California goes Rhône

A band of Syrah-centric California wine-growers were guided by John Livingstone-Learmonth on an odyssey to the northern Rhône valley, seeking cool-climate advice and inspiration from some of the French region’s most respected vignerons

IN FEbRuARy 2015 I received an email from an Englishman living in Mendocino County, California, asking if he could send me his two Rhône varietal reds for tasting and comment. ‘We have got to know our young 2005 vineyard better, and I feel that 2013 is the first vintage where we are near what we want to do,’ wrote Paul Gordon from Halcón Vineyards.

Gordon, it turned out, was still working in IT, but also pursuing his wine dream. He had chosen a most inhospitable site for his vineyard: a high, cold wilderness, with soils involving granite and gneiss, just like in the northern Rhône.

I reviewed the wines, a Syrah and a Grenache-Mourvèdre blend (both promising, the Mourvèdre role strong in the blend), and then came the next step: the request for a visit to the northern Rhône by Gordon and likeminded Californian winemakers who, in their pursuit of cool, restrained wine styles, wanted to find inspiration and perspective in the home of Syrah. Operation Cool was thus born.

The week-long programme centred on a close-up inspection of vineyards with their owners, literally kicking the dirt and looking at such tasks as planting young vines, repairing walls, and the working of soils using a pulley and wire system, or horses and mules (a revelation for the visitors from the uS).

Jason Drew from Drew Family Cellars picked up on the very close relationship between the growers and their vines when he commented: ‘There is an ongoing passion and rugged character to the vignerons that is hard to miss. The level of care and effort the growers lavish on their vineyards is very impressive.’

Matt brady of Jaffurs Wine Cellars agreed: ‘For the great vignerons we met, winemaking is a lifelong mission to understand the terroir