Drinking Hard to Get

They’re an endless aggravation for wine drinker and writer alike: hard-to-get wines.

The story is an old one, but these days it’s taken on headline proportions. Thanks to an outsize demand for fine wine, not just in this country but also in the more prosperous parts of Asia, Switzerland, Germany and northern Italy, supplies are tight.

Although per capita wine consumption is declining everywhere, including in those strongholds of wine tippling, France and Italy, the aggregate statistical picture doesn’t quite tell the story. It’s the consumption of cheap bulk wines that’s down. For better-quality wines, it’s way up.

A buoyant economy surely has helped. Not least is the fact that the ubiquitous baby boomers--and their counterparts in other countries--are in their peak earning years.

Making matters worse is that both California and Europe saw small crops in recent vintages. In Europe, it’s been a matter of either lesser-quality vintages (1991, ‘92, ‘94) or, as with the ’95 vintage, which was excellent everywhere in Europe, a small crop because of late, irregular flowering during a cool spring.

The California difficulty is mostly attributable to phylloxera. This nearly microscopic root louse has infected tens of thousands of acres since the late ‘80s, forcing owners to uproot whole vineyards and replant them with more resistant rootstocks. We will soon see a surplus of California wine, however, as the new vines begin to bear fruit.

In the meantime, though, the best wines are hard to get. What supplies exist are stretched thinner than ever across more markets than ever before. Remember when the East Coast sneered at California wines? No more. Of course, prices are higher than ever.

Sure, there are still plenty of wines on the shelves. And many of them are swell. But there’s no denying that if you’re searching for something really distinctive--either in price or quality--it takes a bit more effort these days. The silver lining is that quality has never been better.

The following wines are hard to get, if only by reason of limited production. In some cases, that means just a few hundred cases. In other cases, the supply may seem generous, but it really isn’t because the wine is so popular. But the game is afoot and, yes, the wines can be gotten--and they’re worth getting.

*1995 Byron Vineyard & Winery Chardonnay “Santa Barbara County” ($16.95): Here’s an example of nature affecting the market. In 1995, throughout Santa Barbara County and much of the Central Coast, an extremely cool spring dramatically reduced the crop size. Winemaker Byron “Ken” Brown tells the story succinctly. “In our estate vineyard, the typical yield is about 2 3/4 tons to the acre,” he says. “In ’95 we got 0.9 ton per acre.”

Although such extremely low yields are not essential for quality, they can help. And there’s no doubt that ’95 will probably be a vintage that fans of Santa Barbara County wines will be talking about for years to come. Brown is not the sort given to hyperbole. Yet even he says, “The quality of the wines is, without question, the best across the board of any vintage in my more than 20 years of making wines in Santa Barbara County.”

This is buttressed by Byron’s just-released ’95 Chardonnay. This is what followers know as the “regular” bottling; the ’95 Estate is scheduled for release later. Yet 60% of this wine comes from the same vineyard as the estate-bottled wine.

Byron has long been one of the consistently best sources of textbook Santa Barbara County Chardonnays. What that means is a rich, intense, downright luscious Chardonnay infused with the signature Santa Barbara scents of coconut and lime.

In the ultra-low yield ’95 vintage, Byron’s “Santa Barbara County” Chardonnay offers these qualities with greater depth than perhaps ever before. Even more impressive is that it does so without seeming excessive. There’s real flavor definition here, also with refreshing acidity. This is the sort of rich, intense wine that many Chardonnay fans dream about. Look for a street price as low as $12.95, which makes this a flat-out bargain, given the uneconomical low yield.

*1995 Mayacamas Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc ($14): Mayacamas Vineyards, 2,000 feet above the Napa Valley floor in the Mayacamas Mountains, has one of California’s longest histories of wine elusiveness. Not only has Mayacamas always been a tiny winery, but the site’s stony soil and high elevation painfully restrict its vineyard yields.

Founded in the late 1800s and revived in the 1940s, Mayacamas has been owned and very personally run by the Travers family since 1968. They make wine--Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Zinfandel, among others--their way, with barely a nod to the wine fashion of the moment.

From a marketing perspective, this is inviting difficulty, as Bob Travers pursues an almost monastic austerity in all his wines. He uses few new small oak barrels and he purposely chooses not to allow his white wines to undergo a secondary or malolactic fermentation, which softens wines and rounds them. Travers believes that the Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc grown in the stony, lean soil of his high-elevation vineyards are not well served by much winemaking manipulation.

The proof of the rightness of his ways can be found in the just-released 1995 Sauvignon Blanc. One hundred percent estate-bottled (as well as 100% Sauvignon Blanc), this is simply one of California’s best renditions in its austere, crisp, beautifully defined fashion. But there’s not much of it. “We got a big crop in ‘95,” says Travers. “Two tons to the acre.”

That’s a big crop? Average yields in Napa Valley for this variety are twice as much. “Well, we usually get 1 1/2 tons,” offers Travers.

This translates to a total production of 650 cases of Sauvignon Blanc, which is minuscule by anyone’s measure. Experience has revealed that Mayacamas Sauvignon Blanc ages beautifully, gaining flavor resonance and depth over a surprising number of years. That said, this ’95 is already delicious, an ideal accompaniment to shellfish and delicately prepared fish.

*1994 Amador Foothill Winery Zinfandel “Ferrero Vineyard” ($12): Amador Foothill Winery in Plymouth takes the hard-to-get category to a new level. Not only is it off the beaten tourist track, in the Gold Rush country of the Sierra Nevada foothills in Amador County, but it’s tiny. And it specializes in single-vineyard wines, which further restricts quantities. The result is that Amador Foothill Winery doesn’t get a lot of hoopla.

Yet its wines, especially the Zinfandels, are superb. Price, this once, does not reflect the exceptional and consistent quality of the wines.

This ’94 Zinfandel from the 50-acre Ferrero Vineyard near Plymouth is a choice example. Planted in 1926, Ferrero Vineyard creates a distinctive Zinfandel that consistently offers hints of prunes, chocolate and tar. For years, Amador Foothill Winery has purchased grapes from one particular section of the vineyard.

In the warm, very ripe ’94 vintage--when the threat of creating an overripe, overly alcoholic Zinfandel was real--winemaker Katie Quinn elected to harvest her allocation of Ferrero Vineyard Zinfandel on Aug. 31, which is very early. “The berries were tiny that year,” she recalls. “And the yield was 40% of normal. So we didn’t make much wine.”

But what was made--500 cases--is exceptional. This is a pure, fresh-tasting Zinfandel free of intrusive oakiness and filled with Ferrero Vineyard’s distinctive Zinfandel flavors. Best of all, the wine has finesse. Absent is the ponderousness that has afflicted some other ’94 Zins. The early harvest gamble paid off.

Here’s the catch: You’ve got to order the wine direct from the winery; Amador Foothill Winery has no Southern California distribution. It’s just too small and, frankly, too long ignored. But there is one benefit: The 1994 Ferrero Vineyard Zinfandel sells for just $12 a bottle. That’s a bargain for a wine of this quality, to say nothing of rarity.

Also worth noting is Amador Foothill Winery’s 1995 Amador Fume. A blend of Sauvignon Blanc (83%) and Semillon (17%), it’s a crisp, delicate, beautifully made dry white wine that begs for food. Part of the blend was barrel-fermented (which gives textural richness) and part was fermented in stainless steel (which allows for pure flavors). The result is lovely. And the price is a steal: $7 a bottle at the winery.

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Sources

*Byron Vineyard and Winery, which is owned by Mondavi, has wide distribution, and even its Santa Barbara County Chardonnay should be available at many fine wine stores.

*Mayacamas wines are also widely distributed, but the 1995 Mayacamas Sauvignon Blanc, just released, is so far available only at Hi-Time Wine Cellar and at many Whole Foods locations. If you have trouble finding it, you can order it direct from the winery by calling (707) 224-4030.

*Amador Foothill Winery has no distribution in Southern California. To get its wines, you must call the winery at (800) 778-9463.