Don's Gillette's Wine Blog
Musings from our store's resident wine guru
Don has over thirty years experience in the wine industry. For the last eighteen years his attention has been focused on the growing local industry. Don has a large following of customers who search out his opinions (never in short supply!) on new releases and on what's currently most distinctive on our shelves. Others seek his insights on wineries and trends that are still under the radar. Read Don's full bio...
Email Don directly with your wine-related questions.
Worlds Apart
Between 1972 and 1988, I sold good, great and sometimes disappointing wines from around the world. Not since though: from 1989 on, tunnel vision has been an occupational hazard for me.
After so many years of tasting and selling California wines almost exclusively, I am rarely invited to events geared toward wines from other countries. When an invitation to a World-wines tasting does arrive, I know that it represents either an accident, or more often, a courtesy. The sender is usually well-aware that I am not a potential customer.
On a personal basis, I have scant free-time for non-California wine tastings and have perennial access to attractive local bottlings that keep me satisfied. To be truthful, I dedicate little energy, beyond curiosity, to keeping up on all the other wines of the world.
No Defense Offered
From my vantage point (more or less on the sidelines), the larger production wines of California, Europe, Australia and the rest of the world seem to become more numbingly similar each year. Differences due to region, tradition, philosophy, etc., don't become particularly evident until one looks to the smaller wine producers.
I am content to represent a distinctive community of the later. I know for a fact that other merchants focus in the same way on wine-making communities around the world. If I occasionally get to enjoy the products they bring forth, I count myself lucky. I can't really envision them or their products as competitors. Nor do I think that one region needs to dominate or emulate another.
A Parallel Universe
This week Michael, an old customer and member of our quarterly Pinot Noir club, sent me an email forwarding a March 11th, New York Times wine article. That article was titled "Finessed and Light: California Pinot Noirs With a Manifesto".
Michael wondered what I thought of the writers point of view. I suspect that Michael's query referred to the authors belief that power, ripeness, apparent sweetness and alcoholic strength are the goals or preferences of the majority of California Pinot producers.
Reading the article reminded me that I travel in a different wine Universe that wine-writers even in New York seem unaware of .The discussion at hand was one that was common five years ago in California, but is rarely heard now, essentially it boils down to: when will the "California Pinot palate" grow up?
What strikes me about the article is the lack of access its assumptions imply. The author advocates a lighter-style of California Pinot, to better match the food-worthiness of red Burgundy, but his list of food-worthy producers omits most of the best local practitioners of the art.
When I see the authors list of do-gooders, I can see how poor his access must be. Assuming I held his position, which I truly believe grows more irrelevant each day, I could build a much stronger case. Here is a short but vastly more impressive list. These 11 bottlings are culled solely from the Russian River Valley/Sonoma Coast, ignoring five or six other regions.
Chasseur: the Freestone, Umino & Blank bottlings.
Benovia: the Cohn & Bella Una bottlings.
Dutton-Goldfield: the Sanchetti & Freestone bottlings.
Arista: the Mononi & Toboni bottlings.
Russian Hill: the Tara & Leras bottlings.
There are many issues to address in the "Manifesto", but it is extremely hard to even have the discussion unless you get past this first one.