Vol. 3 No. 2
Standard Selection - (1) Red, (1) White
1997 Rodney Strong Merlot - California
1998 Santa Barbara Winery Chardonnay - California
Rodney Strong Vineyards:
Founded on the Recognition of Sonoma County’s Potential for Excellence
Rodney Strong Vineyards was established in Sonoma County in 1959, long before most of the world had even heard of Sonoma County, let alone knew where it was. Beyond Rodney Strong’s choice of location lay a simple philosophy that still prevails. The finest wines can only be crafted from the highest quality grapes. Rodney Strong Vineyards was founded on the recognition of Sonoma County’s potential for excellence.
With its magical combination of soil and climate, Sonoma County is home to vineyards that produce a range of cool to warm climate grapes that are among the finest in the world. That’s why when Rodney Strong Vineyards found Sonoma County, they knew they had found home. Through decades of grape growing and winemaking, they continue to fulfill the promise of this fine land. Their approach is for the grapes from each vineyard and growing region to express their intrinsic character in the special wines they create. Control of many legendary Sonoma County vineyards, in combination with a gifted winemaker and a state-of-the-art winery, assures consistent style and quality from year to year. Gentle handling, careful use of barrel, and stainless steel fermentation and proper oak ageing are all guided by master winemaker Rick Sayre who gently crafts the natural characteristic of superior fruit into some of California’s tastiest and most talked about wines.
Today Rodney Strong Vineyards owns and farms many exceptional vineyards in Sonoma County’s prime grape growing appellations where the estate’s critically acclaimed Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc and Zinfandel are grown. Chalk Hill, Alexander Valley, and the Russian River Valley are some of California’s most important viticultural areas and the primary sources of both Rodney Strong’s estate bottled wines and the excellent Sonoma County offerings bottled under their name. Many thanks to the proprietors of Rodney Strong Vineyards, the Klein Family Vintners, and Rick Sayre, the winery’s masterful winemaker, for a bevy of ripe, delicious wines that always seem to please.
Rick Sayre: In the Footsteps of a Legend
Rick Sayre began his winemaking career in 1970 at the age of 19 as assistant winemaker and cellarmaster at Simi Winery. Today, he is Winemaker at Rodney Strong Vineyards. Rick is responsible for all aspects of winemaking, from vineyard management through final blending of the wine. In the early days at Simi, Rick worked under the direction of the world-renowned Andre Tchelistcheff, the man largely responsible for the first world class Cabernet Sauvignon wines in California in the 1950’s and 1960’s under the BV Georges de Latour Reserve label. Tchelistcheff also pioneered Merlot in California. It is to his icon that Sayre’s attributes his passion for the art and his desire to master the craft.
Always a perfectionist with an eye for detail, Rick applies these traits to making fine wine. "It’s so important to be aware of everything," he says. "Andre taught me that a winemaker must live with his wine. Even the smallest details can have an effect. I take great satisfaction in having everything come together to create a product that is so enjoyable."
Rick practiced hands-on winemaking at Simi, learning his craft from the bottom up. He did everything from weighing the trucks that came in overflowing with the harvest to corking the bottles in the winery’s hand-bottling line. During his tenure there he was privileged to work with other well-known winemakers, including Robert Stemmler, Maryann Graf, and Zelma Long.
Rick joined Rodney Strong Vineyards late in 1979. In 1980, he designed and managed construction of the winery’s modern barrel handling system, where premium wines are aged with efficiency and control. He also began shifting his attention to the viticultural aspects of winemaking, and has become familiar with the special characteristics and idiosyncrasies of Alexander’s Crown, Chalk Hill, and the winery’s other estate vineyards through 20 growing seasons and harvests. ‘Consistency of style starts in the vineyard,’ says Rick.
Rick has expanded his winemaking experience with several trips to France, where he studied the interplay of oak and wine. After visiting many of the French cooperage houses, he decided to bring their barrel toasting techniques back to the States and became the first winemaker in California to install an in-house cooperage specializing in the toasting of American oak barrels.
"Winemaking is a never-ending challenge," says Rick. "There’s always more to explore!" We wish him a long and happy adventure.
Tasting Notes: The 1997 Rodney Strong Merlot wears a regal, ruby robe that portends the wines heaven scents and lush, velvet flavors. Ripe, round berry aromas, mingled with anise, spice and bark spring from the glass. Full and rich in the mouth, this Rodney Strong Merlot combines the textbook Merlot flavors of berry, chocolate and spice with the suavity of clean oak. Generous, fulfilling and a pleasure to drink, this wine puts many more expensive, big name Merlots to shame. It also makes us wonder why consumers continue to pay exorbitant prices for mediocre, overly manipulated and over cropped Merlots, especially when they don’t have to. The folks at Rodney Strong deserve strong praise for their Œ97 Merlot, as well as many previous efforts, which consistently offer the consumer some of the most delicious Merlot on the market. Enjoy!
Accompaniments: Spring lamb is the first dish that springs to our mind. The rich velvet flavors of the Rodney Strong Merlot offer the perfect accompaniment to tender, juicy morsels of a young roast leg of lamb. Another wonderful accompaniment to this delicious Merlot is a honey-glazed ham, complete with carrots in a raspberry sauce. This dish brings out the rich fruit in the Merlot, while the natural smokey, spiciness of the ham and the wine melt in your mouth. For a mouth filling, meatless dish, we suggest you try the Rodney Strong Merlot with a homemade three cheese lasagne in a tomato cream sauce. And, if you’re a real gourmand, you could have all three dishes as separate courses in one sitting. Now, that would be a meal! For the slightly more moderate among us, we confess that we have enjoyed this award-winning Merlot with a simple plate of fresh fruit and soft cheeses. "As you like it."
Santa Barbara Winery:
Hand Harvested, and Hand Crafted
In 1962, Pierre Lafond established Santa Barbara Winery, the first commercial winery in Santa Barbara County since prohibition. Inspired by friends known as "Mountain Drivers", a community of home winemakers that were famous for their bacchanalian harvest festivals, Pierre purchased grapes to produce wine sold at his wine shop in the Old El Paso district of Santa Barbara.
Over the next ten years, when the viticultural promise of Santa Barbara County became apparent, Pierre Lafond shrewdly purchased his own Santa Barbara vineyard in 1970. Yet, he continued to operate the winemaking operation in downtown Santa Barbara.
By 1981, the potential of the Lafond Vineyard, and Santa Ynez Valley in general, had been well established. At the time, an able winemaker, Bruce McGuire was hired to assume the winemaking helm of the Santa Barbara Winery - a position he still holds today. Over the last fifteen years, McGuire has transformed the Santa Barbara Winery into one of the finest premium wine producers in California - most notably for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
Lafond Vineyard
As any visitor to Santa Barbara County can attest, there is no viticultural area more beautiful than the Santa Ynez Valley, home to Santa Barbara Winery’s Lafond Vineyard. Here the faint morning light is obscured by heavy fog that settles in the vineyard. It protects the grapes from the first piercing rays of the sun and rarely lifts before mid morning, a magical moment when the sun illuminates the green hillsides with the purest of light. Later, the fog will roll in from the ocean and up the valley, effectively moderating the warm afternoon temperatures. All summer long the fog blows in and out of the lower Santa Ynez Valley, allowing the grapes to develop slowly and gently.
The east-west orientation of the Santa Ynez and San Rafael mountain ranges form two valleys in Santa Barbara County that act as funnels for the cool air coming in from the Pacific. This unusual geographic feature doesn’t occur anywhere else in North America. The resulting cool comate is the defining characteristic for the lower Santa Ynez Valley, where the Lafond Vineyard is located, just 18 miles from the coast. This proximity to the ocean ensures a temperate winter, allowing the grapes to develop over a longer period of time, resulting in rich balanced flavors in the grapes. Southerly latitude protects the vineyard from early winter storms that can threaten October and November harvests.
Santa Barbara Winery’s 30,000 case production highlights the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for which the Lafond Vineyard is particularly well suited. The winery is also well known for a number of other varietals that benefit from a long, cool growing season. The winery’s Viticulturalist, Jeff Newton, uses canopy management techniques and careful clone selection to produce fruit that exhibits concentrated flavors and results in wines that are distinguished by their regional character. The Lafond Vineyard provides the soul for Santa Barbara Winery’s outstanding Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
Tasting Notes: Sporting a forsythia yellow robe, clean, rich flavors and concentrated fruit, the 1998 Santa Barbara Winery Chardonnay is a clear stand-out from a superior growing region. Working with a harvest that was nearly three weeks later than normal, winemaker Bruce McGuire’s decision to pick each individual vineyard sight at optimum ripeness, even at the expense of his own time off, is clearly evident in this highly polished Chardonnay. Scents of acacia, butter, and vanilla melt into the clean, suave fruit of this delicious wine, then linger on the palate for nearly a minute after swallowing. This highly acclaimed Santa Barbara Chardonnay was 100% barrel fermented in French oak, lending elegance and breed to the pure fruit of this classically wrought wine, without overpowering it. From a technical as well as a hedonistic point of view, the 1998 Santa Barbara Winery Chardonnay is one heck of a Chardonnay, worthy of all the plaudits it has received.
Accompaniments: The emphatic, bright fruit of the 1998 Santa Barbara Chardonnay makes it a versatile wine with food. It pairs quite nicely with poultry and fish prepared in a variety of styles. Pasta with a white sauce and risotto are also two of our favorite foods with this stylish Chardonnay. Yet, any well-prepared, lighter fare will be enhanced by this lovely wine. A mixed salad with grilled chicken or tuna, topped with avocado, is another winning combination with this Santa Barbara Chardonnay; it recalls many a splendid lunch we have had in Santa Barbara, dining alfresco in view of the gleaming Pacific.
Wine Quotes:
"Wine drinking is no occult art to be practiced only by the gifted few. Indeed, it is not an art at all. It is, or should be, the sober habit of every normal man and woman hardened with normal responsibilities and with a normal desire to keep their problems in perspective and themselves in good health."
----Allen Seckel (1900-1965)
"The 1997 harvest was one of those years that all of the elements in winemaking were in sync and came together for our Sonoma County Merlot"
----Rick Sayre, Winemaker
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