Nothing wrong with “hot climate”
From the chapter: Terroir in peril
While sitting through seminars at a Hospice du Rhône in Paso Robles, I was once struck by one recurring theme voiced by guest vintners from France’s Rhône Valley, as well as Spain’s Priorat, Jumilla and lesser known Méntrida regions: They grow grapes in what they gleefully describe as “hot climates.”
Here in the U.S., on the other hand, anything associated with climates described as “hot” has somehow become undesirable. Wines to be detested, or banished from our lists—lacking grace, restraint, and by nature of all of that, a sense of balance. It is as if to be considered seriously, all wines must be grown in climates more conducive to grapes such Pinot noir. Granted, cooler climates produce extremely fine wines, but at what point did we become such meteorologic snobs?
After all, man does not live by Burgundy—or Loire, Rheingau and Mosel, or even Bordeaux or West Sonoma Coast—alone. If we did, we would be poorer for that, both figuratively and probably literally.
Take Syrah—please (as Henny Youngman would have put it). Randall Grahm, the original proponent of the suitability of Rhône grapes to California’s warm to hot Mediterranean climate, has recently been quoted to say that the problem we have selling American Syrah is due to the fact that it’s been planted mostly in the wrong places. According to Mr. Grahm, Syrah is actually a cool climate grape—which presumably, the French learned long ago. Syrah grown in the Northern Rhône, where the climate tends to be mild, when not battered by mistral, will have more violet, licorice and minerally characteristics than Syrah grown in warmer places such as Châteauneuf du Pape or Barossa Valley. Therefore, Syrah is better off planted in regions similar to the Northern Rhône—or so the thinking goes.
Herein lies the contradiction: When you attend events such as Hospice du Rhône, where there is plenty of opportunity to compare American grown Syrahs right alongside those of France, you cannot help but find that the most exciting wines in terms of intensity, balance and complexity—all the violet, licorice, minerality or even bacon fat a Syrah lover wants—are those that are grown in places that are, to use the European description, "gleefully hot.” Including highly acclaimed producers such as Saxum and Epoch in Paso Robles, Stolpman and Jaffurs in Santa Barbara’s Ballard Canyon, Cayuse and Saviah in Walla Walla Valley, and on and on and on.
There is nothing gentle, for instance, about Clos Solène's Hommage à Nos Pairs. Grown in typically blazing hot Paso Robles, this Syrah easily tops 15% alcohol with nail bombs of flavor, prompting the long lines of Rhône nuts (not to be facetious) clamoring to shell out the $100 it costs per bottle. When I recently asked Guillaume Fabre, Clos Solène’s French born and schooled winemaker/proprietor, why in the world he is making such out-of-control, un-French-like wine, his honest response was, “Because I believe this is the true expression of Paso Robles... I did not come here to make French wine, I choose to make the best possible wine that can be grown here.”
Syrah is a notoriously needy grape when it comes to water, which is why it does so well in moisture retentive limestone and granitic slopes. Yet the lack of neither chalk nor granite does not fully explain why you get amazing proportions of pepper, anise, bacon fat, game or wild scrub nuances in sun soaked appellations such Mendocino’s Yorkville Highlands (Syrahs by Pax or Meyer Family) and Redwood Valley (Handley’s Kazmet), Oregon’s Rogue Valley (Quady North and Del Rio), or Washington’s Red Mountain (Long Shadows, Goedhart or Betz).
Logic, it seems, leads you elsewhere: Neither climate, nor topographies replicating the European regions, will ever fully explain why you can grow classic Mediterranean varieties in disparate parts of the New World, and still get the violet of Syrah, the peppercorn of Grenache, the gaminess of Mourvèdre, the leather of Tempranillo, the wild thyme of Vermentino, or the haunting perfume of Viognier in plenty of places. From what I’ve seen, it’s more like varying degrees of stress: Whether it’s the roaring, face stinging winds of Santa Lucia Highlands, the 1-ft. deep clay soils in Barossa Valley, the ultra-porous sandy loams in McLaren Vale or Santa Maria Valley, or desert sand and dusty loess in Yakima Valley—viticultural success does not necessarily hinge upon limestone, granite, or impossibly steep slopes, as it does in Europe.
Most recently, I came across a $12 Lodi grown Petite Sirah, in which I found unexpected whiffs akin to garrigue (rosemary, sage, animal/game, bramble berries); something the brain could not quite compute because last time I checked, Lodi is far from Provence, and is pretty much a flat, loamy place. But once I was shown the vineyard where the wine is primarily sourced—located between two rivers that had built up (over several hundred-thousand years) a modest hilltop consisting of 10 to 20 feet of almost pure, fist sized riverbed rock, shades of Châteauneuf-du-Pape—then it really dawned upon me: It doesn’t pay to a dismiss wine region just because it is “hot,” or because its wines are cheap, plentiful or promiscuous.
If a wine is genuinely good, you're probably in the right place!
Hear, hear! Great piece, Randy!!