Judging the (Surprisingly Good) Wines of the San Joaquin Valley in California

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So Lew Perdue (CEO of SavvyTaste) and I drove down from the San Francisco Bay area and Sonoma to the middle of California, most of the way down Highway 99, south of Fresno, to the hamlet of Kingsburg, a small farming community that serves as headquarters of the San Joaquin Valley Winegrower's Association.

This area is also the center of the bulk-wine industry -- growing grapes to go into inexpensive wines, sometimes called jug wines because many are sold in half-gallon jugs. EJ Gallo, largest winemaker in the country, is headquartered here, for example.


For that reason, and because the Valley is a hot, flat, featureless plain lying between the Sierras and the Mountain Range, where most of the fruit, vegetables, and nuts in the western part of the U.S. is grown -- it has never been considered capable of producing a quality wine. Wine with 'character' and depth and complexity needs well-drained soils (which means hills and often rocky or sandy soil), and some cool weather, especially night and morning fog, to cool the grapes heated during the day.

The San Joaquin Valley, by contrast, is one of the flattest places on Earth -- it has a slope of only 1%, according to John MacPhee's book on the state. Coolness is something you experience if you are next to an air-conditioning unit. And the soil is rich, ideal for vegetables, but too luxurious for wines, which apparently have to be abused to do their best work.

But San Joaquin wine-grape growers beg to disagree, and have introduced novelties such as spraying the grapes to cool them down in order to produce wines of character. Or so they claim.

To give this claim some weight, they hold an annual wine competition -- local winemakers submit their best examples, and a dozen judges taste them blind and rate them as to whether they are any good.

By which we mean are they wines of character, with sufficient complexity and flavor to be enjoyable. Are they, in fact, wines that taste a whole lot better than you'd think they should taste, considering where the grapes are grown. In other words, are they any better than a Carlo Rossi half-gallon jug of "Burgundy" from the local supermarket?

Judge and Ye Shall Be Judged

The judges are a collection of wine distributors and wine writers from across the state, many from this area. Lew Perdue, my partner, is a longtime wine-industry inside commentator who publishes Wine Industry Insight for the trade. I am a wine blogger (this one), cofounder of the SavvyTaste.com wine-advice site, and enthusiast who might be thought to represent the average wine drinker, in that I have no insider connections with the wine business.

The dozen of us gathered on a Friday morning in June at the ungodly hour of 8:30am at the Hye-Life Restaurant in town. We were divided into two panels, where we were to have the 88 submitted wines divided between us. We'd each be tasting-and-spitting 44 wines. Plus, as it turns out, retasting the top finishers to rank them for best-of-show. All the wines were tasted blind, in flights of similar types/styles/grapes.

As I say, we were basically trying to decide whether each wine we tasted was, basically, any good; not whether it was the best example of whatever it was we'd ever tasted. That made it easier for me; is this Syrah the best example of the winemaker's art of Syrah? I wouldn't know. Is it drinkable? Is it a decent wine? Is it worth recommending to a friend? That is a question I can answer--for my own tastes, anyway.

We dived in, with soda cracker and filtered water as the only palate clearers. I wasn't entirely surprised to find that almost everything I tasted was at least drinkable -- these were the winemakers' idea of their best efforts, so they ought to be at least decent.


Surprise Me, I Dare You

I was, indeed, surprised to find several submissions to be really, really good.

The eight Syrahs our panel tasted were outstanding! Big, gigantic, red-almost-black, cocktail wines I'd be happy to see at my table anytime, baby! Zowie!

To my surprise, the four Zins were disappointing. One of the judges said Zins are a grape that really needs poor soil tilted at an angle (hilly) to be any good. Apparently! If they can knock out blow-your-head-off Syrahs but wimpy Zins, it's got to be the fault of the Zins!

The real surprise for some of us was one of the two Chenin Blancs offered to us. In the U.S., Chenin Blanc is mainly a wine that brings a little acidic kick to jug wines, so basically, nobody takes it seriously. That is, U.S. Chenin Blancs; some French Chenin Blancs, on the other hand, are highly regarded, though pricey.

The Chenin Blanc we were served was absolutely delicious! We were smacking out lips and considering cheating by swallowing instead of spitting, it was so good. The judges around me kept exclaiming with pleasure as they sipped, and so was I. I'll take a case of that, please!

Another surprise, for me, was the Tempranillo. Now Temp is a funny grape: It can produce a full-bodied wine (Rioja in Spain, eg), but it all too often can be a thin, light, and, to me, less interesting wine. In California, it has often been used as a blending grape for jug wines. We were served the three Tempranillo's after the gigantic Syrahs, so I joked that we would hardly be able to taste them, after our taste buds had been bombed by the Syrahs.

I was wrong -- I admit that, ok? The three Temps were terrific: full-bodied, round, full of flavor.

Winners

Later we were emailed a list of the 51 wines (out of 88) that scored well enough to recommend. I searched the list to find what wonderful things I was tasting. Here are the best of the wines, as far as I was concerned:

Chenin Blanc, NV, Ehrhardt Estates, Clarksburg
Syrah, 2007 and the 2008 both, Cardella, Fresno County, Fundus Vineyard
Syrah, 2004, Silkwood, California
Syrah, Fresno State, 2006 Madera County, Fasi Vineyard, and the Syrah, Fresno State, 2006 Fresno Sounty, Saviez Vineyard.
Syrah, 2006, from Pasos Vineyards, Lodi, Alta mesa.
Syrah, 2006, Z Wines, Fresno Country, 1st Release. Z Wines is famed for their Zinfandels, but they didn't submit one of those, for some reason.
Tempranillo, Cedar View, 2007, Paso Robles
Tempranillo, South Coast Winery, 2007, Temecula Valley
Tempranillo, Sunfire Esate, 2006, Amador County

Also tasty were the 2006 Estate Viognier from Cedar View, the 2007 Grenache, fro South Coast Winery's Temecula Valley vineyards; the 06 Cab fro Sunrie Estates' Sierra Foothills; the Alicante Couschet from Cedar View (2006, Estate); and the Black Jack Port, NV, from South Coast Winery, South Coast.

Oh, there were two more surprises for me:

They served us a nice, light, refreshingly dry rose that turned out to be a White Zinfandel. Actually, that's unfair: It was actually a 2008 Dry Zin Rose, from Chateau Lasgoity in Madera. You can, of course, make an excellent rose of Zin without making one of those flabby white zins that are the bane of the wine-drinking world.

The other surprise for me was that, after our tongues were raw from the tannins in the big reds, especially the Syrahs, they served us -- bubbly! An NV Blanc de Blanc from South Coast Winery, an NV Sparkling Muscat Canelli from South Coast Winery, and an Almond Sparkling from Weibel, also nonvintage. Turns out, nothing refreshes and revives your taste buds after tannin abuse like sparkling wines! (Even the Almond Sparkling, which was pretty awful from our point of view -- it had the aroma of almond-scented hand soap -- yet for those who like flavored bubblies, it would probably be considered tasty, as would be the Raspberry Sparkling, also from Weibel.) So the next time you host a tasting, have sparkling wine or champagne on hand to refresh the flagging palates of your guests! (I tried this at the Pinot tasting in San Franisco last week too, though this time with Gloria Ferrar bubbly, and it worked again!)

There were a few we tasted that didn't make much of an impression, but unfortunately I don't know which ones those were, or I'd say so.

Conclusion: The Association has done a good job of demonstrating the truth of their assertion: San Joaquin Valley is capable of producing some great-tasting wines. Yes, they are.

So where do you get these wines, and what do they cost? That info was not given to us. A little work with Google gives me some info, but not all: Prices but not necessarily on the exact wine-year judged, little info on production size, little on where available. Here's a little:

Ehrhardt's Chenin Blanc seems to be around $12 a bottle.
Cardella's Syrahs: the 2004 is sold out at $23 a bottle, with only 100 cases produced - ouch; the 2005 was 200 cases and no price is given on their site; their more recent Syrahs aren't mentioned. Don't you hate it when the high scorers aren't available?
Silkwood's 2004 Syrah seems to be about $25, available online.
South Coast Winery's extensive online collection includes their Tempranillo at $20 a bottle. They also operate a winery-based spa, by the way. Temecula is about 50 miles east of LA, in the so-called Inland Empire.

Sunfire Estate, a tiny but interesting winery that produces one of the extraordinary Tempranillos, as well as pretty decent Cabs and other Reds, sells its Temps for about $45, which takes your breathe away to think of a Temp at that price -- until you actually taste it, and then you change your mind very quickly.

Cedar View produced a great Tempranillo, which they price at a bargain $18. They also submitted a tasty Alicante Bouschet ($18), and a nice Viognier ($17).

And finally, Fresno State Winery (which sounds like a ag college) produced a couple of the knockout Syrahs; their site sells only the 07, priced at $25.

Fine Wines in South Jersey—Huh?

Specifically, Heritage Vineyards of Richwood, N.J.. It's outside of Swedesboro, if you know that charming little farming town--about 30 miles south-east of Philadelphia, smack in the vegetable-growing area of New Jersey, famed for its indescribably delicious tomatoes. I spent a nightmarish summer in my youth as a ketchup cook for ancient HJ Heinz packing plant in nearby Salem; I have almost recovered.

South Jersey is pretty much ignored by everybody, from the Philadelphians who feast on its veggies, to the denizens of North Jersey, which is the oil-refinery-and-Mafia-corpse-ridden part of the state that most people think of when they say NJ. South Jersey is south of Trenton, south of Camden—bet you didn't quite realize there was anything down there, did you? But something has to keep Philadelphia from banging into Atlantic City; that's our job, the land on which I was raised. Though, thank God, not on a farm, but in a tiny industrial town called Gibbstown. My only dreadful experience on farms was summer jobs. But most of my high-school classmates were from farmer families.

Went out to South Jersey in early June to visit the relatives, and remarked in my blog that I was going to get me some good Jersey wine. This provoked mockery.

But I was serious. Last year when I visited, my brother Dennis poured me a Cab from Heritage that was entirely drinkable. To my California-snob surprise. Great? No. OK? Yes. I wasn't expecting it; can you grow wine in swampland?

Apparently you can.

Nice Place Ya Got Here

My brother drove me out to Heritage—he had to ask around to find it; Jersey isn't exactly wine country, yet, anyway. It was outside of Mullica Hill, on 322 on the way to Glassboro. A new tasting room, still with finishing touches being put on, was empty when we got there in the middle of the week – but 322 is one of the main roads from Philadelphia, southern Pennsvylvania, and Delaware to the Shore (and doesn't cost anything, like the Atlantic City Expressway, though it gets crowded), so as things get hot and muggy, that could change.

It was a pleasant place, but I wasn't sightseeing—I wanted to find out what wines they were making. The list surprised me: three whites (all Chards), six reds, a rose ("blush"), and five fruit wines. Jeez. I tasted some of them.

The Chardonnays were oaked (2005, $13), unoaked (2007, $15), and Estate (2006, $17). I skipped those because I only had limited time. The reds included the 2006 Cab I was looking for ($18), an 06 Merlot ($18), an estate Syrah, for Christ's sake (06, $18), two Cab-Cab franc blends—Steel Rails Red, NV, $17 and Red Caboose, NV, $18, which included Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec, and a touch of Chambourcin.

There was also a straight Chambourcin, 06, "limited production," $22.50. I'm not familiar with that grape, I'm afraid, but they grow it here – and all the other components mentioned above. I had no idea. Ambition!

I tasted the Syrah and the Steel Rails Red, but they didn't move me; I settled for several bottles of the Cab, to take home to disbelieving Californians. Next time I'll try the other ones too.

The Blush, $9.99, was described as "for all you white zinfandel lovers," so I passed. I also, but regrettably, didn't get to try the fruit wines: Apple, Peach, Cherry, Sugar-Plum, and Blueberry. Shades of Aunt Myrtle! Next time, for sure! They were $12 each.

So How Was It?

I popped the cork on one bottle at a friend's party when I got home, and it blew socks off nobody. One problem was context: In Jersey last year I was at an afternoon outdoor party featuring mostly canned beer, and was gratified to have somebody show up with a bottle of Cab to go with the white Zins and Chards. In California, the party was held by a guy with two 7-foot wine fridges in his converted garage, so the table groaned under twenty or so bottles of California wines, mostly reds of many varieties but also whites, real roses, and even a champagne. The Heritage 06 Cab didn't stand a chance.

But as I say, on its own, in quiet company, it's drinkable. And that, as I also say, is not what I was expecting from a South Jersey wine!

 

Heritage Vineyards of Richwood, 480 Mullica Hill Rd., Richwood, NJ 08074; (856) 589-4474

 

Wine Judging in San Joaquin, and Pinot Noires in San Francisco

Image via Wikipedia California Central Valley

On Friday (June 26) Lew Perdue and I will be down in the Central Valley of California, judging at the 5th Annual San Joaquin Wine Competition.

This is part of the Valley winegrowers' efforts to make clear that flat, dry, hot lands can produce quality wines -- contrary to the impression everyone (including me) has that you need at least some coolness, preferably fog, at certain times in the growing season if you want depth and character to your wines.

I very much look forward to the Association proving this point to me in the form of many dozens of their best wines. A full report will follow!

The same weekend, I'll be volunteering at the Pinot Days festival at Ft Mason in San Francisco, the annual display of the best efforts of some 200 (!) producers. Yes, folks, it's another 500+-wine tasting opportunity! I'll be roaming the floor Sunday before my shift starts.

Image via Wikipedia

Volunteering for such events gives you added insights into what wines people are talking about, and the mood of the show. Again -- a report will follow In Due Time.

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