Vines on Waltons' Mountain: Virginia wine

If you are of a certain vintage then Virginia and the Blue Ridge Mountains will mean just one thing:  The Waltons.  I can still hear that rather melancholic signature tune and picture John-boy and Jim-bob in their dungarees, doing some shucking or another mysterious American rural poor activity. 

Now, however, we have to adjust to the fact that Virginia produces more than just wholesome family dramas and has embarked on a mission to make wine. 

As so often happens, what we think of as the New World newcomer actually has a long history of vine-growing:  Virginia’s wine journey had its beginnings in the 1600s.  Its most famous historical influence is Thomas Jefferson, the French wine-loving US president who brought vine cuttings from Bordeaux to his home in Monticello in the 18^th century.  However, the modern-day incarnation of its wines really only began around 40 years ago, so its wine-makers are still getting into their stride when it comes to matching the best sites to grape variety and establishing their signature style. 

 

Virginia ranks as the US’ 5^th largest wine producing state but, with just 0.5 million cases produced annually, they are still a small player in the market.  Domestically most of their production is consumed locally – Virginia is lucky that “local” also includes the thirsty capital, Washington DC. 

A company called New Horizon Wines began importing Virginia wines into this country in 2009 and now sell around 2,000 cases a year here – putting us in the novel position of being Virginia’s number one export market. 

 

Conditions on the Eastern seaboard of the US are somewhat challenging for vine-growing.  Anyone who has visited there in the summer months will know that hot and humid is the norm.  Coastal sites stay fresher, but poor transport links mean this area is under-developed in general, with few vineyards.  The central area has red clay based soils and a high concentration of wineries, though land use pressure from urban development is acting as a cap on new plantings and driving up vineyard prices .  The Blue Ridge Mountains in the north and west of the state are home to a cluster of wineries where the soils (shale, decomposed granite and volcanic), climate and elevation are all favourable. 

The state’s most popular grape varieties are Viognier for white wines, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, alongside Bordeaux blends for reds.  French oak is favoured over American, setting them apart from the leviathan that is California, though a little of the tight-grained Virginian oak can be found.

 

It’s unusual, to say the least, to find Viognier as a signature white grape – outside of its home in the northern Rhône valley in France, it is generally a supporting actor rather than a lead.  Part of the reason for its popularity here is because its thick skins help to protect it from rot during the humid summers. 

 

While Virginia wines are not exactly commonplace over here, there are some available for you to search out.  Here are some of my favourites: 

Veritas Viognier 2011 - £19.50 from Prohibition Wines and Bedales

Here, vines from various sites help to give interest and 7% Petit Manseng (a decidedly niche grape really only grown in the very far southwest corner of France) adds its trademark acid structure and grapefruity tang.  Fermented in stainless steel and then given six months in old oak barrels, its intense, pure apricot aromas lead onto a relatively restrained and zesty palate with lingering spice. 

Barboursville Viognier Reserve 2010 - £17 from The Wine Society, also at Christopher Piper and Handford Wines

This was fermented and aged in stainless steel by a producer whose Viogniers are renowned for ageing (albeit for a modest 4-6 years).  The wine is fairly deep-coloured and the nose has an earthy, mineral dimension. The palate is big on texture, with a beginning, middle and end, and flavours of hay, straw and ripe mirabelle plum.  A big-boned but well-proportioned wine. 

One of the things that I particularly enjoy about these two is their fully dry nature and balanced alcohol, which is perhaps lacking in the commercial styles of California wine.   

On the red front, it’s always fun to see what varieties like Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot can do when allowed to shine alone, instead of being subsumed into a Bordeaux blend.   

Barboursville Cabernet Franc Reserve 2010 - £18.50 from The Wine Society, also at a range of independents including Oxford Wine Company

There is ripe fruit and plenty of oak, but good freshness too, despite the 14.5% alcohol.  Tannins are ripe, with no hint of greenness.  It has a rich ripeness, and is about as powerful as Cabernet Franc gets. 

White Hall Petit Verdot 2010 - around £20 from Christopher Piper, Prohibition Wines and Selfridges

There is not much Petit Verdot planted as yet but producers are growing in confidence with the variety and are working to achieve elegance and complexity in what can be an overwhelmingly powerful grape. The nose is a typical blend of ink, spice, pepper and quite toasty oak, followed by a ripe and dense attack and acidity backing up the structure.  It still feels very youthful, ripe and opulent, but remains rather immovable.   

This Petit Verdot, like Virginia as a whole, is one to watch for the future.  Perhaps in time we’ll come to associate the Blue Ridge Mountains with fine wines rather than pick-up trucks and dungarees.  Goodnight John-boy.

USA: beyond the Golden State

California is the leviathan of US wine, accounting for 90% of production and, despite exporting seemingly limitless quantities of Blossom Hill and Gallo here, making 3 out of every 4 bottles sold within the US.  The state basks in the reflected glory of its nickname, The Golden State, a name that betokens glamour, riches, sunshine and the good life.   However, there are plenty of other wine-making parts of the US, including California’s more northern West coast neighbours :  Washington and Oregon. 

Washington State is perhaps a surprise runner up in the wine production states, though it’s a distant second and hardly clipping at California’s heels, with only 5% of the total.  Its nickname is the rather more homely The Evergreen State – fair do’s, the name evokes the expansive wilderness of conifer forests nurtured by the plentiful rain that falls here (we’ve all seen Frasier, right?).  The state’s highest peak is even called Mount Rainier.

The Columbia River, Washington State

However, if you’ve visited the area around Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula and experienced the mile upon mile of forest, including one of the world’s rare areas of temperate rain forest, you might be surprised to find that the state produces any wine at all – it’s too cool and damp, surely?

Vines in arid Washington State

The answer to the conundrum is the Cascade Mountains:  these stand between Seattle and the interior and act as a barrier to the cool, wet conditions that prevail on the coast, sheltering the Columbia Valley, where most wine is made.  They do such a good job that the Columbia Valley has rainfall levels that class it as desert (only 150-250mm annually, compared with just under 800mm in southern England).  The plentiful sunshine means that warm climate varieties thrive here, including Syrah, and Bordeaux stalwarts Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.

Sandwiched in between California and Washington, Oregon is known as The Beaver State.  I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by saying any more on that topic.

On the subject of wine, Oregon is, counter-intuitively, the coolest and wettest of the three west coast wine producing states.  While the Cascades continue south into Oregon from Washington, most winegrowing areas sit between them and the lower Coastal Range, which provides only slight protection from the prevailing weather.  The vineyards are correspondingly cooler, cloudier and wetter than their more northerly neighbours.

Mist in cool climate Oregon

Oregon is largely synonymous with a single variety – Pinot Noir, which represents a staggering 66% of plantings, ahead of Pinot Gris in second place at 14%.  Pinot Noir is renowned as a cool climate variety, so it makes sense that it should find a home here, but it is also a tricky grape to nurture and in these marginal areas vintage variation is marked.

Autumn colour at Sokol Blosser estate, Oregon

Neither of these regions provides the kind of cheap wine thrills that California can, whose size bestows the ability to mass produce branded wine.  Both Oregon and Washington are more boutique-y in feel and the prices of their wines (especially once they’ve been exported here) are more like high end California.  The small scale of producers, especially those from Oregon, means that they generally won’t pitch up on the supermarket shelves and a visit to a specialist independent merchant will be in order if you want to taste them.

Wines from Washingon

Eroica Riesling 2011 – Slurp and Winedirect both have the 2010 for £17.95, Fareham Wine Cellar stocks the 2008 for £19.10

Eroica is a joint venture between Chateau Ste Michelle, Washington’s largest wine producer, and German Ernie Loosen, master of the Mosel and Riesling guru.  Riesling has a bit of a problem, apart from the main one of its unfair image as a low quality variety.  Off-dry Rieslings tend to have bags of fruit, balanced by crisp acidity, but are terribly unfashionable.  Dry Rieslings can sometimes sacrifice the exuberant fruit, leaving searing acidity that sets the teeth on edge.  This wine happily manages to combine the incisive and linear acidity of a dry Riesling, without sacrificing charm and peachy fruit.

   

L’Ecole 41 Columbia Valley Syrah 2009 – older vintages available from Noel Young Wines (based in Cambridge or online), Winedirect has the 2008 for £23

Columbia Valley is the powerhouse of Washington wine growing, with surprisingly warm and dry conditions that favour heat-loving varieties such as Syrah.  L’Ecole 41 have a well-deserved reputation for quality reds.  This Syrah has beautifully pure blackcurranty fruit with a peppery kick and enough acidity to balance the richness of the fruit.  Beware:  its elegance belies its 15.5% alcohol.

Wines from Oregon

Bergström Old Stones Chardonnay 2010 - £25.95 from Roberson Wine (shop in Kensington or order online)

A classy Chardonnay whose inviting nose promises ripe fruit with its wisp of honey and aroma of yellow Mirabelle plums.  The palate delivers this and more, with savoury, flinty lees character and wonderful freshness.

Bergström also have a delicious range of Pinot Noirs, available from Roberson and Noel Young Wines.

Firesteed Oregon Pinot Gris 2011 - £15.79 from Christopher Piper Wines; Slurp has the 2010 for £14.30

Chardonnay undoubtedly has more cachet than Pinot Gris, but well-made examples like this give plenty of food friendly enjoyment.  And if buying Oregon wines is starting to look like a rich person’s past-time, then this is a relative bargain.  Crisp, juicy tropical fruit with a hint of peach, melon and the variety’s trademark gentle spice.

Sokol Blosser Estate Pinot Noir 2009 – Guildford’s own Caves de Pyrène has the 2008 for £30.36; Noel Young Wines has the 2008 for £25.64 or the 2007 for £35.10; Winedirect stocks the 2009 for £32.50

Oregon’s Willamette Valley (one of my favourite regions in the world to say: it’s WillAMette, to rhyme with dammit) does have variable weather from year to year, so the other vintages may not display the same seductive fruit as I found in the beguiling 2009.  There’s plenty of oak drapery too, but the quality of the fruit shines through.

It's not the economy, stupid - it's the doughnut

US wines in the UK have a problem and it's the doughnut.  Nothing to do with Krispy Kreme, but a metaphor for the US wines we see here:  lots of stuff at rock bottom prices and plenty of highly priced wines, but nothing in the middle.

When we talk about wines from the US, we really mean California, as the Golden State accounts for over 90% of the entire country’s wine production.  And for most wine consumers, their experience of Californian wine is at the cheap (and possibly cheerful, depending on your taste) end – Blossom Hill, Gallo, Echo Falls and their imitators.  These are the high volume powerhouses who have driven the US to 2nd place in the league table of wine exporters to the UK behind Australia, ahead of Italy and France.  The wines are straightforward, fruity and easy-drinking, often with a little sweetness (sometimes rather more than a little) to help them along.

On the other side of the doughnut, the US is a great country to head for if you have a banker’s bonus burning a hole in your pocket.  California is awash with trophy wines that will make quick work of emptying your wallet.  Screaming Eagle Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 had a release price of $1,500 a bottle.  But the production of just 800 cases plus a perfect 100-point score from influential US critic Robert Parker means even that eye-watering price is purely academic – you would need to spend very much more than that to track down a bottle.

There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth recently about the high price of Bordeaux’s best wines in recent vintages, but the Bordelais are late to the game in reality.  It is California that has been showing the way for years when it comes to creating icon wines with price tags to match.

The wines that are missing, the middle of the doughnut, are those that cost around £8-15, of which there are precious few in this country.  And this price range is exactly where interested and engaged wine drinkers tend to spend their money.  With nothing to speak of from California, that wine budget will head instead for other countries with plenty to offer.

So what can I recommend to the curious yet not flush with cash wine drinker who wants to engage in some California dreaming?  Not a great deal, to be sure, and the usual upper price limit is rather stretched, but here goes.

Au Bon Climat Chardonnay Santa Barbara County 2010 - £20.95 from Berry Bros & Rudd

A standard-bearer for high quality Californian Chardonnay, this is as good a place as any to start our Californian wine tour.  There is oak (Americans do love a bit of oak), but it is always in a supporting role and doesn’t dominate the fine fruit.  This is never less than a pleasure to drink.

Qupé Roussanne “Bien Nacido Hillside Estate” 2008, Santa Maria Valley - £30 from Majestic Fine Wine

Roussanne is a classy variety whose home is the Rhône Valley in France.  It makes wines with weight and body, but also with herbal lift and subtle aromas of stone fruit. Qupé have fashioned a complex, satisfying wine from it here.

Ridge Lytton Springs 2009 - £26 from The Wine Society

Paul Draper, philosopher turned self-taught winemaker, has a suitably laid-back West Coast vibe to his winemaking.  He relies on natural or wild yeasts (the microflora in the air and on the grape skins, as opposed to commercially available specially selected yeast strains) and will let fermentations continue (or indeed stop and start) over months rather than the usual 2-3 weeks.  His wines, as a result, have wonderful depth, personality and finesse. 

Zinfandel is renowned for making thumping great wines big on colour and alcohol and ripe (or over-ripe) fruit.  This Zinfandel-based blend, however, is positively light on its feet, with wild strawberry in amongst the dark brambly fruit and great freshness despite 14.5% alcohol.

Frog’s Leap Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 - £47 from The Wine Society

We are straying into icon (is that one word or two?) wine territory here.  There is no doubting that Californians tend to like plenty of oak and alcohol in their wines, so if that’s your bag, then explore away.  This wine, however, bucks that trend with 13.5% alcohol and very little new oak – and, like Ridge, uses native yeasts.

At eight years old it is just getting into its graceful stride.  The fruit is maturing and moving away from primary, fresh fruit flavours to aromas of tobacco leaf, spice and preserved fruit.  The texture is velvety and the flavours linger long on the palate – a real sensory pleasure.