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 Below you will find my own, personal guide to one of the world's great wine regions. Each guide includes a map as well as recommended producers and wines |
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California
Californian wine does not begin and end with the Napa valley.
From Mendocino on the rugged coast far north of San Francisco,
down to Temecula, midway between Los Angeles and San Diego, are
fertile vine growing areas growing every variety of grape and producing every style of wine including sparkling, sweet and fortified.
Though relatively unknown in Europe until the great Paul Masson
invasion of the 1970's, wines have been
made in California for centuries: since the missionaries planted Vitis vinifera to make communion wine. Today's industry is highly sophisticated, ranging from
enormous operations on an industrial scale like E&J Gallo or Kendall-Jackson, to tiny, high quality
"boutique" wineries run by enthusiasts like Sean Thackrey with his distinctive "Orion" or Manfred Krankl's
impressive "Sine Qua Non" range.
Geography and climateMany of the best sites in california have a microclimate - a set of very localised conditions - that distinguish them. For example, some of the best sites sit in transverse (east/west) valleys that allow cool, foggy ocean air to moderate temperatures. By and large the North and Central Coastal areas are where the vast majority of quality production is to be found. The Sierra foothills enjoys a cooler climate than much of the hot Central Valley, and is another area for premium quality. Grapes Growing grapes in California is not a problem - outside the deserts, the soil and climate all over the state will sustain viticulture - but finding truly suitable sites for particular varieties has not always been a strong suit (see "American Viticultural Areas" below). Recently California has suffered a devastating occurence of phylloxera, the pest which all but wiped out European vineyards a century ago. Ironically, it was the grafting of disease-resistant rootstock from the USA that saved the European industry back then, but it seems that lesson wasn't learned: the US outbreak is blamed on authorities at California's most prominent viticultural centre who recommended a particularly vigorous and productive rootstock, but one which had low resistance to phylloxera.
California has a variety of soil types and climatic conditions which at one time were rather indiscriminately planted with the in-vogue vine. Today more and more attention is being paid to "terroir", the matching of vine to soil, to aspect, to micro-climate. Much like the model of French Appellation Contrôlée, the American wine regions are being mapped under a scheme of American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) begun in the late 1970s: classification of vineyard areas by geographical location (the French model takes this much further into rules governing vines, harvesting and wine-making). These AVAs will appear on labels, indicating the origin of the wine. Like France's Appellation Contrôlée, the AVA in itself is absolutely no guarantee of quality: it merely guarantees that the grapes come from a certain place. Potentially, what it does do, is allow the consumer the chance to build up a frame of references for wines of a specific region, much like getting to know the villages of Burgundy for example. An excellent run-down on AVA's can be found at The Wine Institute. Of course even without the bureaucrats to tell us so, the best wine-makers and most clued-up wine-lovers had long recognised those areas with a particlular suitability for certain grape varieties: the Russian River Valley for Pinot Noir, the Alexander Valley for Cabernet, Santa Barbara County for Syrah and the Dry Creek Valley for Zinfandel are amongst many locations where a natural affinity - a terroir - has been identified. Quality
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