TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/121090/1210570.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 13.1 KB | 262 lines

                                                                                FOOD, Page 88

A Golden Age for Grapes


California's talented young winemakers are having their best of
times, even as they worry about worse days that may lie ahead

By JOHN ELSON -- Reported by Paul A. Witteman/Rutherford


    All across western California, in huge steel tanks and small
oak barrels, grape juice from the autumn harvest is bubbling
to be reborn as wine -- and omens for the 1990 vintage look
good. True, late spring rains on the north coast meant that the
crop of Chardonnay, the state's premier white-wine grape, was
smaller than normal. No such problem with the reds, though. And
the nose knows. Jim Fetzer, one of 10 siblings who run the
family's 1,400-acre vineyard in Mendocino County, says his
vintners tell him that "the winery hasn't smelled this good in
10 years."

    "This is the golden age for California wines," says Forrest
Tancer, 43, a co-owner of Sonoma County's Iron Horse Vineyards.
Renowned for his crisp, elegant sparkling wines, which have
been served at White House state dinners, Tancer belongs to the
cadre of talented young vintners who are largely responsible
for this era of excellence. Their success has inspired
ambitious new winemakers all across the nation, even in areas
where grape growing is an experimental novelty.

    An old wine-country joke has it that the surest way to turn
a large fortune into a small one is to buy a vineyard. Perhaps
so, but there seems to be an endless supply of
multimillionaires whose ideal of a little place in the country
is a boutique winery on Napa County's Howell Mountain or
Rutherford Bench. Twenty-five years ago, the county had a scant
two dozen wineries; today there are more than 200, and about
a dozen more are on the drawing boards.

    Statewide, California has some 800 bonded wineries, and the
industry employs nearly 120,000 people. Last year California
winemaking generated $6 billion in retail sales. This year wine
sales nationwide are flat, but vintners argue that while people
may be drinking less, they're drinking better. According to a
survey by Hambrecht & Quist, a San Francisco investment firm,
sales of California's premium wines have increased an average
of 19.6% a year over the past five years. At the peak of the
scale, California's ultra-premiums command prices that come
close to matching those of Europe's best. Diamond Creek's
tannic, concentrated 1987 Lake Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon went
on sale last year at $100 a bottle. The 75 cases were gone
within days.

    No wonder that big money, much of it foreign, has moved into
the wine country. Napa's Raymond Vineyard, Sonoma's Chateau St.
Jean and Firestone (near Santa Barbara) -- all premium labels
-- are owned in whole or part by Japanese interests. Beaulieu,
Inglenook and Christian Bros. in Napa County are subsidiaries
of the British conglomerate Grand Metropolitan. Most of the
major French champagne producers, including Moet & Chandon,
Mumm, Louis Roederer and Piper Heidsieck, have subsidiaries
turning out California sparklers.

    There are venturesome international collaborations as well.
The Champagne firm of Taittinger is co-owner of Domaine
Carneros, which makes sparklers in Napa's Carneros district,
an area known for its Pinot Noirs. One highly publicized Napa
red is called Opus One; this Cabernet-based wine, which carries
a $50-a-bottle price tag, is a joint production of Napa's
Robert Mondavi and Bordeaux's Chateau Mouton Rothschild. Not
to be outdone, Eric de Rothschild, managing director of Mouton's
archrival Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, last year signed a
joint-venture contract with the Chalone group, an American
consortium that includes such prestige California labels as
Carmenet, Acacia and Edna Valley.

    Despite all the offshore interest, Marvin Shanken, editor
and publisher of the biweekly Wine Spectator, contends that
"California's wines are among the world's best-kept secrets.
Europeans have yet to give them a chance." Less than 2% of
California's output is currently sold in Europe, although over
the past five years the annual growth rate has been about 34%.
Some experts contend that the state's enological golden age
began at a now legendary 1976 comparative blind tasting in
Paris. To its shock and everlasting dismay, a panel of French
judges gave place of honor to a 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon from
Napa's Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, ahead of such prestigious
Bordeaux as Mouton Rothschild and Chateaux Haut-Brion. (For
good measure, a Chardonnay from Napa's Chateau Montelena bested
a comparably distinguished flight of white Burgundies.)

    Warren Winiarski, Stag's Leap's thoughtful proprietor,
believes he and his colleagues have learned a lot since then.
"We used to treat all grapes alike," he says. "Now we try to
make wines of delicacy and finesse." One thing that is making
the vocation more interesting is the flair of the
thirtysomething vintners who have emerged as successors to such
Napa pioneers as Winiarski, Robert Mondavi and Joseph Heitz.
These winemakers have paid their dues as "cellar rats," hosing
out barrels and raking lees for low pay. But many of them have
also earned degrees in fermentation science at the University
of California at Davis, which boasts the world's most
prestigious school of enology.

    Some of the new-wave winemakers still look to France as
their model. At Napa Valley's Spottswoode Vineyard & Winery,
Tony Soter, 38, makes a silky, toasty Cabernet Sauvignon that
could pass for a rated Medoc; collectors snap up most of his
3,000 cases while the wine is still in barrel. Stephen Kistler,
44, whose eponymous winery is set back in the lonely hills
north of Sonoma's Valley of the Moon, wants to make a
Chardonnay that will compare with Meursaults and Montrachets
made by a handful of prestigious vintners in Burgundy. Can he
do so? "Ask me in 10 years," he says with a smile. In fact,
experts agree that Kistler already makes some of California's
most elegant white wines.

    To the U.S. buying public, white wine basically means
Chardonnay and red is Cabernet Sauvignon, so it makes economic
sense for winemakers to concentrate on those two grapes. But
not to Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyard near Santa Cruz.
"To limit yourself to two flavors is boring," he says. Grahm,
Bob Lindquist of Qupe and John Buechsenstein of McDowell Valley
are among the most prominent of the so-called Rhone Rangers,
who are producing wines from such southern French varietals as
Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre and Roussanne. The names of Grahm's
fruity blends slyly honor their links to Provence. Old Telegram
is a tribute to a famous Chateauneuf-du-Pape label called Vieux
Telegraphe. Le Cigare Volant (the French term for flying saucer)
refers to a whimsical law passed by Chateauneuf's council
banning flying saucers from landing in the town's vineyards.

    Other vintners are taking their cues from Italy. Iron
Horse's Tancer and Dominic Martin of San Luis Obispo's Martin
Bros. are among winemakers who have planted such Italian
varietals as Nebbiolo and Sangiovese; Tancer intends to blend
his Sangiovese with Cabernet or Merlot in new proprietary wines
similar to ones being produced in Tuscany. There is a certain
irony here. Investment banker William Hambrecht, who sells the
Zinfandel grapes from his Sonoma ranch to Ridge Vineyards,
notes that many of these newly fashionable varietals were first
planted in California at the century's turn by Italian
immigrants for their homemade table wines.

    In California, as in Europe, winemaking has historically
been a male prerogative. No longer. Inspired and encouraged by
Mary Ann Graf and then Zelma Long at Sonoma's Simi Winery, a
number of women have taken up the vinting craft, and are
increasingly making their talents known. Kristin Belair, 31,
a graduate of the University of California at Davis, is a
newcomer to reckon with: the Wine Spectator rated her 1986
Johnson Turnbull Cabernet Sauvignon 13th on its recent list of
100 "Hottest Wines." "Winemaking is a nice mix of art and
science," she says. "I really like blending and all the little
decisions along the way. An amount as small as 2% or 3% of
blended wine will make a difference in the taste."

    The vintner is the winery's wizard, responsible for deciding
what grapes to plant where, when to harvest, how long to age
a wine and in what kind of container. The names and reputations
of California's star vintners are as well known to oenophiles
as those of celebrity chefs are to ardent foodies. Sometimes
their comings and goings provide rich material for gossip. Five
days before the start of this year's harvest, Lake County's
ambitious Kendall-Jackson Vineyard hired away John Hawley, the
chief vintner at Sonoma's Clos du Bois. That was the sneaky
equivalent of a chic bistro's signing up a rival's chef two
hours before Saturday dinnertime. (Hawley's successor at Clos
du Bois, as it happens, is another promising distaff vintner,
Margaret Davenport.)

    If these are the best of times for California winemakers,
they are also the worst. The vintners feel besieged by a
burgeoning neo-prohibitionist movement that seeks not to ban
alcohol but to surround its sale with crippling restrictions.
Many winemakers thought it unhappily symbolic that the Oakland
Athletics, playing in a stadium less than 40 miles from the
state's leading wine county, celebrated their American League
championship win with foaming bottles of carbonated cider.
League president Bobby Brown thought it unseemly that
role-model athletes should be seen on national TV swigging
champagne.

    Vintners blame neo-prohibitionism for federal legislation
that requires them to clutter bottles with precautionary print.
In 1988, for example, labels were required to note the presence
of sulfites, which can cause certain allergic reactions, but
for relatively few imbibers and only if consumed at levels well
in excess of what is found in table wines. Last year two new
warnings were mandated: one about the risk of birth defects for
pregnant women who drink and another about consumption
impairing the ability to drive.

    Led by Robert Mondavi, California's winemakers have banded
together to promote table wine as a liquid form of food and as
"the beverage of moderation." Yet the industry remains on the
defensive, in part because some major members have divided
loyalties. Despite its increased production of varietals, E.
& J. Gallo, the nation's largest wine  producer by far, earns
considerable profit from Thunderbird, a cheap, fortified
beverage that winos call "sneaky pete." And some corporate
proprietors of prestigious wineries -- such as Britain's Grand
Metropolitan or Hiram Walker, which owns Clos du Bois -- have
major investments in hard liquor.

    With his customary common sense, Thomas Jefferson in 1791
applauded a congressional bill that subjected liquor, but not
American-made wines, to an excise tax. "It is an error to view
a tax on that liquor as merely a tax on the rich," he wrote.
"No nation is drunken where wine is cheap. It is, in truth, the
only antidote to the bane of whiskey." Jefferson, alas, failed
miserably to convert fellow citizens to his favorite beverage.
Americans last year drank 23.5 gal. of beer and 26.6 gal. of
coffee per capita but only 2.1 gal. of wine. As a result,
although the U.S. ranks sixth among the world's wine-producing
nations, it is 29th in terms of wine consumption.

    That standing is unlikely to increase soon. Starting Jan.
1, vintners must cope with an increase in the federal excise
tax on table wine from 17 cents to $1.07 per gal., which may
add 50 cents to the retail price of a standard (750-ml) bottle
of wine. Pessimists in the industry predict that the increase
could reduce wine consumption by 12% and lead to the loss of
7,000 jobs. The tax hike comes at a time when many growers are
also worried about phylloxera, a mite-size plant louse that is
gnawing away at vines, primarily in Napa and Sonoma counties.
An estimated 250 acres have been affected so far, and replanting
with new phylloxera-resistant vines may cost upwards of $250
million in Napa Valley alone.

    Another danger, particularly near San Francisco, is
California's inexorable urge to build. Winiarski rightly calls
the Napa Valley "a national treasure." Yet some county
officials, mindful only of tax revenue and tourist dollars,
want a four-lane highway to ease heavy weekend traffic and are
openly sympathetic to developers who would perch condos on
fragile hills overlooking the vineyards. On Nov. 6 voters
approved Proposition J, which prohibits any change until the
year 2020 in the county's general plan for preserving vineyards.
Pessimists think it only a matter of time before the plan
comes under renewed threat. "Once we have a four-lane highway,"
warns Winiarski, who lectured in political theory at the
University of Chicago, "the valley is finished."

    Each man kills the thing he loves, Oscar Wilde wrote. And
a sad thing it would be if Californians, basking in their
wine's golden age, should turn the era into a dark one.