May 12, 2004
Divine Balance"When you have sufficient heat you need more fruit to balance the fruit quality because you need to slow down the vine," Peter Cargasacchi told me. "Otherwise the sugar ripens ahead of the flavors."
Many growers, winemakers, consumers, retailers and writers-myself included- are brainwashed into thinking "less is always better." But as Peter Cargasacchi recently told me, it's not necessarily always true.
Having walked vineyards over the years with winemakers like Bruce McGuire from Santa Barbara Winery and Lafond Vineyards and Benjamin Silver who produces stunning wine under his own name, I understand that the true talents there, winemakers like the aforementioned, and other talents like Frank Ostini of Hitching Post wines, Kathy Joseph of Fiddlehead Cellars and Lane Tanner of Lane Tanner Winery, to name a few, understand "Taste" and look way beyond the "numbers": the sugar, the acid and the pH of the fruit.
Really good, and distinguished wine, is never made by number.
I have always admired the winemaker's ability to taste the fruit in the vineyard and to visualize what the wine would become. I could never do that, which explains why I am not a winemaker. I confess, though, last fall I walked a vineyard with Benjamin Silver. We were looking at a variety called Orange Muscat. I have to say, there is a lot of taste in that aromatic white Italian variety! There is much more going on in muscat than chardonnay which, by the way, is a rather bland grape by comparison-a grape I used to taste walking the vineyards years ago.
I know with my own feeble attempts at making homemade wine (1980-1982), I thought "the numbers" told the whole picture. Little did I know! I'd rather drink great wine, sound wine, or "just good" wine made by a professional, rather than fooling around making it myself. As an old friend, Patrick Lesec, owner of Charlotte restaurant in Santa Barbara, would tell people-"I'm too busy drinking it to be making it."
The key is balance. "Divine balance" is different every year, Peter Cargasacchi told me. "It's the viticulturalist's job to figure out what it is," he added, "because Mother Nature always deals from a fresh deck."
The intent of this column was to talk to Peter Cargasacchi about 2004, but so many other "more important topics" were discussed, "the vintage" almost became a secondary topic.
Flowering is occurring right now. It's early so far this year-in the neighborhood of two weeks early. It appears to be early all over California, Peter told me-from the Russian River in Sonoma County to the Santa Lucia Highlands in Monterey County.
Without excessive cool temperatures, fog and wind, vineyards will have a good "set" in 2004. ("Set" is pollination of the flowers that will ultimately become the fruit.)
Peter told me 2004 could be the vintage growers are dropping crop rather than wishing they had more. "If the weather stays favorable, it could be a bumper crop," he noted.
Veteran winemaker Chris Whitcraft of Whitcraft Winery sort-of echoed the same sentiment. He told me he is worried about the heat so far, and that this vintage could make up for the last two (in terms of quantity).
Wine lover and Santa Maria Times Wine columnist, Bob Senn, lives in the bucolic Los Alamos Valley and owns the Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium.
