Couple of Cult Wineries Grow With Demand

On the 20th anniversary of Woodstock, people asked, “Where were you?”

Some people ignored Woodstock to scour the countryside looking for cult wines--pleading and cajoling to get their hands on wines like Schramsberg Champagne and David Bruce Chardonnay.

Cult wine once was a big deal with wine lovers. Two decades ago, a handful of wineries made tiny quantities of great wines that got word-of-mouth plaudits and generated intense competition to get a bottle or a case.

Today We Gloat

Today it’s different. We gloat over getting a bottle of Dunn Howell Mountain Cabernet or Ferrari-Carano Reserve Chardonnay. Diamond Creek recently sold out its limited-production Cabernet designated Lake, a wine that carries a $100 price tag. These are modern-day cult wines.

But today there are at least lots of cult Chardonnays (Grgich, Chalone, Sonoma-Cutrer, Au Bon Climat among them) and dozens of cult Cabernets (Dunn, Spotteswood, La Jota, Jordan) and Pinot Noirs (Calera, Chalone, Etude). So it’s possible to own a cult wine without much difficulty. (Jordan sold almost 80,000 cases of wine last year.)

But in the early 1970s, as California wine became an intriguing and exciting collectible as well as a grand taste experience, very few wines took on cult status, and they were truly limited in production. Stony Hill and Hanzell Chardonnays and Joseph Swan Pinot Noirs and Zinfandels were hard to obtain and achieved that status.

Few Thousand Cases

Among the highest-image wines were those from Schramsberg and David Bruce. Finding a bottle on a retail shelf was a serendipitous moment inducing euphoria. Neither made more than a few thousand cases.

It was a bit surprising, then, when I discovered that both Schramsberg and David Bruce were celebrating their silver anniversaries; both have been in business for a quarter-century.

And although Swan, Hanzell and Stony Hill wines remain limited in production, Bruce and Schramsberg have grown with the demand. One might assume from this that quality has been compromised, but I recently went through the two wineries’ offerings and discovered that both have kept abreast of the latest technical changes in the industry, and that both are making wines that if anything are better than what they did in the past. Ironically, one helped the other improve.

One fact is true for both wineries. For some years in the 1970s, neither improved. As they grew, quality grew erratic. But in the last three years, both wineries have stabilized, eliminating wines that were simply off the mark. Bruce and Schramsberg have grown more consistent, less erratic than they were a decade ago.

Napa Valley-based Schramsberg, which makes only sparkling wine, has had to adapt to a shrinking supply of top-quality Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes; both varieties are in demand. To cope with this, Jack Davies has developed a unique method of payment to growers.

Price of the Wine

Using an “evergreen” contract arrangement, Schramsberg pays growers based on a formula pegged directly to the price of the wine into which the grower’s grapes go. Prices are “always higher than the Napa Valley average,” said Davies.

Moreover, Schramsberg continues to experiment, first under wine maker Greg Fowler (who came on board in 1980) and now under Alan Tenscher, Fowler’s successor in 1987.

Experimentation led to use of malolactic fermentation for small lots of wine (converting stronger acid into weak acid, which softens the wine), the dropping of sulfur dioxide use during production, and trying small quantities of grapes from other regions (such as the central coast and Mendocino) for complexity.

Handling the Grapes

The greatest change is in the handling of the grapes. In 1982, Fowler discovered that the standard method of dumping grapes into the press wasn’t gentle enough, and that if he used a suction device--like a huge vacuum cleaner--he could dump the fruit into the press with less damage.

“I got the idea from David Bruce,” said Fowler, who is now head wine maker for Domaine Mumm, across the Napa Valley. “The original idea came from Germany, where they use it to unload botrytised grapes.

“The big drawback is that it’s slow, but it gets the fruit into the press with a minimum amount of damage to the fruit, without tearing the skins and beating up the stems.”

The first wines to see this gentler method were from 1982, and Davies now has ready for release a small amount of a great wine from that harvest, and it’s a wine new to the Schramsberg line.

The 1982 Blanc de Noirs Late Disgorged ($25) is a marvelously complex, rich wine with deep Pinot Noir character and as much Frenchlike elements as I have seen in a California wine. The extended time on the yeast, en tirage as the French say, is the key to this superb wine.

Similarly, Schramsberg’s 1984 Blanc de Blancs Late Disgorged ($23) is an exceptional, deeply complex wine, one of the best I have tasted.

Champagne Memories

The latest regular release of Schramsberg Champagne is the 1983 Blanc de Noirs ($20), which offers a marvelously complex aroma and creaminess in the finish that, again, is reminiscent of French Champagne.

“The 1983 was Jack’s first attempt to go to a lighter style, to get the alcohol down and to make a more delicate wine,” said Fowler. “But we still retained strong Pinot character.”

Jack and Jamie Davies are true pioneers of the second wave of Napa Valley wine interest. An electronics executive with Ducommun Inc., Jack acquired the old facility once owned by Jacob Schram and slowly expanded it into a large, modern winery that sits above the caves dug by immigrant laborers in the last century.

Schramsberg’s caves, since enlarged extensively, now hold 2 million bottles of wine sitting en tirage. Davies intends to make this aging on the yeast a longer process, to give more complexity.

Heart of the Collection

More complexity is at the heart of the new collection of David Bruce wines too, but for those who recall the days when Bruce wines were termed “monsters,” these latest wines are actually less dense and more compact.

Bruce, whose Santa Cruz Mountains winery was founded in 1964, was among the first wave of wineries to see the potential to make deeply concentrated wines from grapes that ripened to any degree desired.

Some of the early Bruce Chardonnays closed in on (and topped) 15% alcohol. The 1971 Bruce Chardonnay, with 15.5% alcohol, was reckoned by some critics to be an utter classic. His 1970 Zinfandel, with 17.5% alcohol, was a stunner; a Grenache was so dark and opaque that it was considered bizarre and exciting.

The excitement generated by these massive brutes might have prompted Bruce, a dermatologist, to raise his prices excessively. He demurred, though he recalled that he did put out his 1969 Chardonnay, a tiny-production wine, at $22. “It was a monster,” he said.

The monsters have recently been tamed. With Keith Hohlfeldt as wine maker (since 1982), Bruce wines are more mainstream, but they still retain the house style that made the man and his liquid famous.

The Chardonnays are the more exotic wines of the line. Using 100% malolactic fermentation to generate big, rich, buttery elements, Hohlfeldt crafts wines of breadth and bigness. But they are in much better balance than the wines of the past.

Tasting the 1987 Chardonnay with a California designation ($11) one sees that richness in a tighter, leaner package than ever. “We didn’t know much about acid back then,” said Bruce. “So we made wines that were big, with a slightly tannic finish, and people didn’t seem to mind them.”

The prototype Bruce Chardonnay is the 1986 Estate Bottled Santa Cruz Mountains ($18), a wine that hearkens back to the old days when butterscotch flavors played tag with the fruit elements. (Butterscotch usually won.)

Oddball Experiments

Bruce always liked to play around with oddball things, like Grenache, and his latest experiment has yielded three wines that retail for $6.50. All are good examples of table wine that lean in the direction of the Rhone Valley.

I enjoyed the 1987 Coteau de Shandon, a white wine that is made up mostly of Chenin Blanc, but with some oak-aged Chardonnay for depth. It reminded me of a white Hermitage at a fraction of the cost.

Also enjoyable was a 1987 Vin Rouge that is a blend of Carignane, Petite Sirah and Cabernet Pfeffer, the latter adding an intriguingly spicy, peppery note to the otherwise tart, deeply flavored wine that has high acid and low tannins.

The best of the three wines, however, was a pink wine called Vin Gris (federal officials rejected a humorous name, Gran Vis). It is a bone-dry rose made entirely from Petite Sirah. It is a striking example of Rhone richness in a pink wine, reminiscent of the Bandol Rose made famous by importer Kermit Lynch (which is more expensive).

Bruce’s fine 1985 Pinot Noir ($18) with spice and depth will be succeeded by an exceptional 1986 and a superior 1987.

In the late 1960s, Bruce says, “I was never aware I was making ‘cult’ wines. I was too busy being a doctor to pay attention to that.”

Schramsberg’s first wine, released in 1967, was a nonvintage effort made in 1965. Soon after the first vintage-dated wine, from 1966, hit store shelves about Woodstock time in 1969, retailers began clamoring for more and more.

Higher Price

“And they wanted me to raise the price, to slow it down,” said Davies. “Well, opportunism is one thing, but I hoped to be around for a while.”

Both have survived the two decades since in health better, perhaps, than some “Woodstockies.”

Wine of the Week: 1988 Bandiera Chardonnay Carneros” ($6.50)--For those who like the leaner, more Chablis-like styles of Chardonnay, this is a spectacular effort. Delicate lemon-scented aroma with a faint touch of slate and an attractive floral note. The taste is crisp and fruity, no residual sugar, and ends with snap. An exciting wine, better by far than the winery’s 1987 version. Bandiera also has a companion red wine, 1986 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($6.50) that is another excellent value. Wonderfully herbal fruit, delicate oak and a nicely rounded finish for near-term drinking.