California Spirit : The Best Wine at a Recent Tasting Was Not a Wine But an <i> Eau de Vie</i>

THE JURY OF 38 wine judges for the 1988 National Orange Show Wine Judging in San Bernardino last month had just concluded their tasting of almost 900 wines and spirits and were assembled at tables to consider 10 wines and one spirit nominated for the coveted Sweepstakes Award. John Sola, the chief judge and presiding chairman, and Ted Swinnerton, the tasting coordinator, had set before us samples of those outstanding gold-medal-winning California products. Almost all of them had been “double-gold” winners, or unanimous selections of the separate tasting juries. The atmosphere was supercharged, albeit friendly, the chairs of each separate panel presenting aloud the reasons for nominating that particular Chardonnay, Cabernet, Beaujolais Nouveau, or even Red Table Wine. Most often, a sweet late-harvest Riesling or Gewurztraminer captures the Sweepstakes for its obviously beguiling honeyed perfection. Lobbying time was permitted for each selection, and then the vote, requiring a two-thirds majority for the Sweepstakes Award.

None of the wines made it. The 11th candidate, the last to be tasted and considered, was an eau de vie of pear, as clear as mountain spring water. Its champion described the panel’s joy in discovering this totally pure and delightful distillation of ripe California Bartlett pears. It was time for discussion before voting.

With unusual candor, one of the judges, from a famous California winery family, confessed that he was totally unfamiliar with this category of spirits. Wine columnist and judge Jerry Mead jumped in as an advocate to call attention to the beautiful purity of the product. One judge explained that this is essentially a European tradition, served as a digestif at the end of a meal. Its excellence is easily determined. No “heads” or “tails” of the distillation impurities are in the finest eau de vie, just the essence of the fruit. The Swiss, French, and Germans use the same pear and call it “Pear William.” There were a few moments of silence, as many re-tasted that 11th glass. The vote was almost unanimous. A Sweepstakes Award, just one, for what we learned later was St. George Spirits Williams Pear-California Pear Eau de Vie, an 80-proof distillation by Alsatian-born Jorg Rupf of Emeryville.

Rupf spent two years looking for the finest Bartlett pears and found them in Lake County orchards. Irrigation, time of picking, ripeness and sugar content and the cold nights of the ripening climate are of premium importance for intensity of taste, allowing the distillation to capture the fruit essence. The pears are crushed like grapes in nouveau carbonic maceration wine because the flavor is in the solids, close to the skins. Select yeast strains begin temperature-controlled fermentation for three weeks, the whole mash going into special stills that have a water bath, like a double boiler, so the solids won’t burn. Rupf throws away the “heads,” the first part of the distillate that contains the aldehydes that make “moonshine” so lethal, and the “tails” that have other impurities eliminated with age. “We throw away 30% of the alcohol so that our eau de vie may be absolutely free of any impurities.”

St. George Spirits Williams Pear sells for $18.50 for 750 milliliters, $10 for 375 milliliters. Pour this distillate of pear from refrigerated bottles into equally ice-cold sherry glasses at meal’s end. There are sure to be smiles of surprise as this ancient tradition finds new friends in California from an award-winning spirit that is now our own.