Mendocino Chardonnays Ride That Terrain

On the surface, it may seem like a stretch to compare Mendocino County to France. Much of Mendo still feels like the American frontier, in decided contrast to the long-settled Garden of Europe. Viticulturally, however, there is increasing similarity between the two.

France has long had distinctive regional wines. They bear place names such as Beaujolais, Sancerre, Chinon and Bandol. Each is a unique, highly-evolved expression of a given area’s soil, climate, grape variety, cultivation practices and winemaking--and, ultimately, the local culture.

The most advanced New World wine regions, particularly in California and Australia, are moving in that direction. I was thinking of that last week while tasting a number of Mendocino County Chardonnays. Each, in its way, spoke eloquently of a local sensibility.

The conglomeration of mountain ranges known to geologists as the Mendocino Plateau has a lot to do with Mendocino County’s reputation for being beyond the pale of mainstream civilization. There aren’t a lot of places in that rugged embranglement of volcanic deposits and upraised marine sediment for the kind of sprawling suburbs that are choking Sonoma and Napa--but it’s great for wine grapes.

In short, it’s especially suited to site-expressive grapes that make the kind of distinctive (and expensive) wines that are increasingly in demand these days. The most notable Mendocino wines remain the Zinfandels and Petite Sirahs from very old vineyards (some planted more than a century ago). But the most detailed sensory map of the county’s viticultural enclaves is provided by its Chardonnays.

That’s not surprising. Virtually every California winery produces at least one Chardonnay.

Unlike France, which embraces scores of grape varieties (for historical and cultural as well as viticultural reasons), California has a few grape varieties planted pretty much everywhere. Chardonnay and Cabernet, in particular, are planted across the board, for better and worse. One positive angle is that those varieties have become California’s foremost terroir-testing grapes.

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Especially Chardonnay. Because of Chardonnay’s undisputed stature as the world’s leading varietal wine, the grape is ubiquitous. And because the Chardonnay vine is particularly responsive to terroir, when it’s planted in a suitable place it can give an outstanding expression of regional character.

The fractured, multifaceted landscape of the Mendocino Plateau has lots of excellent places to grow Chardonnay. Its many mountains and ridges and its two large north-south valleys (Anderson and the northern Russian River), with their numerous tributary valleys and canyons, provide various combinations of soil, exposure and local climate that yield geographically specific wines.

The rough-and-tumble nature of the terrain is the key to Mendocino’s diversity of expressions. In most of California, vineyards were originally planted along with other crops on flat, fertile, easily farmed ground--exactly the situation that yields mediocre wines. It was only during the late 20th century that vineyards in Sonoma, Napa and other areas moved to the less-fertile hillside locations where the vines have to work harder and thus yield smaller crops and more intense, concentrated wines.

In Mendocino, they were already there. From the early days of settlement in the 1850s, the relatively rare flatlands and river bottoms were dedicated to food crops, livestock and orchards. Vineyards were relegated to higher, rougher ground.

Through the 1970s, Mendocino County grapes were a secret ingredient in wines with Sonoma and Napa appellations on their labels. While a few large producers such as Parducci and Fetzer and a handful of smaller wineries waved the Mendocino flag (in relative obscurity), most growers’ fruit was sold under other appellations.

When wine popularity surged in the early ‘80s, wineries proliferated in the county. New vineyards were planted, old ones revived. The county’s once-tiny wine community has grown to some 300 vineyards and 37 wineries.

The current wine boom is well timed for this Mendocino renaissance. Increased demand for distinctive, terroir-driven wines seems ready-made for Mendocino’s wealth of diverse terroirs. That’s reflected in the fact that Mendocino County, though it has less than half as much vineyard acreage as the Napa Valley, contains nearly as many American Viticultural Areas--eight approved and two more in process.

Mendo wines reflect local culture too. Possibly as a result of the county’s notable confluence of erstwhile hippies, back-to-the-landers and environmentalists, its grape growers were in the vanguard of sustainable and organic viticulture from the early 1970s. Many practice Integrated Pest Management, using a balanced ecology rather than chemicals to control pests. Now biodynamic viticulture (a more extreme version of organic) is taking off.

The Frey family has led the organic growing movement for years and now farms its estate vineyard in Redwood Valley (where the county’s first vineyards were planted) biodynamically. The 1998 Frey “Redwood Valley” Chardonnay is a luscious, creamy wine with a savor of clean stone. The ’99 Lolonis Chardonnay, also from organically grown Redwood Valley vines, shows a similar lush creaminess, a similar stony undertone, on a bigger scale with bolder top notes--a variation on the Redwood Valley theme.

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Other wines in my random selection of Mendocino County Chardonnays give different expressions of the complex North Coast terrain. The warm growing seasons of the Ukiah and Sanel valleys (sections of the upper Russian River Valley), the cooler climate of the Anderson Valley and the mountain climate of Mendocino Ridge all speak through wines made from the Chardonnay grape.

Navarro Vineyards’ 1998 “Premiere Reserve” (Anderson Valley) is a sleek beauty with luxuriant fruit and understated toasty oak. It has the vibrant intensity typical of the fog-cooled Anderson Valley. So does the ’98 Handley, though in a different way--fleshier and more overtly fruity, with the same lip-smacking succulence in the finish.

The 1999 Greenwood Ridge (Mendocino Ridge) comes from one of the few Chardonnay plantings above the fog line in the extreme west of the coastal ranges. A golden wine with ripe fruit flavors and floral top notes, it shows an intensely steely, Chablis-like acidity.

The 1998 from the Jepson estate (Ukiah Valley) reflects a slightly warmer climate in its broad, ripe fruit with pear and red apple notes and earthy undertones and its firm but gentle acidity. Another Ukiah Valley wine, 1999 Husch “La Ribera Vineyard,” has a similar appley savor to its bright, citrusy Chardonnay fruit. It too shows a broader, gentler acidity than wines from cooler seaward locations.

And so does the luscious, lavishly oaked 1999 Bonterra, from several vineyards in the Ukiah and Sanel Valleys. The 1999 Milone “Sanel Valley Vineyard” is a leaner and higher-toned variation on the theme, with a whiff of clean straw in the nose and bright, crisp fruit.

It’s still pretty early in the evolutionary process to ascribe definite regional character to wines from Mendocino County’s AVAs. It will be a while before anyone can say with conviction that Chardonnays from Anderson, Redwood and Sanel valleys are as consistently identifiable as Chardonnays from Chablis, Pouilly-Fuisse and Meursault. Everything except for the soil and climate is quite dynamic.

But those viticultural nooks and crannies in the Mendocino Plateau are coming into focus faster than most other regions. Perhaps Mendo is playing the tortoise to more glamorous appellations’ hype-driven hares, emerging from obscurity at its own pace and moving confidently toward establishing its own unique set of identities in the world of regional wines.

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Smith is writer-at-large for Wine & Spirits Magazine.