Adam,
Since you’re probably my most favorite Pinot producer (on the basis of all the Siduri btls around my house, at least) and since you range all
up&down the WestCoast to buy grapes, I’ve got a question for you:
Back in the early-'70’s to mid-'80’s, when folks started planting pretty heavily down in Carneros. the area, because of its cool climate, was touted as
Calif’s Burgundy. When a new Saintsbury or the new Acacia vnyd-designate Pinots were released, there would be a huge wave of excitement that would spread
all across wine boards on the Internet about these releases. People would be screaming for the latest TN’s on the wines. FrankMahoney was doing a lot of Pinot
clonal research w/ UC/Davis and when his first Estate Pinot ('76?) was released, everybody was sending out Tweets on the latest CarnerosCreek Pinot
sighting in their city. It was positively insane.
Now…you don’t hear a whole lot about Carneros Pinots. When the latest Acacia or Saintsbury Pinot release is announced, it hits the InterNet w/ a dull thud.
So…my question for you, Adam (or anybody else who may have an opinion…realizing, of course, opinions on WB are rather a rare commodity):
Whot happened between the mid-'70’s and now? Carneros Pinot seems to be a pretty passe subject. Did their promise of becoming Calif’s Burgundy never
materialize?? Any ideas why not?? Maybe they overpromised?? Or are my impressions way off-base??
You go pretty far afield to buy Pinot grapes. Yet you make no Carneros Pinots. Do you regard their Pinot grapes as not up to the standards of your other sources??
Why no interest in a Carneros Pinot??
Frank did a lot of trials in Pinot clones at CarnerosCreek in the early-mid '70’s. Was that effort ever invoked in later Calif Pinot plantings or pretty much discarded??
What Carneros Pinot producers do you think are making the best wines?? For me, it would be MahoneyEstate and KentRasmussen. They are my gold standard for Carneros.
Anyway…just sorta interested in your thoughts on the subject.
Great question! I have wondered this about Carneros myself. If there’s a less cool (and I’m not talking about climate) place to source pinot noir from, I’m not sure where it is. I’m looking forward to reading the responses.
Well, Matt…if by “cool” you mean as in “cool/hip”, rather than temperature-wise, I can think of a lot of “less cool” places than Carneros.
SierraFoothills, MendoCnty, HumboltCnty, SanBenitoCnty, MontereyCnty for a few.
I think part of the problem in the Carneros is the soils. It’s a fairly heavy clay soil and rather shallow. Not nearly as well-drained as other Calif soils.
To me, Carneros Pinots seldom have the bright/high-toned character you get from other Calif Pinot areas. They often seem to have a sort of clumsy/plodding/earthy
character that I don’t get elsewhere. But I could be totally wrong. Don’t know.
Tom
Yeah, I mean cool as in cool/hip. What I’m getting at, is that if Dirty and Rowdy did a Sierra Foothills or San Benito pinot noir I bet it would sell out in minutes, and it sounds like something that would actually happen, whereas I can’t imagine them or any other board favorite doing a Carneros pinot. Not sure that it has anything to do with the actual fruit, but more with image. With Carneros I picture wineries like Clos Pegase, Saintsbury, Acacia and it just doesn’t turn me on. I’ve had good Carneros wines (old Martin Ray pinots come to mind), but for whatever reason they just aren’t fashionable, at least to my perception (and maybe that does have something to do with some winemakers’ opinions of the climate/soil/clone selection or access to fruit etc., which I look forward to them weighing in on). I would love to see Adam make a Carneros pinot, perhaps he could make it hip again.
I fondly remember some of the Étude Pinots that Tony Soter made with Carneros fruit. It’s been many years since my last so no idea if they would hold up compared to some of my favorites of today.
Note to Self: Add San Benito Pinot Noir
Note to Customers: Good chance it will still taste like one of our Mourvèdre
We have kicked around some Carneros options (though not Pinot). What matters most to us is the site vs reputation or the region being fashionable. A Carneros wine in the next few vintages is not a stretch.
If Mr. Hill would fix his friggin’ problem with accepted punctuation and usage conventions and styles, perhaps I would join in the discussion. Only person I have on ignore, and for that reason. I can’t take it. It’s Adam Lee. Adam Lee.
Tom – I think you answered your own question. There are several formerly hugely respected California Pinot regions that have fallen or are falling out of favor because Pinot is moving to more extreme and more exciting places – mostly the Coastal Mountains. It’s nice (and not nice) to see the herds of North Coast winemakers descend on the Santa Cruz Mountains. I think the larger framework of the answer is climatically, Pinot can work across a lot of territory in coastal california, but terroir-wise it only excels in a few. As we get a bigger sample size, we’re figuring out more and more what those few are.
Tom and Hardy – there are a couple of pretty cool vineyards with Pinot on them in San Benito. They produce better fruit than you might buy for twice as much north of SF. And a handful in Monterey County as well. The San Benito Pinots are a touch on the warmer side (not compared to many parts of the Russian River) but there’s good rock back there. Some really nice rock around the coast as well. There’s a Pinot that we made for Kevin Olson that was just released that has a few local somms and chefs pretty excited. From a vineyard by the highway in Prunedale – super-hip for the lumbersexual crowd. Hardy knows I have a back pocket full of party when it comes to local vineyards, but y’all will have to wait. They get parceled out slowly. San Benito and Monterey have more secrets than most realize.
I’ve been meaning for years to post this same question. Is there any exciting Pinot at all from Carneros anymore? My sense is no. There are some that are tasty enough in a Big Flavor style like Patz & Hall Hyde Vyd, I suppose.
We actually made a Carneros Pinot Noir in 1996 (you followed us from the very start, figured you’d remember that). it wasn’t particularly good. That probably had more to do with the particularly site and our inexperience in dealing with a larger grower than the region as a whole. Since then, we haven’t gone back — nor have we spent a great deal of time looking there so I am not particularly qualified to answer your other questions. There have been a lot of areas in California that wouldn’t have been considered good for Pinot Noir that now are considered superb (there’s a section in Robert Benson’s seminal work on California Pinot Noir where the Santa Lucia Highlands are discussed as being too cold for Pinot). I’d guess that Carneros will rise again at some point in time.
One thing I do know is that I have always found the look of the soils, the increase in rock, etc. fascinating around Artesa Winery. It is a little dead-end road, and probably further inland and more blocked from the elements that many would look when considering weather, but there’s something about the soils on that road that look fascinating to me. So…who knows…
Yup, agree, Ian. By MontereyCnty, I was referring to areas other than SantaLuciaHighlands and Chalone. The SLH Pinots are as good as anything made in Calif.
And Chalone used to be (insert snarky icon here). A lot of the problems of the image people have w/ MontereyCnty (excluding SLH/Chalone) is a lot of the stuff
that comes out of SanBernarbeVnyd, I think. DougMeador, in his day, made some pretty good Pinots.
Tom
Thanks, Adam. Sorta what I wanted to know from you. Didn’t recall that you’d ever made a Carneros Pinot. You make so many friggin’ wines that how’s a guy w/ only 2 Kb of memory gonna remember??
Tom
I just think too much of Carneros is too warm for Pinot and in most places the soil is not very exciting. Also, until recently, I am not sure they were using the best rootstocks and clones there. With some replants, Pinots are improving. Etude makes really nice Pinots from there. Poe makes a pretty one. But I think the Pinot world has moved on to cooler areas like SCM and the deep-end of Anderson and The True.
It’s been a while since I had an SLH Pinot that moved the needle for me that wasn’t grown in the Pisoni or Soberanes vineyards, and those are definitely on the warmer side of the spectrum. SLH I’d tentatively put in the camp of areas that more forward thinking Pinot makers are moving on from. Not that there aren’t great wines to be made there, but in my experience they lack some of the verve found in the SCM or the coastal mountains of Sonoma. My opinion is that the focus on a) Pinot and b) the SLH has started to impede the progress of Monterey – I recognize what those growers and producers are doing or have done for the area, but it’s more of a recognition of how dynamic wine production is in California and how forward thinking a still emerging region has to be.
So a couple of notes: Check out a vineyard called Albatross Ridge. Still early in its development, but an interesting thread in the County. Holler at me and I’ll send you a couple of Kevin Olson’s Pinots. There’s a seam of limestone in the northern section of San Bernabe with some pinot on it that can be pretty good. The farming doesn’t match the potential yet, but Delicato has been placing some renewed focus on working with smaller, more quality focused growers from San Bernabe. You will soon be seeing a handful of Chenin Blancs (the emerging uber-hip variety) from there. It’s solid stuff. And you’re right that the northwestern and western sections of Arroyo Seco hold promise. There’s a little garage winery called Comanche Cellars (after his horse growing up) that produced a pinot from a vineyard called Chareva on the bench over Arroyo Seco. It’s a younger Dijon clone vineyard, but there are some surprising elements to that wine. As you get onto the southern end of the Salinas Range, turning the corner right where Soberanes and Paraiso are, the geology changes and the soils get a lot more interesting. The point is that there’s a lot to Monterey that hasn’t been planted or used to its highest potential.
A bit of a thread drift, but I think it coincides with Adam’s discussion of Carneros (where are the really special places) and the motion of California/California Pinot at large (continued evolution of what constitutes excellent vineyards/wines0.
