Over the
past decade, Wine Business Magazine
has featured a list of "Hot Brands" that spotlight interesting,
sometimes unusual, labels that have had an impact in the market or stand out in
their approach. The list from 2012 includes five California wineries, three of
which are from the Central Coast. Other featured producers came from Virginia, Washington,
Oregon and Texas. The tenth winery honored was from Canada's British Columbia,
a 100% varietal Cabernet Franc, a grape that was also seen in three of the selections.
Six of the ten were single varietal wines, the others were blends of two to as
many as four grapes. Retail pricing was from $13 to $40, total cases made ran
from 100 to 10,000.
Another piece of interesting data was alcohol content. In
this age of big wines and 15% + levels of alcohol, this group only broke 14% in
two wines. One of those was only by .1% and the group averaged 13.5%. The
Oregon winery, Troon, blended Viognier with 88% Vermentino and was only 11.5%
alcohol. Other rarely seen varietals included Tannat, Lemberger, Tempranillo
and Grenache Blanc - the last two being 100% of the variety. The only other
100% varietal wine was made from Syrah, and one of our Central Coast picks, as
was the maker of the Grenache Blanc which was also the smallest production in
the list.
The least expensive and largest production was also the most
blended, featuring Cab, Zin, Merlot and Petit Sirah. Since you might actually
be able to find this example, it was 2010 Rosso di Napa from Ca' Momi. I doubt
a Napa appellation red will stay on the shelves for long at this price. Good
luck! Since WBM serves these wines at their holiday party and
to those at the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium, you may want to find a
friend in the industry and tag along.
I should mention the author of the article (in the February
2012 issue) was Mary-Colleen Tinney. It was a well researched piece and truly
offers a wide range of interesting wines. Plus, my guess is she may come from
fine stock of the same old sod as I, sla'inte.
Two Shepherds is the producer of the Grenache Blanc, which
retails for $24 if you can find one of the only 1,200 bottles made. The maker
is a tech industry sales & marketing professional, William Allen, who lives
in Sonoma County and blogs at "Simple Hedonism". He was a consumer
who decided to make some hobby wine and was introduced to this grape when he
tried some made by a Paso Robles vintner. He sourced this 2011 vintage from the
Saarloos vineyard in Santa Ynez. It is the source that makes me consider it
eligible for my Central Coast focus. Allen works primarily with seven Rhone
varieties but sources most of his grapes from Sonoma and has planted his own
vineyard. So, he may not be "Central Coast" for much longer but the
roots of this wine are.
The Syrah is a 2007 Santa Barbara County version from Kunin
Wines. Seth Kunin made 490 cases of this wine, which retails for $30 and was
the highest in alcohol content of those selected. While not especially well
known, the winery has been in business for fifteen years. His background was in
the restaurant business, which landed him in the Santa Barbara area and work in
the cellars at Gainey Winery in Santa Ynez. He set out to build his own brand
and shied away from the Pinot and Chardonnay focus of much of that area at the
time. He liked the elegance of northern Rhone wines that lacked the big smack
of many of the versions being made then in Australia and California and sought
a cooler vineyard location. That is fairly common in the appellation, which has
the lowest degree day ranking of the major California AVAs. While now common,
and differing stylistically from the warmer climate versions made in Paso
Robles, there were not a lot of Syrah growers for Seth to talk to in Santa
Barbara when he started the winery. He credits his old world style on a long
growing season and sources grapes from Alisos Vineyard in Los Alamos Valley,
Larner in Ballard Canyon and Paradise Road in E Santa Ynez Valley. He has
worked with those three growers from the beginning. He holds the finished wines
longer than most do these days, as shown by the current release being from the
'07 vintage.
The third Central Coast wine is also a 100% varietal -
Cabernet Franc - and named Carr for its winemaker Ryan Carr, a former art
student. A 2010 vintage, 826 cases were made and it retails for $30. He came
into winemaking through his parents move to Santa Barbara and subsequent
purchase of some land in the Santa Ynez Valley. They were thinking to plant
some vines and have Ryan manage it. After finding out more about vineyard
management and the reality of planting and farming a vineyard, they sold the
property. But the experience lit a fire under Ryan, who had come to like the
industry and farming. So he continued to work the vineyard for the new manager.
He also did graphic design for wineries and was allowed to harvest some excess
fruit in 1999. Suddenly he was a trash can level winemaker and the result was
pretty tasty. He invested in his own winery, makes about 6,000 cases (including
premium kegs) of wine and oversees fifteen vineyards in the county, from which
he obtains most of his fruit.
Three people with vastly different backgrounds who came to
love winemaking in a winding road sort of way. All now considered a Hot Brand
for 2012 and making small lots of wine as a personal statement of style and varietal
expression.
