July 26, 2024 - NWR

🍷 Nine California Winemakers You Need to Know

July 26, 2024

New people are continually drawn to California for what Virginie Boone describes as the Golden State’s “limitless sense of adventure and possibilities.” And that certainly includes people who make wine. This week, she gives us a tour of nine California winemakers at the vanguard (and essential bottles to try from each).

Among her picks:

  • “[Britt] Richards worked at Chappellet, Jordan, Keller Estate and Peter Michael before launching her own consulting business, where she has most recently partnered with Napa Valley-based Master Sommelier Desmond Echavarrie in Alta Nova Cellars to make an outstanding Cabernet Sauvignon priced under $100. To that end, the two have also partnered to make Band of Vintners, which probably offers the best quality-to-price ratio of any Napa Valley Cabernet known to man and woman right now.”

  • “Self-taught winemaker Duncan Harmon, who works with his mom, Dalita Harmon, launched this winery in 2019. He and his mom source single-vineyard Syrah and Grenache grapes from some of the finest names in Santa Barbara County including Kimsey, Larner, Peake Ranch, and Bien Nacido. Harmon, who graduated from Penn State and zeroed in on wine, found inspiration on California’s Central Coast drinking the wines of Sine Qua Non, Saxum, and L’Aventure. Harmon’s wines are fierce and feral, intensely inky and structured, and named for things that matter to him and his mom.”

  • “A native of the Limousin, [Marie-Laure] Ammons studied wine and viticulture in Burgundy and Bordeaux before coming to California. She spent 18 years working with  Philippe Melka, after early jobs at Stonestreet and Hartford Court. Now she’s on her own with Nid Tissé. She produces non-interventionist Chardonnay and Pinot Noir using indigenous fermentations, and working with the best of the best vineyards, from Hyde Vineyard in Carneros and Russian River Valley’s famous Bacigalupi all the way down to Radian Vineyard in the Sta. Rita Hills.”

“South Africa’s wine industry dates back to 1655. Yet paradoxically, for all intents and purposes its wine history is one of the world’s most recent,” Fintan Kerr notes in his exploration of the country’s wine industry.

  • “The most sought-after, expensive wines share far more in common with their counterparts in Europe than they do with the trophy wines that receive the fanfare elsewhere,” Fintan finds. “South Africa has shied away from the tried and tested, brand-building style of production—think Yellow Tail in Australia or 19 Crimes in the U.S.—and is more aligned with the European search for terroir, and a shared stylistic vision within regions and sub-regions.”

  • Nonetheless, South African winemakers are putting their own stamp on what they produce. “South Africa is not looking to emulate the trophy wines of the world,” local wine writer Christian Eedes told NWR. “It’s important to us to be the best at what we do and globally relevant, but we define excellence in a different way.”

In our increasingly attention-starved world, sometimes we all need a reminder of how important it is to take time to focus and appreciate things.

“Just because wine is not art does not at all mean that wine is not worthy of our attention,” Jason Wilson writes. “And the best wines are certainly a complex-enough aesthetic experience to repay that attention. It’s why wine is a part of culture worth exploring, studying, and appreciating.”

And, as with paintings or music, appreciating means dedicating oneself to consideration and perception.  

“No matter how many classes or how much book learning you do on wine, you can’t understand it unless you put in the time. You have to pay attention. That means, for at least a few moments, leaving behind what you ‘know’ about wine, and simply smelling and putting it in your mouth.”

It’s a tough time to be trying to sell single malt scotch. Sales in the category were down 14.3 percent in the United States last year—and for some brands the drop off has been much steeper than that. And while a surplus might be a boon for consumers, Susannah Skiver Barton thinks distillers have good reason to be worried.

  • “There are some extraordinary contributing factors: inflation and overstocking during the covid years,” Susannah reports. “It’s had stiff competition from bourbon for well over a decade, and rising interest in tequila adds to its headwinds. A few years of tariffs under the Trump administration pushed up prices that were already firmly ensconced in the luxury sphere. And, quite simply, single malt is on the downslope of coolness.”

  • “Expect to see more age-statement single malt scotch in the near future, either as new releases or as revivals, with distilleries bringing back age-stated whiskies that they’d previously phased out. After all, scotch with a number on it is easier to sell." […] For most brands, prices need to stop rising and, at the very least, hold steady. Some prices may even drop—not a lot, but some.” But beyond that, she notes, “scotch makers will need to make themselves relevant to drinkers.”

ANY QUESTIONS?

We want your questions about the worlds of wine and whiskey! Submit them here and we may answer them in an upcoming article. And yes, you can be anonymous, so ask us anything that’s been on your mind.

WINE STORIES WORTH READING FROM AROUND THE INTERNET

✌️The Guardian’s wine critic signs off with six final bottles for your consideration.

😬 The “largest and most expensive wine collection ever offered at auction” may have been overflowing with counterfeits. Taiwan’s elites are increasingly asking each other, “Have you returned your wine?”

💳 “Overexpansion, too much debt and a surplus of grapes.” Bankruptcy comes for one of America’s largest wine producers.

As always, thanks for reading! See you next week for much more.

Santé!

The NWR Editors

To ensure you continue getting our emails:

  • Drag and drop this email to your “primary” tab in Gmail (if it's not already there)

  • Add this email ([email protected]) to your contacts or address book

Copyright (C)

Want to change how you receive these emails? You can unsubscribe

Click here to sign up for yourself if this was forwarded to you by a friend