California Wines Challenge France’s as ‘World’s Best’

For a decade, Robert Mondavi has been saying: “Our wines now belong in the company of the world’s finest,” and his use of the word our refers not only to his own but to the best made in California.

After hearing that statement for the last few years, it dawned on me that perhaps Mondavi was being too polite. Perhaps he should be saying, “California wines are the world’s best.”

That might be perceived as provincial, but the facts indicate that California has not only caught up with France, but has passed it in many respects.

(Moreover, the recent surge in quality in Italian wine now places Italy on a par with the rest of the world too, making this a three-horse race.)

I proposed this argument about California’s wine superiority to a wine salesman not long ago. I admit I was imprudent: He was French, and a salesman of French wines.

Comparison in a Nutshell

Here’s my argument, which ignores for the moment the concept of price:

It’s clear that the best French wine is better than the best California wine. But the best French wine is made in infinitesimal quantities and thus represents only a tiny fraction of the wine most people drink. So few people ever get to drink the really good stuff that we are left to compare the quality of second-tier wine. And when it comes to the second tier of quality, my argument goes, California wins hands down.

Let’s take French White Burgundy versus California Chardonnay as an example. They are relatively comparable, being made from the same grape variety. Californians often try to emulate the classical French model. And one of those models is called Montrachet, a reportedly superior quality wine, usually unctuously rich with immense breadth and outstanding Chardonnay characteristics.

I don’t taste a lot of Montrachets because they are so ludicrously high priced, but in a tasting of young Montrachets I attended not long ago, of the 12 wines served, the group and I agreed that two of the wines were exceptional, two were fairly good and the remaining eight were very poor. Not just overpriced, mind you: poor quality. Undrinkable, said most tasters.

We found two wines oxidized; most tasters wanted to dump them down the sink. We found two more with skunky, oniony aromas of mercaptan, and the remaining wines lifeless and uninteresting. (Prices ranged from $120 a bottle down to a “low” of $40.)

A More Reliable Assortment

In a tasting of California Chardonnays recently, the top wine on my score card was 1986 Trefethen Chardonnay, which another taster said was the equal of any French Burgundy he had tasted in a year. But my 10th place wine of the 12, although exhibiting a style I don’t prefer (too much oak, not enough acidity), was still quite drinkable. It was not flawed, as were so many of the Montrachets. (Prices ranged from $11 to $20.)

To use another example: Bordeaux versus. California Cabernet. I find most California Cabernets too tannic, a trait that may make them rock hard for years. Even in good vintages, many Californians tend to make their Cabernets with astringency unnecessary for the wines to age gracefully.

Yet the vintage variations and the multitude of wine-making styles of Bordeaux make the wines uneven.

I won’t dispute the greatness of the top Bordeaux houses: Lafite, Latour, Palmer, Haut-Brion and others usually create masterpieces in great vintages. But so many of the rest make barely palatable wines in all but the greatest vintages. And in off years, such as 1977, 1980 and 1984, the French wines from many houses are lackluster, and even the big boys stub their toes in some poor years.

In our discussion, my French foe listened to this argument and countered that California wines were simple, obvious and lacked complexity. I said that was an over-simplification, and that he was defending wines that he clearly wouldn’t drink.

Yes, he said, vintage variations were greater in France, and a lot of poor wine is made in poor years. But he said that the variations in quality are what make French wine so intriguing. Moreover, he noted that when a poor vintage occurs, prices drop.

“That never happens in California,” he said, making a valid point, one with which I had to agree.

Moreover, he said, when a great vintage comes along, France knows what to do and the result is usually classic, long-lived wines. And he pointed out that California has no track record for aging.

But a few weeks ago, Tom Ash, a dedicated Riverside County wine collector, once again proved even that argument is flawed.

Aging the Californians

Ash staged a tasting of some older wines in his cellar for a few friends. Two of the bottles served side by side were a 1955 Louis M. Martini Cabernet Sauvignon Special Selection and a 1953 Chateau Latour. Both bottles were in pristine condition. Both were bought from wine auction companies, the Martini from Butterfield & Butterfield in San Francisco and the Latour from Chicago Wine Co.

Every taster in the room (about a dozen) agreed that the Martini was better wine. There was nothing wrong with the Latour; it was a good, typical example of an older Bordeaux. But the enjoyment of the Martini was far greater for each taster.

My French debate foe unfortunately didn’t experience the Latour/Martini match-up.

Another point I made in our debate: even if California can’t duplicate exactly a wine type, it can come so close that it fools the most expert of tasters.

For instance, just because a Carneros Pinot Noir is different from a Pommard is no reason to say it isn’t just as good. It just offers a slightly different experience.

My French foe retorted: If the wines are just as good, only different, why hasn’t Mondavi come right out and claimed that California wines have arrived as king of the hill?

I said there were probably two reasons why Mondavi wouldn’t make such a bold statement. First was courtesy. Mondavi isn’t about to go around the world shouting that California wines are best because he has a lot of friends in France, and probably feels it would be bad form to be claiming superiority.

Still, he is aware of the fact that numerous blind tastings have indicated California wine’s superiority throughout the years. The most famous tasting was the May, 1976, Judgment of Paris, in which California wines won both the Chardonnay/Burgundy and Cabernet/Bordeaux taste-offs.

The judges in Paris were French. And in a recent tasting in London staged by Decanter Magazine, a Mondavi Chardonnay outscored a host of very expensive French Burgundies. The tasters were British, trained to appreciate French wine.

French Best Is Still Best

A second reason Mondavi hasn’t claimed superiority over the French is that he travels in a select crowd. When he dines at a chateau or a domaine in France, he is served the best wine that property makes. I imagine that each bottle is pre-tasted to make sure it is perfect. Mondavi tastes little less. His frame of reference is thus formed: he tastes only the greatest wines so he retains the impression that the best wines in the world are made in France.

Mondavi doesn’t taste the broad range of wines evaluated by wine importers and retailers I know. Many of them agree that California wine should be rated dead even and maybe even a little higher than French wines.

Mike Lynch, wine merchant with Pacific Wine Co. in San Francisco, when asked his opinion of French and California wine quality, brought price in as a factor.

“In the $6 and under price range, the French make the best wine; from $6 to $15, California makes the best, and from $15 and above, the best are from France,” said Lynch.

But he quickly added that in many cases, in the most expensive category, there are a lot of rip-offs from France and very few rip-offs from California.

“Burgundy is the best example of erratic wines,” Lynch said. “There you can get $100 bottles of wine that can be awful.”

The Technology Gap

Lynch tastes probably 3,000 wines a year and he guessed that is more than any wine maker. And he certainly sees a broader range of wine styles than wine makers.

And he says that although California wines have reached a point of greatness in the last few years, “the French are coming back. They’re getting better technically. Since 1978 every vintage they make produces good wines.

“Oh, I guess Burgundy is behind some of the other regions, but it’s getting better. But the Rhone Valley still represents great value, and we’re seeing great things in Provence, Alsace. . . .”

He said one bit of evidence is 1985 red Burgundy. The 1985 vintage was considered excellent in France, and he said wines from such old-line producers as Jadot, Mommesin, Drouhin, Jaffelin, Leflaive have been excellent.

In off vintages in Burgundy, however, he said the wine quality is usually “a little unexciting and the prices don’t go down enough,” answering to a degree my debate foe.

Because I live in California, this argument must sound awfully provincial. So let me, as Lynch did, add price as a factor.

All Comes Down to Taste

After a recent tasting of American Pinot Noirs, in which nearly 100 wines were evaluated, the tasters and I all agreed that great French red Burgundies were far superior to what we had just tasted.

Then someone commented that the most expensive wine we tasted in the group of California Pinot Noirs was $22. “What can you get from Burgundy for 22 bucks that’s as good as this?” he asked, holding up a glass of 1986 Byron Pinot Noir from Santa Barbara County.

Nothing, we agreed, and the Byron wine sells for $12 and is often discounted to about $10.50.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a bottle of the Byron Pinot Noir with me when I was arguing with my French adversary to sip side by side with a French red Burgundy. But even if I had, he might have liked the California wine, but I imagine he would have sniffed, “Well, it’s good but it isn’t Burgundy.”

And I could have sipped a good French red Burgundy and commented, “Well, it’s good, but it isn’t Santa Barbara.”

Wine of the Week: 1984 Concannon Assemblage ($12)--A blend of equal amounts of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, this is a classic Graves-style wine with marvelous herbal and muted leafy elements and a creamy aftertaste. There is also a faint pepperiness and a hint of apricot in the finish. This wine, made more than four years ago, might be considered “old” by some, but wine maker Sergio Traverso has long wanted to do a wine like this, that requires bottle age, and this first effort is striking. The word assemblage is French and refers to the assembling of elements to make a harmonious end product. This Meritage wine is the first such release from Concannon.