Feature Article
A clear autumn afternoon in the Russian River Valley reveals a stunning backdrop to some of the world’s finest Pinot Noir vineyards
A clearer image of the Russian River Valley appellation emerges from the mist
Perhaps no region in the world of wine is so inextricably tied to its weather as is the Russian River Valley AVA
by
Dan Berger
November 15, 2005
Heading west, the Sonoma County sun still isn’t evident here, though off to the north there is a faint indication that somewhere it’s already risen on verdant hillsides.
The fog here looks eerily foreboding as it sneaks in and out of the sloped vines ringed by oak and madrone. It’s still. Just a whisper of breeze rustles the leaves mostly turned orange, yellow and red. Harvest 2005 is over, and the Russian River’s persona remains as it was before a grape was picked: shrouded in that ever-present morning fog.
Perhaps no region in the world of wine is so inextricably tied to its weather as is the Russian River appellation. In fact, the weather, specifically the fog line, is what helped local wine makers and grape growers in creating the originally boundary line that was approved by the federal government. And it was this same fog line that drove the same wine makers and grape growers when they re-crafted that boundary line to exclude some areas and include others. That petition recently was approved, adding new areas to the region. All those areas are where a team of local wine makers and growers say the morning fog has been verified.
Thus it is easy to imagine why there is a special character to this area of rolling green hills, gullies and long, wide swaths that run adjacent to the winding waterway that is its namesake. Fog occurs in colder weather, and brings with it moisture that can be anathema to fine wine grapes. All sorts of maladies are likely in humid conditions.
So cool is this region 15 miles west of Santa Rosa that it was seen initially for its potential to mimic Burgundy in the grape varieties it would support, and so growers planted Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, logical choices given the growing conditions. Early success was first with the latter; the former proved to be a dicier situation.
As early as the late 1960s, spots in Russian River showed huge potential for Pinot Noir, among them the dark, relatively dense wines of former commercial pilot Joseph Swan. Sitting on a low-lying plain off Trenton Road, rather well east of the western boundary, Swan pioneered a rustic, coarse style of wine that some likened to having the wildness of spice found in Gevrey-Chambertin.
But by the mid-1980s, Swan (using clonal material that local wine makers agree gives the wine a more meaty feel, the so-called ‘Swan Clone’) was trying to tame his wine a bit by using more whole berries in the fermenter to encourage a wine that captured some of the juicy strawberry-ish qualities seen in other nearby areas.
A bit further south, along Guerneville Road east of Highway 116, Tom Dehlinger was seeing a distinct difference between certain blocks in his vineyard, based likely, he believed, on soil and exposure differences. He began to note those differences by keeping the vineyard lots separate, seeing how each developed in the tank, and then tracking them back to the vineyard, which he then roped off using colored yarn.
Early in the process, E&J Gallo gambled on the area being cool enough to fashion a classic Chardonnay, so the large Modesto-based winery put in 300 acres of Chardonnay in a former apple orchard across the road from Dehlinger. Today, Gallo continues to make a respected Laguna Ranch Chardonnay from that property.
Veteran winemaker Merry Edwards (Mount Eden and Matanzas Creek) later developed a vineyard just outside Forestville, and added to that by buying grapes from some of the top local growers who relied on new clonal material from France. Her wines initially showed darker color and weight than she had anticipated.
Perhaps the leading image-maker for Pinot Noir in the area was Bob Cabral at Williams - Selyem, the highly sought after Pinot specialist. Cabral’s house style was more Cotes de Beaune, emphasizing the bright red cherry and strawberry fruit of the region. Using older vines and aging the wines in new French oak, Cabral continued the great tradition of Ed Selyem and Burt Williams, who had retired.
But the one person who established a more stylized image for Russian River Valley Pinot Noir was former Davis Bynum wine maker Gary Farrell, a self-taught craftsman whose very first Pinot Noir (the 1978 Davis Bynum) was highly praised by California’s greatest wine maker, Andre Tchelistcheff.
Farrell, focusing mainly on Pinot from very old vines, believes firmly that Pinot Noir need not be ultra-ripe to deliver the sort of flavors that not only makes this region what it is, but also are required to make a wine that opens up over three to six years and is perfectly joyous at a decade. There was a seamlessness of regional character in Farrell’s early Rochioli Vineyard and Howard Allen bottlings, and his “regular” Sonoma County wines were a miracle of balance and house style.
The fact that Farrell harvested his grapes earlier than just about anyone in the valley did not go unnoticed. In the late 1990s when former Hartford Court wine maker Dan Goldfield joined forces with Steve Dutton of the legendary farming family of that name, he followed a roughly similar course. Today the Dutton-Goldfield wines now sit beside the best in the region.
So exciting was Russian River Pinot Noir to wine industry insiders that by the early 1990s virtually everyone began to eye the area for land to plant Pinot, including Napa Valley Cabernet producers flush with the success of their big, chewy red wines. Land prices began to move up for even scrub land; mountaintop acreage looked attractive even if fully wooded. The potential buyers were certain they could simply chop down the trees and plant Pinot. (Such plans frequently were thwarted by local environmental groups, those opposed to “commercial” farming, neighbors’ lawsuits, and California Coastal Commission regulations that were more stringent than the buyers had anticipated.)
At last a number of adventuresome souls moved further west, out of Russian River and into the riskier Sonoma Coast, where cold winds rake vines in summer; where heat summation is often so low that the grapes would better make sparkling wine; and which as yet has not proved itself to be as consistent or as successful a red wine region as is Russian River.
Note that most of the high-caliber Pinot producers are located in the southwestern corner of the appellation, even though Pinot Noir is grown in most areas of the region. Pinot plantings do, however, run slightly thinner along the northeasterly border where Alexander Valley and Chalk Hill begin. And the reason for that is that although Pinot can still compete in the fringe areas, it is less predictable on the warmer perimeter. And other varieties do as well or better there.
One of the most famed of all Russian River Pinots is Rochioli, where owner/farmer Tom Rochioli makes a deeper, richer style of Pinot than most. But a portion of Tom’s famed vineyard is being replanted, so volumes are, for the next few years, somewhat scarce.
Image-wise, Russian River is all about Pinot Noir. To that end, Joseph Phelps, famed for his Insignia Cabernet blend in the Napa Valley, planted two large vineyards here, mostly with Pinot Noir. One of those vineyards is inside the Russian River appellation, at a low-lying spot just five miles from the Pacific called Freestone.
So cold is Freestone that it may one day become an appellation of its own, but for now it is home to a small number of growers who fight to maximize the sun’s rays and ripen fruit where experts say it is folly to try doing so.
Russian River’s cool-climate reputation aside, it is also a region that has as many faces as Dr. Lao. It is, for example, a terrific place to grow all sorts of other grapes that have an explosiveness of flavor that few regions in the world can manage to deliver in so small a geographical locale. Indeed, so varied is this pocket of Sonoma County that it’s easier to identify what can’t grow here.
And it’s hard to know what’s No. 2 in the region, though Zinfandel might just be it. That’s partially because the slightly warmer Dry Creek Valley, on Russian River’s northern boundary, is a prime growing area for Zin, and because over the last two decades or more, that later-ripening variety has yet to suffer the indignity of a serious rainfall.
Farrell again sets the style point for Zin in Russian River with his claret-like, age-worthy style, achieved (again) by picking fruit at least a week earlier than others and making a wine with lower alcohol, better (tighter) structure, and a wine that impressers for its very restraint.
But Zin also can be a forceful and nearly over-the-top red wine, and at least a dozen producers still make Zin that captures the extractive energy of this potentially port-like red wine, usually without the “bite” of hotter regions. The secret is that in this relatively cooler place (except for vintages where the Indian summer is too exacerbated), the naturally higher acidity and lower pH helps keep the wine targeted toward the dining table. Swan’s various Russian River Zins over the years have been more exotic than mainstream, and excellent versions from De Loach (including some superb vineyard designates) show the greatness of this region for California’s own grape.
Chardonnay, as do most other grapes grown here, exhibits good natural acidity hereabouts, but the current mode of wine is the softer-juicier style that really doesn’t go as well with food as would be a leaner version. In fact, of the few dozen Russian River Chardonnays you can find, most go through a complete malolactic fermentation, which helps to obliterate much of the regional character of the wine.
However, hitting that style more directly in 2002 was a new winery located just on the back side of cold Freestone. John and Barbara Drady’s Sonoma Coast Vineyards released a Chardonnay with startling character that shows off the Russian River style of fruit best since the wine did not undergo a malolactic fermentation. Made by long-time wine maker Tony Austin, this wine simply exudes the character of the region with a style rarely seen in California.
But Russian River has other faces as well.
- Dan Berger, Russian River Valley Editor
The fog here looks eerily foreboding as it sneaks in and out of the sloped vines ringed by oak and madrone. It’s still. Just a whisper of breeze rustles the leaves mostly turned orange, yellow and red. Harvest 2005 is over, and the Russian River’s persona remains as it was before a grape was picked: shrouded in that ever-present morning fog.
Perhaps no region in the world of wine is so inextricably tied to its weather as is the Russian River appellation. In fact, the weather, specifically the fog line, is what helped local wine makers and grape growers in creating the originally boundary line that was approved by the federal government. And it was this same fog line that drove the same wine makers and grape growers when they re-crafted that boundary line to exclude some areas and include others. That petition recently was approved, adding new areas to the region. All those areas are where a team of local wine makers and growers say the morning fog has been verified.
Thus it is easy to imagine why there is a special character to this area of rolling green hills, gullies and long, wide swaths that run adjacent to the winding waterway that is its namesake. Fog occurs in colder weather, and brings with it moisture that can be anathema to fine wine grapes. All sorts of maladies are likely in humid conditions.
So cool is this region 15 miles west of Santa Rosa that it was seen initially for its potential to mimic Burgundy in the grape varieties it would support, and so growers planted Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, logical choices given the growing conditions. Early success was first with the latter; the former proved to be a dicier situation.
As early as the late 1960s, spots in Russian River showed huge potential for Pinot Noir, among them the dark, relatively dense wines of former commercial pilot Joseph Swan. Sitting on a low-lying plain off Trenton Road, rather well east of the western boundary, Swan pioneered a rustic, coarse style of wine that some likened to having the wildness of spice found in Gevrey-Chambertin.
But by the mid-1980s, Swan (using clonal material that local wine makers agree gives the wine a more meaty feel, the so-called ‘Swan Clone’) was trying to tame his wine a bit by using more whole berries in the fermenter to encourage a wine that captured some of the juicy strawberry-ish qualities seen in other nearby areas.
A bit further south, along Guerneville Road east of Highway 116, Tom Dehlinger was seeing a distinct difference between certain blocks in his vineyard, based likely, he believed, on soil and exposure differences. He began to note those differences by keeping the vineyard lots separate, seeing how each developed in the tank, and then tracking them back to the vineyard, which he then roped off using colored yarn.
Early in the process, E&J Gallo gambled on the area being cool enough to fashion a classic Chardonnay, so the large Modesto-based winery put in 300 acres of Chardonnay in a former apple orchard across the road from Dehlinger. Today, Gallo continues to make a respected Laguna Ranch Chardonnay from that property.
Veteran winemaker Merry Edwards (Mount Eden and Matanzas Creek) later developed a vineyard just outside Forestville, and added to that by buying grapes from some of the top local growers who relied on new clonal material from France. Her wines initially showed darker color and weight than she had anticipated.
Perhaps the leading image-maker for Pinot Noir in the area was Bob Cabral at Williams - Selyem, the highly sought after Pinot specialist. Cabral’s house style was more Cotes de Beaune, emphasizing the bright red cherry and strawberry fruit of the region. Using older vines and aging the wines in new French oak, Cabral continued the great tradition of Ed Selyem and Burt Williams, who had retired.
But the one person who established a more stylized image for Russian River Valley Pinot Noir was former Davis Bynum wine maker Gary Farrell, a self-taught craftsman whose very first Pinot Noir (the 1978 Davis Bynum) was highly praised by California’s greatest wine maker, Andre Tchelistcheff.
Farrell, focusing mainly on Pinot from very old vines, believes firmly that Pinot Noir need not be ultra-ripe to deliver the sort of flavors that not only makes this region what it is, but also are required to make a wine that opens up over three to six years and is perfectly joyous at a decade. There was a seamlessness of regional character in Farrell’s early Rochioli Vineyard and Howard Allen bottlings, and his “regular” Sonoma County wines were a miracle of balance and house style.
The fact that Farrell harvested his grapes earlier than just about anyone in the valley did not go unnoticed. In the late 1990s when former Hartford Court wine maker Dan Goldfield joined forces with Steve Dutton of the legendary farming family of that name, he followed a roughly similar course. Today the Dutton-Goldfield wines now sit beside the best in the region.
So exciting was Russian River Pinot Noir to wine industry insiders that by the early 1990s virtually everyone began to eye the area for land to plant Pinot, including Napa Valley Cabernet producers flush with the success of their big, chewy red wines. Land prices began to move up for even scrub land; mountaintop acreage looked attractive even if fully wooded. The potential buyers were certain they could simply chop down the trees and plant Pinot. (Such plans frequently were thwarted by local environmental groups, those opposed to “commercial” farming, neighbors’ lawsuits, and California Coastal Commission regulations that were more stringent than the buyers had anticipated.)
At last a number of adventuresome souls moved further west, out of Russian River and into the riskier Sonoma Coast, where cold winds rake vines in summer; where heat summation is often so low that the grapes would better make sparkling wine; and which as yet has not proved itself to be as consistent or as successful a red wine region as is Russian River.
Note that most of the high-caliber Pinot producers are located in the southwestern corner of the appellation, even though Pinot Noir is grown in most areas of the region. Pinot plantings do, however, run slightly thinner along the northeasterly border where Alexander Valley and Chalk Hill begin. And the reason for that is that although Pinot can still compete in the fringe areas, it is less predictable on the warmer perimeter. And other varieties do as well or better there.
One of the most famed of all Russian River Pinots is Rochioli, where owner/farmer Tom Rochioli makes a deeper, richer style of Pinot than most. But a portion of Tom’s famed vineyard is being replanted, so volumes are, for the next few years, somewhat scarce.
Image-wise, Russian River is all about Pinot Noir. To that end, Joseph Phelps, famed for his Insignia Cabernet blend in the Napa Valley, planted two large vineyards here, mostly with Pinot Noir. One of those vineyards is inside the Russian River appellation, at a low-lying spot just five miles from the Pacific called Freestone.
So cold is Freestone that it may one day become an appellation of its own, but for now it is home to a small number of growers who fight to maximize the sun’s rays and ripen fruit where experts say it is folly to try doing so.
Russian River’s cool-climate reputation aside, it is also a region that has as many faces as Dr. Lao. It is, for example, a terrific place to grow all sorts of other grapes that have an explosiveness of flavor that few regions in the world can manage to deliver in so small a geographical locale. Indeed, so varied is this pocket of Sonoma County that it’s easier to identify what can’t grow here.
And it’s hard to know what’s No. 2 in the region, though Zinfandel might just be it. That’s partially because the slightly warmer Dry Creek Valley, on Russian River’s northern boundary, is a prime growing area for Zin, and because over the last two decades or more, that later-ripening variety has yet to suffer the indignity of a serious rainfall.
Farrell again sets the style point for Zin in Russian River with his claret-like, age-worthy style, achieved (again) by picking fruit at least a week earlier than others and making a wine with lower alcohol, better (tighter) structure, and a wine that impressers for its very restraint.
But Zin also can be a forceful and nearly over-the-top red wine, and at least a dozen producers still make Zin that captures the extractive energy of this potentially port-like red wine, usually without the “bite” of hotter regions. The secret is that in this relatively cooler place (except for vintages where the Indian summer is too exacerbated), the naturally higher acidity and lower pH helps keep the wine targeted toward the dining table. Swan’s various Russian River Zins over the years have been more exotic than mainstream, and excellent versions from De Loach (including some superb vineyard designates) show the greatness of this region for California’s own grape.
Chardonnay, as do most other grapes grown here, exhibits good natural acidity hereabouts, but the current mode of wine is the softer-juicier style that really doesn’t go as well with food as would be a leaner version. In fact, of the few dozen Russian River Chardonnays you can find, most go through a complete malolactic fermentation, which helps to obliterate much of the regional character of the wine.
However, hitting that style more directly in 2002 was a new winery located just on the back side of cold Freestone. John and Barbara Drady’s Sonoma Coast Vineyards released a Chardonnay with startling character that shows off the Russian River style of fruit best since the wine did not undergo a malolactic fermentation. Made by long-time wine maker Tony Austin, this wine simply exudes the character of the region with a style rarely seen in California.
But Russian River has other faces as well.
- Gewurztraminer: One of the region’s most distinctive wines in the past were the dry, Alsace-style Gewurzes of Dan Moore under the name ‘Z Moore’. That project was disbanded a few years back as Moore moved to Pinot specialist Arista. But Davis Bynum, Adler Fels, and Louis Martini were still making superb Gewurztraminers. The latter, a Napa Valley wine maker bought a few years back by Gallo, still owns a small but exciting vineyard of Gewurz in Russian River soils near Bynum.
- Syrah: Dehlinger, Dan Goldfield, Holdredge, and Phil Staley, a former East Bay dentist, are just four of those making exciting Syrahs from this region, and one source of Syrah fruit for many of the others is the famed SaraLee’s Vineyard.
- Sauvignon Blanc: Numerous wineries make a stylish and distinctively cool-climate Sauvignon Blanc from Russian River, the most famed being the rather oaky Rochioli. However, lower- or no-oak versions from Adler Fels, Davis Bynum, Gary Farrell and others have left a lasting impression on consumers who prefer a bit of herbal bite to their SBs. A Staley blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon is annually a local insiders’ treat.
- Sparkling wine: The efforts of ‘J’ and Korbel cannot be ignored here, the latter having made startling strides in wine quality over the last half decade.
- Grenache: Phil Staley and a handful of others make superb Grenache from this cooler climate, a decided long-shot. But the wines are stylish and take a bit of time for their aromatics to come around.
- Pinot Gris: The fascinating panoply of aromatics available from this grape in this cool region has been on display for only a few years, but many of the best are competitors for the best of the variety. It’s a grape destined for greatness in Russian River.
- Dan Berger, Russian River Valley Editor
