Cutting Pinot with Syrah in CA: Does it happen?

[Joe_Czerwinski]

Evan,

Thanks for the note on its origins in the FL. I’ve had the MacGregor wine before, but I had no idea that recent vintages were so expensive.

[Jim_Karegeannes]

@Adam Lee

When people complain about how hard all of this is you should point to Ridge, and to the 08 Geyserville picture – and mention that the label shows and say 6% Petite Sirah, but the wine note (contained here: http://www.ridgewine.com/acrobat/08ZGYbg.pdf) shows 18% Petite Sirah, making 112% of a wine.

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines

Great point - the label implies accuracy, but what goes on the label could be arbitrary. There is no test that can give a precise breakdown of what varieties are in a wine (correct me if I’m wrong). You have to trust the person who put the numbers on the label. Production records might give a rough estimate of what the winery used, but requiring precise measures of the final blend would be almost impossible to police and enforce. The best you could hope for are estimates in a range which is what the current laws seem to address.

To keep beating this: For precision with field blends you would have to have a certified census of the varieties in the particular vineyard at the time it was harvested. Who does that? Who pays them? Can they tell Cab franc from Cab sauvignon? What if they don’t recognize a vine…“just put down Zinfandel.”

[Adam_Lee]

@Jim Karegeannes

@Adam Lee

When people complain about how hard all of this is you should point to Ridge, and to the 08 Geyserville picture – and mention that the label shows and say 6% Petite Sirah, but the wine note (contained here: http://www.ridgewine.com/acrobat/08ZGYbg.pdf) shows 18% Petite Sirah, making 112% of a wine.

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines

Great point - the label implies accuracy, but what goes on the label could be arbitrary. There is no test that can give a precise breakdown of what varieties are in a wine (correct me if I’m wrong). You have to trust the person who put the numbers on the label. Production records might give a rough estimate of what the winery used, but requiring precise measures of the final blend would be almost impossible to police and enforce. The best you could hope for are estimates in a range which is what the current laws seem to address.

To keep beating this: For precision with field blends you would have to have a certified census of the varieties in the particular vineyard at the time it was harvested. Who does that? Who pays them? Can they tell Cab franc from Cab sauvignon? What if they don’t recognize a vine…“just put down Zinfandel.”

Jim,

FWIW, I know that Mike Officer has spent more money on vine identification in old vine vineyards than anyone I know — and there are a number of vines, a decent number, in the Carlisle Vineyard that have not been identifiable. I get some of those vines, so that would be a problem for me to come up with an exact percentage.

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines and Novy Family Winery

[David_Bu3ker]

@Adam Lee

@Jim Karegeannes

@Adam Lee

When people complain about how hard all of this is you should point to Ridge, and to the 08 Geyserville picture – and mention that the label shows and say 6% Petite Sirah, but the wine note (contained here: http://www.ridgewine.com/acrobat/08ZGYbg.pdf) shows 18% Petite Sirah, making 112% of a wine.

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines

Great point - the label implies accuracy, but what goes on the label could be arbitrary. There is no test that can give a precise breakdown of what varieties are in a wine (correct me if I’m wrong). You have to trust the person who put the numbers on the label. Production records might give a rough estimate of what the winery used, but requiring precise measures of the final blend would be almost impossible to police and enforce. The best you could hope for are estimates in a range which is what the current laws seem to address.

To keep beating this: For precision with field blends you would have to have a certified census of the varieties in the particular vineyard at the time it was harvested. Who does that? Who pays them? Can they tell Cab franc from Cab sauvignon? What if they don’t recognize a vine…“just put down Zinfandel.”

Jim,

FWIW, I know that Mike Officer has spent more money on vine identification in old vine vineyards than anyone I know — and there are a number of vines, a decent number, in the Carlisle Vineyard that have not been identifiable. I get some of those vines, so that would be a problem for me to come up with an exact percentage.

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines and Novy Family Winery

Not to mention that different varieties presumably give different yields even under the same vintage conditions, so the percentages based on vines (versus grape weight) are automatically going to be wrong.

[M_Dildine]

@Jim Karegeannes

To keep beating this: For precision with field blends you would have to have a certified census of the varieties in the particular vineyard at the time it was harvested. Who does that? Who pays them? Can they tell Cab franc from Cab sauvignon? What if they don’t recognize a vine…“just put down Zinfandel.”

Even the growers admit the imprecision. But as Adam mentioned, the growers (Mike Officer, Morgan Twain-Peterson is another) continue to make progress in this area.

This map of Old Hill Ranch (14 acres, 26 varieties, planted in the 1880s) shows the complexity of some of these historic vineyards and also the work that has gone into understanding them.

http://www.buckzin.com/sonoma-vineyard.html

[Adam_Lee]

Hope it is okay to link this, but I was asked to write a little something about this topic, which is now published here:

http://palatepress.com/2011/02/wine/syrah-in-my-pinot-a-winemaker-responds/

Thanks,

Adam Lee
Siduri and Novy

[Ken_Zinns]

@Adam Lee

Hope it is okay to link this, but I was asked to write a little something about this topic, which is now published here:

http://palatepress.com/2011/02/wine/syrah-in-my-pinot-a-winemaker-responds/

Thanks,

Adam Lee
Siduri and Novy

Very nice article, Adam - thanks for posting the link.

[TomHill]

@Jim Karegeannes

Great point - the label implies accuracy, but what goes on the label could be arbitrary. There is no test that can give a precise breakdown of what varieties are in a wine (correct me if I’m wrong). You have to trust the person who put the numbers on the label. Production records might give a rough estimate of what the winery used, but requiring precise measures of the final blend would be almost impossible to police and enforce. The best you could hope for are estimates in a range which is what the current laws seem to address.

To keep beating this: For precision with field blends you would have to have a certified census of the varieties in the particular vineyard at the time it was harvested. Who does that? Who pays them? Can they tell Cab franc from Cab sauvignon? What if they don’t recognize a vine…“just put down Zinfandel.”

Well, Jim…there’s obviously a bit of slop in those Ridge percentages. Ridge has carefully gone thru all there old vnyds (LyttonEast, Geyserville, Mazzoni, Pagani)
and done a careful vine-by-vine identification, so they know the vine-count %'s pretty good. But just because you have 17% Carignane in the vnyd, that doesn’t
mean there’s 17% Carignane in the wine from that block. The yields from vine-to-vine vary considerably from yr to yr. If you’re doing a field-blend.
If the vines are planted in blocks, and you ferment each block separately, then those varietal %'s in the wine are much more accurate.
DaveGates has never related to me any vines they can’t identify, so I doubt they’re going to dismiss a GrandNoir vine as Zinfandel.
Tom