Santa Cruz Mountains winery visits – McHenry, Trout Gulch, Copious, Downhill, Byington, more

WINE TALK
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Stu - I remember that thread. Someone called me ‘historic and mediocre’ which I think points out that there’s a lot of uniformed and semi informed opinions about the region. That was retracted when it was pointed out I’d made less than 100 case of Pinot Noir over two vintages at the time, so I couldn’t really be historic and it was highly unlikely given the distribution that the poster had ever had one of my two Pinots.

I love the region, and agree with Ian the potential is amazing. I actually am in the minority, I think that Cab grown on the eastern side in the complex volcanic and fault driven soils has much higher potential than Pinot Noir in the mostly sandy soils on the western side. Both can be great though and what irks me most is that 50% making crappy wine that makes it hard on everyone in the region. Those 50% control the associations and events too and that doesn’t help matters.

22

Paul, I’ve heard big changes have occurred at SCMWA to the positive - that they have neutral people involved with the goal of boosting quality (rather than the old pushing of the plonk).

Ken, The House PN is excellent. Same winemaking as mount Eden, but distinctly different site. I agree with Silvertip. Woodside is always one of my faves. MJA, Villa del Monte and Regale are worth checking. And you know you are assigned to try Sante Archangeli.

People should check out Ken’s write up of our visit to Fogarty. Those '12 PNs we tried can stand up to the best in CA.

23

Sorry for being AWOL, but I was unable to post after this flurry of thoughtful responses.

I just deleted my own small exegesis on this topic, opting not to get into a hassle here. I support Ian’s and Paul’s candidly-offered views about the high percentage of wineries in the SCM that under-perform. This continues to be a national embarassment! [soap.gif]

Whatever the 50th percentile winery of the SCM happens to be, to me it is way below its counterparts in the other important PN-oriented appellations.

24

I noticed you didn’t bother to list examples of producers that other thread.

Anyway, I guess I feel the opposite. To me, most of the lauded Pinots from elsewhere in the state are generic over-ripe over-oaked embarrassments. I don’t get much in the way of exciting site expression from very many other CA Pinots.

Who cares if there are some 200 case back yard producers who aren’t world class there? There are also some excellent ones, and many more striving to be. And careful what you are comparing. Pinot Paradise has the crappy and middling producers, but only a few of the best ones. Probably what you taste from elsewhere are the best ones. Where’s the Rhys, Varner, Ghostwriter, Stefania, La Honda, Wind Gap, Arnot-Roberts, etc?

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And read this: Visit to Thomas Fogarty Winery with Nathan Kandler - February 2013

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Thanks for the follow-ups, Wes. IIRC, in the other thread I did refer to someone else’s short list of the best producers as aligning with mine, and you just added others I would put in an expanded list, including Fogarty, as their wines come with a free stent taped to each bottle… champagne.gif

RRV or SRH may not be as terroir-driven as SCM, but I’d put some (small) money on the 50th percentile producers in each being better-crafted than the 50th in the SCM. Too many SCM producers are still under-producing, given the potential. Time for them to die and/or sell their operations… [berserker.gif] [berserker.gif] [berserker.gif]

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There’s so many differences, you can’t really make fair conclusions with arbitrary metrics like that. Who cares if the location of the region’s location means there are a lot of hobbyist micro-wineries? Btw, is it fair to compare them to the custom crush wineries that source RRV fruit? (The joke there is retail buyers could taste a wine from a new producer and tell that it was not only custom crush, but from which facility - as in multiple producers with seemingly the same wine.)

Anyway, I only care about the best, and there are more than enough SCM producers to keep me happy. Good or bad, almost all pick within m preferred ripeness window. Compare that to RRV, much of which is actually quite enjoyable terroir to me, where almost all of the producers screw up their wines by picking too late. I was a big fan of the region in the '90s, before they changed to Laube-styled Pinot. Ironically, one of the best RRV Pinots I’ve had recently was from Regale, an SCM producer.

I have to agree with SRH, at least from what I’ve had. The site expression, vineyard management, ripeness and winemaking are in sync, with excellent results. They’re listening to the grapes, not fighting them like in RRV.