In March, Pinot Noir fanatics from all over the world gather in Shell Beach, CA for a festival called World of Pinot Noir, which is now in its sixth year. Not all festivals are this way, but WOPN seems to draw an especially obsessive and close-knit group of regulars, in something like the wine equivalent of a Star Trek Convention without the ridiculous costumes (though there are some disturbingly loud Hawaiian shirts).
On the morning of the first day I was chatting with a journalist who asked an astonishingly simple and penetrating question: Why are there so many Pinot Noir conferences in the world? Zinfandel has a handful of course, and Rhône varieties inspire a couple more. But for Pinot Noir there are more than a dozen, with about half of them on the West Coast alone.
Part of the answer is that in this country Pinot Noir has been an underdog for a very long time, living in the nether corners of respectability. Pinot’s always been a little like an awkward kid brother to Bordelais varieties, moody and distant, unable or unwilling to play, while Cabernet Sauvignon and its more broad-shouldered denizens have attracted the lion’s share of respect and attention. Of course Pinot Noir is lighter and subtler than Cabernet, more crafty, with complexity and nuance its calling cards rather than power and intensity. It is less obvious, and the less obvious is always harder to love.
Its fans, by extension, have always felt a little marginal, perhaps seeking comfort in the comraderie of like-minded crowds at festivals. Of course these days, in the post-Sideways era, there’s also a feeling of triumphalism in the air. There’s plenty of debate as to whether Sideways had anything to do with Pinot’s newfound popularity, since most of these fans were convinced of Pinot’s greatness well before Hollywood gave it the nod. But at WOPN in 2006, it was a little as if you had an entire garrison of aficionados nodding their heads in unison to the rest of the world and saying “See, we knew you’d come around eventually.”
The conference began bright and early on a Friday morning at Bien Nacido Vineyard and at Domaine Alfred, in the nearby (and gorgeous) Edna Valley. Participants could choose from seminars on everything from Biodynamic Pinot Noir producers to a close look at clonal diversity in Pinot, followed by a world tour of wines that included representative wines from New Zealand, Chile, Slovenia, and even Switzerland. There was also a brilliant tasting of the wines of Maison Louis Jadot, moderated by Burghound’s Allen Meadows. Meadows asked questions of Jadot’s master winemaker, the ebullient Jacques Lardiere. Each day the seminars are followed by a focused tasting under a seaside tent at the Cliffs Resort, with more than 125 participants pouring literally hundreds of Pinot Noirs.
So what did we learn? We learned that Pinot Noir in New Zealand is getting better and better, with the awkward wines of the mid- to late-nineties giving way to more mature, more expressive styles. We learned (who knew?) that Slovenian Pinot Noirs are marvelous if few in number by tasting a delicious one from a great, idiosyncratic winery, Movia. We learned that Jadot, despite its size, is capable of extraordinary attention to detail in its Grand Cru wines as well as its lesser wines. We learned that the Central Coast Pinots, especially from the Santa Rita Hills and the Edna and Santa Maria Valleys, deserve a place alongside any of these global participants. And we learned above all amid the hundreds of expressions of a single grape, there is simply no better occasion to prove that Pinot Noir is as particular to place as any grape variety on earth.
New Faces:
Freeman: a new Russian River producer, these wine are balanced and gentle with a foresty, earthbound Russian River imprint.
Five Rivers Winery: A new Central Coast Pinot entity from Brown Forman, Five Rivers offers simple and pleasing Pinots primarily from Santa Maria and Santa Barbara sources, with nice precision and honest rendering of Pinot’s red fruit character. Fine values, too.
Native 9: a stylish new contender from Santa Maria Valley sources, this wine’s smoky red-fruit character and almost marine-like aromas are a welcome new addition to the Central Coast fold.
Unsung but At the Top of their Game:
Lynmar: This Russian River Winery has been around for many years, but former Flowers winemaker Hugh Chappelle took the reins in 2004 and has brought new focus and elegance to some stellar vineyard sources.
Skewis: for those who like their Pinot Noir in a lighter style, the wines of Hank Skewis are always soft and elegant; he’s bucking the fruit bomb trend in Pinot Noir.
Stephen Ross: Stephen Ross Dooley has been making pinots from the Edna Valley and from the Bien Nacido Vineyard for some years now, but there’s new excitement over the vineyard he and the Talley family have planted in the Edna Valley five years ago (a joint venture called Stone Corral, which is just being released). It’s a classic cool vineyard Pinot, with hints of green herb and sea air, Edna Valley imprints, already present in the young wine.