November 14, 2002
Harvest is pretty much over. The northern California storm of last week brought some light and much-needed rain to the Central Coast-good timing, too, with harvest pretty much over.And harvest looks good for 2002. I spoke to two favorite winemakers about 2002 crush, Frank Ostini, and Benjamin Silver.
For Frank Ostini, a Santa Maria native, he and Gray Hartley have worked 23 harvests. In 1979, they produced a merlot from Firestone fruit. In 1980, they made a Napa cabernet sauvignon. And they got their feet wet making pinot noir from 1981 until 1987 buying fruit from Sierra Madre Vineyard east of Santa Maria.
Frank told me this harvest was cold most of the time. "You couldn't pick by numbers, you had to pick by flavor," Frank said. In a hot spell, sugars would go up, then it would get cool and sugars would drop. Frank added, in 2002 they got less juice for the amount of tonnage-"good concentration in color, good flavors and wine in balance." Yields were light, with tonnage ranging from about 0.9 tons/acre at Clos Pepe to 2.4 tons/acre from Bien Nacido Vineyard.
With about 16 total pickings of pinot this harvest from vineyards like Cargasacchi and Fiddlestix and Clos Pepe in the Santa Rita Hills to Bien Nacido and Julia's in the Santa Maria Valley, I think these guys are at the cutting edge of world class pinot noir along with some of the newer people like Bill Cates and Jeff Fink from Tantara, Brian Loring, Wes Hagen from Clos Pepe, and the guy that some would call "the king," Chris Whitcraft.
Sharing Frank Ostini's passion is "twenty-something" winemaker and Santa Barbara resident, Benjamin Silver. Benjamin has seen seven vintages. The current lineup includes cabernet franc, nebbiolo, sangiovese, pinot noir and viognier from such vineyards as Thompson Vineyard near Los Alamos, Vogelzang, Larner, Julia's and Tepusquet and Lake Marie.
About the 2002 vintage Benjamin told me, "The shocking thing to see is the lack of vigor in the vines. The leafy areas in the canopy were way down. Therefore, the plant had to work harder to ripen the fruit, but luckily, the clusters were smaller, the berries were smaller, going back to the lack of warm weather during flowering and set (in May and June)."
Benjamin told me the vintage looks good-much like '95-with wines of finesse rather than warmer vintage wines like '94 and '96.
OLDIES BUT GOODIES
I recently had the opportunity to drink an '81 Mondavi Reserve cabernet sauvignon and a '77 BV Private Reserve. Four of us drank the wine over tri tip at Charlie's in Los Alamos. Janet, a wine-buff friend from Santa Barbara brought the wines up, saying she didn't think the wines had been stored properly. But the quarter-century old BV Private Reserve was described by Sherrill, a friend from Santa Maria who works at Buttonwood as "glamorous." It was! The wine was sound. It showed great varietal character, and typifies what great cabernet has always been about here in California.
And speaking of glamorous, we also had a bottle of Benjamin Silver's just-released sangiovese-a wine to look for!
BIG TIME PRESS
Check out this month's "Food & Wine" magazine. In a piece called "The Secret Vineyard," outside Santa Maria, wine editor Lettie Teague tells readers Bien Nacido is inconspicuously grapes for some of California's mostcelebrated bottles, including producers like Tantara, Lane Tanner, Qupe, Au Bon Climat, Hartley Ostini, Jaffurs and Testarossa.
A SAD NOTE
And parting on a sad note, grape growing and winery pioneer, Dr. Gene Hallock passed away October 25. He and his family started Ballard Canyon winery in 1974. They left the Santa Ynez Valley and returned to Santa Barbara in 1994 where "Dr. Gene" as many called him, resumed the practice of dentistry. I knew Gene and his family from the early days of Ballard Canyon Winery. He was the salt of the earth, and many of my own early fondest wine memories were going out to visit Ballard Canyon Winery.
Wine columnist Bob Senn lives in the bucolic Los Alamos Valley and owns the Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium.
