I think Miles was wrong...for some

The movie Sideways made Pinot Noir popular and Merlot passe. Everyone remembers Miles' now famous proclamation, "I am not drinking ******* Merlot! If anyone orders Merlot, I'm leaving!" As a Pinotphile myself, I understand where he's coming from. At the same time, the fact that sales of Pinot Noir are up 120% over the past two years gives me pause. As someone who has sold millions of dollars worth of Pinot Noir over the years, I can tell you this - I expect the sales to slow up in a hurry. If I were starting my own winery in California today, I wouldn't plant Pinot Noir. Let me tell you why.

First there are the basics - Pinot Noir is hard to grow. Pinot Noir is completeley different from Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot or Shiraz. These wines derive their dense, purple hues from the thick skins of those grapes. The thick skins protect the wines from many harmful natural factors such as intense sunlight. The skin of Pinot Noir is usually quite thin. (A corollary of the thickness or lack thereof of the skin is that Pinot Noir is usually lighter in color.) Because the skin is not as thick as that of other red grapes, Pinot Noir is more likely to be damaged by natural elements and also highly susceptible to rot! Rot in your wine is bad! It tastes horrible. When Cabernet for instance is underripe, there is a vegetal green bean character that develops. I'd take a vegetal Cab over a rotten Pinot noir any day! If you don't believe me, try a bad 1983 Burgundy: then you'll understand why really quickly.

Because it's difficult to grow, and requires enormous attention, something of which I am largely incapable (I am mre the visionary-type than detail-oriented), Pinot Noir and I would be a bad mix. But that's not the real reason: the real reason is that, despite the current trendiness of Pinot Noir, I think most casual wine drinkers enjoy Merlot more than Pinot Noir, unless the Pinot Noir is made poorly (more on this below).

Because of the skin differential, the wines are fundamentally different. Cabernet, Merlot and Shiraz age because of tannins. That is because tannins come (largely) from the skins of the grapes. Since Pinot Noir has substantially thinner skin, Pinot Noir doesn't age due to tannic structure. Pinot Noir actually ages due to acidity, or rather the balance of acidity and fruit. Whereas Merlot and its kin age because of the mouth-puckering tannin, Pinot Noir titilates the palate with mouthwatering acidity, much like most (non-sweet) white wines. Pinot Noir is a white wine in red wine clothing. And I don't think that's what most casual wine drinkers want in their wine. It's what I want, but what I want won't necessarily bring you enjoyment.

So we have a problem, as W. Blake Gray's recent SF Chronicle article discusses. Instead of making Pinot Noir the way they should make it, many California winemakers just leave the grapes hang on the vine longer to thicken the skins. It doesn't matter to them that in the first place, Pinot Noir is a cooler-climate grape and shouldn't be planted in 80% of the California vineyards in which it is found.

So we are left with one of three possibilities:

1) Until the Pinot Noir craze dies down (something I instinctively feel is already happening), people will continue wines that they don't like to be trendy.

2) Many winemakers will continue to try as hard as they can to make Pinot Noir taste like Merlot, Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon to cater to the latest trends, thus deceiving consumers into thinking they have developed a taste for Pinot Noir, when, in reality, they haven't yet learned the beauty of real Pinot Noir, that is, Pinot Noir that is graceful, light in color, svelte and equilibriously acidic.

3) The Pinot Noir craze will die of necessity, when most people realize that they prefer supple, fruit-forward Merlot to the vibrant, levity of Pinot Noir.

I can only hope as a true Pinotphile that three is the case. It will allow wineries such as Hunter Hill Winery and Adastra Vineyards to continue making Pinot Noir the way it should be made, from cooler climate sites (the Sonoma Coast and Los Carneros respectively). Although our visits to these wineries convince me that in spite of any trends in any direction, niether winery would budge from their current modus opperandi. That's why AVA Wine is proud to bring them to you. The goal here is to find representative exmaples of each of California's many AVA's (American Viticultural Areas), and in Hunetr Hill Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir and Adastra Los Carneros Pinot Noir, you have two fine examples of this. You can drink either one of these and say to yourself, "This is what Pinot Noir should taste like," and if you don't like it, by all means, drink Merlot and don't feel guilty. Drink what you like and forget the current trends.

Head to the Mountains to Find Napa's Boutique Wines

Let's face it -- visiting Napa Valley can at times feel more like Visiting Disney World. The sea of wineries that produce hundreds of thousands if not millions of bottles of wine is endless as one drives down Highway 29. That's why we usually "look to the hills" for our suppliers. Despite the incredible attention that the Napa Valley receives, most of it is directed along Highway 29, and the savvy shoppers looking for outstanding wines off-the-beaten track is luckily left with a few options, some of which we have been lucky enough to uncover in our extensive travels to California. Whether going east or west, the key to finding hidden gems in Napa is to do a bit of mountain-climbing.

The Napa Valley is bounded to the east by the Palisades and Mt. St.-Helena and to the west by the Mayacamas Mountains. (Bisecting the two is the Napa River.) The Mayacamas Mountains are further subdivided into three separate AVA's (American Viticultural Areas), or place names, that make wines with special individual charcteristics: Mt. Veeder, Spring Mountain and Daimond Mountain. It's up high on Diamond Mountain, poetically enough on Petrified Forest Road, that we found the amiable conversationalist, Richard Graeser and his traditionally made classic California wines.

First a bit of a lesson in terroir. Terroir is the untranslatable French word that describes the sum total of all the natural elements that affect wine. The primary component is climate, and then I use the alliterative collection of soil, aspect, altitude and slope to describe the remaining dominant features of terroir. These are the primary factors that affect the way the grapes turn out. All the winemaker then has to do is not screw it up!

Diamond Mountain is high up above the Valley Floor. On the Valley Floor, it gets very hot. Heat makes really deeply colored, full wines that are high in alcohol. The trick is getting enough acidity. Diamond Mountain is much cooler - because temperature decreases as you go higher up - think of the snow-covered top of a mountain. In a cooler climate, the terroir shines through more greatly because it is not masked by all the jammy fruit and high alcohol that is present in grapes grown in warmer sites. The wines are a bit more red in color and flavor profile and have better natural structure. So whereas the wines of the Valley floor have blackberries, black currants and ultra-full body, the wines from the Mayacamas Mountains more or less feature red currants, cherries and fraises de bois (wild strawberries). All the winemaker has to do is not screw it up!

I was sold on Richard Graeser immediately. An intelligent man whose former life consisted of running a large commercial farm further south, he immediately makes you comfortable. He is at the same time friendly and serious, and is just the type of straight-shooter with whom we like to work. He could see a pile of manure coming from a mile away, and while he enjoys conversation, he also likes to get his point across.

Our conversation quickly turned to the terroir of Diamond Mountain as we sampled some older vintages of his balanced, sophisticated Cabernet Franc. I told him that I loved California Cabernet Franc with proper age when properly made. He sized me up, knew that my comment was honest, and then agreed. I loved the redder fruits and equilibrium that the wine offered - exactly what I wanted from a cooler, mountain AVA. Mr. Graeser told me that it was his intention to make wines that represent Diamond Mountain. He could just as easily leave the grapes hang on the vines for much longer to try for greater maturity (darker color, higher alcohol), but he wouldn't do it. He's not trying to make wines that fit the current trends, he makes wines the way he likes them, the way that the Daimond Mountain wants them to be, the way I like them.

I sample hundreds if not thousands of California Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot each year. Most wine lovers envy the job of a wine professional, failing to realize that most of the wines I pour directly down the drain within seconds because they all taste the same. Not Richard Graeser's wines though, they taste like Diamond Mountain.

More on Graeser Winery

Graeser Winery 2002 "Alex's Ruff Red" Zinfandel Blend 6 Pack
Graeser Winery 2002 "Alex's Ruff Red" Zinfandel Blend 12 pack
Graeser Winery 2002 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 6 Pack
Graeser Winery 2002 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 12 pack
Graeser Winery 2003 Late Harvest Semillon