Symphony Vintages Get New Arrangements

The song is over but Symphony lingers on.

Ken De Baun, who got into the wine business somewhat by accident and then took to it with a zeal you rarely encounter, has yet to see his dream come true--that Americans will fall in love with the Symphony grape as much as he has.

De Baun remains the most dedicated proponent of this Muscat-like variety, but his single-minded commitment to Symphony has been tempered by a bit of reality: The public just doesn’t want so many wines from a new grape variety.

Only weeks after the opening of his new tasting room here off U. S. 101, Chateau De Baun is making a major move with lower prices and new products, some of which are not made from the Symphony grape. It saddens De Baun personally, but he still has hopes that his pet project will catch on.

Perhaps this is getting confusing, so let’s go back a decade, when De Baun was merely the successful owner of a number of high-technology companies based in Santa Rosa. Through a complicated series of land deals with Hugh Codding, the Santa Rosa shopping center developer, De Baun wound up with a vineyard.

The land was in the prestigious Russian River area and was already planted with French Colombard, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. De Baun figured he’d just sell grapes to wineries. He wasn’t interested in making wine.

But one day he heard of a grape variety that had been developed, after 42 years of experimentation, by Dr. Harold Olmo at UC Davis. Called Symphony, the grape was remarkable in many ways. First was the aroma. As a cross between Muscat and an offshoot clone of Grenache, Symphony yielded wine that was spicy and complex. De Baun loved it.

But Symphony’s other asset was in the vineyard itself. Not only did it produce huge amounts of high-quality grapes, but the vines were seemingly impervious to many of the maladies that plague so many other varieties. From a viticultural point of view, Symphony was nearly the perfect grape.

Hooked on Symphony, De Baun planted the variety widely in his Russian River vineyards. He put winery equipment into the warehouse of one of his high-tech companies, hired a wine maker and began making Symphony wines--in every imaginable style.

He made them dry, off-dry, slightly sweet, very sweet, sparkling and sparkling blended; he even made a blush wine. He designed labels that showed instruments of the orchestra, and he gave the wines such names as Overture, Prelude, Fugue and Rhapsody. The name of the grape variety on the label was so large people thought Symphony was the name of the winery.

“It was a marketing failure in many ways,” admits Lurah Magee, head of hospitality and public relations for the winery. “The drier wines didn’t sell, and eventually we just decided to stop making them.”

The two wines that flopped were Overture and the fairly similar Prelude. They were excellent nonetheless, perfect dry wines for matching with spicy Asian food or for serving at picnics on hot days. Alas, they will be made no more. (The final cases were sold to Trader Joe’s chain of West Coast markets and probably will be sold for well below their suggested $8 a bottle, making them a real bargain.)

De Baun himself is convinced that the Symphony grape still has a future in America, and he’s not abandoning it. But his new wines focus less on Symphony and more on value and on the name of the winery.

For starters, the word Symphony will not appear on top of the newly redesigned label. Instead, the name of the winery will be there.

Also, the new line includes a barrel-fermented wine called Chateau Blanc. It is 60% Symphony and 40% Chardonnay, with the spice of the former grape but the texture of the latter. It’s a delightful wine to sip by itself, match with seafood or even fool the local wine snob, and at $6 a bottle (less at discounters), it’s an excellent buy. De Baun’s first red wine, a 1988 Pinot Noir ($10), is not quite as good a value but still shows marvelous fruit and balance.

The winery will continue to make three of its most popular wines, Romance (a slightly sweet sparkling Symphony); Rhapsody (a blended sparkling wine with a hint of pink, slightly drier than the previous wine), and Classical Jazz, a blend of Pinot Noir and Symphony, a mostly dry blush wine that’s a lovely summer cool-off.

The wines are made by Jamie Meves, who assumed the role of wine maker after the departure of Roland Shackelford. Some of the marketing ideas, the tasting room decor and plans for the chateau are those of Magee and Tim Shippey, new director of marketing.

The De Baun tasting room that opened recently is a gorgeous replica of a French chateau (with a few curious but intriguing Italianate touches), decked out in pink, gray and mauve. The musical theme is present in a grand piano sitting in a bay window, which has already attracted a number of impromptu concerts from the visitors.

Classical music plays over a sound system in the high-ceilinged tasting room, and a courtyard ringed by rose bushes has tables for a leisurely chat while sipping a glass of Symphony. A gazebo out back, sitting at the edge of 82 acres of walnut trees, is used for special luncheons. The chateau has already been host to a dozen weddings and assorted other social functions.

Wine of the Week

Wine of the Week: 1988 Shafer Chardonnay ($13.50) --Doug Shafer will make none of that fat, buttery, oaky stuff. He is a fan of the lean, delicate, almost austere style of Chardonnay that smells more of the grape than of the inside of a barrel. This wine is a prototype of the style I favor. It’s hard to come up with words that describe the delicate fruit here, but there’s a trace of lime and a note of juniper wrapped around a core of flavor, finishing with excellent acidity. It’s a perfect match for lighter seafood and chicken dishes and would also work as an accompaniment to the first course in a meal. This is great wine making.