My friend Ira Gourvitz purchased the Fallbrook Winery north of San Diego about ten years ago and has been pushing the envelope on quality ever since.
A case in point is the Fallbrook Sauvignon Blanc, which has improved steadily. The 2006 is perhaps the finest yet, though I’m not sure I would have predicted that when I first tasted the wine at the Monterey Wine Competition in March.
It didn’t medal in Monterey and I wasn’t surprised. The wine had been bottled the week prior to the competition and appeared to be light and thin when I tasted it a couple of days after we annouced the winners.
The wine evolved dramatically over the next couple of months, however, and earned a Platinum award at the Critics Challenge International Wine Competition at the end of May.
I served the Fallbrook 2006 Sauvignon Blanc earlier this week at the Critics Challenge Platinum dinner at San Diego’s Le Fontainebleau restaurant. It was beautiful with the Day Boat Scallops, exhibiting exceptional fruit complexity (hints of citrus and melon, but with a dominant overtone of white peach) and more palate weight and length than had been evident in March.
This pairing received excellent support from the Critics Platinum crowd, but to me it demonstrated how quickly a young wine can evolve in the bottle, positively blowing away all previous notions.
You aren’t likely to come across the Fallbrook Sauvignon unless you visit San Diego and dine at one of the top restaurants that carry the wine, such as Oceanaire Seafood Room, but my point applies to all young wines in general — don’t be too quick to dismiss them, for they could be completely different with another month or two in bottle.
Photo: Fallbrook winemaker Duncan Williams.
8