Santa Barbara Winemakers.
Domaine Des 2 Mondes . 2005. Saints and Sinners, viognier, Sanford and Benedict vineyard, Santa Barbara County. 14% alc. Morgan Clendenen - Yves Cuilleron.
Cloths of Heaven
William Butler Yeats
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
There were wars over Helen. There was loss of dignity and honour over Guinivere. There was Gauguin in Polynesia and there was a young lady who once recited The Cloths of Heaven to me for which I remain humble. Then we find this. Discovering the tropics for the first time, tasting the delights of a juicy white peach, the richness of a perfect banana, the creaminess of something as yet undescribed and unnamed. How is this possible. I thought Domaine Mathilde et Yves Gangloff and their wonderful Condrieu was all I could take for a lifetime without having to revisit heaven. So much for what I know. Little did I consider the size of heaven or paradise nor the extent a winemaker is willing to go to prove me wrong and push the envelope. Growing viognier in Burgundy? Unheard of. Doing it in Santa Barbara, this is California after-all; let's give it a go.
But. There is always a "but". What if we, at least, do it right. We need an advisor. We need to follow etiquette. Who is the expert in cold climate grapes from warm climates, who knows how to dance in the cellar? Who else is wise enough to invoke W. B. Yeats at such a thought of the challenge to develop and then create with sure confidence: deep and rich and uninhibited. I keep hearing of making red wines elegant, yet Hugh Johnson talks of white wines being elegant, there is an elegance not austere in some black velvet number but elegant as in wearing white linen drifting through a field of gardenia.
How else to describe an ambrosia: hints of fresh milk and yoghurt of course it would be expected; the warmth? how do you get that? as if the fruit is releasing sunlight it had to absorb during the summer a day in the country without a care.
The Domaine of the 2 Worlds is enough to feed the ravenous classical historian into fits of research. Keep up with this wine as it stays cold, you have no idea what you are missing.
Cold climate, Cold Heaven, cold Wine.
Cheers
July 9. 2006
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