When Style Outweighs Place (AFWE Cali)

[Vince_L1]

David have you had the Arnot-Roberts Syrahs with age? I ask because a recent bottle of their 2019 Syrah was too bright for me (and had too much dissolved CO2), but it felt like it might have the ingredients to mellow into something I like. Like you, I like the earlier new-style Pax Syrahs but have been less enamoured of more recent offerings.

I have been on the list and drinking Arnot-Roberts since their second commercial vintage. I keep buying a few bottles here and there, but am close to giving up.

Okay, I was wondering if it was just me. I’ve been disappointed by every wine I’ve had from them - just not my style. To me, the 2017 Kirschenmann Zin was undrinkable. But, to each their own.

TG Chard + Rose is pretty good

[Eric_Lundblad]

If a wine can evolve (over time) in interesting ways in the glass…then imo that’s a wine that’s earned it’s keep. Whether I think it’s interesting and like where it starts out and how it evolves is more my problem I think, esp wrt ripe/extracted vs lean/restrainted styles.

In the vineyard, imo, a lot of this comes from a not uncommon discussion about the fruit as harvest approaches: are the sugars ahead of the flavors, or are the flavors ahead of the sugars. I think when you pick matters a lot. But I think this matters more, and I think it determines most of the game, cuz catching up and/or overtaking your opponent is rare (but not unheard of, of course). Fortunately, I think how the vines are pruned/trellised and how the weather is during the spring can change things a lot.

I’m sure there’s a good way to end this…but I can’t think how

[Chris_Seiber]

I think this applies on both sides of the pond. What people like to call “sense of place” has often only struck me as always picking at a certain point. Not shaping style to the vintage and vineyard. Not always certainly but it makes people focus narrowly on expression and markers.

As Larry mentions, that’s why the dogma always gets to me. There is some place in between aiming for low alcohol so you can appeal to certain people and using 100% new oak, picking at 32 brix to appeal to the others. Try to make the best wine possible given your source rather than finding common denominators in order to make a statement.

I agree with this conceptually.

But to the the OP’s point, I don’t think Arcadian, Kutch, Rhys, Arnot Roberts, Anthill Farms etc. all taste like each other, at all, or that they reflect some sort of “all the low alcohol pinots taste the same” situation.

And among the SVDs and between vintages, those wines don’t all taste the same, either. Kutch pinots from one vineyard to the next and one vintage to the next are quite distinctive. If anything, it can be a bit frustrating knowing what to buy from what vintage because of it, but it comes with the territory of Jamie making wines that really reflect site and vintage.

I’m not arguing that. What I’m arguing is that these folks are making decisions that make their wines particular to the source. They are not saying “lets make wines with alc% X because that is proper”.

And I would disagree on Anthill. They fall into the producers that I think make style first. Of which I’ve had many over the years from this state. Producers that is that make wines that are supposed to be ‘dialed back’ or ‘low alcohol’. Where all the wines are light bodied and “restrained” yet have next to no character. Many are board darlings that I find just ok and usually extremely overpriced.

Just to clarify, when I said “But to the the OP’s point,” I was responding to the OP’s suggestion that the low alcohol California wines taste the same as each other. It wasn’t addressed to your comments.

Maybe better practice for me to have made separate posts.

[Sean_S_y_d_n_e_y]

I do find myself quickly tiring of whole-cluster low alcohol wines (Pinot & Syrah mostly), regardless of place. While certainly a fan of elegant and ethereal wines, rather than expressing any kind of profundity it does seem that the fruit isn’t ripe enough to handle the stems and it just becomes thin and hollow high-toned red berries with a layer of woody bramble makeup caked on top.