A Hedonist in the Cellar_ Adventures in Wine - Jay McInerney [9]
Down in the cool valleys north of Santa Barbara, a leaner, edgier style of Chardonnay has been more common than in Napa and Sonoma. Relative newcomers Greg Brewer and Steve Clifton, under the Brewer-Clifton label, are making some of the most radically nervous New World Chardonnays ever—so crisp and vibrant that I have mistaken them for Chablis. Hirsute, voluble Jim Clendenen, whose personal style is heavy metal/Hell’s Angel, makes some of the most subtle and ageworthy Chardonnays in the New World. Once literally a voice in the wilderness—in the Santa Maria Valley— he has been making svelte Burgundian Chardonnays for two decades, and has influenced many of those who have followed him to this region. “The most important thing is to pick grapes in balance,” says Clendenen, who scoffs at the notion that a Chardonnay with 15 percent alcohol could possibly have balance, and who has often been criticized for picking underripe grapes. Clendenen, who has been in and out of fashion several times since his start in 1982, believes that the American wine world is definitely coming back in his direction.
THE WHITES OF THE ANDES
Los Andes, the snowcapped, skyscraping mountain range that separates Chile from Argentina, is one of the few things the two countries have in common. Chile is sometimes called the Switzerland of South America; Argentina is a lot like Italy, only more so. International bankers love Chile; Argentina not so long ago welshed on some $151 billion in loans. Chileans generally respect traffic signs and speed limits, while Argentines drive the way bats fly, hell-bent, obeying their own personal radar. But thanks to the Andes, the countries have something else in common: the lower slopes and plateaus on both sides are a viticultural paradise. The French, not exactly famous for respecting terroir other than their own, have been paying close attention to this bounty, and at this point you can hardly pop a Champagne cork in a hotel lobby on either side of the Andes without hitting a winemaker or château owner from Bordeaux.
While the red wines of the two countries are distinct enough to merit separate treatment, the whites produced from French varietals on both slopes are fairly similar in quality and style, and more than ready to compete in world markets. Viognier, Pinot Gris, and Chenin Blanc may make the cut someday, but Sauvignon Blanc and especially Chardonnay are the smart buys for now.
The Argentine landscape is characterized by sweeping, big-sky American vistas, whereas on the Chilean side the vineyards of the Central Valley are bounded on one side by the coastal range and on the other by the Andes, frequently shrouded in mist. The vines arrived with the missionaries who followed the conquistadors and flourished in idyllic isolation, miraculously escaping the worldwide phylloxera blight of the nineteenth century. This viticultural Eden was home to a half dozen huge domestic wineries, like Cousiño Macul and Concha y Toro, which prospered by quenching the local thirst for heavy reds. But it was the founding of Montes by a quartet of Chilean wine-industry veterans, including Aurelio Montes, in 1988 that signaled the beginning of the modern, export-oriented era. In the early ′90s, as Augusto Pinochet’s long dictatorship gave way to a democratically elected government, Chile began to attract foreign wine capital.
The ocean-cooled Casablanca region, north of Santiago, has proven ideal for Chardonnay—Montes sources its Chardonnay grapes from the