Great whites

<p>In 1977, Dave Stare at Dry Creek Vineyard noted simply in his fumé blanc harvest report: “Second year of drought; stressed vines.”</p><p>Both owner and winemaker at the Healdsburg winery, Stare also jotted down that the harvesting of most of the grapes, many of them grown nearby by vintners Lou Preston and Joe Rochioli, took place between Sept. 15 and Oct. 3 that year.</p><p>Nothing in his notes could predict that 31 years later, at a retrospective tasting of the winery’s fumé blancs, that 1977 would hold up as a spectacular wine, full of complex acidity and subtle shades of lemongrass.</p><p>“How often can you taste a 30-year-old white wine, made in California, that still has several years of life in it?” mused writer and wine judge Linda Murphy, at the recent tasting put on for Decanter magazine.</p><p>Even Dry Creek’s own director of communications Bill Smart, who admits he represents the typical American wine drinker who prefers their wines young, said, “I won’t ever pigeonhole white wine the way that I had.”</p><p>Also on hand was Lisa Bishop Forbes, DCV’s current associate winemaker, there to help guide tasters through a series of fumé blancs from 1973, 1977, 1982, 1983, 1989, 1992, 1998, 2002 and the current 2007, in addition to a 10-year (1998-2007) range of fumés from the winery’s prized DCV3 estate vineyard.</p><p>“There have been three or four winemakers in that span and vineyards have changed,” Bishop Forbes explained. “Most places wouldn’t have room to store the wine, but if you’re able to, if even out of curiosity to see how the wine develops after all those years, it’s worth it. You don’t always expect to be able to age whites, but it shows that you can.”</p><p>Stare started out in the early 1970s, founding Dry Creek Vineyard with the dream of making Loire Valley-style whites. He drew inspiration from three classic French wines: refreshingly grassy, herbaceous whites of Sancerre; crisp, tart Pouilly-Fumé, made entirely of sauvignon blanc grapes known for having smoky, flinty characteristics (fumée is French for smoke); and high-acid chenin blanc of Vouvray.</p><p>Stare’s fumé blanc debuted with the 1972 vintage, a wine made from sauvignon blanc grapes that are then slowly cold fermented in stainless steel tanks to preserve freshness and acidity.</p><p>Winemaker Merry Edwards of Merry Edwards Wines in Sebastopol, where she produces highly coveted pinot noir as well as a small amount of sauvignon blanc, is no stranger to aging whites in California. She recently opened a bottle of 1981 Matanzas Creek Chardonnay (she was their winemaker then) that was still surprisingly great.</p><p>“It’s always a little bit of an unknown. Each bottle ages differently,” she said. “People forget that sauvignon blanc can be even a better candidate (than chardonnay) to age for a very long time.”</p><p>When she was setting up her namesake winery in 1997, Edwards threw a very important dinner for potential investors, nervously pulling out some of her older white wines, including a magnum of 1979 Matanzas Creek Sauvignon Blanc. It proved to be a stellar calling card.</p><p>“People were so floored,” she said with a laugh. “They said if you could do this, sign us on.”</p><p>By the same token white wines, especially a fruity, refreshing quaff like sauvignon blanc that’s great at release, also serve a winery’s cash flow. They enable a winery to buy the oak barrels and storage space for the development of its red wines, which tend to go for a higher price.</p><p>“It’s such a big investment,” Edwards admitted. “With our sauvignon blanc, we’re literally taking it off the truck and sending it to distributors. People don’t want to wait. But when they do taste it after even a year, they go, ‘Wow.’ But they also always love it when it (first) comes out.”</p><p>Sauvignon blanc, Bishop Forbes explained, is a grape typically higher in acidity and lower in pH, which helps it age. Chardonnays are also known to age well, particularly the premiers crus of Burgundy, but also those by such longstanding California producers as Hanzell of Sonoma and Stony Hill in St. Helena.</p><p>However, given that chardonnays are increasingly being made locally with lower acid and higher pH, “They’re more round, more voluptuous, more appealing early on,” said Bishop Forbes.</p><p>“Chardonnays especially that are made with some intention of aging need that time,” she continued. “They taste better after a year, even two, three, four years down the road, (after) you’ve reined in on the new oak, the things that help the wine age.”</p><p>Whether chardonnay or sauvignon blanc, a wine’s ability to age also comes down to impeccable winemaking practices in the cellar. Among the most important tasks is limiting a wine’s exposure to oxygen while it’s being made and while it’s being bottled.</p><p>The equipment improvements she’s seen over the years, especially in bottling and filtration, keep the wine cleaner until bottling, Bishop Forbes said. The cleaner the wine, the better chance it has of aging gracefully. And of course, consistent storage at correct temperatures (around 55 degrees) is equally critical.</p><p>“We’re making wine the same way Dave (Stare) started, with the fruit sources a little different, newer rootstocks and new trellising,” said Bishop Forbes. “But generally the philosophy has been the same.”</p><p>Edwards finds it ironic that people put so much faith in the white burgundies from France to age better than the wines of California. Domestic wines, particularly from grapes grown in and near the Russian River Valley, where acid levels tend to be high and pH levels low, have just as much potential.</p><p>“It’s a matter of experience,” Edwards said. “I like to blow people away by giving them something old.”</p><p>Virginie Boone is a freelance wine writer based in SonomaCounty. She can be reached at virginieboone@yahoo.com or visitwineabout.pressdemocrat.com.</p>