Cameron Clos Electrique Blanc
I have not written for this site before now but I certainly hear it referenced from time to time. And one thing that some participants seem to believe is that this wine suffers from “premox”. I have never experienced such a bottle from Clos Blanc though I have certainly experienced it plenty in White Burgundies especially from the early 2000s. I also last year put on an 18 year vertical of this wine going back to 2004, so 21 years. The participants in that tasting included most of the somms from the Portland area as well as some well-known wine writers and a couple of people in the trade from New York. No one mentioned anything about oxidation and, in fact, the consensus was that several of the oldest wines were among the best. So let me explain what goes into the making of this wine.
First it is necessary to understand that the vineyard itself is the culmination of a huge amount of research into the clones of Chardonnay. Over several years in 1984-1986, in consultation with Mary Edwards (who was at Matanzas Creek at the time) I was able to obtain some of the most significant old White Burgundy clones around the state of California including selections from Rued, Spring Mountain, Robert Young, Joe Swan, Larry Hyde and perhaps most notably the massale of Chardonnay from Mt. Eden, generously given to me by Jeffrey & Ellie Patterson. The latter selection was originally brought to the United States in the late 1890s by Paul Masson who was friends with Louis Jadot (who owned a portion of Corton Charlemagne). The other California cultivars were likely offshoots of the original Karl Wente collection from the early 1900s. Also added to the vineyard was the Draper clone, originally brought to Oregon by David Lett. So in summary, the entire vineyard is comprised of old White Burgundy clones. At one point I also planted some of the Dijon Chardonnay clones but the early results were so inferior to the clones already in my possession that I soon grafted them over to my Burgundy clones. One of the hallmarks of these clones is their typical searing acidity which allows me to treat them in the manner of François Jobard (Meursault). From visits to his cave I learned that a very cold cellar (in his case 54F vs mine at 57F) allows one to age the ferments of these marvelous clones in neutral barrels for 2 years.
At harvest I determine the day to pick based on actual physiological ripeness as opposed to Brix or acidity. I can do this because 2 of the clones are “musque” clones which at ripeness have a distinct flavor of muscat. When this happy event occurs I pick the entire vineyard. Interestingly ripeness in White Burgundy clones of Chardonnay occurs at 105-108 days following full bloom in the vineyard, therefore after we pick the Pinot noir. At that point we sort the whole cluster into the membrane press and run it on a “champagne cycle” which means multiple low pressure settings. This obviously gives relatively low yields but the quality of the juice is fabulous. We do not add any sulfur dioxide at this point, instead preferring to allow the juice to oxidize (thereby dropping out the catechins which are antioxidants that brown and fall out of the juice during fermentation). The ferment is powered by the natural yeasts that live on the skins of the berries and, though it often takes a bit of time to commence, proceeds in a mellow manner that often does not completely finish until springtime. Sulfur dioxide is added at the finish of malo-lactic fermentation to stop the lactic acid bacteria since it will generally not inhibit the yeasts significantly (eucryotes vs procaryotes…look it up!).
After the bulk of the fermentation, the barrels are topped up and in our cool moist cellar are only retopped every 5-6 months. At 14-15 months on the lies we do the only batonage necessary throughout the process which prevents the lies (and wine) from going sideways or reduced. At the end of the 2 years (23 months), the wine is carefully racked without filtration, brought to 30ppm free SO2 and bottled. With their hefty acidity these wines age incredibly well. The current soon to be released 2024 Clos Blanc has a finished pH of 3.18.
Welcome to the Berserker community John Paul, it’s great to see you here. Fascinating story about how you managed to find such a wide array of clonal material over 40 years ago! Thanks for sharing.
Welcome John Paul!!! Love your wines and have many in my collection. We met at your Estela dinner in NYC a couple years ago.
Would love your thoughts on premox in White Burgundy!
Thank you for posting!
So glad to see you here John Paul and greatly appreciate the perspective. Big fan of your entire lineup, including the Italian inspired bottlings.
While CE Blanc has been one of my favorite Chardonnays since I began drinking OR Chardonnay ~13 years ago - the 10, 11, and 12 Wadsworth being some of the best bottles of any OR Chardonnay I’ve ever had - I stopped buying with the 19 vintage as I had an unfortunate run across 8-10 bottles from (IIRC) 2014, 2017 and especially 2019 that were corked (it happens!) or tasted extremely advanced (honeyed, butterscotch, darker color - none of which I enjoy) despite being only a few years old when opened. I don’t know if that’s premox or something else, but those wines were a far cry from the many other previous CB bottles that had a lightning effect to them and did not motivate me to keep buying.
I still buy your Pinots, mostly from CE as that vineyard is magic, and the Italian bottlings and would love to try again with CE Blanc, but I need a better success ratio than I had over my last 8-10 bottles.
To be clear, I have had excellent aged AR and CE Chard - 8-12 years old that were nothing like the bottles I referenced above so I have no doubt the wines can age. Your Pinots can age gracefully for at least 15-25 years in my experience.
Thanks so much for posting here. Have been following your project for some time now. My wife and I love your wines. Cheers.
Seconding this.
Great to see you here JP.
Thanks for posting, John. I always love your wines. Chatting with you one time (either at Liner & Elsen or one of Bob’s parties?) I thought you had said there was some Pinot Blanc in the Close Electrique Blanc. Or was it another one of the wines (besides the Cameroni, of course)? If so, approximately how much?
Marshall,
Oh I love this group already…my kind of wine nerds! And you are totally correct. Traditional white burgundy tends to include a bit of Pinot blanc and/or Pinot gris (which I believe they call Pinot Berot but someone can correct me on that spelling, please!). So Bill Wayne discovered in his vineyard (Abbey Ridge) many years ago, a white mutant of Pinot gris which he started to propagate. At some point I moved some of it down to Clos Electrique (one short row) and I tend to put part of it in the blend and part into the Giuliano blend. Another small point that some of you will love: when I collected the massale of Pinot noir from the Joseph Swan Vineyard in Forestville many years ago (1984) I discovered that I had collected a bit of Chardonnay in the mix. When I inquired of them, they said that it was a tradition in old Burgundian vineyards (on the advice of André Tchelistcheff) to include a bit of Chardonnay to contribute acidity to the blend. There is not much out there but somehow it makes me happy to have included a bit of tradition to the Clos Rouge via the advice of a person such as Tschelistcheff!!).
John Paul