Santa Barbara Winemakers.

White Heat (part one)

Looking for some great summertime drinks to refresh the palate?

Eric Mohseni, Clay Brock, Jeff Wilkes and Fred Brander each give their white wines an ephemeral, delicate rendition of winemaking at its most difficult state. Eric makes a killer syrah, Clay's grenache is to die for, Jeff's pinot is top of the line and Fred's cabs are totally unexpected. So what happens when they wotk their magic with the white grapes?
It is only March and the snow has just gone, the temperature gauge hovering around 50 fahrenheit, so I cranked up the heating, threw on some shorts and borrowed an Hawaiian shirt to get into the groove.

2004 Osseus sauvignon blanc, Westerly Vineyard, Santa Ynez Valley. 13.9%alc.

Definitely a name to look for when you come to Santa Barbara. I rarely meet a winemaker with the depth of passion Eric has for his craft. It is not very often this very same passion reflects the wines as they are interpreted. This wine is foreplay, the aperitf of kings, clean, crisp, tight and dry, none of the BO of New Zealand wines either. All of the grapes were picked sooner than you may expect, though then again this is from Westerly and it was 2004 (a very early harvest). Not a breath taker like Kathy Joseph's sauv, but a wine that does understand women. The 10% oak is neglible, though it does make you want more. He's watching the ball-game, you are sitting in the garden wondering what to do, when just at that moment the cell phone plays the first bars of the latest top ten song "Yes, come on over, I have some wine going." Of course the afternoon leads to dinner, she asks you to open another of the Osseus that's chilling in the fridge. More than just a thirst quencher.



2000 Brander, sauvignon gris, Santa Ynez Valley, Alc13%.

Not much is written about this varietal. Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back (as Eugene O'Neill said). Then again it did have eight more to work with. So what is this one about?

I don't believe there is much sauvignon gris grown in the US, Fred has about three rows of it and you don't normally find it outside of his cuvees. It turned up on his shelf last week (2nd week of March) so like a hungry trout I took the bait.
This is, depending on where you read, a clone, a hybrid, an off-shoot, a cousin or a sister of the sauvignon blanc/jaune/violet. How if I tasted it and said it's not like any of the above? It's clean, a little oily, lives in a burgundy bottle and has something close to spicy but not, close to pears than apples but not, fruity but not, similar to pinot blanc but not. I see a French accountant at lunch, leafing through notes, eating mussels and washing it down with a glass of the good stuff, an educated palate, a quiet reverie, something refined.

I wonder how this might taste after a third fermentation - just being curious.


2004 Trou de Bonde, pinot blanc, Bien Nacido vineyards, Santa Maria Valley. 14.2%alc.

Boil up some gnocchi, chop some basil, prosciutto and garlic. Add some grapeseed oil into a pan and lighly cook the garlic, add the now cooked gnocchi, season with salt and pepper, then serve. Sprinkle the prosciutto and basil over the top, then drizzle over with olive oil. Simple but delicious. Pinot blanc is a great alternative to chardonnay, it has a plush softness like chardonnay, a spicy frutiness like chardonnay aged in barrels (what is the style between Chablis and Meursault called?). An obvious alternative if you are allergic to certain varietals, such as chardonnay. How else to compliment the chewy stickiness of the gnocchi without the abrasiveness? The least you can do is give this varietal a try. A pleasant surprise, especially when compared to chards or sauv blancs. A tasting class comparing these varietals shows how firm bodied this wine can be. The finish is equally unusual, the lack of burn you may expect is another benefit when you honour the host, promptly followed by an intense garden of tropical flowers from the breath of a hummingbird the size of a hawk. This flavour of perfume lingers long after the final nibble of basil. You end up in a Turkish diwan having it poured from a silver pitcher. Definitely not pinot in the noirish sense, blanc is French for white, this is not a juicy fruit wine either, go towards the nectar, this is a wine that tastes of its flowers. Troudebonde, by the way, means bunghole. I'll shut mine, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.


Cheers

March 15, 2006