Is the number of single vineyard Pinot Noirs being produced in Cali out of control?

I have been browsing the recently published Exploring The Best New Releases from Sonoma and Beyond article on Vinous by Antonio Galloni. I was amazed by how many wineries are cranking out a crazy number of different bottlings each vintage, many of them from single vineyards. I’m noticing this is far more prevalent in Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays than other varieties. While I understand that’s partially driven by the fact that Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are the most widely-grown varieties in and around Sonoma County. A few of these numbers are crazy, though! For example, it appears that Williams Selyem release twenty distinct Pinot Noirs in 2017. Twenty! Rivers-Marie has eight. Aubert looks like it’s releasing eight Chardonnays. Maritnelli has seven Pinots.

How many is too many? I’m admittedly a relative Burgundy novice, but I don’t believe most houses in Burgundy do that many different bottlings. What do you all think?

You bring up a point that I struggle with on a regular basis… there are so many single vineyards that its tough to collect and try them all. I need a larger wine allowance from the Mrs! :slight_smile:

Sonoma Co. is actually much more geologically and climatically complex than Burgundy, but I can relate to your concern. However, I’ll let the marketplace sort out the question!

8 different vineyards is a light tuesday for most burgundy producers.

Mosr Burgundy procucers make between six and twenty different wines from different vineyards…Many Burgundy holdings are a hectare or two. They have been purchased little by little over many years, one small parcel at a time. Here in California, the vineyards are much larger, but on very differnet kinds of soil or elevation, or climate locations… If we look at Kutch pinots the difference between the McDougal abd the Sonoma Coast wines is very different, I like both…A New York and a filet are both beef steaks but very different.

Slackers! [cheers.gif]

Adam Lee

Other Burgundy fans are more expert than I am, but several producers (mostly negociants) make dozens of single vineyard wines.

Yeah, it’s crazy. And I’m sure they’re not all “equally good”.

Well, Brandon…it make ultimate sense to me.
We’ve been told by the experts that PinotNoir reflects its terroir more than any other grape variety. The mantra from any & all winemakers is to reflect the origins of the grape. Why, for chrissakes, would you want to blend away all that terroir? So, of course, there’s a lot of single vnyd Pinots out there. If you can’t tell the difference in the terroir between KeeferRanch and Rochioli, the you should resign from WB’s!! [snort.gif]
Tom (TFIC)

I think that the observation “…it’s a lot like Burgundy” is probably about right, but some folks just like to segment their production into a bunch of distinct cuvees.

JP Ganevat, in the Jura, has about 35 acres of vineyards, and regularly produces 40 or so cuvees in a given vintage, although admittedly Jura handles 5 distinct grape varieties and approves white/red/rose/sparkling/vin de paille/macvin/vin jaune, and since JP isn’t busy enough he sometimes brings in Cru Beaujolais grapes to blend into additional vins de France.

As Mike states, this is something the market can sort out. Brandon’s examples are producers with strong loyal customer bases who revere them for their range of quality SVDs. It’s hard to criticize success. There are a lot of people out there who are happy buying from one or a handful of producers. It’s a good business model that plays to that.

Another point - any quality winery producing a range of wines will have customers with different preferences. You can be a Pinot Noir specialist, or a range of types of wines. I know enough regular buyers of some of these PN specialists that different friends buy different selections from those producers. Burg geeks do that, too. You don’t need to go all-in.

This is what I do. The nice thing about living in Northern California is that I can actually visit and taste across the range of bottlings from my favorite producers. Over a few years I figure out my preferences. It’s a bit painful, sure, with a producer like Littorai that makes no bad wines, and definitely has a consistent style. But some vineyards I love, while other I merely like a lot :wink:. I can’t buy them all, but some are must buys. I wonder if I lived near Burgundy I would buy even more with the same process. A horrifying thought!

Lots of Burgundy producers make a large number of wines. Even smaller Bugundy producers often make 6 or 8 wines. If you don’t think the wines are distinctive enough then skip them. I know that for certain producers there are specific vineyards that I never buy, as I have discovered that I do not care for those wines. I apply the same logic in Burgundy.

That is because FanFan is simply having fun, not to slap a vineyard label on a product. If you’ve tried these different wines you realize they are really quite distinct from each other.

You are correct, and it is too much of good thing. It is funny how often the top scoring wine is also the highest priced wine.

You are correct and it’s because it’s . . . it’s. . . Pinot Noir! And you’re supposed to think that’s the greatest of all grapes.

They should bottle it by vine.

Sarcasm aside, there are many grapes that would be expressive of the vineyard or vineyard blocks. But nobody cares.

Still, if you were to sell Zinfandel or Syrah like that, you’d at least have some variety. But they didn’t plant Zin in France in the 1600s.

I think it has gone too far, but hopefully time and the consumer will have a net postive influence. Burgundy has had centuries for those vineyards to develop a track record/reputation/history. California’s situation is single-vineyard=more $$$, so just invent vineyards and block names as you go along to charge more, which leads to a lot of middling wine.

As much as I like some of them, others seem like a waste of time and glass.

You are I am sure correct, I did not mean to leave the impression that I think Ganevat has no basis for this segmentation; of the 40+ bottles of his wine I have enjoyed, they span (according to CT) 18 different cuvees, so I am apparently all on board, just in awe of his ambition. FWIW, I think the whites are not only the most accomplished but also the most distinct between bottlings, and all my bottles have been pristine, they are amongst my favorite wines overall. His reds, although I enjoy them (minus the odd spritzy/funky bottle), I find less compelling, certainly worth the drink but not necessarily the price.

The first single vineyard California Pinot Noirs I can recall are the Calera’s from 1978 and the Acacia’s beginning in 1979, and I’m sure there are earlier examples. While not the centuries of history that Burgundy has, that 40 years is several generations in CA wine time. This is not a new phenomenon and there doesn’t seem to be any drop off in the ever increasing number of single vineyard offerings. Given this trend, I don’t know why today would be considered more “out of control” or “gone too far” than when we had this same discussion 5 or 10 years ago, or when we’ll have it 5 or 10 years from now.