http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080319/LIFESTYLE/803190304/

The Pinot Palette

From 'Old World' to 'New World,' never has there been such a range of styles from which to choose

By VIRGINIE BOONE   THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Pinot noir lovers, rejoice. We are at an oenological tipping point, with more, better California pinot than ever before in our short wine history. For pinot," said Greg Walter of Sonoma-based PinotReport, a respected newsletter among pinot connoisseurs, "it's the best it's ever been."

And never have there been so many styles of pinot noir to suit a slew of palates. To most, that's good news.

"The stylistic split of power versus finesse or 'New World' against 'Old World' is ever present," said wine expert Rusty Gaffney, who writes PinotFile, another trusted source of tasting notes and news for pinotphiles. "But which style succeeds best is becoming a tired argument."

That's because even pinots that are defined as "bigger" or more powerful tend to be well-balanced, their intensity coming from flavor, not tannins or alcohol.

Most New World winemakers will tell you they are simply trying to make the best wine they can from their vineyards and vintages, said Gaffney, but that the growing conditions in places like Northern California often provide more upfront fruitiness, extraction and higher alcohol than their classic Burgundian counterparts.

Those traits have led to such descriptors as "Big Babe Pinots," "Jelly-Jar Blockbusters" and "Pinot on Steroids." Gaffney likes to say they've been likened more to busty model Pamela Anderson than to slim Katharine Hepburn.

"Old World traditionalists argue that their wines go best with food," Gaffney said, "that they're lighter, less fruity, higher in acid and lower in alcohol and, correspondingly, appear more like see-through red lingerie than Jimi Hendrix purple."

The truth is most California pinot noirs land somewhere between the two extremes. That means if you like pinot, or think you do, there's lots to try, not just from different producers, but from single-vineyard designations, where several producers may be sourcing from a particular vineyard with very individual results.

Thanks to advances in rootstocks and clonal selections, pinot noir thrives in Northern California in a range of varied climates, soils and elevations, though not as widely as some other varietals.

For example, it pushes its range in the region growers and winemakers like to call the "true" Sonoma Coast, where vineyards sit a mile or so from the Pacific and often reach over 1,000 feet in elevation. Under such harsh conditions, where summer may find growers praying for sun, that area has long produced pinots of elegance and earthy minerality, such as those made by Flowers and Littorai.

"It's so much colder here and these grapes struggle when they become wine," said Tom Hinde, general manager of Flowers in Cazadero. "Our calling card is higher acidity, so structurally the wines are firmer and leaner, more delicate and tend to be more on the finesse side of the spectrum than wines grown as you move east and inland into warmer climates."

Such warmer inland areas exist in the Russian River Valley where, depending on the site and the handling, both leaner, earthier pinots and bigger, riper, heftier pinots are possible.

"Because we get good ripening here, we get rich, lush mouthfeel," said winemaker Rod Berglund of Joseph Swan Vineyards, one of the oldest pinot producers in the valley. "Our growing conditions allow winemakers to make quite a few different styles, from light to bigger."

Most pinot producers are pretty much dealing with the same clones, the same barrels, the same open-top fermenters, Berglund noted, and their processing is not all that different, one from another.

But "each winemaker has his own nuanced differences and since pinot noir is all about nuanced differences, they do become important," he said.

John Winthrop Haeger, author of "North American Pinot Noir," speaking at this month's annual World of Pinot Noir conference near Paso Robles, echoed that sentiment.

"The number of variables and complexity of choices are not greater for pinot noir than for other varieties," Haeger explained. "But the impact of winegrowing and winemaking choices can be greater because pinot noir shows the fingerprint of every process, intervention and manipulation, as well as of every neglect, both in the vineyard and in the cellar."

Winemaker Suzanne Hagins of tiny Lutea Wine Cellars in Santa Rosa, whose first harvest experience was in Burgundy's Pommard region, started working with Russian River Valley fruit in 2004. She's since also started to source from Carneros and Anderson Valley.

"I'm interested in cool-climate pinot noir," Hagins said. "Part of growing good pinot noir is balance and I think it does best in edge areas, be it Burgundy, Oregon or the Russian River Valley, wherever you get extreme temperatures." In crafting her pinots, she actively strives for balance, shunning what she describes as "overripe, overoaked" pinot noir, traits she ascribes to overdone wines.

"They're no longer representative of the elegant pinot noir grape I'm so fond of, it's not the style I like," she continued. "That said, I'm not trying to make Burgundies in California. True ripeness at lower sugars is something I'm striving for."

Vintners who have seen and influenced the evolution of pinot noir in Northern California think there's more to the story.

"Having this great climate, we thought we could make great pinot if we put our minds to it and had the right methods of farming it," said Anne Moller-Racke of The Donum Estate in Carneros.

"But that's not quite true. We have refined that but there are certain blocks that are just more exceptional. Our Ferguson lot, for example, is about 35 acres of pinot noir. It's right next to the others, it's farmed the same, it's the same plant material, planted the same time, but it's magic, it's just better."

Moller-Racke concedes that over the three decades since Ferguson was planted, there have been important changes in how things are done. But she still thinks time and attention trump all.

"In pinot it's really about the small plot. It's about paying more attention to the site and soil exposure," she said.

"I remember the French saying, if you have 30 more years you will know what you're doing. I thought, well, we know how to make great wines, but there's some truth to that, the vineyards need to be mature. It's like a baby, to see what it will be as an adult, it takes those 30 years."

You can reach Staff Writer Virginie Boone at 521-5440 or virginie.boone@pressdemocrat.com.