May 26, 2004
World Class in Our Back YardEvery year before the Hospice du Rhone wine celebration in Paso Robles, grower Peter Cargasacchi organizes a tour of the Santa Rita Hills appellation in the western end of the Santa Ynez Valley. I went on the junket for the first time last week, tasted a plethora of great wines, and had a blast.
It provided a day of contrasts, old and new, and wines from barrel samples to "library wines," a term used to describe older vintage wines-"blasts from the past" or "oldies but goodies" to use disc jockey vernacular.
A day of old and new! We started out tasting barrel samples at the old Sanford and Benedict barn on Santa Rosa Road, then walked over to Sanford's new La Rinconada winery next door for lunch catered by Kurt Alldredge of The Chef's Touch in Solvang-delicious sandwiches, salad and macaroons served with a tempting array of Santa Rita Hills chardonnay!
It was my first visit to Richard Sanford's new winery, La Rinconada. A dream come true for Richard, the wood, stone and adobe building is first generation fir from a 1912 building from Washington State, and rock from a quarry four miles away trucked down to California, and adobe built on the winery site. "Five people doing 1000 bricks a day," Richard told the group.
Veteran grower and pioneer Richard Sanford who planted Sanford and Benedict 34 years ago spoke at lunch. He described Santa Rita Hills as a grower-driven and winemaker-driven appellation. The original Santa Ynez Valley appellation is simply too broad climatically. Santa Rita Hills is a microcosm by contrast.
The Santa Rita Hills appellation runs east-west between Buellton and Lompoc. Richard told the group, "the transverse ranges are east-west running mountains on the North American continent going from Point Concepcion, "the corner of California," to the Santa Monica Mountains. The appellation is roughly ten miles by twelve miles."
People get confused, he said, because "going west confuses people because they expect to be going toward the ocean."
The east-west ranges have a unique impact on the climate. I call these transverse valleys as "freeways for the fog." Marine influence is intense, keeping the vineyards cool, especially during the hot summers.
Out toward Lompoc is one of the coolest growing regions in North America. As Richard said, "it can be 68 degrees in Lompoc and at the same time, 105 degrees at Lake Cachuma."
Soils of Santa Rita Hills, according to Sanford, a graduate of UC Berkeley with a degree in geography, are sedimentary rock, giving good drainage with lots of cherf (angular rock). The soil has also been described as once ocean floor and "ancient beach" according to UC Davis professor Deborah Elliott-Fisk.
After lunch and wine at Sanford, we had more wine and cheese at the beautiful Melville winery on Highway246 next to Babcock.
I was riding with good friend and internet wine writer, Tom Hill, whose day job is a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in that other Los Alamos, and it struck me "This countryside is what God intended the earth to look like," such a stark contrast to all of the ugliness we're inundated with on TV news these days.
And Brad Harrington, the person behind the Internet wine board, "West Coast Wine Network" had remarked earlier in the day, "this is better than world class." And it's all right here in our backyard!
Tasting Notes: All Pinot Noir
First impressions. Maybe wines to look for. (My system, three stars, two stars, one star, no star.)
*** 2003 Loring Wine Company, Cargasacchi Sweeney Canyon Vineyard 1/3 Clone 667 & 2/3 Clone 115 2002 La Vie old vines Sanford and Benedict Vineyard and Fiddlestix Vineyard (4 clones) 2003 Babcock Cargasacchi Sweeney Canyon Vineyard, Clone 115 on two rootstocks 2002 Loring Wine Company, Clos Pepe, 100 percent Clone 667
** 2003 Clos Pepe Estate barrel sample, 100 percent Clone 115. meaty and truffle-like 2003 Longoria, Fe Ciega ("Blind Faith"), Pommard Clone 5, and 115 and 667. Vineyard planted in 1998. By the way, this marks Rick Longoria's 30th year of winemaking. Raised in Lompoc, graduating from UC Berkeley, Rick got his feet wet making wine at Buena Vista Winery in 1974 in northern California.
2002 Flying Goat, Rancho Santa Rosa, Clones 667 and 2A 2002 Melville, "Terraces" 2001 Sanford, La Rinconada Vineyard 2002 Longoria, Fe Ciega
"As with people. first impressions can mean a lot."
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.
