Roederer in Mendocino
Day two of our Californian adventure and we visit the Roederer estate in the Anderson Valley, Mendocino where arguably the finest sparkling wine in the world is made. By Kate
The next morning dawned cool and slate grey and Jude and I were up far too early thanks to our bodies being utterly confused, drinking coffee and mint tea in Starbucks and watching more of the locals who seemed to be mainly elderly and eccentric. One lady solemnly ate dry cheerios from a plastic packet she had brought with her while she drank her unfeasibly large cappuccino. The staff did not seem to mind.
We set off for Roederer at quarter to 9 and made excellent progress down highway 1, the fog having rolled back so that it was a thick grey sausage on the horizon, leaving the sea sparkling turquoise in its wake. One seamlessly became highway 128, which again wound and contorted its way through a magnificent forest, shafts of morning light streaming through the trees. The drive was just under an hour but it was an absolute pleasure.
At the moment, we are passionately committed to a small and select group of incredibly well made champagnes from growers and houses who are all starting to do things a bit differently, with the most sensational results. I am not a fan of new world sparkling at the best of times, but a visit to a producer working very much in a more ‘traditional’ style was going to be challenging. Having said that, the Quartet non-vintage blend which Roederer make at their estate in Mendocino is easily, in my opinion, one of the great sparkling wines of the world outside Europe.
When the house of Louis Roederer had reached the utmost limits of production in Champagne, they began to look elsewhere, establishing a joint venture with other producers in Tasmania and the wholly owned Roederer Estate in Anderson Valley, Mendocino at roughly the same time. This was in 1982 and the Tasmanian adventure ended a few years later while Roederer California has gone from strength to strength. They were not the first in the valley, but were certainly very early pioneers, releasing their first wines in 1988.
There was a real spirit of the gold rush in the wine industry in northern California in the 80’s and early 90’s, sadly a good 10 – 15 years too early for the upsurge in wine consumption in America, which meant many did not survive. It also meant the demand for plant stock was high and utterly unregulated, the fledgling wine industry then being too small to attract the attention of the authorities. This meant that many diseased plants were being used and of course Davis were heavily promoting the ill fated AXR1 rootstock.
Sadly, Roederer fell for the latter, if not the former, and are now in the middle of a very extensive replanting programme. AXR1 was a hybrid rootstock, resistant to dreaded phylloxera and supposed to do all sorts of super-duper things but it transpired (after 1000’s of hectares had been planted with it) that is was only technically resistant – a rather important distinction.
This has meant a terrible situation for many growers and producers who have seen livelihoods severely threatened by vineyards which either died fairly early on or have just never performed as they should have. For Roederer today, this means a lot of vineyards full of fledgling vines which we passed as we drove up to the winery and tasting room, perched just under a crest of a hill, looking out on verdant forest on the opposite side of what is really a very narrow valley.
Although the Anderson Valley lies at the latitude of southern Spain, it is a relatively cool climate, although obviously warmer than champagne. An Alaskan current in the pacific here means extremely cold water – typically 15 – 16 degrees celcius. Cool air from the sea moves 18 miles inland and up the valley, conflicting with the warm air trapped here and creating fog which means that this slim sliver of land has morning, afternoon and evening fog in patches, some days the sun not burning it off at all. It must be noted that it does get up to 38 degrees celcius but at most, only about one week a year. The rest of the time during the growing season, it is around 25 degrees. As well as the fog, Anderson Valley has enough day/night temperature variation to help with the all important preservation of acidity and that is undoubtedly the golden ticket where any sort of sparkling wine is concerned.
Although our favourite champagnes actually have acidity which is balanced enough naturally not to require a large-ish slug of sugar to even it out in bottle, this is a wine style that does require a fresh edge and the problem with so many new world examples is that they are floppy and formless , a problem which the bubbles seem to accentuate most unpleasantly.
Champagne however is not just champagne because the climate is cooler. Famously, the soils there are generally chalky, contributing to the great elegance of the wine. The soils in Anderson Valley are not even slightly chalky, with a sandstone/slate base covered with sandy loam or sandy clay topsoils. These have an incredibly low ph which has meant that they have had to treat with lime and compost as well as organic life is really not terribly high in very acidic soils.
Past the beautifully manicured lawn with a border of lavender, rosemary and other shrubbery, to the tasting room and while we waited for Arnaud Weyrich, head wine maker here since 2003, we were offered a glass of the Brut NV to taste. This is a blend of 60% Chardonnay and 40% Pinot Noir and usually contains 3 – 4 vintages.
The lovely, fresh acidity on this is unmistakable with grapefruit and honeyed apple flavour and an almost slightly mineral tang on the finish. A really exceptionally good example of wine made in the image of champagne outside of France. Arnaud, a very charming, dapper French gentleman who is clearly a careful and intelligent wine maker, arrived and talked us through the history and the challenges of making wine in frontier country.
He spoke about the soils but also the problems with odium – generally combated through the use of a combination of SO2 and systemic sprays. They find that if they do not alternate the use of sulphur, they end up creating a problem with mites. They also don’t dry farm here.
Although this seems to be the mantra of so many we greatly admire in California, the others are not making sparkling wine, which really does require fruit that is plump and juicy and not even slightly desicated. Although Arnaud keeps it to a bare minimum, this is a very dry place during the growing season, combining that challenge with the fact that high winter rainfall can mean some vines suffering from the dreaded ‘wet feet’ phenomenon (vines passionately hate this), where a high water table or soggy soils can lead to root asphyxia, late budbreak or other problems. This is considerably less of a problem in their vineyards which lie on the hills, but part of the challenge here is that there is still not a very deep understanding of the terroir of the place.
While they have had several centuries to identify the most suitable land in champagne (and to be fair to lil’ol’ Anderson valley, even they are still tweaking), here they have had mere decades. They do know now which plots need no water and which need a little bit and despite the problems with a feast of famine situation as far as water goes and problematic soils, Arnaud is quite clear that compared to Champagne, they have it relatively easy although in both regions, there is a rush to pick at the end of the season. In champagne, this is in order to avoid rain and in the valley, it is to avoid over ripe fruit – the utter death blow to great sparklers.
Arnaud took us on a stroll around the immaculate winery. They now have two different facilities to avoid driving any of their grapes very far and all of these are hand picked, naturally, and then pneumatically pressed. Although there are absolutely no regulations in California governing how much of which portion of the juice can and cannot be used, they follow the French model to the letter, only using the very best cut of what comes out of the press and selling the rest as bulk juice or wine. This specially selected juice then goes into settling tanks and in some years, enzymes will be used to ensure that not a single chunk of solids make it into the winery.
Here, it is all stainless steel fermented with selected yeasts and mostly, they do not let the wine go through malolactic fermentation although this is not an unbreakable rule. Since a review which called the wines ‘austere’, they have started doing a bit more, but never more than 10 – 15% in a year. Such is the power of the wine critic in the US of A.
The best of the finished wines will go into reserve casks, an integral part of the Roederer house style and Arnaud led us past the shiny tanks into a darker, smaller room full large wooden barrels, rotated every 4 years on average. They have 64 of these in all, tasting them twice a year to monitor their progress.
Once the final blend is done and bottled with a fresh mix of yeast and sugar, the second fermentation takes about 5 – 6 weeks at about 14 degrees celcius. This all happens in their lofty underground cellar here and at two other locations in the valley where the bottles stay, the wine mixing with the dead yeast as it slowly decomposes, giving back rich, biscuity flavours, for 2 years. This is most unusual for a Californian sparkler and is 9 months more than the minimum required by law in Champagne.
When all done, the wine is cleaned up on a gyro-palette, the very clever machine which jerks the bottles around for 4 – 5 days, dislodging any suspended particles of yeast . These end up in the neck of the bottle as it stands on its head and it is then sent off to teh bottling line. The final stage is the dosage, or addition of a mixture of wine and sugar in order to soften the overy zippy acidity and although by the standards of our current favourites this is pretty high, the finished wine does not have that dreadful confected flavour I seem to be increasingly finding on some champagnes.
We ended up back in the tasting room where we started with the NV Brut Rose, a blend of 55% Pinot in the form of a light red, mixed with 45% Chardonnay. This is so pale that it is barely distinguishable from the other wines and Arnaud explained that this was a very deliberate decision made during the days when only the terminally unsophisticated and students drank rose, giving rise to a prejudice which is apparently still rather strong stateside. This has amazingly fresh acidity – to be honest, slightly too much for my palate, with very delicate red berry fruit. It is not bad wine at all, but I did find it slightly imbalanced.
We then tasted the 2000 Ermitage, their vintage blend of 52% Chardonnay and 48% Pinot, aged for 5 years on the lees before release. As you would expect, this is much richer on both the nose and the palate, with honeyed grapefruit flavours and a much richer biscuit, fading to a nutty finish. Very pleasant indeed.
Finally, the NV Extra Dry, which is of course anything but, having 24 grams per litre of residual sugar. This was my least favourite although I am not actually averse to ‘dessert’ champagnes. I just found it disjointed and slightly course on the edges, which is not the style of the others at all.
All the very hard work over, we moved to an outside terrace looking out over the valley and stood, marvelling at where we were, our pasty London skin reflecting dazzlingly in the pure light. Lunch was served just inside – a wonderfully healthy salad and south east asian noodles and teriyaki chicken, washed down with a still Pinot made at the winery. This was deliciously juicy and easy to drink – not life changing but then not very expensive by Californian standards at all.
It was a fabulous start to the trip and while Emily did some additional filming, we walked barefoot across the richly green, springy lawn – pure pleasure.
We stopped off for a stroll on the beach on the way back, with Jude dashing into and then straight back out of the sea. I put my toe in it, but that was quite refreshing enough – it was indeed freezing. One of our party, who shall remain nameless, approached an hirsute, dungaree wearing young man who was strumming a guitar and bellowing a rather tuneless ballad; and asked for details on where to buy some of the other great Californian recreational crop. I believe that rather complex instructions involving coffee shops were issued, with no success as it turned out.
We decided against returning to the house of Willow on this evening, instead visiting the fun fair before going back to the Brewery for dinner. Both of these decisions were a mistake. The former was a vision of garish hell, populated by mainly large, spotty people eating food on sticks while the young let out blood curdling shrieks on the rides. In an attempt to get into the spirit of things, we decided to go up on the Ferris wheel, a decision I deeply regretted the minute Jude and I were called forward to take our seats. These were utterly filthy and the wizened, equally filthy claw of the man who clanged the bar shut once we were seated only deepened my horror. Trying to make my self as small as possible and clinging to Jude, we were swung up and around, seeing the cliffs over the sea, the trailor park in the foreground and down below us, a young lady throwing up into a dustbin while her friends stood around and watched, and groups of young men all chewing tobacco and spitting. It was certainly a snapshot of life in Fort Bragg, but not one I necessarily wanted in my memory bank.
Having said that, we all really quite enjoyed our time here. It was certainly different and gave us a much more rounded view of California than we would have had if we had stuck resolutely to the glossier wine lands. And that is absolutely the point of these visits - to gain as much of a full understanding of where the wine is made as possible, corn dogs, exclusively deep fried food (the menu at the brewery) and waitresses called Willow included.
The next morning dawned cool and slate grey and Jude and I were up far too early thanks to our bodies being utterly confused, drinking coffee and mint tea in Starbucks and watching more of the locals who seemed to be mainly elderly and eccentric. One lady solemnly ate dry cheerios from a plastic packet she had brought with her while she drank her unfeasibly large cappuccino. The staff did not seem to mind.
We set off for Roederer at quarter to 9 and made excellent progress down highway 1, the fog having rolled back so that it was a thick grey sausage on the horizon, leaving the sea sparkling turquoise in its wake. One seamlessly became highway 128, which again wound and contorted its way through a magnificent forest, shafts of morning light streaming through the trees. The drive was just under an hour but it was an absolute pleasure.
At the moment, we are passionately committed to a small and select group of incredibly well made champagnes from growers and houses who are all starting to do things a bit differently, with the most sensational results. I am not a fan of new world sparkling at the best of times, but a visit to a producer working very much in a more ‘traditional’ style was going to be challenging. Having said that, the Quartet non-vintage blend which Roederer make at their estate in Mendocino is easily, in my opinion, one of the great sparkling wines of the world outside Europe.
When the house of Louis Roederer had reached the utmost limits of production in Champagne, they began to look elsewhere, establishing a joint venture with other producers in Tasmania and the wholly owned Roederer Estate in Anderson Valley, Mendocino at roughly the same time. This was in 1982 and the Tasmanian adventure ended a few years later while Roederer California has gone from strength to strength. They were not the first in the valley, but were certainly very early pioneers, releasing their first wines in 1988.
There was a real spirit of the gold rush in the wine industry in northern California in the 80’s and early 90’s, sadly a good 10 – 15 years too early for the upsurge in wine consumption in America, which meant many did not survive. It also meant the demand for plant stock was high and utterly unregulated, the fledgling wine industry then being too small to attract the attention of the authorities. This meant that many diseased plants were being used and of course Davis were heavily promoting the ill fated AXR1 rootstock.
Sadly, Roederer fell for the latter, if not the former, and are now in the middle of a very extensive replanting programme. AXR1 was a hybrid rootstock, resistant to dreaded phylloxera and supposed to do all sorts of super-duper things but it transpired (after 1000’s of hectares had been planted with it) that is was only technically resistant – a rather important distinction.
This has meant a terrible situation for many growers and producers who have seen livelihoods severely threatened by vineyards which either died fairly early on or have just never performed as they should have. For Roederer today, this means a lot of vineyards full of fledgling vines which we passed as we drove up to the winery and tasting room, perched just under a crest of a hill, looking out on verdant forest on the opposite side of what is really a very narrow valley.
Although the Anderson Valley lies at the latitude of southern Spain, it is a relatively cool climate, although obviously warmer than champagne. An Alaskan current in the pacific here means extremely cold water – typically 15 – 16 degrees celcius. Cool air from the sea moves 18 miles inland and up the valley, conflicting with the warm air trapped here and creating fog which means that this slim sliver of land has morning, afternoon and evening fog in patches, some days the sun not burning it off at all. It must be noted that it does get up to 38 degrees celcius but at most, only about one week a year. The rest of the time during the growing season, it is around 25 degrees. As well as the fog, Anderson Valley has enough day/night temperature variation to help with the all important preservation of acidity and that is undoubtedly the golden ticket where any sort of sparkling wine is concerned.
Although our favourite champagnes actually have acidity which is balanced enough naturally not to require a large-ish slug of sugar to even it out in bottle, this is a wine style that does require a fresh edge and the problem with so many new world examples is that they are floppy and formless , a problem which the bubbles seem to accentuate most unpleasantly.
Champagne however is not just champagne because the climate is cooler. Famously, the soils there are generally chalky, contributing to the great elegance of the wine. The soils in Anderson Valley are not even slightly chalky, with a sandstone/slate base covered with sandy loam or sandy clay topsoils. These have an incredibly low ph which has meant that they have had to treat with lime and compost as well as organic life is really not terribly high in very acidic soils.
Past the beautifully manicured lawn with a border of lavender, rosemary and other shrubbery, to the tasting room and while we waited for Arnaud Weyrich, head wine maker here since 2003, we were offered a glass of the Brut NV to taste. This is a blend of 60% Chardonnay and 40% Pinot Noir and usually contains 3 – 4 vintages.
The lovely, fresh acidity on this is unmistakable with grapefruit and honeyed apple flavour and an almost slightly mineral tang on the finish. A really exceptionally good example of wine made in the image of champagne outside of France. Arnaud, a very charming, dapper French gentleman who is clearly a careful and intelligent wine maker, arrived and talked us through the history and the challenges of making wine in frontier country.
He spoke about the soils but also the problems with odium – generally combated through the use of a combination of SO2 and systemic sprays. They find that if they do not alternate the use of sulphur, they end up creating a problem with mites. They also don’t dry farm here.
Although this seems to be the mantra of so many we greatly admire in California, the others are not making sparkling wine, which really does require fruit that is plump and juicy and not even slightly desicated. Although Arnaud keeps it to a bare minimum, this is a very dry place during the growing season, combining that challenge with the fact that high winter rainfall can mean some vines suffering from the dreaded ‘wet feet’ phenomenon (vines passionately hate this), where a high water table or soggy soils can lead to root asphyxia, late budbreak or other problems. This is considerably less of a problem in their vineyards which lie on the hills, but part of the challenge here is that there is still not a very deep understanding of the terroir of the place.
While they have had several centuries to identify the most suitable land in champagne (and to be fair to lil’ol’ Anderson valley, even they are still tweaking), here they have had mere decades. They do know now which plots need no water and which need a little bit and despite the problems with a feast of famine situation as far as water goes and problematic soils, Arnaud is quite clear that compared to Champagne, they have it relatively easy although in both regions, there is a rush to pick at the end of the season. In champagne, this is in order to avoid rain and in the valley, it is to avoid over ripe fruit – the utter death blow to great sparklers.
Arnaud took us on a stroll around the immaculate winery. They now have two different facilities to avoid driving any of their grapes very far and all of these are hand picked, naturally, and then pneumatically pressed. Although there are absolutely no regulations in California governing how much of which portion of the juice can and cannot be used, they follow the French model to the letter, only using the very best cut of what comes out of the press and selling the rest as bulk juice or wine. This specially selected juice then goes into settling tanks and in some years, enzymes will be used to ensure that not a single chunk of solids make it into the winery.
Here, it is all stainless steel fermented with selected yeasts and mostly, they do not let the wine go through malolactic fermentation although this is not an unbreakable rule. Since a review which called the wines ‘austere’, they have started doing a bit more, but never more than 10 – 15% in a year. Such is the power of the wine critic in the US of A.
The best of the finished wines will go into reserve casks, an integral part of the Roederer house style and Arnaud led us past the shiny tanks into a darker, smaller room full large wooden barrels, rotated every 4 years on average. They have 64 of these in all, tasting them twice a year to monitor their progress.
Once the final blend is done and bottled with a fresh mix of yeast and sugar, the second fermentation takes about 5 – 6 weeks at about 14 degrees celcius. This all happens in their lofty underground cellar here and at two other locations in the valley where the bottles stay, the wine mixing with the dead yeast as it slowly decomposes, giving back rich, biscuity flavours, for 2 years. This is most unusual for a Californian sparkler and is 9 months more than the minimum required by law in Champagne.
When all done, the wine is cleaned up on a gyro-palette, the very clever machine which jerks the bottles around for 4 – 5 days, dislodging any suspended particles of yeast . These end up in the neck of the bottle as it stands on its head and it is then sent off to teh bottling line. The final stage is the dosage, or addition of a mixture of wine and sugar in order to soften the overy zippy acidity and although by the standards of our current favourites this is pretty high, the finished wine does not have that dreadful confected flavour I seem to be increasingly finding on some champagnes.
We ended up back in the tasting room where we started with the NV Brut Rose, a blend of 55% Pinot in the form of a light red, mixed with 45% Chardonnay. This is so pale that it is barely distinguishable from the other wines and Arnaud explained that this was a very deliberate decision made during the days when only the terminally unsophisticated and students drank rose, giving rise to a prejudice which is apparently still rather strong stateside. This has amazingly fresh acidity – to be honest, slightly too much for my palate, with very delicate red berry fruit. It is not bad wine at all, but I did find it slightly imbalanced.
We then tasted the 2000 Ermitage, their vintage blend of 52% Chardonnay and 48% Pinot, aged for 5 years on the lees before release. As you would expect, this is much richer on both the nose and the palate, with honeyed grapefruit flavours and a much richer biscuit, fading to a nutty finish. Very pleasant indeed.
Finally, the NV Extra Dry, which is of course anything but, having 24 grams per litre of residual sugar. This was my least favourite although I am not actually averse to ‘dessert’ champagnes. I just found it disjointed and slightly course on the edges, which is not the style of the others at all.
All the very hard work over, we moved to an outside terrace looking out over the valley and stood, marvelling at where we were, our pasty London skin reflecting dazzlingly in the pure light. Lunch was served just inside – a wonderfully healthy salad and south east asian noodles and teriyaki chicken, washed down with a still Pinot made at the winery. This was deliciously juicy and easy to drink – not life changing but then not very expensive by Californian standards at all.
It was a fabulous start to the trip and while Emily did some additional filming, we walked barefoot across the richly green, springy lawn – pure pleasure.
We stopped off for a stroll on the beach on the way back, with Jude dashing into and then straight back out of the sea. I put my toe in it, but that was quite refreshing enough – it was indeed freezing. One of our party, who shall remain nameless, approached an hirsute, dungaree wearing young man who was strumming a guitar and bellowing a rather tuneless ballad; and asked for details on where to buy some of the other great Californian recreational crop. I believe that rather complex instructions involving coffee shops were issued, with no success as it turned out.
We decided against returning to the house of Willow on this evening, instead visiting the fun fair before going back to the Brewery for dinner. Both of these decisions were a mistake. The former was a vision of garish hell, populated by mainly large, spotty people eating food on sticks while the young let out blood curdling shrieks on the rides. In an attempt to get into the spirit of things, we decided to go up on the Ferris wheel, a decision I deeply regretted the minute Jude and I were called forward to take our seats. These were utterly filthy and the wizened, equally filthy claw of the man who clanged the bar shut once we were seated only deepened my horror. Trying to make my self as small as possible and clinging to Jude, we were swung up and around, seeing the cliffs over the sea, the trailor park in the foreground and down below us, a young lady throwing up into a dustbin while her friends stood around and watched, and groups of young men all chewing tobacco and spitting. It was certainly a snapshot of life in Fort Bragg, but not one I necessarily wanted in my memory bank.
Having said that, we all really quite enjoyed our time here. It was certainly different and gave us a much more rounded view of California than we would have had if we had stuck resolutely to the glossier wine lands. And that is absolutely the point of these visits - to gain as much of a full understanding of where the wine is made as possible, corn dogs, exclusively deep fried food (the menu at the brewery) and waitresses called Willow included.
