Best California wines

I've tried wines from all over the world and still prefer California wines but am selective. I prefer the upfront fruit that is more common with California reds than French. I prefer 100% California Sangiovese than the Italian Chianti blends. However, I do prefer Australian Syrahs over California although there are some very nice Syrahs from California. I haven't had enough Chilean wines to know much about them as the selection is poor here.

The trouble is that the majority of the better California wines are from wineries that distribute only locally or regionally. The majority of California wineries do not distribute nationwide. If you have the ability to travel around California and visit wineries then your selection as well as learning from tasting will be well worth it.

Also Oregon and Washington have some excellent wines from smaller wineries. NY's Long Island is getting there but has a ways to go.

I love a good Pinot Noir. Has to have some notable spicy pepperness to it and mild forward fruit. The best Pinot Noirs tend to come from the southern California region between Santa Barbara and Santa Maria.

If you can find it try Babcock or Melville.

I find California Merlots to be a beginners red wine. I have tried numerous Merlots and have found only a few that were just ok. Most are too simplistic, lacking any depth or complexity.

One of the best California Merlots I've tried is from Wild Coyote in Paso Robles. They also make an excellent Syrah, Zinfandel and Rose.

I resonate with Scott's original question here, because it (or variations of it) engaged me too when I got interested in wine. Also, Hunt mentioned something important: Get some good introductory or reference books. Tasting is not enough, if you mean it with the question. A little homework helps a lot. But here's a side question. It may look flippant -- some people will certainly misunderstand where it's coming from -- but it's a serious inquiry. (We had a long thread on this in 1989. Not in Google, by the way.)

"Scott" in news:guadnazZtPGRz5DbnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com :

Why start with California?

--Max

Another point, a small one maybe, but useful on this forum: Scott or anyone else, signing your postings with a real full name (whenever possible) helps distinguish you from the various diverse fauna that post here (point already raised in the thread). It's one of those small implicit but noticed cues.

If you live in the USA especially in the west the selection of California wines dwarfs that of anywhere else. Furthermore, imports are limited mostly to large lot productions, otherwise they aren't exported. The California wines I love come mostly from small wineries that do not distribute commercially. I either have to visit to purchase or mail order. Both are impractical for foreign wines.

Furthermore I prefer the forward fruit charactaristic of California reds over the predominate styles found with many European wines especially French. I also have never cared for the numerous blends so common in France. California meritages, assambleges etc have never appealed to me either but they're not as common as in Europe.

Then they have nothing in common with me or with traditional approcahes to wine-drinking.

Yeah, so do I. Patriglione?

I cannot imagine drinking Patrigione without a meal.

It's not personal taste; it's rather physiology.

This may not be the whole truth. The dealers in Columbus seem to be able to get small production Italian wines that I fancy.

Thanks miles for your comments on this.

"miles" >

That has not been my experience, by the way, the past 30 years (mostly in northern California) although I see it asserted often by people who themselves began with, or generally like, California wines.

Again not my experience (especially with Burgundy and premium German producers of the M-S-R, wines at annual production level of a few barrels -- a few hundred bottles -- not unusual there, with small family producers, much as in California). Specific examples are posted here periodically. Several California importers (K and L, Dee Vine Wines, others; Kermit Lynch is famous for this) make part of their business by going overseas, tasting, and contracting to import directly. It is not left just to producers or their agents to initiate this. (See Lynch's consumer newsletters of recent decades, collected and edited 1988 in book form as _Adventures on the Wine Route,_ ISBN 0370313623.)

I understand the sentiment and experience. But the argument presumes that the business model familiar to you is common to other wine-producing regions I refer to. In fact (in my observation, again 30 yrs, speaking also as a fan and neighbor of California wines) it wasn't even very frequent in California until relatively recently: 1990s. Firms that made Californa's reputation nationally and internationally (Martin Ray, Martini, Mondavi, Stag's Leap, pre-sodapop Inglenook, Heitz, Ridge, etc.) did what they could to get wide distribution. I bought those wines almost always without visit or mail order. While elite but longtime European producers (Burgundian examples: Roumier, family Gros, Anne-Claude LeFlaive, de Vogüé), even with only trickles of some wines, labor to distribute them widely.

Fair enough!

I gather you prefer good native California grapes: Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Gewürztraminer, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, ... ;-)

Just kidding. But long experience was that the grapes themselves have required, or not required, blending as the case may be. In some old-world regions it's highly illegal to blend varietals, in others it's normal. It all depends.

California tried to learn from that, and has styled its products either based on, or departing from -- in either case pivoting from -- old-world successes.

Nothing in common with you is ok!! Your views of traditional approaches to wine drinking are anything but traditional. Wine is to enjoy and the approach is up to ones own desires. I will continue to sip my Pinots, Zins and Syrahs with and without food and enjoy them all.

I've never had Patrigione so no idea if I'd like it. If I did it would be like any other wine. I'd drink it with or without food depending on mood.

No, wine is quite personal. You just haven't learned that yet.

Depends on what you mean by small. My favorite wineries in California sell everything they make through direct sales at their wineries. They don't even sell at regional stores in the area. Why distribute if they sell out on site? If they make enough to distribute world wide then they aren't very small.

I've never found any well stocked wine store that has more wines from another country than what they have from California. Much of the reason is distribution. Even a small winery might distribute to regional stores but not further out.

Your particular store might get some small lot wines but if there are only a few 100 bottles spread out worldwide theres no way most people are going to see them in their own stores. They're going to see whats distributed on a wider scale.

Not sure what your point is. Larger California, Washington and Oregon wineries are whats easier to find nationwide in the USA than anything else.

Slight blending perhaps (5% or so). I'm referring to the blends so common in Europe wheres its more like 60-30-10 or even more than 3 varietals. Most of the California Sangioveses I like are 95-100% Sangiovese as opposed to the Italian Chianti blends.

Every year I go wine tasting throughout California. Every year I find more and more near 100% wines rather than blends. I'm seeing fewer and fewer blends, meritages, assebleges that were more common in years prior.

I haven't seen one in awhile but every time I read about an international wine competition the California red wines keep winning over their French counterparts. I feel its because of the more complex forward fruit thats more common with California reds.

Chionetti? Pater Noster? Santa Tresa?

Sounds like some lousy wineries if they are small yet have to go to export overseas to Ohio to sell what they produce. The wineries I consider small have no need to distribute anywhere, let alone export. They sell every thing they produce on site. Most of it bought in advance futures.

Let me first clarify. When I wrote of wine selection for western-US consumers, I referred not to a random supermarket or single shop, but the range of wines easily available to consumers by retail if they look around, i.e. in wine shops. (More and more of which are online, extending availability to rest of US except states with shipping restrictions).

I've paid attention to exactly this question, and been struck -- for decades! -- how much richer are offerings in worldwide wines than California wines -- within my own native region of northern California! (Where most California wineries are.) It makes perfect sense because (as I demonstrated, last message) anyone can import, from the vastly more wines made outside California than inside. (A San Francisco newspaper article in the 1970s described how to set up as an importer, claiming anyone could do it for USD $5000, inviting inquiries for more details. First such response, by the way, came from someone interested in going into importing, named Kermit Lynch.)

The other thing that struck me about this retail mix is how often people assert otherwise, when personally focused on California wines. But I didn't make the point up, it came from looking at retailers. It's pretty obvious if you are open to it, and I thought of calling around for data.

Instead, pragmatically, I took the first major, well-stocked wine shop I could think of, in SF Bay Area. Several posters on this newsgroup have mentioned it. Wine offerings appear below, unedited. This retailer has long done Internet sales, so has a good Web page. Sorting by region:

Total California, 1504

Total non-California, 2787 US non-California, 114

Total non-US, 2673: France, 1520 Italy, 370 Spain, 187 Germany, 158 Australia, 139 Portugal, 88 Argentina, 57 South Africa, 46 New Zealand, 34 Chile, 33 Japan, 13 Canada, 8 Greece, 7 Hungary, 7 Israel, 6

If you aggregated other large wine shops, you'd add other California wines -- and more "foreign" wines too.

Incidentally "miles" has now found a "well stocked wine store" with more wines from another country than from California, and could have found it earlier, by looking. (You're welcome, miles!) And can find others too, I'm certain from experience. But that's the thing about these assumptions and assertions: if you want to know the reality, then you have to prefer it to the assumption. That was part of my point in posting (along with playing devil's advocate to broaden the discussion). I enjoy many California wines and am currently setting up a large tasting of them including "fruit-forward" offerings.

But when I first discovered I liked wines, some much more than others, and that it correlated badly with price, I decided, wait a minute -- better learn something about all this! California offerings were changing rapidly, experimenting. I looked around for information (as I later looked at wine retailings) and found MUCH more information available -- from books, publications, experienced people -- about certain old-world countries that had established their styles and regions far earlier. So I started learning those wines along with California wines. I found this very helpful, for getting my bearings.

More of "miles"'s last posting:

"miles" >

Its context was the miles remark "The California wines I love come mostly from small wineries that do not distribute commercially. I either have to visit to purchase or mail order. Both are impractical for foreign wines."

I replied that this isn't necessarily how wineries in Europe do business. (Therefore, it's not an argument for relative accessibility of California wines!)

Again I'm sorry if my point (>>) was unclear. It is only that California's wine industry is an offshoot of old-world wine industries. Therefore whether approaching or departing from their styles, it is much influenced by them.

Which is why they are worth knowing about, for the newcomer.

Which is the subject of this thread.

Cheers! -- Max

So a small winery in Europe can't sell all of what it produces locally and has to export all the way to the USA? Either thats odd, or your definition of small is different than my own. Small California wineries I refer too wouldn't have enough to distribute around the USA let alone export overseas. I'm talking 500-1000 cases of a given wine. They easily sell that in their own winery from walk ins or at the local wine stores in the town. People in Europe don't buy enough wine to support a small winery on a local basis?

Old World is also influenced by new world wines.

Any novice would really enjoy this movie (a documentary on world wines). If anyone has seen this movie, I wonder how they feel about it.

Mondovino (2004) I love the cast of characters.

Dee Dee

Thanks, I'll look for it next time. Does it mention California root stocks going to Europe?