Okay, hello everyone,
and welcome to California Wine
Institute's, Behind the Wines
with our host Elaine Chukan Brown. Thank
you all for taking the time out to be
with us today.
This month California Wine Institute's,
Behind the Wine Series brings a regional
focus to our continued exploration of
the development of the golden state's
wine industry
and its place on the world stage. Our
host Elaine, will speak with leading
authorities in wine media, education,
hospitality, and science, to weigh in on
state of California wine
and offer insights about general
perceptions on the subject
in their respective communities. These
conversations will highlight the
exchanges between California and other
great wine regions of the world. The
common threads as well as the varied
approaches to viticulture and winemaking.
And today we have the great pleasure to
welcome Esther Mobley and Kelli White.
So before we get started some
housekeeping reminders for everyone,
during the webinar note that there are
two communication methods
available to participants, a chat section
and a Q&A
section. The chat section is an
informal way for you to communicate with
other participants,
just be sure to select everyone in the
to field as it can default to panelists
only.
And then the Q&A section, and this is
where we'd like you to submit your
questions to be answered
during the webinar. We will do our best
to address your questions and for those
that are not answered live,
we will provide in a Q&A summary in the
email you'll receive following the
program.
Now I'd like to introduce our host and
guests.
Elaine, in addition to writing for her
own site, Waka Waka Wine Reviews,
she serves as the American specialist
for jancisrobinson.com,
and contributes to a long list of
respected publications.
She contributed to the eighth edition of
the World Atlas of Wine, which has won
multiple awards,
as well as the award-winning
fourth edition of the Oxford Companion
to Wine.
She was named by the International Wine
and Spirits Competition, Vinitaly,
as one of the world's top wine
Communicators of the Year, for the last
two years in a row.
And we have Esther and Kelli. Esther has
held the position of wine critic at the
San Francisco Chronicle since
2015. Previously she was an Assistant
Editor at Wine Spectator in New York,
and she was the 2019 Feature Writer of
the Year in the Louis Roederer
International Wine Writers Awards and
has twice earned first place for wine
writing in the Association of Food
Journalist Awards.
Kelli is the Director of Education at
Pacific Union Company.
Prior to her current role, she was the
Senior Staff Writer for the educational
nonprofit,
GuildSomm, and before that worked as
sommelier for nearly a decade between New
York City and Napa Valley.
In 2015, she published her first book, the
acclaimed
Napa Valley, Then and Now. And she
recently contributed to the latest
edition of Jancis Robinson and Hugh
Johnson's World Atlas of Wine.
She's also won two Louis Roederer
International Wine Writing Awards.
Right now Elaine, I'll turn it over to
you.
Yay! I'm
so excited to do this today. Yay.
Thank you to both of you for making time,
things have been kind
a little chaotic this last week. So I
really appreciate you
both being here. Thank you for that. 
I want to go ahead and address some
questions that I know people have
before we get started with the
discussion, 
you know we have an international
audience, and people have been really
wondering how California is doing and
how things are going with the fires. So I
want to go ahead and address that
briefly,
right away in the beginning. And
so thankfully, the fires around the
state have
gotten really good containment in the
last week and week and a half,
and so they are subsiding. There is
still some
smoke in some areas. But
people have been able to return home the
different
evacuation areas have been
reduced simply to warnings, or been
removed from evacuation status
altogether, which is great.
The really important thing to remember
about the fires is that
California is a very big state, and while
multiple areas were
affected by fires, a lot of the state
actually was not affected by fires at
all.
And so 2020 is going to be
a really interesting and varied vintage.
I spent a lot of time talking to
different producers
in the last couple of weeks, and I
actually went out and
watched harvest in a few places. And 
the amazing thing is that fruit quality
is actually incredibly good this year. So
there's the potential for some really
good wines to come out of 2020.
In areas affected by it, people are aware
of smoke exposure.
But all of the producers I spoke to were
being very
intentional and purposeful about that. A
lot of people are taking
small samples before deciding to harvest
in order to check if there's any
smoke exposure impact on wine. So
while different people will have to
make decisions around the question of
smoke exposure,
people are being very purposeful about
it. And a lot of people also are working
with
UC Davis researchers in order to
facilitate
greater knowledge around the impact of
smoke as well. So
in the long term, we're going to gain a
lot of insight on
on the subject. So I just wanted to kind
of give people a quick overview on how
things are going.
Again people are able to return home in
in most of the state now,
which is which is really good news. So
I just wanted to
address that at the beginning because we
have a great opportunity to have a
really interesting conversation
with Kelli and Esther today, and so I
want us to be able to go ahead and focus
on that.
So again, Kelli and Esther, thank you. It's
an especially busy time of year so
to have both of you here is really
exciting.
You're both people I love seeing in
person when the opportunity arises, so to
get to
have you both on screen is wonderful.
Thanks for having us! Yeah, thanks Elaine,
this is really fun.
So you know what the three of us
talked about
addressing today is really very simply
like
the state of California wine, and the
future of California wine. And the three
of us have this really interesting sort
of jogged perspective, KellI, you arrived
here in 2010,
I got here in 2012, and Esther you
arrived in 2015, and so we each came at
kind of different periods of evolution
over the last
decade plus. And and the three of us also
have spent so much time really in
in-depth discussion
and contact with producers all over the
state as well. So we all three have very
in-depth
insight into the state of wine here in
California, yet also work in very
different ways. And so
I'm excited to see how this
discussion goes, and I really
want to treat it more as a round table
rather than just an interview. So feel
free to
you know pester each other as well.
But
the thing we decided to start with, we're
actually one of the wines that we're
going to talk about today is White Rock
Vineyards, they're Clarets. And White Rock
of course is a second generation winery,
it's been in Napa for a good amount of
time now.
And Kelli, you know you're uniquely
positioned, you wrote an entire book on
on Napa Valley, you worked you know in
Press Restaurant,
and created an incredibly deep
cellar of Napa Valley wines.
And now again, have seen sort of
how it's moving forward. And that
that puts us in a really great position
to start with just the question
of you know, what's the future of luxury
wine? Napa is very much associated with
that idea of luxury, it's not the only
thing it does.
But you you know just to get us started,
let's go ahead and begin there.
What's the future of Napa Valley? How has
it changed since you arrived? And
how do you see that question, the
future of luxury wine?
Well, I think first of all that's a
very intense question. So thanks for
starting out gently. But I will say
that you know a lot of that depends on
how you define luxury wine,
right? I think in Napa,
probably most people when they think
about Napa and luxury wine, they're
thinking
about you know expensive Cabernet
Sauvignon right, like above $100
bottle, retail, right. So let's
talk about that first.
And you know that's been really
interesting because in the last
five or so years, you know there's been
an
increasing amount of media attention on
the generational
kind of handover in wine to the
millennial generation, to younger
drinkers,
and the changing drinking patterns that
that's kind of bringing.And a lot of
that media coverage I think has
been like
borderline hysterical, right. Like the
there's
they're killing you know what
they're killing, Napa Cabernet, they're
killing this, they're killing that,
no alcohol, low alcohol, and then
some other like more important stuff to
like a
a better focus on
more sustainable farming, a better focus
on like fair labor practices, etc.
stuff like that. So how does that impact
Napa Valley's kind of super premium
Cabernet landscape?
I think the important thing to
remember about Napa Valley, is that
even though there is kind of an outsized
attention
on the wines, right there is really very
little wine
coming out of Napa Valley when you
measure it. And especially when you start
dialing into like the premium Cabernet
sector right. Napa is considered
planted out at 45,000 acres like
that's not a particularly big region. 
And it's probably not going to grow from
there.
And it's just a small amount of wine,
it's you know less than around one
percent of California's
wine output right. I'm sorry, four percent
of California's wine output. So
it's a small amount of wine. So in that
sense, that kind of isolates it a little
bit,
from some of these larger movements.
So that's one thing, and then the other
thing is that I think that
we have a dependency in general, 
to oversimplify trends and things right.
And so when
when we have, and I include
myself, have talked about
the new generation of wine drinkers and
certain millennial trends, like we talk
about millennials as if they're one
thing this like completely homogenous
group of drinkers,
with all the same priorities which
are you know what wellness,
natural wine, you know we sort of
associated certain categories with that
generation. When you know there's
hardcore capitalist millennials,
you know there's
millionaire millennials is a thing, you
know especially in the bay area.
And you know there is a lot of
younger interest in that super premium
category of wine still, and so you know
I'm not particularly
doom and gloom about it. I don't think
that necessarily means that
people in Napa aren't paying attention,
and adjusting practices,
and trying to you know respond and
understand
these forces that are changed. But I also
don't think
anybody's particularly scared.
Right, well and Napa has really actually
done quite a bit of work
in terms of evolving our thinking around
sustainability, and increasing
like salmon safe measures, and
looking at regen, you know
helping to develop regenerative
agriculture and viticulture as well. And
also
you know healthcare programs for
vineyard workers. So Napa's actually done
quite a lot
to help with these different
practices that you're referencing.
You know but Esther you've actually, I
mean you've written on this and like
even in your first
year or two there at San Francisco
Chronicle, right away you sort of
tackled the Napa versus you know
versus other aspects of California in
that question. And so how you know in the
time you've been here,
how have you seen this sort of
perspective
evolve? Well I think there's, I mean
you know, I think one very concrete
way we can see it evolve
is the focus
among Napa Valley luxury wineries on
kind of experiential visitor stuff. 
And it's not just confined to Napa
but,
it seems like more and more there's this
sense of people really want to
be up close and personal. They want to
know who the winery is
and I think that's a real departure from
a previous era where
there was a bit more of a wall, and a bit
more of an air of mystery around
some of the more luxurious
high-end exclusive wines. And 
I think there's like a hunger to know
now. AId
i mean we live in this era where we're
kind of over exposed to
each other. I mean especially now and I
think there's,
I mean I don't think that the kind
of luxury tier of California or Napa
wine
is going away either, but I think there
is like going to be a different kind of
mood to the way people want to
interact with those kinds of brands.
Well, I agree with that, oh sorry Elaine, go
ahead. No, please, please
I do agree with that. I think you
know in the previous generation and even
kind of when I first got here,
that lingering mystique of like the you
know the house on the hill that you
can't you don't have the gate code
for, you know you want to get on the
mailing list and like that's sufficient.
Now there's the more of a driver for
intimacy, so I agree like it's been
interesting to see that shift to more
experiential
based you know interactions with
consumers here in Napa. But I think
you know that's driven in part, in my
opinion, by
consumer interest and the generational
kind of shift. But I also think it's
driven by the financial
realities of running a
successful 
winery in California in that you know
it's more and more important for
wineries to sell direct to consumer. And
the best way to do that is
you know through a lot of times through
wine tourism, and you know getting
people
in your yard. So you know part of
it I'm sure is like
listening to trends and reading the
Nielsen Reports and understanding that
that's what
consumers are looking for now. But I also
think it's just a financial reality of
balancing wines and distribution with
the need
to cultivate you know more robust DTC
programming just to
just to make it pencil. Well and that's
something that's emerged
you know Kelli, in the time that you've
been here. You know after
the global financial crisis in 2008, the
entire wine industry,
and especially in California, really
pivoted to that Direct To Consumer,
in person, you know that it really took
off at at that point.
And that's something I you know
you know a girl is asking to, how have we
seen kind of the
pandemic impacting these kinds of
questions around experience
and direct sales? And you know one
of the things I've seen is
wineries that have a mixed model
where they are doing
a lot of direct to consumer, restaurant,
and also retail. It's been
been hard because they're you know
at least one of those is impacted. But
it's also kind of spread out. Their
potential for stability
too. But how are you know, how are you
both seeing wineries respond to sort of
the current
situation this year?
Well, I mean first of all, I think it
has been a lot harder for
high-end wineries, that's my sense,
largely because they depend on
restaurant sales in a lot of cases. And
then of course,
the kind of DTC model is so dependent on
tasting rooms in a lot of cases, and
people actually coming.
But one thing, I and we know that
off-premise retail wine sales have been
booming
during covid. Maybe not as much now as
they were
kind of at the beginning of it back in
March, but
the winners of that are often not the
really high-end wineries, they're the
the larger volume wineries that have a
bigger presence in supermarkets, etc. But
I think, I mean I don't know what is
you know how wineries really have
adapted so far. I think
this is like a moment when wineries are
having to
begin a kind of longer process of
adapting in the long run,
to e-commerce and I mean at the
beginning of this pandemic,
we were quoting figures from Rob
McMillan about how
for the average small California
winery, I think
online e-commerce sales represent
only about three percent of revenue,
and that's just so different from the
way
everyone else buys everything these days.
I mean
like the way we buy things in general in
our lives has
completely transformed in the last
decade. And it feels like the wine
industry
is still catching up to that in a major
way.
I think there's also, I mean we can
bring it back to White Rock for a minute,
and like
they make the perfect kind of case study
in like how
their business has evolved to address
all of these things. And that you know
I was speaking to Christopher this
morning actually, and he was saying that
as they've grown their DTC sales over
the last
decade. They had to hire a full-time
hospitality person because he and his
father could no longer accommodate
you know 15 tours a week or whatever. And
then when the pandemics started in April,
he said they hired a full-time
phone person, which I think is so
wonderfully old-school. I'm imagining
like a
lady with a switch board to call
all of their customers and have a
friendly
conversation. You know obviously the goal
is ultimately selling wine,
but also just to check in and
you know keep the connection going over
the phone which
you know that's that's a new position,
but like it that's how they've decided
to respond to this. And I think it's kind
of both brilliant and
and old school which is cool. Well it
speaks quite a bit though too,
to what you were just saying Esther
about people wanting that more direct
contact.
And you know I know one of the recent
studies that came out
from or the the study's still being done,
but
they released some of the data one of
the current MW students
did a lot of polling with wineries
and
wine club membership. And the greatest
retention with wine club members was
in wineries that actually instigate
contact beyond just the regular
shipments you know.
Which once it said it's sort of an
obvious point, but the thing is
that's a new situation.
People wanting more contact with who
they
buy products from and
specifically wine too. But let's go ahead
and talk about, and taste the
the White Rock, The Claret. This is one of
you know it's a favorite wine of mine.
But it's also in my mind it's an
interesting
example of California wine and thinking
about what do we mean by
Bordeaux blends here in the state.
Because there's a way in which even just
the name,
implies sort of a throwback to another
time. But it's a style in my mind that's
kind of re-emerged
in popularity and interest. It's kind of
re-inspired
a lot of new winemakers. But Kelli, go
ahead and talk to us about you know why
did you select this wine?
Yeah, so I mean we had in our kind of
pre-conversation we were talking about
you know ways for the kind of
youthful drinker to engage with Napa
Valley. And I think that this is a great
great example of a wine
that really
should check a lot of boxes for our kind
of imaginary millennial drinker.
You know and their priorities that
we've assigned to them.
And so I thought it would be an
interesting wine to talk about.
And also I think one of the things
that all three of us have
written about, commented on, and certainly
discussed previously, that
part of the future of California wine 
is very much
mining from its own past. And so
not only is this a historic winery, and a
historic wine
name, but they're doing a lot of kind of
pre-technology
stuff here, that I think really resonates
with, certainly resonated with me when I
first got to
Napa Valley. And I think even perhaps
more so people get drinkers younger than
me.
So Claret is an interesting
word that we could probably have an
entire
seminar just on the evolution of that
term, and wines that have been bottled
under that name.
But here, it's an obvious reference to as
Elaine intimated, the
Bordeaux blend, this particular vintage
goes one step further. And this was also
just a field blend, a single pick
single tank field blend. And
Christopher prides the winemaker,
Christopher Vandendriessche
prides himself on being like a blending
winemaker. He says he really
enjoys blending, he makes his best wines
through blending. But this year,
they have a relatively small vineyard,
kind of picked what was ripe all in the
same day, put it in a tank and then just
weren't able to improve upon it from
there, through
more blending. So left it as is.
The other thing that's really cool about
this wine, is that it changes from year
to year. So I also have the 17 here,
and you know while this 16 that we're
trying is legally Cabernet Sauvignon, it
could
put that on the label because in
California you have to have a minimum of
75 percent of the grape variety and it's
what 83, 86.
The 17 is only 51 percent Cabernet
Sauvignon,
and so it's also really kind of a
harkening back to the point of a
Bordeaux blend,
in that you know in the beginning which
was almost like
responding to the strengths and
weaknesses of a given vintage you know.
How did the Merlot perform that year, is
it more or less of a presence in the
blend?
You know how was the you know was there
shatter in the Cabernet?
And instead of kind of forcing the
wine to
have a
consistent product vintage for
the market,
and forcing it to conform to these kind
of artificially imposed legal standards.
They just let this like wind flights
freak flag every year
and like be what it is. And it's also
not that expensive.
So and that's like a real, I think you
know
cost of wine in Napa Valley is a real
like, that's like the thing. We
need to keep talking about, it's a
definitely a barrier of entry for a lot
of
drinkers, especially younger drinkers.
This wine retails for $54, I think.
And they haven't really raised the price
much since they've been
making it, since the 70's. So I mean it's,
there's a lot to love in this wine.
It's also delicious, you know mostly
native yeast, you know all that good
stuff like very, ver,y very responsible
farming, you know minus certifications
but
you know no pesticides, no herbicides, all
that stuff. Family-run winery, small
production, like all of the boxes you
know are getting checked for 
these young drinkers and it's great.
It has you know 
it has I think a lot to offer. And it's
very well made.
Well, and Christopher, you know we're
featuring the 16, but Christopher is kind
enough to give us the 17 as well. And
that
it's super fun to taste them side by
side, because they're actually quite
different.
The thing I love about the 16, which I
think is true
of the vintage in general for Cabernet,
is it's so
detailed. And but in a very elegant,
easy sort of way. You know like
there's all this detail.
But it's you know one of the
other changes I've seen I think the
evolution in California is
you know red wines and varieties like
Cabernet,
people have you know learned tannin
management in a different way. And so
wines are more approachable younger, but
it's not that they're being made to be
soft. It's just that
people understand how to work
with the tannin a way that
retains age ability, and yet makes it
more drinkable young.
And I really see that in both of
these vintages of
White Rock as well. Yeah, I will say
actually you know we could talk about, I
don't want to get
take things into crazy direction, but we
could also just spend a lot of time
talking about tannin and evolution in the
time that I've been here, because
you know I think there is like this kind
of new interest in like
strong tannins. And not that these wines
have that, but sometimes the
White Rock wines do. And you know
tannin is something that kind of
people were trying to deny around here
in Cabernet Sauvignon in the early 2000's
and make that really approachable style.
And now kind of tannins back
in fashion andIi think that's just a
great a great thing in general. And also
great for these wines, and I have
history with these wines, and these wines
age really well.
And I think part of that is just the
quality wine making. Part of it is the
natural balance, but part of it is also
that they're not over ripening the
tannins, they're
in you know they're knit into the wine.
There's kind of a rustic quality to this,
it's not a super polished wine,
and the tannins like are
you know a little bit chewy. I know it's
not really a mountain vineyard but it's
on this kind of
it's in the hills. And
there's also like a sweetness to the
fruit, I mean it's not kind of
it's not an austere wine, it feels kind
of
generous in its fruit expression, and 
that feels a little old-school to me too.
Yeah.
Yeah, it just feels like a really honest
wine to me. And
the you know the soils are really
shallow there like you're saying Esther,
it's on a slope. And so the
soils are pretty shallow and so they get
plenty of concentration
in the wine. But you know 
part of what's come out
in this discussion too, is just you know
one of the challenges California has
internationally is the price
question. And you know Kelli you and I
have spent a lot of time
kind of talking about California wine in
other parts of the world, and around the
country as well.
And this is a question I get asked a
lot, well like you know
these other places in the world are less
expensive. US wines tend to be more
expensive. It's not just California.
But I actually intentionally
decided for my wine pick today I was
going to pick a wine that totally
goes against that point and 
stands up at the same time. And so for
the second wine I chose
J. Lohr Valdiguié from Monterey. And you
know one of the questions that came
in earlier was if we could talk about
kind of 
less discussed areas and
varieties
of California. And I think that you know
that Valdiguié hits
that point. And also really gets at
you know another aspect of what 
I think all three of us have agreed has
really been emerging as just
a lot more interest in less
discussed varieties. But the thing about
Valdiguié I find so fun
is that it's actually been here all
along. It's another
case of California is like rediscovering
what it has already.
You know and so
but I just think this is like
a reliably solid wine,
super drinkable, really fun. But Esther
this is also,
your first time trying this
particular wine. So I'm excited to hear
your thoughts on it and
just that idea of you know wine from
Monterey, $10
price point, which a lot of people think
doesn't happen here, but
really producers in California are
more and more aware of creating wines
that
are more affordable.
That's a great $10 wine. I mean that's a
great wine, but
it's kind of incredible that that's a $10
wine.
It's I mean it's like it's very,
it's just kind of fresh and energetic.
It's super fruity.
But in this kind of really beautiful
way. I mean I think when I think of $10
wines, I think of them often as being ,
well there's often, I mean they can be
really fruity, but in a kind of candied
or
excessively ripe way.
And this is like just,
you could, this is really fun. This is a
fun wine. It's really cheerful.
You taste it
you know  That's crazy. It's my first
time tasting it too.
I didn't realize. Yeah, no this is a 
favorite go-to for me just because
again it's Valdiguié.   A lot of people
don't
even know what that is. But it's been
increasing in popularity and interest
you know. We've had it in California like
I said all you know all the way back so
to speak.
But until the end of the 80's we thought
it was Gamay.
We'd kind of made a mistake and it
and then an
ampelographer from France came to
visit, and he's walking
vineyards, and it's like oh you have
Valdiguié here, how unusual. And we're like
no, no it's Gamay.
No, no it's valde, you know. So 
it's a great example of how California's
kind of rediscovering
what it has already. And one of the
things I'm interested in hearing
about you know from both of you too, is I
think California is in this really
beautiful, interesting place in its own
evolution,
in that we have done enough now that we
can look to ourselves for inspiration.
And I want to be really careful in how I
say that because
I think that we could mistake that as
meaning,
we don't need to look elsewhere. And I'm
saying no,
it's absolutely essential for our own
continued development that we keep
looking to the world of wines, and seeing
our relationship to other regions.
But at the same time, we have such a
profound history,
that we can actually be inspired by our
our own
you know accomplishments in the state as
well. And I feel like the Valdiguié
is an example of that. Monterey has been
one of the backbones of the state for a
very long time. And J. Lohr you know
multi-generational,  think
family owned winery as well there in
Monterey.
Well I think, oh sorry, go ahead Esther.
Well Elaine, what's the history of Valdiguié
in Monterey? We associate it much more
with
Napa and areas around. Yeah, so my
understanding is Valdiguié really was
throughout the state. But kind of to the
northern part of the central coast. It
didn't quite get, it didn't really get
into
the southern part of the Central Coast
or Southern California.
But it, and so there's this whole history
of association with Napa Valley because
people were trying to make
Beaujolais-inspired wines
from Napa Valley. And so they called it
Napa Gamay.
But actually there's
been Valdiguié all the way down into,
as far as Paso.
And so it's been in Monterey,
but I mean like you're
saying the history of association is
very much north coast, more but
there's a lot of old vine
Valdiguié throughout Sonoma County as
well.
There's a tiny bit in Mendocino.
Yeah and then Napa, Solano and
then
J. Lohr is really kind of leading the
charge with it in Monterey at this point.
But it's just such an I mean it's
such an example like you're both saying
of like friendly,
delicious, lovely wine. And I've been able
to use this wine
in seminars around the US, but also with
people in from other countries. And
this is the
wine, that every single time they want
to know what it is,
they get they're stunned when they find
out what it is, and then they really
can't believe it when they find out the
price.
You know because it just over delivers.
Eell, one thing I think is so cool is
this is a style of wine that I think
feels kind of trendy and new,
it's light, it's got this real kind of
like crunchy bright
fruit to it. And the variety seems like
it's kind of
following in this kind of
craze for Beaujolais-style wines that
we're experiencing now. But
there's nothing new about this wine,
J. Lohr's been making it for quite a
while,
like totally blind to any trends that
may have existed,
and this style of wine has just been
around here for a really long time.
I also I think the point that you made
about kind of California not
necessarily needing to measure itself
against
you know classic wine regions of the
world specifically, Europe anymore is
something worth dwelling on because
you know I know that it's
it's interesting. It's like that
still I think compulsive comparison
to Europe was really important
when California was kind of establishing
its identity right. You're like okay,
this is the reference, so
we're going to form ourselves in let's say
France's model right.
Napa becomes Bordeaux, Sonoma becomes
Burgundy,
you know Paso is the Rhone, maybe the
Sierra Foothills is Languedoc, and then
we sort of like you know derive
some like you know some information from
that modeling.
But that can also be extremely
limiting too. I remember when
I was buying wine at Press and I would
have producers come to
taste on wines all the time and I
remember constantly getting frustrated
at producers being like this is my
Burgundian style
Chardonnay. And it's like well, what does
that mean because it could either mean
this is my lower alcohol style of
Chardonnay, it could mean this was my oak
age Chardonnay,
it could sometimes mean this is my less
oaky Chardonnay, you know it was just a
completely undefined term
and it was distracting and not giving
any information. And I think that
you know I'll keep, you still see that at
people that like
package their Merlot as like a right
bank you know wine, and things like that.
And that's fine, there's information
there.
But like Elaine, like you said, you know
I think it's okay for wines to be
just
Californian in reference. And that
there is
a lot of value there, and
you know we have that formative
influence, and it's okay now to just like
look inward and figure out what's here
and derive strength and identity from
that.
In the last, you know the last several
years especially, the thing I've seen
more and more
in doing interviews with producers is
when I ask them you know what are
your inspirations? What you
know, where did you
you know, how did you come to arrive at
this style, it's more and more often
that people are referencing other
California producers
that have really pushed their thinking
about what's possible here.
You know, and they'll, a
lot of top producers will also
mention oh you know my first love was
such and such
international wine. But when they talk
about in a more tactile way about well
how did they come to understand how to
they want to make their own wine? They're
actually referencing other California
producers that have kind of
shown them what's possible. You know and
that kind of,
but for me, it's really exciting
to see because it's a very different
stage of creative evolution from 
thinking
you don't need anyone else, you only need
your own region, or your own
your own wine. You know that's more of
a
sort of a closed sort of view that
makes it harder to evolve. But what we're
talking about is this moment where,
we're aware of a global influence, but
also
the sort of work being done here is
so substantial people are
just naturally being inspired by each
other, right here in California. It's almost like a maturity arc,
that's like you can 
put in a metaphor context of a single
person it's like you're so influenced by
your parents
growing up, and then you get out
and you're into college and you're
really influenced by your friends and
your professors, and then at a certain
age,
you know you're able to kind of pick and
choose from those influences, but also
like know yourself a little bit
more. I mean it's just it feels like a
natural
not to sound condescending, but it feels
like a natural kind of point in the
evolution of California wine that feels
exciting. Yeah.
So Esther. There's no
better segue to Petite Syrah from that.
Well and so Esther, this is a wine that
you selected.
Yeah and I
see that Scott, the winemaker, is in the,
Oh hi,
this wine is Mountain Tides Petite
Syrah, California Appalachian.
And just as luck would have it, my
story about this wine label went online
this morning.
So you can all go read that at sf
chronicle.com/wine.
But I think Petite Syrah is such a
cool California story because
it's essentially a grape variety that
doesn't really have
a meaningful lived experience
anywhere other than California. And
it's been part of California
viticulture for
you know almost as long as
as almost any vinifera grape has been
grown here.
But it's really taken a long
time
for it to come into its own I think
and
a lot of people I think associate Petite
Syrah with a kind of
monstrous, you know just kind of
aggressive wine that attacks your palate.
And
I think even lovers of that style of
Petite Syrah know
that they've long been an underdog in it.
Many producers formed a
organization called P.S. I love you, to
try to you know promote the great
variety
and kind of celebrate its beauty.
And so what Mountain Tides is doing
is
making Petite Syrahs. They make single
vineyard Petite Syrahs from
a lot of different vineyards, and kind of
are taking this terroir
focused view of it. But then they make
this I think
great value, twenty dollar California
Appalachian blend of several of the
different vineyards.
It's kind of a galage versus a
a crew you know single vineyard model.
And I think this wine, I think it
expresses a lot of the kind of
exuberance and energy
of the Valdiguié, although certainly it's a
kind of more substantial and structured
wine like that.
I don't think it's denying its identity
as Petite Syrah,
I think it's kind of embracing that
rustic, chewy,
dense quality. But I also think
this is
a Petite Syrah that I can get
really excited about, and that feels like
it has
some finesse to it, and isn't just
kind of a
monolith. One of the really important
early lessons I got in coming to know
California wine over the years is
two kind of two different experiences
one with Tegan Passalacqua,
who of course makes wines for Turley
and his own Sandlands, but then also
tasting with Paul Draper at Ridge.
You know Turley works with one of
you know I would argue one of the really
important vineyards in the state because
old genuinely old vine Petite Syrah in
St. Helena, Napa Valley area.
And then Ridge has worked with Petite
Syrah you know
since the 70's from also from
kind of mountainside Napa Valley, and now
Sonoma County as well. And the thing
that
I experienced with both of them was
tasting older Petite Syrah.
And there's a way in which I didn't
understand what Petite Syrah
is as a variety until I got to have
it
aged. And 
I think of it as if the baby fat melts
off you know.
So 10, 15, 20 years in it's like the
baby fat melts off and suddenly all of
these
gorgeous floral aromatics and really
live
elegant wine emerges. And
when I realized that's consistently what
happens with Petite, i started wondering
well,
who can show that when it's young? 
Is it that it can't show it when it's
young,
or is it that it's a stylistic choice
now that obscures that. And the thing
that I
like about what Mountain Tides is doing
is there's a way in which
capturing and preserving those aromatics,
those floral elements,
seems to me integral to the project you
know.
This is beautiful. Yeah,
I think it is a very floral wine.
Someone in the chat is mentioning
its genetic parents are Syrah and
Peloursin.
And I think there's that kind of
Syrah, violet
purple flower thing going on here.
I will say, I agree with Elaine, some of
my favorite kind of older wines when we
were building the cellar at Press were old
Petite Syrahs,
you know especially like the Ridge, what
were they called, Devils?
Well Yorkville Highlands. Yeah the main
ones. Yeah, but
anyway. Yorkville. Yeah from the
70's.
Were beautiful, beautiful, and they just
don't budge. I mean this is a great
variety that has
I think probably could have so much
intensity and density
that it just doesn't budge. They live
forever, and they're
very inexpensive if you follow
auction markets or
the secondary markets at
all. One they're typically
like an afterthought, very inexpensive,
and 
there is like zero chance of fake wine.
No risk. They're not going to be
counterfeit you mean? No risk of
counterfeit.
Old Petite Syrah.
I love it from a cultural
perspective too because Esther like you
were just saying,
you know Petite Syrah really developed its
character and found out
what it is and who it is, here in
California. You know it was
made as an intentional cross in France,
but didn't really take off there. 
And
the growing conditions in California
suit it quite well. And it's now actually,
there's a significant planting of it
in Israel, and then
in Australia it does well, but under
its original name Durif.
You know so it's now emerging in
other areas, but there's you know, we talk
about
Zinfandel as the iconic California
variety, but I actually think
Petite Syrah arguably is
really California's wine at the same
time you know.
It's just a difference in volume. I agree
and
you know when you think about what would
have made it an attractive
grape variety to plant in the late
1900's,
excuse me, late 1800's, early 20th century.
You know it's those same qualities
the kind of
the structure, the firmness of the
tannins, the intense color. I mean it's
just the kind of wine that girds itself.
And it's like it you know now
we're kind of rediscovering
the beauty in that. It wasn't just like a
kind of survival technique but that
those wines actually there's a kind of
grace
to that. And I love that I mean,
I love old, old vines, and grape
varieties that have been around for a
long time. And
the kind of history you can lift from
seeing how these vineyards were planted
and what they've done. But I just
think it's another really cool
example of California
as you put it Kelli mining its own
history and
finding a way forward. The other thing
about this wine though too is and I was
saying this to Kelli yesterday that
in my mind now is the first time
in wine that we could have a California
Appellated wine.
So a multi-regional blend, and have it be
taken seriously. I think that's a really
important
shift that's happened in kind of general
wine thinking. That
there's been a history for decades now
of assuming that the best wines in the
world are single-variety, single vineyard.
And so there is an assumption that
if it was a
a wine was a multi-regional blend, the
quality was lower.
When that clearly is not necessarily
true. But I think that
it's taken until now, for there to be
kind of room in sort of the wine public
so to speak,
for us to see no this is a
California Appellated
wine, It's actually made from Mendocino,
Sonoma, Napa, Contra Costa, Lodi, Sierra
Foothills fruit,
and it's a gorgeous wine. And the
advantage of having that multi-regional
approach is you can
it's a little bit easier to make it more
affordable too. So again a $20
bottle of wine. But I'm curious to hear
you know your thoughts on that, that
shift in perspective from assuming
single variety or single vineyard is
sort of paramount to now, we're seeing
you know less lesser known varieties,
lesser known regions, and also
multi-regional blends emerging and being
taken seriously at the same time.
Well I think, sorry Esther, did you want
to? Go for it, go for it.
I mean I think that in some ways
for like again, thinking about
premium, premium wines you know having a
tie to a specific piece of land is still
an important kind of part of that story
and like having a single variety well
that's just sort of
you know what California has
historically done,
well or has done in modern history.
But there's something
very kind of aristocratic
about terroir right. And putting terroir
at the front and center of the
story, putting the land in the front
instead of the story, like it's a great
it's a beautiful
like earthy experience, but it's also
aristocratic, like some terroirs are
better than others right. And so there's
something like really kind of
excitingly like democratic or like
socialist
about these multi-regional blends and I
think you know
I don't think it's a coincidence
that we're seeing a
a renewed interest in that from a
quality lens while retaining value,
at a time when we're experiencing those
kind of same
conversations in the political sphere
of our life. 
I feel like wine and wine trends are
intimately tied in like
political and socio-economical trends
and we don't spend enough time thinking
about that, but to me
these feel like we can.
Yeah I mean I think too some of the
emergence of that
happening more and more is out of
financial necessity for the winemakers.
A lot of you know upstart winemakers
can't afford
marquee, single vineyards and can't often
afford certain grape varieties that now
the fruit costs have kind of
ballooned and certainly in certain
regions. So
I mean I think there's been kind of a
forced creativity
to a lot of the kind of satellite
regions that
have been overlooked. And I think it's
that's to the consumer's benefit that
we're seeing
kind of new types of wines and
certainly
that are being made in this really, with
a real
eye to value. Elaine, do you think that
there's any kind of
um synergy between this
kind of what feels like to me an opening
up of the wine industry to include
like wine products, right which is still
obviously like niche, but like
blue wine, or you know it can be kind of
like
newish wine products that like where
we're starting to it feels like
be more open to the idea of moving away
from like the single vineyard, single
thing, in like these bigger ways.
Is that having an influence do you think
on these multi-regional?
Well I think, I don't know, that you mean
there's also
gold fleck wine, which I just think is
incredibly, it's so
what a bold move. You know, like 
I'm gonna put gold leaf in the bottle
and
it'll float around, like I just you know
that's a very different kind of
creativity you know, blue wine and other
different kind of creativity.
In my mind, like I don't think that blue
wine or gold wine are influencing
multi-regional blends as much as
the public is opening up to what wine
can be.
And I actually think the wine industry
needs to be really careful and how it
approaches this. Because the truth is
that
a lot of the wine code nasality to
put it that way, like there's a lot of
people that, not producers, but
people that talk about wine, so like 
the three of us
right. Like we're people that we sort of,
we are in wine, but
by talking about it, and keeping
in contact with what's going on, and
sharing the news so to speak.
A lot of people in our kind of role, end
up taking a very protectionist role,
and act against these crazy,
you know like hello kitty wine, or
blue wine you know.
But I think actually wine needs to
take a lesson that
if wine wants to survive and
and do well, it needs to allow a
semi-permeable membrane. It needs to
allow
these kinds of creativity of exploration
you know.
So multi-regional wine is sort of a soft
example, in the sense that
it's still clearly wine right. But my
point is that
I think if we want to expand the
audience for wine, which we clearly need
to do
to support sales. We need to be willing
to allow that there's going to be crazy,
weird
wine styles that emerge, and crazy weird
wine experiments.
We don't have to drink them, but we also
shouldn't be shaming
other people for wanting to try them.
I like to try and balance the two
sides of my personality a lot right. So I
have this like
20-year career and like you know fine
wine, luxury wine and
and then I have you know I come from a
family that doesn't drink wine, that
doesn't have a lot of money, that doesn't
have a lot of resources, and like I
always try to when I feel
myself wanting to pull in this like
protectionist as you said direction
and really be more kind of rigid and
what I view as
what both wine and fine wine. I try to
lean the other way
deliberately, and my mother you know her
favorite wine is a sparkling pineapple
wine that she buys at Trader Joe's, I'm
pretty sure it's under $10.
It's her favorite wine and my husband
makes wine, so it's like
really you know we have to pay attention
to this wine. And what am I going to do,
tell her that she's wrong?
You know that her tastes don't count,
that her impulses are bad. I mean 
and I've tried it and it's
delicious.
It's very like enjoyable, you know it's
not
you know nobody's going to write a poem
about it. But it's you know it is
interesting. And I think that
you know we, like Elaine said, I think
what you said is so important, like we
have to be careful,
we have to stop telling people that
they're wrong.
You know and open our arms
wider and expand the conversation. I
think this is the problem that
we're in with, you know the kind of old
guard,
wine community, you know poo pooing
natural wine all the time, that's what's
turned it into such a like
you know punk badge of honor is because
you know there's so many people just
being like well I don't know. Well that's
a great way to
you know make yourself irrelevant and to
to you know shut down people's interests
when
you know that interest could evolve in a
direction eventually that you're more
approving of.
I don't know. Well and I want to be clear
too that there's
plenty of obscure high-end wines I love
drinking and I absolutely support. Like
I'm in no way
speaking against single vineyard
wines, or single-variety wines or you
know
I'm just saying like we need to
allow
people to have their own views you know.
And I think you know, I think the wine
industry has inadvertently
kind of made it itself obscure by
taking a bit of an elitist tone you know
historically. And that's one of
the things that I think is
shifting that I'm really happy about.
Like it's possible to be
insatiably curious, super intelligent,
and still really approachable and
inclusive.
You know and I think that's something
that we're seeing shift in wine. The wine
conversation is expanding,
and with that we're seeing a parallel in
wine styles expanding as well.
And you know, Eric Asimov is on the
call
right now as well, and one of the
comments he made is like, it's so great
we're seeing these
multi-regional blends emerging. You know
again with Mountain Tides,
part of how they're able to support the
single vineyard Petite Syrahs
is by also making this multi-regional
Petite Syrah
you know which it's a little easier to
sell. And 
you know brings together wine from
across the state. But
the point Eric was making was you
know there's a little bit
of multi-vintage wine emerging too. I
don't see as much of that,
but there's a tiny bit. There's a tiny
bit of that too and I think as
as we look at climate change and sort of
vintage variation that's 
something we should be open to producers
using as a solution as well.
Yeah, I mean I think there has to be
some kind of loosening of like
what makes a great wine is that it's
single vineyard,
single vintage, you know single variety. I
mean,
there's many
exceptions to that even at the high end
in California. I mean I think Kelli
what you're saying about the
the kind of hostile relationship that
somehow got established between
natural wine and the rest of the wine
world,
is a perfect example of like a tension
that doesn't really,
I think necessarily need to be there.
It's like somehow
someone's drawn a line and said like
this is one thing and this is another
thing.
I mean I think the to me blue wine and
gold
fleck wine are a bit like novelty flash
in the pans, but
I think the the more kind of permanent
threat
or let's say long lasting threat is like
the hard seltzer
world, and even all the kind of adjacent
products the
canned cocktails, canned wine spritzers,
and I mean
to be clear, I don't think those have to
be a threat to wine, but I think there's
this kind of sense of like well that's
not real wine, that's like this
fake thing. I mean natural wine producers
are making
things you know grape beverages that I
think a lot of people
you know in some cases wouldn't consider
real wine
at all. So 
I mean it does just feel like this is
the way to
drive yourself into, the way
to alienate the millennial generation
right. To kind of close yourself off to
any kind of loosening of the definition
of what you are.
It's also, go ahead. No you go ahead. Well
I just was going to say
you know but I think you know Kelli
implicitly already made the point that
it's not just about
millennials, her mom loves pineapple wine
right. And the other big piece of
the wine industry is hospitality and
service. And surely
if our job is to serve the broader
community,
then that means bringing them what they
love, even if that's pineapple wine right.
You know so in that sense,
it wouldn't seem openness and
responsiveness is fundamental to
hospitality,
which the wine industry is built on
right. And so it's not just about
millennials, it's about
the broader audience as a whole. Yeah and
how
inhospitable wine hospitality can be,
sometimes is I think one of the most
maddening things
to witness you know. But what I was
going to say is that I'm so inspired by
this conversation, and when we
are done here, I'm going to make some
phone calls and I'm going to make
a single vineyard canned wine seltzer.
It's going to be
amazing and you guys can we can film
this next year on my yard.
Awesome. Exactly. Well
sorry, we only have a couple minutes left,
so I want to hear
you from each of you like what are you
really excited about
going forward? You know what
have we
not addressed, or maybe only mentioned
briefly, but that you're
that really is actually getting you
excited for wine going forward?
Esther you start.
I don't know. If there's one
thing i'm excited about, I'm excited for
us to all
transition out of this covid stage.
And I'm excited for the wine world to
to kind of continue to modernize.
But generally, I think everything I taste
these days from California, I mean
there's a
there's a higher percentage of wines now
that I'm excited about even I think than
there was when I started. I think five
years ago, there was a real,
I mean we're talking about these kind of
rifts, I think back then the rift was
like between like
the wines that thought of themselves as
balanced versus not. Yeah.
And I feel like that is like hardly part
of the
conversation anymore and I'm excited by
that. I think
there's kind of a I just think where
there's that specific brand of
antagonism has eased a little bit and
I taste so many California wines that
have a beautiful sense of balance and
structure and that seem like they're
going to be long-lived. But
I also taste a lot of wines that are
reveling
in being short-lived and kind of
young,
easy drinking. And I'm really excited by
those.
So I think we're in a good,
we're in a good moment
overall. We had,
we had Jamie Goode, in July, and he
and I were talking about that tension
you just referenced, sort of the
in pursuit of balance tension that
was really strong when you got here
Esther, like you got here in the last
year IPOB
was hosted. And the thing that actually
struck me was
based on the comments and questions
coming in and during that discussion, I
had to explain what IPOB was.
You know we're it's only been five years
but actually
the wine industry doesn't necessarily
know what IPOB was, But that
that was a moment that changed the
conversation and shifted how people were
thinking about wine. And I take it part
of your point too is that
you know natural wine is has had that
kind of effect in a different way and
but
actually, hard seltzer which we you know
think of as outside of wine it's
actually affecting
how we think about wine too, and what we
think we should be doing moving forward
you know.
Definitely, I think the you know one of
the great lessons of hard seltzer is
the I mean I think it's,  Kelli you
talked about this earlier, but
if you didn't realize before that people
are
kind of concerned with this wellness
aspect of what they drink, hard seltzer
really drives that point home in a
powerful way.
Whether or not it's actually a wellness
or should be considered a wellness
beverage,
so I mean I think there's a lot of
of lessons to learn there. And I think
the kind of wine industry at large needs
to learn a lot of lessons about
the way they talk about their wines from
the natural wine movement too.
Yeah. I would agree with that.
For me I would say the things that I'm
excited about going for I'll split
it  in two, and talk about Napa and Non-Napa.
Since I would say in Napa what I'm
excited
to see, and obviously this isn't
universal right,
but I would say that what I'm
excited to see in this kind of bastion
of
single vineyard, single variety, premium
wines.
What I witness as an increased respect
for the voice of the land.
We use, I'm starting to see a lot of top, 
top brands, expensive brands,
where you know maybe the single
vineyard was there as like a booster to
the story,
but the story was the brand right. Or
maybe the story was the winemaker,
now doing more sensitive farming,
kind of less interventionist wine making,
less like
oppressive like use of oak and 
ripeness and things, and just
a more refined product at the top end of
of the tier here.
And then outside of Napa, I'm just
excited by
the growth I'm seeing in small
businesses like around and I hope
you know with the pandemic and
everything that
a lot of these people are able to
survive. But you know when I was
traveling around the state for
GuildSomm doing classes on like
Monterey and Mendocino and things like
that, and
this it's interesting how like the
financial hardships
and increasing difficulties of 
farming grapes, and making wine, and
selling wine has like
forced more vertical integration. And so
you're seeing like
where like a place like Monterey is a
perfect example, where it was
dominated by big growers who were also
like came to
wine grapes out of produce maybe, then
were selling the grapes, and they started
making their own wine, and then you
started seeing
a proliferation of tasting rooms that
were able to survive because there was a
rise
in local wine tourism outside of Napa,
Sonoma, of San Francisco going down to
Monterey,
you know or people going up to Lake
County or whatever. This rise in small
family vertically integrated businesses
all
up and down the state making really
interesting
wines. That's been thrilling to see and
that has really
swelled in the last 10 years. And I just
hope to god that these businesses can
survive.
What about you Elaine? Well and it 
gets at
a question that came up earlier that we
weren't able to directly address, but
just the point that
that sort of model also depends
on the success
of surrounding businesses like
restaurants, 
places to stay, you know.
Tourism is tourism right. So it's not
just the wine, it's actually
this the health of the surrounding
community
and the things that take care
of you when you're traveling you know.
And that's one of the challenges people
are facing right now as well. But
I again, I'm so thrilled we could
three of us could get together and have
this conversation.
Vivian in the comments called it
spicy. It didn't occur to me we were
being spicy, but that's okay I'll take it.
But again, you know thanks so much
to both of you for making time
to do this it's always really good to
see both of you. And I really
hope that the wine industry will keep
having more conversations like this.
You know I think what's unique about
the work each of us do is we talk to
lots of people.
And I think the more
conversations the wine industry can
do getting together people that
talk to lots of people, and seeing
like what's going on.
You know and kind of building those
conversations. I'm excited to
see those kinds of topics continue to
build so we can really think about
you know where are things headed, where
are we now, and where have we been
in wine. Elaine, thank you for this whole
series. It's really,
amazing. People are loving it, you're
so good at what you do.
Thank you for being a guiding light.
And thank you
Esther, you're awesome too. Well I echo
that
Elaine, what Kelli said. And it's
such a pleasure to be here and
you know I mean we're not seeing the
faces of all of you, but I
see your comments popping up and it
feels so nice to
have that engagement with all of you, so
thank you.
Great, thanks so much. Thank you Esther,
thank you Kelli, thank you Elaine.
And we just thank all our attendees
for
participating today. A recording
of today's webinar will be published to
the California Wine Institute's youtube
channel in the next couple of days.
Ad all participants will receive an
email with the link
excuse me. So remember you can access all
of the previous Behind the Wines
episodes on the youtube channel.
 
