We’ve been to the Sonoma, Anderson, and Napa valleys several times in the past 25 years to taste and buy wine. It is one of our very favorite things to do and some of our favorite places to visit. This was our first visit since 2013 and took us to the southern part of the state as well as Sonoma/Napa. Over the course of 5 weeks in March and April we visited 42 wineries in 4 regions and bought more wine than common sense would dictate.
The CA wine scene has definitely changed and evolved since our last visit. And, as always, we learned a lot from the people that grow grapes, make wine, and mange the business. Our retirement situation allowed us to see the whole enterprise at a much slower pace, have comprehensive discussions with smart and knowledgeable people, and do it on a scope that was never possible for us when we were working. Below are a few observations and opinions, as well as links to our winery visit wrap-ups.
Wine tasting in the Spring is sweet. Tasting in the Fall is really fun because the grapes are being picked, the crush is going on, and every vineyard is a bee hive of activity. However, most wineries are packed and the traffic is really bad. The great thing about the Spring, especially in March and April, is that there aren’t many tourists there. As a result everything is easier: getting around, dining, seeing attractions. The landscape is green (vs. the usual brown) and stunning as you drive through the state. But the best part is that there are not a lot of people in the tasting rooms and you get a tremendous amount of love and attention that you just don’t get in the Fall.
CA wine styles are evolving. One trend that was clear to me was that “fine wine” in California is undergoing a significant transition from very fruity to more subtle and “elegant”, or to my palate, more “Frenchy”. On the red side, it is particularly true with Rhone blends and Pinots, and to a lesser degree with Zinfandels, Syrahs, and Bordeaux blends. This isn’t true at every winery and it isn’t really happening with “value wines”. However, it was a pretty constant experience as we worked our way through our 40+ visits. A decade ago, I looked on this style as watered down and lacking flavor. However, as it is with food, tastes change and I now welcome it (this is convenient because we just bought a lot of it). On the White side, the trend away from oaky Chardonnays has continued to the point where it’s hard to find anything really oaky, if it’s even stored in oak barrels at all. Also, there seems to be a lot more white grape varietals available that used to be hard to find including Viognier and Roussanne. There are a lot more interesting white blends and almost every winery had a tasty and affordable Rosé.
Paso Robles is awesome. For the past decade we intended to go to the Paso region to taste wines but never made it due to other travel priorities. Perhaps we had them wrong as the region not only has great wine, but it is absolutely beautiful. There are more than 400 wineries in the area, many of which are focused on Rhone style blends. Like Napa and Sonoma, there are many AVAs and “micro-climates”. Accordingly, there are a lot of grape and fruitiness variations. The wine scene there reminds me of Sonoma fifteen years ago: relatively uncrowded, unusual and inventive wines, no appointments necessary, generally small wineries, and reasonable prices. The quality of the servers was, as a rule, exceptional and we met and talked to several winemakers. My advice: go there. You won’t be disappointed.
The Napa/Sonoma wine tasting experience is rapidly changing. In previous trips, nearly all the wineries we visited were walk-ins. You simply showed up anytime they are open and tasted the daily menu. The current trend is “tasting by appointment only”. We needed to make appointments at the majority of the places we went to. Admittedly, we were primarily tasting at smaller boutique wineries, but many of the larger/older producers have transitioned to appointment-only tastings as well. There are several advantages for serious wine people: the setting is often more of a living room than a bar, you have the full attention of a knowledgeable server for the better part of an hour, and they pour more and better wines. The downside is you can’t go to as many wineries in a day (5 max vs.8) and you have to carefully plan for travel time. Further, some wineries have dramatically increased their tasting fees, although they are usually forgiven if you buy a couple of bottles. To me, it is a night-and-day comparison – the appointment experience is far superior to the walk-in.
Sonoma looks like Napa and Napa looks really expensive. Both regions seem to be more upscale that the last time we were there. The tasting rooms are bigger and more exotic, often more of a building complex than a tasting room. The restaurants are more Manhattan’ish. The Hotels and B&Bs look more luxurious. As you would expect, the biggest change seems to be cost. Everything appears to have risen in price more than the inflation. For example, tasting fees in Napa five years ago were ~$15, now it’s ~$25. Sonoma was ~$10, now ~$20. Perhaps this is the normal economics of supply and demand, but at some point it just gets unaffordable. Have said that, these two regions produce wines that are irresistible and irreplaceable. As an aside, both valleys seem to have recovered from the fires last Fall. Although we saw some areas that were destroyed by fire, by and large the vineyards and wineries were spared.
Central California wine is mediocre and great. Although we spent two weeks in the region, we didn’t do a lot of wine tasting. The five wineries we visited were generally good, but not great with one exception – Wrath. Most of the grapes come from the enormous Salinas Valley. This is 100 mile x 5 mile stretch of flat land that hosts agriculture on a scale I’ve never witnessed. A fair portion of that land is dedicated to grapes for wine. Most of those grapes are used to make the “California” bulk wine that dominates the lower shelves of wine and liquor stores across the country. However, a small percentage is carefully grown to make “fine wine”. The prize for us was the Wrath Winery. They make a great Chardonnay and a half dozen fabulous and elegant Pinots. These wines were as good as anything else we had on our trek through California.
The club game. One of the benefits of long tastings and conversations afforded by our extended springtime visits was getting deeper insight to the boutique wine business. Most of the small wineries do not own their own vineyards. They buy some or all of their fruit from farmers who frequently produce grapes under the watchful eye and supervision of the winemaker. In addition to grapes, there are a lot of expenses to make wine and the struggle to stay in business is constant. The big wineries generally are part of a larger company that has several brands and a nationwide or global distribution network. The small guys have limited distribution, often by their own choice. The reason for this is that distributors typically get a 50% discount off the “list price” of each bottle. Restaurants get something around 30% to 40%. Wine club members typically get 20% and sales at the tasting room are at full list price. Nearly every winery in the US has a wine club – you agree to buy a certain number of bottles per year (typically 12) and they send it to you in 3 or 4 shipments over the year. In return you get the member discount and free tastings. For the winery owner who is struggling to stay afloat (particularly in a bad year) every 10% of revenue really matters as their capacity is hard limited. Given that you can only get so many people to come through your winery and pay full price, the next best thing is to sell every “non-tasting room bottle” you have to wine club members. Consequently, they cherish both new and existing members and when a couple of 50 or 60-year-old-somethings with gray hair walk in, you are looked on as prime targets and treated royally. There are some advantages to getting old after all. One minor glitch is that the best of the wineries sell every bottle they fill to their current members and the best you can do is to get on a membership or allocation waiting list. In some cases, like Kosta-Brown, the wait can be more than a year just to be a “Jr. Member”.
Paso Robles Wine Tasting wrapup 2018
Central CA Wine Tasting wrapup 2018
Sonoma Wine Tasting wrapup 2018
WLB