A Hedonist in the Cellar_ Adventures in Wine - Jay McInerney [8]
It may be a coincidence that I started noticing a new generation of Chardonnays at about the same time that Pamela Anderson announced her plans for a breast reduction. (I know, Pam reaugmented. I can live with that.) But in tastings and in talking with some of the makers of newly minted Chardonnay labels, I am finding a refreshing emphasis on finesse and subtlety. The wine world, like any other, has its trends and fashions, and in the realm of high-end Cal Chard, thin is in. Words like elegant and racy and lean are now being held up as ideals. Even nervous is good. It means—I think— acidic, and acidity is no longer a bad word. (Acid is essentially the skeleton on which the sugary flesh of the grape is draped.)
California Chardonnay makers have always talked about Burgundy as a model; it is, after all, the homeland of Chardonnay, and of such great Chardonnay wines as Montrachet and Meursault. But even the cooler areas of California, like Carneros, the Russian River Valley, and the Santa Ynez Valley, are warmer than Burgundy—and of course the soils are different. Applying the same techniques will yield different results. Seldom does California achieve the crisp sculptural definition or the mineral notes of white Burgundy; nor does Burgundy often achieve the tropical-fruit decadence of California Chard. “You can’t make Montrachet in much of California—it’s just too warm,” says David Ramey, who started making Chardonnay under his own name in 1996. “But you can still aim for a balance between richness and finesse.”
Ramey’s recent Chardonnays exemplify the new, crisp, elegant style, although he likes to call it “retro,” since his methods are traditional and minimalist. With his wire-rim specs and salt-and-pepper hair, Ramey is pretty elegant and crisp himself, dressing with a certain minimalist, expensively casual flair, which is unusual in Napa wine cellars. He developed his winemaking chops at Chalk Hill, Simi, Matanzas Creek, and Dominus. Until recently he was a consultant at Rudd, which he propelled into the spotlight, but he parted to concentrate on the Ramey label. Although Ramey’s Chards have plenty of ripe fruit, they also have a vibrant wire of acidity, which distinguishes them from many California Chards. Tasted against a Kistler Durell Vineyard, Ramey’s Hyde Vine-yard Chardonnay seems like a Modigliani displayed beside a Botero.
Another rising Chardonnay star is Robert Sinskey, who first made his name with Pinot and Merlot. The wine from his biodynamically farmed Three Amigos Vineyard in Carneros has a Puligny-Montrachet-like steeliness, sort of like a Ginsu blade concealed in a pineapple. Sinskey gets his zingy acidity in part by skipping malolactic, the secondary fermentation that softens the malic acid. “In California,” he says, “our challenge is maintaining acidity. It doesn’t make sense to soften the acid only to add it back artificially”—which is what many California makers do (the addition of tartaric acid being SOP in California). Sinskey’s style is more food-friendly—almost the raison d’être for acid in a wine. “You don’t want a milk shake with your fish,” Sinskey says. “It used to be about competition, about creating blockbusters. Now it’s about consumption and cuisine.” Sinskey attributes the new subtlety of many California Chards in part to a new appreciation for the vineyard itself, and a de-emphasis on high-tech interventionist techniques.
Ted Lemon at Littorai is as qualified as anyone to toss the word Burgundian