Clos Pegase: Search for Elegance at Table Results in Release of ’86 Merlot

Clos Pegase, the Napa Valley winery with the controversial architectural style, has released its 1986 Merlot. With this second release of a red wine, wine maker Bill Pease has now firmly stamped himself as one who prefers finesse over raw power.

Following the lean and structured 1985 Cabernet Sauvignon, the 1986 Merlot offers a Bordeaux-like spice and berryish fruit.

The wine, which sells for $15, was made under the direction of Andre Tchelistcheff, the 88-year-old dynamo who has been making wine in California for more than 50 years.

“Andre and Bill like wine that is not big or oaky or tannic,” said winery owner Jan Schrem. “We are searching for elegance, a wine that’s good at the table.” In a way, the red wines of Clos Pegase may be compared with the Cabernets of Jordan in Sonoma, in which balance and finesse play a major role.

Later this year, a 1986 Cabernet from Clos Pegase ($17) will be released, offering gorgeous fruit and balance.

Wine producers in France, Italy, Chile and Australia are jumping on the Pop-Premium bandwagon created by American wineries.

Pop-Premium wines are varietal wines--essentially Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and White Zinfandel--that sell for about $5 a bottle. Industry analysts term this class of wines “fighting varietals.”

Since the Pop-Premium category was created about six years ago, a handful of wineries has dominated the category. The national leader (and the winery credited with kicking off the trend) is Glen Ellen of Sonoma. Others strong in the niche are Beringer’s Napa Ridge brand, Sebastiani, Sutter Home (whose White Zinfandel makes up a huge hunk of it), and a dozen others competing for a small share.

About a year ago, The Christian Brothers quietly introduced a line of wine from Australia called Jacob’s Creek. Under that label were a Chardonnay, a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Sauvignon Blanc, all selling for about $5 a bottle.

In the last year, the company announced last week, more than 50,000 cases of Jacob’s Creek wines have been sold in the United States.

Two More Entries

Now Partager of France and Bolla of Italy have announced wines intended to compete in the Pop-Premium segment of the market. Bolla Chardonnay, available in June, is to sell for $4.99 to $5.99, according to the company. And Partager said it will market Chardonnay, Cabernet and Merlot in the United States with suggested retail prices between $5.49 and $5.99.

Also, Franciscan is now importing a line of Chilean wines, Caliterra, in the $6 range.

In the same category, the Robert Mondavi Winery said its Pop-Premium wines, Robert Mondavi White and Robert Mondavi Red table wines, were being renamed again.

First dubbed simply white table wine and red table wine, the two wines were renamed three years ago, adding Cabernet Sauvignon to the red and Sauvignon Blanc to the white, since both then qualified as varietal wines.

Now the winery says it will change the designations Robert Mondavi White and Robert Mondavi Red. The wines now will be called Robert Mondavi Woodbridge. Woodbridge is the Lodi-area winery where the wines are made.

The winery said about one-third of the fruit for the wines was now coming from Mondavi’s new Central Coast vineyards (bought in 1987). The wines are all vintage dated.

The French wine industry is quaking after revelations of another wine scandal, involving lower-quality wine being bottled as higher quality.

About two dozen men were arrested in Bordeaux in April and charged with fraud in connection with mislabeled bottles of lesser-quality wine.

Charges included conspiring to deceive about the quality of goods, lying in advertising and false labeling.

The authorities said the scheme involved the use of wine made from the district of Dordogne, which is literally just across a road from the district legally permitted to carry the designation Bordeaux. The scheme involved up to 6 million bottles.

Used Non-Vintage Table Wines

The wine would have been non-vintage and would have been termed vin de table (table wine), and labeled vin de pays (translated roughly as country wine). Instead, such wine was discovered to have labels showing it to be “Chateau Regis.” It also was vintage dated (1982), and was designated as being from Cotes de Bordeaux, indicating it came from a higher-level region than its origin.

Wrote a reporter for one London newspaper, who reported on the scandal, “The wheeze (scam), simpler than watering milk, is to buy Dordogne wine and change it into Bordeaux by sticking on a suitable label. And the fraud can be compounded by printing any vintage year that comes to mind and by inventing a fantasy chateau.”

It is believed that none of the wine ever reached the United States. The “upgraded” wine sold for about $1.15 a bottle in France. Its Dordogne counterpart would have sold for about half that price.

Fraud in the French wine trade, and in other European countries, is not uncommon and cases pop up periodically. Typically, they involve the bottling of lesser-quality wine that is labeled and sold as expensive wine. At least two books have been written about fraudulent wine, both involving the European wine industry.

The current case is the first major fraud case in France since January 1969 when a Burgundy producer, Bernard Grivelet, was arrested and accused of mixing good and bad wine, and putting incorrect labels on large bottles of wine.

A Well-Publicized Case

The case became well-publicized after it was learned that Grivelet had shipped some 65,000 bottles to the United States. The charge against him was that the fraudulently labeled wine had cost him 30 francs a bottle (about $5) and he was selling it for as much as 120 francs ($20).

French authorities at the time estimated the value of the fraud at $1.25 million.

Grivelet, who had been charged 10 years earlier with a similar offense, threatened during his trial to reveal the names of others in the trade who were shipping mislabeled wine. But following his conviction, no allegations were ever offered.

Grivelet spent no time in jail, but the court forced his wine business into liquidation and bankruptcy. His land was auctioned by the state, but of the 17 parcels he owned, only five were bought. He kept the rest by paying 2 million francs for each of the other 12 parcels. Court records show Grivelet gave up growing wine.

There hasn’t been a major wine-fraud case in the United States in about 20 years, not since a winery accidentally mislabeled bottles. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is the federal agency that oversees wine production in the United States. In California, the state Alcohol Beverage Control board is the agency with authority.

Los Angeles wine consultant Terry Taketa staged a tasting recently at The City restaurant of 39 California Cabernet Sauvignons from the highly regarded 1974 vintage. The winning wine was from Mount Eden Vineyards, with a group average score of 17.7 on a scale of 20.

Ranked second by the group were two wines scoring 16.6 each--Heitz Martha’s Vineyard and Stag’s Leap Cask 23. Tied for fourth were Phelps Insignia and Ridge Montebello.

A shocking 38th, next to last, was Beaulieu Vineyard Private Reserve.

Michael Hill-Smith of Australia, a wine consultant and writer, has become the first international graduate of the Institute of Masters of Wine.

In addition, Hill-Smith was awarded the Bollinger Medal for Excellence for scoring highest in the wine-tasting portion of the Masters of Wine examination. The award is sponsored by the French Champagne house of Bollinger.