September 14, 2000
News (of a sort)The big "non-news" of the month is Zaca Mesa's DNA testing of roussanne-a noble white grape variety from France's Rhone Valley. The DNA test yielded what the winery didn't want to hear-that the wine so- labeled turned out to be viognier-another noble white grape variety from the northern Rhone Valley!
Zaca Mesa is spending considerable time and money to relabel the suspect wine. I really like what Zaca Mesa's doing, but I write this with a certain degree of cynicism for several reasons.
First, with the public acknowledgement of the honest mistake, the winery has absolved itself from breaking any kind of federal labeling law.
Second, with the mislabeled wine having won some awards already, it amplifies to me a lot about about the nature of wine competitions which many wineries don't like to admit.
Here's some background. Grapevines are most commonly propagated from cuttings. Occasionally, cuttings are brought illicitly into the United States; these are non-certified cuttings which have not been quarantined and tested for viruses at places like UC Davis or the state agricultural station in Geneva, New York. These cuttings smuggled into the United States are sometimes referred to as "Samsonite imports," so named for the famous brand of luggage.
I happen to know there is viognier in California masquerading as roussanne and Zaca Mesa ended up with some of those cuttings.
If a winery such as Zaca Mesa knew a wine was mislabeled and didn't act appropriately as they did, they could have been prosecuted for breaking federal labeling law. In their case I know it was an honest mistake. I know another winery simply released the wine as a "white wine" with some proprietary name on the label, another alternative to relabeling.
It's not the first time this sort of thing has happened. Decades ago there were some plantings of pinot noir in the county which turned out to be gamay. It struck me as laughable when consumers tasted the wines and went "what crummy pinot noir." No wonder it was crummy pinot noir-it wasn't pinot noir!
But some years ago, a California winery owner/grower, Angelo Papagni, spent some time "pounding rock" in federal prison for selling barbera for zinfandel. Back in the height of the white zinfandel craze, zinfandel was commanding a much higher price in the market place than barbera was. Indeed, there are federal laws against the mislabeling of wine.
Zaca Mesa "fessed up" to the mistake, making it a non-news item I say sarcastically. I say that because if the late Richard M. Nixon had admitted knowing about Watergate, he might have finished out his second term in office. And had Bill Clinton been forthright from the beginning about Monica, he might not have been impeached by the House of Representatives.
Second, there's the issue of wine competitions. Many wineries do not enter wine competitions at all. Buy a bottle of wine because you like it, not because it is an "award winner"! Oftentimes, wines win awards because they "stand out" from the others. The fact the mislabeled roussanne won awards in blind competitions says more about the judges than the wine. Being mislabeled, the wine stood out from the other roussannes in the competition! The wine, and I have tasted it, is a terrific bottle of wine. The judges are the bozos; the wine is wonderful.
People
In the recent Santa Barbara County Vintners' Association election, Tom Beckmen was elected President for 2000-01, and Jim Fiolek of Zaca Mesa was elected Vice President. Kate C. Firestone of Curtis Winery was elected Secretary, and Becky Barieau of Qupe was elected treasurer.
Other board members elected are Steve Spadarotto of Cambria, Frank Ostini of Hitching Post Wines, Tim Snider of Fess Parker, and incumbants Kate Firestone, Sally Boyd of Foley Estates and Jeff Frey of Frey Farming.
Firestone Vineyard has recently hired Susan Doyle, an Australian native, as its new winemaker, replacing Alison Green Doran who recently departed after 23 years to pursue a consulting position in Sonoma County.
Throughout the 1990s, Susan Doyle produced wine in some of the finest cool climate regions of Australia, New Zealand and Sonoma County.
And sadly, a real local pioneer on the local wine scene passed away in Lompoc. Walt Brambir, a retired Air Force officer turned wine glass merchant, supplied the earliest logo glasses for our wine festivals. For years Walt put on a wonderful "Valley of the Flowers" wine tasting benefit in Lompoc, and he wrote a quite informative wine column for the Lompoc Record.
Bob Senn writes The Independent's monthly wine column, "Grapevine," lives in the Los Alamos Valley and owns the Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium.
