His world in harmony

Steve Edmunds had the voice, lyrical sense and guitar chops to have a shot at a singer-songwriter career. Instead, he devoted himself to playing the nuances of wine grapes.

And over the last 20 years, he has become an icon of California’s alternative wine scene. He’s one of the original Rhone Rangers -- a loose coalition of American winemakers dedicated to the classic grape varieties of France’s Rhone Valley. The half-dozen wines he bottles under the Edmunds St. John label are mostly Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Viognier, Roussanne and other Rhone-type varietals.

The wines are intense and vibrant, but seldom heavy. They’re tasty alone and they go with food. And, for those who appreciate such things, they also channel the personalities of outstanding vineyards. The vines -- and the fruit -- have character, and that comes through in the wines.

“It’s important not to have an agenda when working with grapes from a particular vineyard,” Edmunds says. “It’s a matter of trying to pay attention and nurture what the grapes are expressing. You have to let the wine tell you what it wants to be.”

He’s particularly enamored of Mourvedre and Syrah. The first figures prominently in the red blend he calls Los Robles Viejos, from the new Rozet Vineyard in Paso Robles. Edmunds was instrumental in persuading the Rozet family to include Mourvedre in the Rhone mix planned by John Alban, their consultant and a Central Coast Rhone specialist. And he says those vines were special even before they produced their first crop.

Looking at the Mourvedre vines atop the knoll, he says, “I had a sense that they were looking at me, and the fruit was glowing. I’d forgotten about that by the time the grapes were picked, but when they came into the winery it was the same thing -- the grapes seemed to be glowing in the bin.”

The resulting 2000 Los Robles Viejos Red Wine “Rozet Vineyard” is full-bodied and intensely flavored, yet fine, with a smooth trajectory. The other grapes in the blend provide little surprises -- juicy succulence from Grenache, a spiciness from Syrah. Even the tiny percentage of obscure Counoise adds to the wine’s brightness, the way a touch of Cabernet Franc or Malbec punches up a Cabernet Sauvignon-based Bordeaux-style blend. The 2000 Los Robles Viejos White, half and half Roussanne and Viognier, has a paler but no less intense glow.

And then there’s the stunning 2000 Wiley-Fenaughty Syrah from the high slopes of El Dorado County in the Sierra foothills. In contrast to the current crop of heavy, high-octane California Syrahs, Edmunds’ version manages to be powerful yet clear and elegant.

All these wines display the sensory signature of Edmunds St. John: minerality. It’s hard to describe but unmistakable -- the savor of stone behind the fruit, a dryness beyond the absence of sugar. Edmunds enhances it with a simple winemaking regimen that avoids masking influences such as new oak. It’s even there in the 2000 Pinc Froid, his luscious yet dry Nebbiolo rose.

Not coincidentally, the lots that aren’t quite distinctive enough for his single-vineyard wines are blended and bottled under the Rocks & Gravel label. These are beautiful in their own right but less expensive. The ’00 Rocks & Gravel Syrah, incorporating wines from six Syrah vineyards, is typical. At once forthright and beguiling, it has clear high-toned peppery notes and lots of smoky, leathery Syrah flavor.

Even his exceptions to the Rhone rule tend away from the commercial mainstream. A few years ago he persuaded a grower in the Sierra Foothills to plant Gamay Noir, the grape of Beaujolais. This is not the grape known as Napa Gamay, which is the inferior Valdigue. It’s California’s first real Gamay, and the first wine from those vines (2002, as yet unbottled) is gorgeous.

Forget the watery, grapy Nouveau Beaujolais we’re subjected to each November. This Edmunds St. John version has color, a ravishing spicy aroma, the satisfying weight of a Morgon and the exuberant juiciness of Chiroubles -- all in a brilliant California wine. I would predict cult status for it, but I’m certain it’s going to be gone shortly after release.

To Edmunds, the grapes are just a medium. He is first and foremost dedicated to making wines that express the soils and climates of specific vineyard sites. Like many of us, what he loves most about wine is the way a single grape variety can sing, depending on where it grows.

A true garagiste (“Franglaise” for the passion-driven who make small amounts of wine in garage-like quarters), Edmunds has no vineyards or winery and no formal training. He fell in love with wine in Berkeley in the early 1980s and became an avid home winemaker while eking out a living as a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service and moonlighting in retail wine shops.

His first commercial Edmunds St. John vintage was 1985. He made the wines in a corner of an industrial space leased by Travis Fretter, one of the original California garagistes. Other temporary East Bay quarters followed. A 1988 Mourvedre from the old vines at Brandlin Ranch on Mt. Veeder put him on the world wine map; it’s often cited as one of the wines that started the Rhone movement in California.

Edmunds St. John now is ensconced in a corner of the Audubon Cellars facility in west Berkeley, between the train tracks and the freeway. The wines are made with passion, modesty and humor. Where his name should appear on the front label, it says, “Produced and bottled by intuition and blind luck.”

Like most small-volume producers, Edmunds is having a tough go in this economy. Tight money plus a radical consolidation of distribution companies adds up to invisibility for someone who barely produces 4,000 cases of wine in a good year, especially in competition with cheap, just-palatable wines. Edmunds is painfully aware that the majority of consumers aren’t necessarily looking for distinctive hand-crafted wines.

“I don’t make mainstream wines or even typical California wines,” he says. “I’m driven by an intuitive sense of what a particular set of grapes wants to express. I’m doggedly true to that. But I have to wonder if that’s a viable commercial model.”

These aren’t the ultra-concentrated, lavishly oaked Napa Valley Cabernets that sell for more than $100 a bottle. Yet they’re sought just as eagerly by insiders. That kind of loyalty and passion from his customers will likely get Edmunds through the current slump.

If not, however, he may be able to fall back on music. When Edmunds custom-made wine for Boz Skaggs a few years ago, he took his fee in studio time. The resulting CD was produced by bluegrass diva Laurie Lewis, who also plays and sings with Edmunds. It features original songs with a bittersweet Kate Wolf-like quality -- an impression furthered by the presence of the late Wolf’s guitarist, Nina Gerber, on most tracks.

Edmunds’ music has a real back porch-summer twilight feel -- just the thing with a glass of Wiley-Fenaughty Syrah.