The California Field Blends: Bedrock, a little Mystery, and an Experiment

Heirloom Wine 1: Bedrock Vineyard

Heirloom Wine2: Mystery Vineyard

Heirloom Wine 3: Marchus Vineyard

 The most interesting wine that I have ever had was a California Burgundy.  No, it was not drunk straight from the tap of a box in some strange college hazing ritual.  Rather, it was a wine made by Larkmead in 1934.  Though there is no way to know the exact percentage of varietals in the wine, one can make an educated guess about what varietals were used by looking at planting records for Napa Valley at the time.  During the previous 13 years of Prohibition grape-growing survived in large part by providing grapes for sacramental wine (think Christian Brothers) and also by providing grapes to home winemakers across the country.  It may come as a surprise to some, but at the end of Prohibition, little Cabernet at all existed in Napa and Sonoma.  Rather, Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, and above all, Alicante Bouschet dominated plantings- along with strange whites like Green Hungarian and Sauvignon Vert.  That Larkmead Burgundy—in which you can still taste the new redwood tanks being used—was in all likelihood a blend of Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, and Alicante.  In many ways it was true California claret.  The wine was spectacular—it smelled of spice, of soft dried fruits, and of redwood.  It was as alive as many top-growth Bordeaux that I have had from the same period of history.  I realized that that wine is the type that I would like to recreate. 

The Heirloom wines I am making from Bedrock, the mystery vineyard, and Marchus vineyard are my vinous thesis’ on a philosophy of California wine that has existed since grapes were first planted in the Golden State.  In the snarled rows of the still-existing ancient vine vineyards of California it is typical that Zinfandel is the dominant variety.  However, much like the vineyards of Chateauneuf-du-Pape and Tuscany (and in fact Alsace where 11 varieties can be coplanted with each other) many other varietals are interspersed in the vines.  The reason these grapes are here is not because our Californian forefathers did not know what they were doing and just planted “whatever.”  Rather, they were planting for a superior wine.

Anyone who has seen young vine Zinfandel grow knows its precociousness.  Lots of big clusters, lots of foliage.  Lots of bright fruity wine with little color and lots of alcohol as a result.  To balance this, other varietals were interplanted to add color, spice, earthiness, and just generally better shadings and contours of flavor.  The favorites were Petite Sirah, Tempranillo, Carignane, Alicante Bouschet, Grand Noir de la Calmette, Mondeuse, Syrah, Peloursin, Serine, and many others.  Unfortunately, with the rise of “varietal” wine in the 1970’s and 80’s and a general downswing in popularity of Zinfandel many of these “mixed blacks” (as they came to be known) were pulled out in order to ensure the vineyard qualified as “Zinfandel.”  However, some of these ancient vineyards, still interplanted, exist to this day.  Rather than follow the strict rules to make sure these wines are “Zinfandel,” I prefer to make these wines into the best wines they can be.  This may mean that they are instead simply “Red Wine.” But they will be damn good Red Wine from ancient vineyards planted to be in balance and delicious. These are melting pot wines rather than fascistic, mono-varietal wines. Here the total is greater than the individual. Damn democratic and damn American I say!

The wines are vinified as a field blend—meaning everything is thrown together into the same open-top tank.  I have brought back the open-top redwood fermenter that worked so well for Ravenswood in the early and mid-90’s.  The rest is laissez-faire winemaking.  Natural yeasts, manual punchdown once to four times a day depending on the wine and time of fermentation, extended elevage in French oak barrels of various sizes about 1/3rd new.  I am not the first to make wine this way—