to all come together. I called the grower on the spot and told him I’d buy the entire lot of Zinfandel. After making it, I thought, “Oh God, what have I done?” It was so opposite of a typical Californian wine that I thought it would be a very difficult wine to understand for most people. To be fair, Anne from the start thought that L’Enfant Terrible was a great wine, and would get a following.
We were shocked at how quickly people seemed to find out about the wine on the Internet. There was a serious amount of interest in the wine, before I had even released it, simply by my showing it to a few journalists and wine lovers in New York and California. A few select people who had a lot of credibility in the wine blogging universe wrote about it—and the wine just took off. We aren’t frustrated at all about the attention given to the wine—it highlights how we make all of our wines.
DMcD: You’re currently purchasing most if not all of your fruit, correct? Do you have plans or ambitions to get into the farming end of the winegrowing cycle at any point in the future?
MDashe: We purchase all of our fruit, and have great relationships with our growers. We work with them in their growing practices. I don’t have any plans to get into the grape growing business unless we purchase, one day, a Loire vineyard. That would interest us—but it’s a bit of a pipedream. Otherwise, it’s just too expensive to consider a vineyard in the US.
DMcD: Where do farming practices fit into the decision making process when you’re considering a relationship with a grower? Do you specifically seek out organic or biodynamic growers?
MDashe: All of our growers are small, family growers. We actively look for certified organic and biodynamic farms—that’s how we found the vineyards for L’Enfant Terrible and the Riesling. We’ve recently located a few biodynamic vineyards and are making wine from them. Most of our other vineyards are sustainably farmed and we are encouraging our growers to seek organic certification if they’re using organic practices. We’ve found that some of our growers who are essentially farming organically do not want to go through the process to get certified, either because they don’t want to go through a long process, or because they feel it ties their hands too much.
DMcD: There’s only one white wine in your current production portfolio. Why Riesling? (Not that I’m complaining.)
MDashe: We looked for years for white varietals that have enough acidity to satisfy us and finally after quite a while we found this Riesling vineyard in the mountains of Mendocino. California has so many hot regions—we hadn’t found many white vineyards that were cool enough for us. We like to have a good acid balance to make white wine. We’re trying to find some colder region grapes, but we may have to go out of state to get them.
DMcD: We’ve talked about yeast, so I’m sure you’ve already anticipated a question about the other big bugaboo – sulfur. What are your thoughts about sulfur (in its various forms) and what approach do you take with it at Dashe?
MDashe: We have quite low sulfur levels in all of our wines—in the bottle we often have almost no detectable sulfur. We add some sulfur at the crusher, so that non-Saccharomyces yeasts and bacteria can’t start fermenting strongly before the correct yeasts take hold. During fermentation, virtually all of the sulfur is used up. We then add either none or extremely low levels during aging. We certainly use less SO2 than the vast majority of winemakers, in the US or anywhere else, for that matter.
DMcD: As long as we’re there…. What about acid adjustment, dealcoholization, enzymes and all the other various and sundry adjuncts and engineering techniques commonplace in contemporary winemaking? Are they all crutches? Or do you find any of them useful or necessary to your winemaking regime?
MDashe: Again, we don’t use most techniques to change or modify wines—we don’t use enzymes or other chemical agents, and we virtually never have added acid. I can taste added acid in wines, and I dislike the flavor intensely. We stick to our natural winemaking techniques, but it’s silly to allow a wine to go bad in the name of natural winemaking. Taking a vow to never use technology is like taking a vow to never use medicine. I take Advil when I have a headache, and I take the steps I need to in the few times that I have a problematic wine. But we never use technology to enhance a wine, or to make a wine taste identical to a previous vintage, or to concentrate a wine to make it more likely to get a high score. That’s just not our style.
DMcD: If there’s a victim that’s taken more than its share of abuse in the current backlash regarding overblown wines, it would seem to be oak – particularly small and/or new barrels. Your thoughts? What guides your decisions in choosing appropriate vessels for fermentation and aging?
MDashe: As I’ve gotten older and become a more experienced winemaker, I’ve found myself using less and less oak, and getting almost completely away from new oak. It doesn’t go with our style of winemaking.
I’m very sensitive to oak. For the past two years I haven’t bought any new oak at all, because I just don’t like the flavor of new oak in our wines. I buy one- or two-year old oak barrels from good white wine producers, so that I can have oak aging, without the overwhelming flavors of new oak. Also, I’m a huge proponent now of larger oak cooperage, so that I can age wine and get complex flavors without any overt oak flavors. I now have three 900 gallon foudres and am planning on buying at least one every year for the next few years, so that I can greatly increase the effect of these large oak barrels on the wines. Not only does it decrease the oak flavors, but it also seems to increase the exposure of the wine to yeast (almost like lees stirring) so that we get more complex flavors and softer wines. The L’Enfant Terrible and most of my wines now never see new oak.
DMcD: Do you feel that your wines tend to be overlooked by the mainstream wine press? If so, why?
MDashe: Yep. I think that it’s natural for wine judges—including journalists—to become attracted to big, ripe wines when tasting many wines in a row. More subtle, balanced wines—which include Dashe Cellars wines—can get overwhelmed by big wines in large judgings. That being said, we still have gotten many, many positive reviews. In fact, most reviews have been positive. We are very pleased that some of the journalists that we respect the most—Eric Asimov of the New York Times is one that comes to mind—have been very complimentary about the wines. We decided a long time ago that we wouldn’t chase scores—it wasn’t our style of wine that would garner 98 point scores from mainstream wine magazines. It’s not a condemnation; it’s just a fact. So we just concentrated on our style, which we felt was creating complex, balanced, interesting wines. And we feel that our customer base has quietly grown.
DMcD: What lies ahead for Dashe Cellars? Any plans to expand or venture into new territories?
MDashe: We’re comfortable with our size. In the biggest years, we’re about 10,000 cases, which is more than large enough for us. If we were to grow bigger, we’d have to hire more people and spend our time managing instead of winemaking. Our size is perfect to be able to taste and blend all of the wines and make a living at winemaking.
We are expanding our lineup slightly to include some new varietals such as Grenache, Petite Sirah, and Mourvedre. We want to do more wines in the same vein as L’Enfant Terrible, since we feel we really struck a nerve with people who are willing to drink wines that are out of the mainstream. Journalists have asked me if I think that it’s an extremely small group of people who are willing to consider a wine like L’Enfant Terrible. I think it’s really a movement of people away from the huge, black, inky wines that have made the big scores in the mainstream press. As American tastes become more sophisticated, and they taste more and more wine with food, we feel they’ll want more balanced wines and will be able to differentiate complexity from intensity.
DMcD: I understand you’re in France at the moment. Pure pleasure, or will you be doing wine research while you’re there? Any regions or producers you’re particularly interested in visiting?
MDashe: We love being in France—Anne’s family lives in Brittany on the south coast, and we visit here every year. My kids (we have 9- and 10-year old girls) speak French and we want them to experience some country life in France during the summers.
We try to visit at least one wine region every year, although we end up in the Loire Valley (because we love it) and in Bordeaux (because we have friends that live there) more often than not. We’ve become friends with some great winemakers by meeting them through Joe and Denise Dressner (importers whose portfolio of wines we really respect), and try to visit the wineries, taste wines, and talk about winemaking.
DMcD: More importantly (grin), will you get to see any of the Tour de France while you’re there?
MDashe: Been watching it as much as possible. A number of years ago, it came through Anne’s town, and we waited hours to watch the few seconds of the racers zipping by. Very exciting.
* * *
Michael and I had both hoped to do a little follow-up after this first round of questions but he was in France after all, and vacation was calling. He and Anne were headed off to the Loire, where they planned to visit François Pinon and Huet in Vouvray; François Chidaine in Montlouis; Catherine and Pierre Breton in Chinon and Bourgueil; Nicolas Joly and Domaine du Closel in Savennières; and Marc Olivier in the Pays Nantais. Now that’s my kind of trip.
I look forward to talking more with Michael in the near future. Until then, feel free to hit the comments with any follow-up or new questions you may have for Michael (and/or Anne) and I’ll do my best to have them answered here… or perhaps included in a second interview installment.
While answering Cory’s call for contributions to 31 Days of Natural Wine was easy, coming up with what to write about took a little more work. Rather than dipping into the archives or revisiting a long familiar producer, I decided to push my own envelope a bit, to write about something at least a little outside of my Eurocentric norm, something where I could learn a little too. And then it came to me. I’d had a nice chat with Michael Dashe of Dashe Cellars at a Michael Skurnik portfolio tasting earlier this year. Mike’s wines had left me with a very favorable impression, an impression that’s been supported by subsequent experiences with several of his wines at the dinner table. So a few emails and phone calls later, the following interview was born.
DMcD: To get us started, would you tell us a little about yourself and about Dashe Cellars?
MDashe: Dashe Cellars is a husband and wife (and a French-American) winemaking team—we were married and started the winery in the same year, 1996. Our idea was to make balanced, complex wines from distinctive vineyards, using as natural as possible winemaking techniques. We’ve grown into a 9000 case winery located in an urban setting, in Oakland.
Together, Anne and I have quite a bit of winemaking experience. I worked for over eight years as assistant winemaker at Ridge Vineyards, and worked short stints at Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, Cloudy Bay, Far Niente, Schramsberg, and Roudin-Smith wineries. Anne is a University of Bordeaux-trained winemaker who worked at Château La Dominique, Chappellet Winery, and Remy-Martin in Napa (Carneros Alambic).
DMcD: Given the scope of Cory’s “31 Days” project, what’s your take on “naturalness” in the context of wine?
MDashe: We’ve always been believers in non-intrusive winemaking—we make wine without getting in the way of the purity of the flavors, and we have since we started the winery 13 years ago. I use native yeasts to conduct fermentations, use low levels of SO2, don’t mask flavors with new oak, and don’t manipulate wine unduly. I’m against “industrial” winemaking techniques with which the goal is to make consistent wines at the cost of individuality and complexity.
That said, we’re not dogmatic about natural winemaking. I’ve tasted many, many wonderful natural wines, but I’ve also tasted natural wines that taste like a poorly run experiment. We feel the goal should be to make the most authentic wine possible by selecting great vineyard sites and not getting in the way of the flavors, but also to make well-made wines.
DMcD: Though I know you produce Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache, Riesling, etc… I tend to think of Dashe Cellars as specializing in Zinfandel. Why Zin? Or am I wrong to think that?
MDashe: We do specialize in Zinfandel. When I was working at Ridge Vineyards I met some great growers of Zinfandel, most of who were working with old-vine fruit. Some of our vineyards are 80+ years old—it’s really a privilege to work with fruit like that. I’ve always felt that Zinfandel can make incredible wines when grown correctly and not harvested too ripe. I’m on a personal quest to make Zinfandel-based wines that can stand on the world stage as great wines that have wonderful personality and can age well. Call me crazy, but it can be done.
DMcD: How did the time you spent at Ridge influence your decision to go it on your own, and how, if at all, does it continue to guide your winemaking decisions?
MDashe: I owe a tremendous debt to Ridge Vineyards and Paul Draper for exposing me to a wide variety of fruit sources and to traditions of natural winemaking. I think Paul is an innately soulful winemaker, who completely respects his vineyards and is one of the great proponents of natural winemaking in the US. After 8 ½ years working at Ridge, I wanted to go out on my own – mostly because I didn’t want to be the oldest assistant winemaker in California. Paul Draper was extremely supportive of my creating my own winery. And yes, I use many techniques I used at Ridge for my own winemaking style—things like using native yeast, submerged-cap fermentations, techniques to limit tannin extraction from seeds, etc.
DMcD: You’re in the distinct minority in California in choosing to ferment all of your wines (if I’m not mistaken) on their native/ambient yeasts. What inspired that decision? Do you ever use cultured yeasts? If so, why?
MDashe: I do use native yeast fermentations, almost exclusively. At Ridge Vineyards almost everything is fermented on native yeast, and I felt the results were dramatically positive. I started Dashe Cellars using native yeast fermentations. There have been times in the past when all the grapes were coming into the winery at once, due to vintage conditions, and if I absolutely had to have tanks available I would inoculate with yeast so that fermentation would finish and I’d have a tank available. That never happens now, because we have more fermentation space. We’ve purchased enough tanks (and I’m using these wonderful 900-gallon foudres made from French oak) so that I no longer need to force tank space. So now we’re a 100% native yeast winery.
DMcD: It may be fair to say that you’ve received more attention from natural wine aficionados for “L’Enfant Terrible” than for the rest of your wines combined. First of all, tell us about “L’Enfant.” What first inspired you to produce it? Does the attention it gets frustrate you at all?
MDashe: One of the nice things about being around for a while is that you can make a wine for yourself—to make a wine that you think would be a great wine to drink—and not worry that it will drag down the winery because it might not sell. We know that people out there trust us to make wines that are interesting, and our customers are willing to try new things from us because they have faith in our winemaking abilities.
L’Enfant Terrible came out of our desire to make a wine that was like the wines we love from Europe, that are complex, soft, balanced, lovely, wonderful wines to go with food. Anne and I love higher acid, lower alcohol wines from Europe and wanted to see if we could make something that was more like a wine from Morgon or Fleurie. We were encouraged by friends like Mark Ellenbogen, the wine director of The Slanted Door (in San Francisco). Mark had mostly European wines on his list, because he felt that the cuisine didn’t go well with a lot of Californian wines. He called me out of the blue and asked if I thought I could find an organic Zinfandel vineyard that could make (for lack of a better term) a “more European-style” wine like those I knew he liked. I had just the previous day been visiting high up in the hills of Mendocino County, where I get my organic Riesling, and had seen a very unusual Zin vineyard. I tasted the grapes and they had great flavor (and very little color!) and had thought it would make an unusual wine. After getting the call from Mark, it seemed to all come together. I called the grower on the spot and told him I’d buy the entire lot of Zinfandel. After making it, I thought, “Oh God, what have I done?” It was so opposite of a typical Californian wine that I thought it would be a very difficult wine to understand for most people. To be fair, Anne from the start thought that L’Enfant Terrible was a great wine, and would get a following.
We were shocked at how quickly people seemed to find out about the wine on the Internet. There was a serious amount of interest in the wine, before I had even released it, simply by my showing it to a few journalists and wine lovers in New York and California. A few select people who had a lot of credibility in the wine blogging universe wrote about it—and the wine just took off. We aren’t frustrated at all about the attention given to the wine—it highlights how we make all of our wines.
DMcD: You’re currently purchasing most if not all of your fruit, correct? Do you have plans or ambitions to get into the farming end of the winegrowing cycle at any point in the future?
MDashe: We purchase all of our fruit, and have great relationships with our growers. We work with them in their growing practices. I don’t have any plans to get into the grape growing business unless we purchase, one day, a Loire vineyard. That would interest us—but it’s a bit of a pipedream. Otherwise, it’s just too expensive to consider a vineyard in the US.
DMcD: Where do farming practices fit into the decision making process when you’re considering a relationship with a grower? Do you specifically seek out organic or biodynamic growers?
MDashe: All of our growers are small, family growers. We actively look for certified organic and biodynamic farms—that’s how we found the vineyards for L’Enfant Terrible and the Riesling. We’ve recently located a few biodynamic vineyards and are making wine from them. Most of our other vineyards are sustainably farmed and we are encouraging our growers to seek organic certification if they’re using organic practices. We’ve found that some of our growers who are essentially farming organically do not want to go through the process to get certified, either because they don’t want to go through a long process, or because they feel it ties their hands too much.
DMcD: There’s only one white wine in your current production portfolio. Why Riesling? (Not that I’m complaining.)
MDashe: We looked for years for white varietals that have enough acidity to satisfy us and finally after quite a while we found this Riesling vineyard in the mountains of Mendocino. California has so many hot regions—we hadn’t found many white vineyards that were cool enough for us. We like to have a good acid balance to make white wine. We’re trying to find some colder region grapes, but we may have to go out of state to get them.
DMcD: We’ve talked about yeast, so I’m sure you’ve already anticipated a question about the other big bugaboo – sulfur. What are your thoughts about sulfur (in its various forms) and what approach do you take with it at Dashe?
MDashe: We have quite low sulfur levels in all of our wines—in the bottle we often have almost no detectable sulfur. We add some sulfur at the crusher, so that non-Saccharomyces yeasts and bacteria can’t start fermenting strongly before the correct yeasts take hold. During fermentation, virtually all of the sulfur is used up. We then add either none or extremely low levels during aging. We certainly use less SO2 than the vast majority of winemakers, in the US or anywhere else, for that matter.
DMcD: As long as we’re there…. What about acid adjustment, dealcoholization, enzymes and all the other various and sundry adjuncts and engineering techniques commonplace in contemporary winemaking? Are they all crutches? Or do you find any of them useful or necessary to your winemaking regime?
MDashe: Again, we don’t use most techniques to change or modify wines—we don’t use enzymes or other chemical agents, and we virtually never have added acid. I can taste added acid in wines, and I dislike the flavor intensely. We stick to our natural winemaking techniques, but it’s silly to allow a wine to go bad in the name of natural winemaking. Taking a vow to never use technology is like taking a vow to never use medicine. I take Advil when I have a headache, and I take the steps I need to in the few times that I have a problematic wine. But we never use technology to enhance a wine, or to make a wine taste identical to a previous vintage, or to concentrate a wine to make it more likely to get a high score. That’s just not our style.
DMcD: If there’s a victim that’s taken more than its share of abuse in the current backlash regarding overblown wines, it would seem to be oak – particularly small and/or new barrels. Your thoughts? What guides your decisions in choosing appropriate vessels for fermentation and aging?
MDashe: As I’ve gotten older and become a more experienced winemaker, I’ve found myself using less and less oak, and getting almost completely away from new oak. It doesn’t go with our style of winemaking.
I’m very sensitive to oak. For the past two years I haven’t bought any new oak at all, because I just don’t like the flavor of new oak in our wines. I buy one- or two-year old oak barrels from good white wine producers, so that I can have oak aging, without the overwhelming flavors of new oak. Also, I’m a huge proponent now of larger oak cooperage, so that I can age wine and get complex flavors without any overt oak flavors. I now have three 900 gallon foudres and am planning on buying at least one every year for the next few years, so that I can greatly increase the effect of these large oak barrels on the wines. Not only does it decrease the oak flavors, but it also seems to increase the exposure of the wine to yeast (almost like lees stirring) so that we get more complex flavors and softer wines. The L’Enfant Terrible and most of my wines now never see new oak.
DMcD: Do you feel that your wines tend to be overlooked by the mainstream wine press? If so, why?
MDashe: Yep. I think that it’s natural for wine judges—including journalists—to become attracted to big, ripe wines when tasting many wines in a row. More subtle, balanced wines—which include Dashe Cellars wines—can get overwhelmed by big wines in large judgings. That being said, we still have gotten many, many positive reviews. In fact, most reviews have been positive. We are very pleased that some of the journalists that we respect the most—Eric Asimov of the New York Times is one that comes to mind—have been very complimentary about the wines. We decided a long time ago that we wouldn’t chase scores—it wasn’t our style of wine that would garner 98 point scores from mainstream wine magazines. It’s not a condemnation; it’s just a fact. So we just concentrated on our style, which we felt was creating complex, balanced, interesting wines. And we feel that our customer base has quietly grown.
DMcD: What lies ahead for Dashe Cellars? Any plans to expand or venture into new territories?
MDashe: We’re comfortable with our size. In the biggest years, we’re about 10,000 cases, which is more than large enough for us. If we were to grow bigger, we’d have to hire more people and spend our time managing instead of winemaking. Our size is perfect to be able to taste and blend all of the wines and make a living at winemaking.
We are expanding our lineup slightly to include some new varietals such as Grenache, Petite Sirah, and Mourvedre. We want to do more wines in the same vein as L’Enfant Terrible, since we feel we really struck a nerve with people who are willing to drink wines that are out of the mainstream. Journalists have asked me if I think that it’s an extremely small group of people who are willing to consider a wine like L’Enfant Terrible. I think it’s really a movement of people away from the huge, black, inky wines that have made the big scores in the mainstream press. As American tastes become more sophisticated, and they taste more and more wine with food, we feel they’ll want more balanced wines and will be able to differentiate complexity from intensity.
DMcD: I understand you’re in France at the moment. Pure pleasure, or will you be doing wine research while you’re there? Any regions or producers you’re particularly interested in visiting?
MDashe: We love being in France—Anne’s family lives in Brittany on the south coast, and we visit here every year. My kids (we have 9- and 10-year old girls) speak French and we want them to experience some country life in France during the summers.
We try to visit at least one wine region every year, although we end up in the Loire Valley (because we love it) and in Bordeaux (because we have friends that live there) more often than not. We’ve become friends with some great winemakers by meeting them through Joe and Denise Dressner (importers whose portfolio of wines we really respect), and try to visit the wineries, taste wines, and talk about winemaking.
DMcD: More importantly (grin), will you get to see any of the Tour de France while you’re there?
MDashe: Been watching it as much as possible. A number of years ago, it came through Anne’s town, and we waited hours to watch the few seconds of the racers zipping by. Very exciting.
Michael and I had both hoped to do a little follow-up after this first round of questions but he was in France after all, and vacation was calling. He and Anne were headed off to the Loire, where they planned to visit François Pinon and Huet in Vouvray; François Chidaine in Montlouis; Catherine and Pierre Breton in Chinon and Bourgueil; Nicolas Joly and Domaine du Closel in Savennières; and Marc Olivier in the Pays Nantais. Now that’s my kind of trip.
I look forward to talking more with Michael in the near future. Until then, feel free to hit the comments with any follow-up or new questions you may have for Michael (and/or Anne) and I’ll do my best to have them answered here… or perhaps included in a second interview installment.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Buffalo Soldiers
Is there a more quintessential American food and wine pairing than buffalo and Zinfandel? Whatever your answer, it seemed like a good idea when this Memorial Day weekend presented the perfect opportunity for a long overdue get together with some good friends for a bit of cooking, eating and wine tasting. Besides, what better opportunity would come along to try out my grilling skills on the bison flank steak I’d scored at the inaugural day at the Oakmont Farmers Market? Or to open one of the bottles of Ridge Zin that has been collecting dust in my cellar for the last seven or eight years?
Rod Wieder of Backyard Bison has committed to setting up his trailer at the Oakmont market this season and I was eager to sample the fruit of his labors. Though a bit disappointed on first visit that nothing was available in a never-frozen state, I nonetheless eagerly selected a bison flank steak and a package of ground buffalo. After toying with several preparation options for the flank, including the marinade recipe provided by Rod and a recipe for stuffed bison in the D’Artagnan cookbook, I finally decided on the purist route – grilling with nothing other than salt, pepper and a modest rub of olive oil. The method: a hardwood charcoal fire, direct medium heat and all of about three minutes on each side. The results: perfectly medium-rare, an agreeable workout for the mandible and very flavorful. Bison is not at all gamey, the flavors being more like beef but a touch sweeter and a good deal less rich, probably due to its much lower fat content. All of this spelled good tidings for a well made wine match.
Every time I open the door to my cellar – which includes an entire row of bottles with short, silver capsules – I’m presented with a clear reminder that I cut my teeth on Ridge’s wines. Over the years, what once was unabashed fondness has morphed into more of a passing interest, as my tolerance has waned for high-alcohol, in-your-face wines. The upside of that evolution is that I now have a decent number of Ridge’s bottlings that are approaching or starting into their second decade. Just on the cusp was the bottle selected to accompany the bison: 1998 York Creek (Spring Mountain, Napa Valley) Zinfandel. Winemaker Paul Draper’s label notes suggest that the wine should have passed its prime if not headed downhill by now. My experience, however, has been that Ridge Zinfandels – aside from their simplest bottlings – possess a longevity that far surpasses the norm for a variety not overwhelmingly known for its age-worthiness. This bottle maintained that track record, still showing plenty of red cherry and spicy red berry fruit, softened yet untarnished by age and presenting a persistent backbone of dusty tannins. The 14.9% alcohol level hid well and the wine paired admirably with the lean, flavorful meat.
The concept of marrying things from a place can often work wonders in the wine world. Just think of Roquefort with the sweet whites of Southwest France, a raw bar assortment with a brisk, briny Muscadet, or – why not – buffalo steak with good Zinfandel. Sometimes, though, that practice can be taken too far. Case in point: the wines of Ridge Vineyards. I can’t help but think how much better this wine could have been if not for one major stylistic stroke. Ridge insists on pairing their quintessentially American wines with the use of American oak in the cellar. It’s a match that I feel works to the detriment of their wines, lending them an intense aroma of cedar and giving them edgy, green wood tannins. Even after ten years in bottle, when these tones have mellowed, they’re still unmistakable. I don’t think switching to French oak would render Ridge’s wines any less American; it could simply make them better. One can’t help but admire Paul Draper and the team at Ridge for sticking to their guns. That said, we should never be afraid to question dogma in whatever form it takes.
* * *
Relevant reading:
Rod Wieder of Backyard Bison has committed to setting up his trailer at the Oakmont market this season and I was eager to sample the fruit of his labors. Though a bit disappointed on first visit that nothing was available in a never-frozen state, I nonetheless eagerly selected a bison flank steak and a package of ground buffalo. After toying with several preparation options for the flank, including the marinade recipe provided by Rod and a recipe for stuffed bison in the D’Artagnan cookbook, I finally decided on the purist route – grilling with nothing other than salt, pepper and a modest rub of olive oil. The method: a hardwood charcoal fire, direct medium heat and all of about three minutes on each side. The results: perfectly medium-rare, an agreeable workout for the mandible and very flavorful. Bison is not at all gamey, the flavors being more like beef but a touch sweeter and a good deal less rich, probably due to its much lower fat content. All of this spelled good tidings for a well made wine match.Every time I open the door to my cellar – which includes an entire row of bottles with short, silver capsules – I’m presented with a clear reminder that I cut my teeth on Ridge’s wines. Over the years, what once was unabashed fondness has morphed into more of a passing interest, as my tolerance has waned for high-alcohol, in-your-face wines. The upside of that evolution is that I now have a decent number of Ridge’s bottlings that are approaching or starting into their second decade. Just on the cusp was the bottle selected to accompany the bison: 1998 York Creek (Spring Mountain, Napa Valley) Zinfandel. Winemaker Paul Draper’s label notes suggest that the wine should have passed its prime if not headed downhill by now. My experience, however, has been that Ridge Zinfandels – aside from their simplest bottlings – possess a longevity that far surpasses the norm for a variety not overwhelmingly known for its age-worthiness. This bottle maintained that track record, still showing plenty of red cherry and spicy red berry fruit, softened yet untarnished by age and presenting a persistent backbone of dusty tannins. The 14.9% alcohol level hid well and the wine paired admirably with the lean, flavorful meat.
The concept of marrying things from a place can often work wonders in the wine world. Just think of Roquefort with the sweet whites of Southwest France, a raw bar assortment with a brisk, briny Muscadet, or – why not – buffalo steak with good Zinfandel. Sometimes, though, that practice can be taken too far. Case in point: the wines of Ridge Vineyards. I can’t help but think how much better this wine could have been if not for one major stylistic stroke. Ridge insists on pairing their quintessentially American wines with the use of American oak in the cellar. It’s a match that I feel works to the detriment of their wines, lending them an intense aroma of cedar and giving them edgy, green wood tannins. Even after ten years in bottle, when these tones have mellowed, they’re still unmistakable. I don’t think switching to French oak would render Ridge’s wines any less American; it could simply make them better. One can’t help but admire Paul Draper and the team at Ridge for sticking to their guns. That said, we should never be afraid to question dogma in whatever form it takes.
Relevant reading:
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