The book that should be on every wine-lover’s shelf

While we worry that California is becoming a tinderbox, a new wine book on the Golden State gives a much different perspective on this land that continues to produce wines rivaling the best of Bordeaux and Burgundy.

“On California, From Napa to Niebbiolo … Wine Tales from the Golden State” (academieduvinlibrary.com, $45), is a collection of pieces by international wine writers covering the past, present and future of wine, with a focus on what comes next for California wines.

This is a book that should be on the shelves of all wine lovers because it explains how California, when it was an up-and-coming New World wine region, sprinted onto the scene despite its twin challenges of Prohibition and phylloxera, the grapevine-destroying insect. While there are new challenges today, the sprint continues for the enterprising, gritty vintners with purple thumbs who are willing to turn misfortune into fortune.

In her essay “Drought, Fire and the Future,” wine writer Elaine Chukan Brown examines the modern threats of global warming, smoke taint and wildfires but still gives readers reason to be upbeat.

“The global wine industry is learning more about viticulture than ever before,” Chukan Brown said in a recent interview. “The need to learn how to effectively grow grapes in the midst of these challenges has inspired a collaboration of growers and producers with researchers that is teaching us not only about how to handle drought, fire and smoke, but also how the vine grows in general and what affects fruit quality for wine.”

Success moving forward, Chukan Brown said, depends on the wine community’s willingness to evolve, with resilience. The human element of this evolution is prioritizing the safety of vineyard workers, cellar teams and winery leadership, she said.

“The truth is that in California the potential fire season has always overlapped harvest,” she said. “It’s just that in recent years, seeing the actual fires more often has become more likely.”

As for protecting the landscape, prescribed burns will lessen the impact of naturally occurring wildfires, she said. And rethinking where and how vineyards are planted is also crucial.

Early-ripening varietals and farming practices to shorten the time between the vineyard to the cellar, Chukan Brown added, are other ways to grapple with a longer fire season overlapping harvest.

“I don’t think there will be widespread replanting, as it isn’t as simple as just changing what we grow,” she said.

“It’s more likely that there will be some small-scale replanting at the same time there are some small but important changes in how we grow. That said, researchers and wineries are already growing small vineyards planted to a range of varietals to see which respond best to the changing conditions in their particular vineyard or region.”

These experimental vineyards, Chukan Brown said, are essential to learn what varieties are more adaptable while still delicious, too.

Dry farming, growing grapes without additional water, is a key farming practice vintners are exploring to combat the drought, she added. Producers are showing this is possible in some parts of California, even during drought years.

“Dry farming encourages those vines to naturally harvest earlier,” Chukan Brown said. “This means vines are more resilient, water management is easier and the site becomes more likely to harvest before fire or smoke is an issue.”

Vintner Warren Winiarski, who wrote the introduction and an essay for “On California,” said he’s straddling the line between concern and optimism for the state’s wine-growing endeavors.

“There are substantial issues we have to address,” he said. “The main thing is climate change of course, but we’re not resting on our laurels. We’re working to adapt to the changes that are taking place.”

The vintner, who owns Napa Valley’s Arcadia Vineyards, contributed $450,000 to UC Davis last year to update the Amerine-Winkler Index and said he’s encouraged by the work of the experts behind the project. The index was developed in the 1940s to classify wine-growing regions based on heat from the sun, and the update will incorporate many other factors that affect grape growing.

Winiarski, 93, is the winemaker who shocked the world when his Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars cabernet sauvignon beat the best of Bordeaux in the famed 1976 Judgment of Paris tasting. As a tribute to the late Steven Spurrier, the tasting organizer behind the Franco-American shake-up, Winiarski funded the printing and marketing of “On California.” Its predecessor was “On Bordeaux.”

“The Paris Tasting shattered the glass ceiling that had put us in a poor position with France,” he said. “I wanted to support Steven’s effort in having a book in this series.”

The vintner said the pioneers of American winemaking continue to have an “undisheveled nerve of purpose,” echoing Thomas Jefferson’s belief in American winemaking.

In 1808, Jefferson said, “We could in the United States make as great a variety of wines as are made in Europe, not exactly the same kind, but doubtless as good.”

Wine writer Peg Melnik can be reached at peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5310.