TN: A CalChard wins wine of the week!

Dale writes,

[snipping much entertaining content, and thanks for your notes overall!]

This is Ch. Montelena's gift to the California chardonnay world, and also its bane.

FYI, re: your comments, not one American wine drinker in 50 has ever had a true French Chablis.

Montelena pioneered California chardonnay in the early '70s with a crisp, citrusy, yet luscious style. In those days, there was scarcely any competition in California and hence no yardstick for comparison.

They have not deviated much from that style ever since. Meanwhile, the rest of California went whole hog for superripe, low acid, heavily oaked, malolactic ("buttery"), "sur lie" techniques (yielding an aggressive toastiness not of barrel origin), which created some amazing, dense yet monstrous wines.

Many California chardonnays today are more a testament to winemaker manipulation than to terroir and fruit. Some recent examples I have tasted are almost ludicrous: it's all "process", no fruit.

Extended ageing on the lees, for example, produces at best a remarkable "toastiness" in the nose, with bread-y aromas like in a bakery; but in extreme examples the wine is overpowered by this character, to the detriment of what we should be paying for, which is: clean, floral fruit aromas and refreshing, multi-layered fruit impressions in the mouth.

Chateau Montelena stuck to what worked for them, and sacrificed all the future accolades it might have earned had it stayed on the fast track of winemaking fads in the '80s and '90s.

Now, I'm hoping that we've come full circle, and acknowledge that these pioneers were on to something, after all.

I like that. Of the California pioneers for chardonnay, I can only think of Stony Hill, Mayacamas and Hanzell as important "keepers of the old style".

They stayed true to their "formula", even to this day still using French barrels of Limousin oak, which was the preferred French oak in the 1970s. It isn't today.

I don't know HOW Limousin oak was so popular in those days; certainly the fact that wine writers were dropping the name almost reflexively, must have been a reason.

In those days, EVERYTHING was Limousin oak--yet in France it's unknown in Bordeaux and NEVER used in Burgundy!

In the 1980s, California winemakers were educated about this subtle difference of forest wood origin.

French forests such as Allier, Troncais and Vosges dominate the chardonnay winemaker's spice rack today.

Limousin was prominent at the beginning, only because the best barrel coopers of the time were located in Cognac.

Almost NOBODY worldwide uses Limousin today. It's an open-grained wood which was traditional for COGNAC barrels, not wine barrels.

I know, because I'm in the barrel business, and Montelena is one of my customers.

Yet Montelena early on recognized this French forest as giving a spicey, citrusy component to their wines which was lacking. To this day, the oak you taste in a Montelena chardonnay is predominantly Limousin (and yes, mostly from my barrels).

I applaud them on their choice. I LOVE to confound my French coopers, when I send in an order, by specifying Limousin for this customer.

It means they have to go out back to the woodyard, sweep off the cobwebs and dust, and select from some elegant, well-aged, possibly 3 or 4-year air-dried lumber.

[Most wood has to be seasoned for at least 2 years to make a decent barrel; the wood tannins would be too green and harsh to make barrels otherwise]

Limousin oak from France (actually from the region which produces Limoges china), is a different SPECIES of oak from what the rest of the wine world is now using. As a species, it has more open grain and obviously has a different flavor profile from the rest of the French forests, which are tight-grained sessile oak, or Quercus petrea.

Ch. Montelena was the 'winner' of the celebrated 1976 taste-off in Paris, sponsored by an English wine merchant, Stephen Spurrier, who thought it was high time to put California wines to the test against the best of France.

We would hardly do that kind of tasting today, because we recognize that each wine region contributes its own 'character' , unique from the region of its origin.

We rate (or should rate) wines today based on overall balance, not regional peculiarities. A wine is rated against itself before it is compared with others.

Montelena is one of my favorite chardonnays. You may think I have a commercial interest in this, because they are a customer of mine.

Maybe it is a sentimental favorite; I have loved this wine since I first came to Napa Valley, to make my career in wine and winemaking, after college in the

1970s.

But other customers of mine are huge in their purchases, for barrels for chardonnay.

No, I just like Montelena's steadfast and stubborn, contrarian devotion to principles.

Dale, thanks for the opportunity to respond to your message.

---Bob

Thanks Bob for the informative post. I knew Montelena used little or no malo, but had no idea they marched to a different oak-drummer!

Over the last few years I've probably learned more on oak use from your posts than every wine book I've ever read.

Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

I thought Stephen Spurrier was the former football coach of the UF Gators and Washington Redskins?

Perhaps you are breathing to much wood!

:-)

tight-grained

That'd be news to the winemakers of Rioja, Bill! ;-)

Mark Lipton

Nope. He is the former QB for UF and the Niners. :P

HTH Mark Lipton

And certainly Australia as well.

He resigned as coach of the Redskins last year (or this year). Of note, he is a well known wine collector.

Doesn't Silver Oak (Napa) "brag" about their use of 100% American oak?

-- Regards,

- Roy

=*=*Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

- Mark Twain The truth is rarely pure, and never simple. - Oscar Wilde

Just to be precise: Until 1919 Slavonia was part of Hungary.

M.

I didn't know that; makes sense since WWI formally ended the Austro-Hungarian Empire, changing borders.

But I'm gathering then that French oak has only been common for the past 60-odd years then?

Seems like there's a lot of room to experiment with other kinds of oak, e.g. different species or sources rather than the too little examined opinion on French oak.

Peter

Not only experiments: You can buy casks from russian oak from just about every cooper.

M.

That's the first I've heard of Russian oak. This year I'm experimenting with Hungarian oak on one barrel of Chardonnay. I like the price better than French, and I expect it to be similar to French oak.

Tom S

I can cite you a prime example Tom, Chalk Hill. They take some great fruit and manipulate it until you can hardly tell it came from grapes. The greatest abomination in California is their Sauvignon Blanc.

A winery that I think that has never followed the over oaked, over fermented trend is Sonoma Cutrer which supposedly tries to emulate Burgundian methods. Having said that, they are well known for screw ups and up until they were sold a couple of years back, I think that they operated in the red every year.

Hmm, I'm not much of an expert on Sauvignon Blanc. Also, there are distinctly different styles that further confuses the issue. How about an example of Chardonnay? I know this grape very well.

When they first hit the market, I was really impressed with their wines - particularly the Les Pierre Vyd. They seem to have lost their way over the years though. I don't know why. Their website details methods that are scrupulously good - even to the point of being anal retentive!

FWIW, my current favorite from other wineries is Kistler. Expensive, but it delivers the goods.

Tom S

I have spoken both with Austrian and Italian coopers, they both confirmed the use of Russian oak lately.

M.