Note: The following is adapted from a talk given at the World of Pinot Noir Conference held in Shell Beach, CA, on the first weekend in March, 2009.
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For no earthly reason, other than the fact that the Internet makes procrastinators of us all, I recently decided to look for ‘Pinot Noir’ on the social networking website, Facebook. It came up immediately: the digital image showed a heavy, very ripe cluster of velvety purple grapes with a “come hither” look that perfectly captured its seductive gifts.
On Pinot’s page there were fan-photos, fan-videos, and testimonials, giving Pinot a kind of status usually reserved for a favorite author or maybe a Jonas Brother. There were several hundred words devoted to describing Pinot Noir in very flattering terms. It was called a ‘minx,’ ‘a seductive yet fickle mistress,’ it was said to ‘make the blood run hot and the soul wax embarrassingly poetic.’ Consider yourself warned.
At last count, Pinot Noir had 1,128 Friends — including, I’m guessing, some of the people in this room. (It didn’t surprise me at all that some of my Facebook friends are Facebook friends with Pinot Noir.) They are from every corner of the world; Argentina, Australia, Bosnia Herzegovina, South Africa, Sonoma, Raleigh-Durham, France; in image, all of them very attractive. Oh there were a few exceptions — there was a Chipmunk, for example, and a guy named Zlatko, whose image was composed mostly of his large studded tongue, exhibiting the exceptional purple-staining powers of his Facebook friend. But aside from these, all of the friends of Pinot Noir seemed like pretty cool people, people I’d want to be friends with.
Having done this, I decided — what the hell? — I would look up the Facebook profile of Santa Cruz. That’s where it got interesting. Santa Cruz, it turns out, bears a striking resemblance to Borat, the inept, language-challenged Kazakhstani journalist given life by Sasha Baron Cohen. He was pictured here smiling ear to ear next to a Saguaro cactus. Two thumbs up. Sexy time! Okay, I thought, this isn’t exactly what I was expecting — then again, given the fact that we were talking about Santa Cruz, was it really all that weird? When I think of the city of Santa Cruz and its countercultural, generally funky atmosphere, none of this was inconceivable. Who knows? Maybe Santa Cruz and Borat’s village, Glod, are sister cities? Maybe he’s getting some side pay as a spokesman.
At last count, Santa Cruz has 28 friends. Nearly all of them, inexplicably, were Serbian. Santa Cruz himself (if I may call him a ‘he’) had a few pictures of his friend Ali G. in his portfolio. Apparently he has a child. He belonged to a ‘Health and Beauty’ group page called Pajser, which featured an attractive image of a crowbar as its profile picture. Santa Cruz is a fan of ‘Warcraft III: Frozen Throne!’ which I believe is a video game — at least I hope it’s a video game — and recently contributed to discussions on the ‘Ne Jebe Lep Nego Hawk!’ group.
Please don’t expect me to make any sense of this. I am just the reporter. But this important research led me to the inevitable conclusion that Santa Cruz is Out There! Not Kazakhstan out there, but definitely out there. And it occurred to me that Santa Cruz, the appellation, shares this reputation, too. Even though the Santa Cruz Mountains are home to some of the oldest, most historic, most fabled, and most important vineyards in California, what do we know about it? What does it look like? Does it have a shape? Does it have a beginning, middle and end? Does it have a center? As a wine region, does it have a place, like ‘Napa,’ or ‘Healdsburg,’ where we can all go and hang out?
The answer to all of these questions, until recently, has been more or less ‘no.’ Tasting rooms are minimal, and miles from each other, and are open by appointment if they’re open at all. Vineyards are usually at the end of some winding, fog-soaked roadway or hidden by redwood groves. Most mornings, you could set off for a vineyard in fog so thick you can’t see to the end of your car; three miles later, the milky soup you’ve been peering through grows ever so faintly brighter, then brighter still, then so suffused with unearthly yellow light you’ll feel as if you’ve passed through a portal of heaven; another 500 yards and the sun smacks you in the face like the back of God’s hand.
Have a look around. There’s probably a vineyard lurking up there. Vineyards half a mile above sea level are not uncommon, vineyards half a mile above sea level with an ocean view not unheard of. By the same token, you may see nothing at all but trees, and a carpet of fog beneath you, the vineyards at the end of some dirt road and out of sight. There are currently six sub-regions being bandied about, and you could be standing in the middle of one of them, and still have absolutely no idea where you are.
It is a region full of contrasts. It’s home, on the one hand, to multi-million dollar Silicon Valley hideaways and what I’d consider some of the more tucked away, isolated, positively Appalachian backwaters of coastal California. There are places with names like Ben Lomond, Skylonda, Holy City, and my favorite, Forest of the Nicene Marks — sounds like a private redwood grove for Pentecostals. On a Sunday afternoon you can drive along Skyline Boulevard on the ridgeline south of San Francisco and come across a supper club that has been operating successfully since Prohibition, that you’ve never heard of. And it’s packed! And it’s 4:30 in the afternoon! Who are these people? Where do they come from? What wines are they drinking with their dinner?
Even for a place as geographically complex as California, the Santa Cruz Mountain AVA is another order of magnitude. A few miles can separate world-class Pinot Noir vineyards from world-class Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards. What gives? It’s the sort of place where you can be standing on one high ridge, look west and see a friend of yours on a ridgetop (that has been miraculously cleared of timber in this case). You wave. He waves back. You and he are on two separate continental plates. You’re on the Continental plate, and he’s on the Pacific Plate. You’re on granite. He’s on ancient ocean sediment. His plate has rudely driven itself under yours and is pushing, like a wedge, beneath you. The entire AVA is like a moshpit of this violent geology.
In addition to this, consider that the region is enormous — more than 480,000 acres, even if just a tiny portion of this is planted to Pinot Noir. Nearly all of it is planted on or near ridgetops, above the fogline. These ridgetops number in the hundreds, each with slightly different elevations, aspects, and proximities to the ocean. (Panelist Ed Muns of Muns Vineyard pointed out that the ridges are almost impossible to discern without fog. Without the fog, he points out, it’s just a sea of conifer green.)
There are roughly six sub-regions currently being discussed as legitimate delineations. Keep in mind that discussions here are so new, so recent, that the borders of these regions aren’t even close to being determined. We know they’re there, explained one panelist, but we don’t know where they begin and end. We see the differences, but we don’t know yet how they fit together.
Much of the credit for this initial research goes to Mary Lindsay, President of the Viticultural Association of the Santa Cruz Mountains, and to Clark Smith, who with Lindsay organized a definitive tasting highlighting the sub-regions in broad strokes for appellationamerica.com.
The northern edges of Skyline Boulevard, ranging roughly from Woodside to Saratoga, probably the coolest of all of the subregions discussed here. In our tasting, the wines of Thomas Fogarty represented this area, and were characterized by their delicate florals, firm dark red fruit, and a tinge of savory spice with a hint of pine.
Los Gatos Hills: these are the hills above Saratoga and Los Gatos to the west, slightly further inland from Skyline. In the tasting the wines of Mount Eden represented this region, and even though the Mount Eden estate wines, from the 2006 and 2007 vintages, were painfully young, they did bear a faint, fresh dark green herbal spice note — some called this sage, some balsam — that seemed to be a hallmark of the sub-region.
Note that fruit is not the calling card of these wines so far. There is a pronounced lack of jam in these wines, and the next set brought this home.
The next sub-region is being called Summit Road, a set of vineyards south of Highway 17 between Boulder Creek and Morgan Hill, and characterized by especially high elevations — in fact Loma Prieta Peak is not far off, which was the epicenter of the last major earthquake in San Francisco in 1989. In the tasting the region was represented by Muns Vineyard and Silver Mountain; perhaps due to the elevation, these wines were less herbal, but definitely savory and mineral.
Los Ranchos, a region west of Summit Road with a more pronounced coastal influence, and probably the oldest of the Pinot producing sub-regions. In the tasting this region was represented by the wines of Vine Hill. This is clearly a warmer place, with much lower acid than the more northerly areas. They’re richer, with a darker fruit profile (more the realm of plum than cherries) and yet still display a mineral finish.
The final region is Corralitos and Pleasant Valley, falling on the southern flanks of the mountain range. Near the ocean communities of Aptos of Capitola, it is the most exposed to the ocean. These tend to be a little lighter than the rest, but the herbal elements have returned, resembling bay laurel and thyme, with a succulent, lively elegance. The wines of Martin Alfaro represented this region.
There is a lot still to be determined, and the regions are still a long way from consensus. The challenges of isolation, from each other and from what might be called ‘the Pinot mainstream’ remain. But it’s encouraging to see these initial forays into self-expression. And it’s clear that Santa Cruz is poised to find a lot more friends, on Facebook and otherwise, in the near future.