Trend Report: Single-Vineyard Bottlings

It’s probably a statement of the obvious, but one of the trends you’ll see more and more of in the coming year is an increasing focus on site-specificity, on bottlings that express the unique character of a particular terroir. And in few places is this more true right now than in the United States, particularly California, Oregon, and Washington.

It only makes sense, of course: As vineyard managers and winemakers continue to understand their land better, they become better able to match it up with the perfect clone of the perfect grape variety, coax out its essence through smart vineyard practices and well-considered winemaking, and create wines that, ultimately, hopefully, only could have come from that unique piece of the earth.

This is nothing new in the wine world--the Burgundians, for example, have known about it forever--but the increasing frequency with which it’s happening on this side of the ocean is an excellent sign.

And, in fact, some of the most exciting wines I’ve tasted in the past year have been from single vineyards. I recently had a chance to sample the wines of Knights Bridge, whose single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignons were stunners. Their Knights Valley estate vineyard, Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard, and Beckstoffer Dr. Crane Vineyard bottlings were nothing short of profound. Dutton-Goldfield, the standout Russian River producer, crafts great wines (I love their Pinots) from a number of single vineyards, including Sanchietti and Devil’s Gulch, among many others.

Heading north to Oregon, one of my favorite producers is Bergstrom, whose powerful and often Burgundian Pinot Noirs typically find a way to both be tied to their land and to nod in the direction of a thousand years of elegant Pinot tradition across the Atlantic. Their Bergstrom Vineyard, de Lancellotti Vineyard, and Shea Vineyard bottlings are some of the best this country has to offer. (Their 2007 Bergstrom Vineyard, in fact, was recently named one of the top 100 wines of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle.)

In the end, great wine is often separated from merely good wine by its honesty and by the way it expresses either the vision of the winemaker or the land in which its fruit is grown. When those two come together--well, that’s when the real magic finds its way into the bottle.

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Fire and Pinot

Decanter.com is reporting that “investigators probing a huge wildfire that began at a vineyard owned by Constellation Wines believe a firework used to scare birds may have started the blaze.” It’s wildfire season in California, and, as always, the news is peppered almost daily with tales of acre upon ruined acre dotting the landscape. And, also as always, it is affecting the local wine industry, as well.

The story continued: “Nearly 6,500 acres…of grassland in an area northeast of Soledad were destroyed in the blaze, which started on 27 August and was finally put out on Monday evening.” More details will be posted here as they emerge.

Also this week, The New York Times ran a wine column and tasting-panel report on the Pinot Noirs of Oregon and, contrary to what usually appears in the press, it wasn’t all that exuberant.

“I will say,” wrote Eric Asimov, “that this was one of our more difficult tastings. While we liked many of the wines, very few grabbed and held our attention.

The wines that seemed most balanced and freshest lacked complexity, while those with more going on in the glass occasionally seemed clumsy or unfocused. The difficulty in finding wines that put it all together kept our scores relatively low."

He goes on to describe the differences between the vintages in general (2006 and 2007) and the wines tasted for the article in particular, but his conclusion is not as positive as I would have expected. I’d be interested to hear about readers’ personal experiences with Oregon Pinot Noir in the comments section here. Personally, I’m a big believer in them, and wines at all price points, from Torii Mor to Bergstrom to Antica Terra have given me as much—and often more—wine-drinking pleasure as anything else in recent years.

And speaking of great Oregon Pinot, click here for an excellent interview on Grape Radio with rising star Maggie Harrison of Antica Terra and cult Syrah Lillian. Her story is a fascinating one, and speaks not only to her own history, but also to the future of American winemaking.

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