By Steve Hicks
 Photo courtesy of Lucia Vineyards Pinot Noir grapes from the Santa Lucia highlands make prize-winning wines. |
A recent tasting of Pinot Noir grown between the Santa Rita Hills (SRH) and the Santa Lucia Highlands (SLH) was held in the restaurant behind the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The wine was great, the food was good and the location not so good. Not to say the aquarium isn’t terrific, but conducting a wine tasting amid a general public eating fish and chips made things difficult for both groups.
There were 19 people having lunch and tasting the wines in flights of four.
The menu included a delicious abalone course, maybe a little odd for an almost endangered mollusk, but I am sure they were farm raised. Foie gras and a rabbit roulade entrée were also excellent. The cuisine for this type of tourist restaurant was nicely done - there just was zero ambience.
Currently, SRH and SLH are two of the hottest appellations for Pinot Noir. They also produce excellent Chardonnays and Syrahs. The winner was a 2005 Lucia Garys’ Vineyard from the SLH, which won by a large margin.
Garys is plural not possessive as there are two Garys, Franscioni and Pisoni. They are lifelong friends and co-own this 50-acre vineyard. It was planted in 1997 and has a marine climate with ocean breezes in the afternoon. The relatively cool climate makes for an extended growing season producing good acidity and flavorful fruit. This is such a popular and successful vineyard there are now more than 20 top Pinot Noir-producing wineries buying its grapes. The names include of course Roar Wine (Franscioni’s winery) and Lucia (Pisoni’s sister label) plus Kosta Browne, Morgan, Miura, Siduri, Tantara and Testarossa.
My first-place wine and the group’s No. 2 was a 2002 Tondre, also from SLH. Third was a 2005 Tantara Evelyn’s Vineyard, also my choice for third. It was from the very popular Bien Nacido Vineyard in the Santa Maria Valley appellation. Wineries buy rows, which are farmed to their specifications. Bernardus’ 2004 Bien Nacido was fourth. Pesagno, another SLH wine, was fifth and 2004 Wild Horse Solomon Hills from Santa Maria Valley was next. Melville and Bonaccorsi represented the SRH wines and were rated in the middle of the pack, but both are excellent wines.
Michael Bonaccorsi and his wife Jenne Lee founded the Bonaccorsi Wine Company in 1999. They were an instant success and the wine I brought to the tasting was a 2002, highly acclaimed by the Wine Spectator. Michael was the sommelier at Masa’s, Cypress Club, Zolas and the original Spagos, where he met Jenne Lee, who was the maître d’. He was the 20th American to become a Master Sommelier and was considered the best young sommelier in the United States. Michael, a distance runner and in the best of shape, sadly succumbed to a heart attack in 2004 at the age of 44. The winery has carried on and continues to make superb Pinot Noirs, Chardonnays and Syrahs.
Draeger’s has some of these wines in stock and will have access to most of the others if and when they become available.
In June, beginning my summer of food and wine excess, I was fortunate to attend a small gourmet luncheon at Lavanda in Palo Alto. They have won the Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence, and Chef Clyde Griesbach can really cook. I guess the word was out that Master Sommelier Fred Dame was in our group, as two of the owners, Bruce Schmidt and Howard Graham, were there. Howard is a grower owning the Graham Family Vineyard and has recently started the August West Winery. He is an avid collector and shared some wonderful wines in brown bags as an addition to our repast.
Brown-bag wines are always a challenge as you are expected to know what is in them. We got lucky this time as we thought one bottle was a DRC bottling. It was not, and the Master Sommelier said it must be a Dominique Laurent - and it was. I have no idea how he could possibly identify the wine. Laurent is a great big guy making minuscule amounts of wine. I guess that is why they are Master Sommeliers.
We did our own version of the 1976 (”Judgment of Paris”) tasting - the historic face-off between California and France. I brought a 1976 Lafite and a 1976 Diamond Creek Red Rock Terrace. Again California prevailed, as the Diamond Creek was superior at this stage of its life. We also drank the best Shiraz I have ever tasted, Henschke’s 1997 Hill of Grace. It was full of sweet fruit, well balanced and just lingered in your mouth. A decadent 1990 Ch. d’Yquem from Howard’s cellar topped off the afternoon.
Steve Hicks is a wine adviser and consultant. For more information, e-mail shicksvine@aol.com.
