California expert raises a glass to Wisconsin wines
When it comes to Wisconsin wine, one of the keenest and most enthusiast observers is a wine expert from California.
Michael Jones, who seems to be on a first-name basis with nearly all the winemakers around the state, is a fermentation specialist with Petaluma-based Scott Laboratories, a company that provides fermentation goods, equipment, packaging products and laboratory services to the beverage industry.
They also consult with wineries across the country. And that’s where Jones — who figures he’s stopped at wineries in 42 states — comes in.
A University of California-Davis graduate, Jones has more than 35 years of winemaking experience, including 19 years at Domaine Chandon, where he was involved in everything from vineyards to operations to winemaking. He has also lived and worked in Burgundy, France, and the Hunter Valley in Australia.
For a decade, he’s been making the rounds in Wisconsin, getting to know wineries from “the area around the Lake Geneva, up to Vines and Rushes in Ripon and over to western Wisconsin wineries near the Minnesota border,” he said.
And he’s liked what he’s seen — and sipped.
During his trip here in early June, he headed north of Green Bay for the first time, visiting wineries in the Door County area, including Parallel 44, where he had an hours-long discussion and wine tasting with winemaker/owner Steve Johnson on topics from the wine regions of Champagne to native fermentations.
“What is so cool,” Jones said later, “is that he has traveled, it seems, to almost every wine region of the world and can do amazing comparisons with those regions and wine from this region.”
The guy from California also stopped at Door Peninsula Winery, north of Sturgeon Bay, where he picked up a bottle of not-yet-released carbonated St. Pepin, which he poured for me when we got together in Milwaukee.
“It’s a really nice wine,” he said. We also had a Friday-night dinner at Milwaukee’s Honeypie Cafe, 2643 South Kinnickinnic Ave. And in keeping with his steadfast belief in drinking local, we both ordered Wollersheim’s Blushing Rose.
“Why would I travel two thousand miles and have a wine from Napa Valley?” he asked.
Here’s a portion of our conversation, edited for clarity and brevity:
Question: What do you hope to find in up-and-coming wine regions like Wisconsin?
Answer: I want flavors that are different, flavors that are exciting and flavors that speak to me of place.
The first Wisconsin winery I ever visited was Wollersheim. I tasted Phillip’s reserve Foch, and it was an incredible, beautiful wine — and I thought this is what I’m looking for, a wine that screams the fact that it is from here.
Q: What’s something that would surprise California wine lovers about wines made from cold-hardy red hybrids like Marquette and Foch?
A: I would say that these reds go better with food than a large percentage of the wines coming out of California right now. In general, the hybrids have higher acids and lower alcohol. When you have them with a meal, they’re refreshing, they cleanse your palate.
Q: Cold-hardy hybrid grapes are allowing regions like Wisconsin to make higher-quality wines. Are there new grape varieties you are excited about?
A: People are gung-ho about the new Verona, which is coming down the line. And another one I have not tasted is Crimson Pearl.
Minnesota grape breeder Tom Plocher is the person who did Petite Pearl and now Crimson Pearl and Verona. Those are the ones coming closest to approximating vinifera grapes, although they still could use a little tannin boost. But they have more tannin presence than a lot of the other red hybrids.
Q: Is there a winemaking faux pas you’ve noticed around here?
A: One of my issues is with Marquette. Because it’s a red wine grape that ripens fully in the cold climate, people try to make it into a Cabernet. But most of the hybrid reds that are grown here are more like Pinot Noir, they’re actually very delicate and can be overoaked really easily.
When I taste a well-made Marquette that is not over-oaked — wow. It’s not a heavy wine and it goes beautifully with food.
Q: Why are Wisconsin sparkling wines so good? The bubblies made at Parallel 44 and sister winery Door 44, for example, routinely take top honors at competitions.
A: Look at the Champagne region of France. They are really far north. Look at the wines there — high acid, like Wisconsin’s. When you look at traditional sparkling wine, it’s high in acid, low in alcohol, low in phenolics or tannins. Many of the hybrid grapes here fit that profile.
And, by the way, I’m going to be on the Minnesota side doing a champagne seminar and Lynita is coming. I’m hoping to pick up one of her bubblies to serve at the seminar.
(That’s Lynita Docken-Delaney, cowinemaker with her daughter Laura Delaney Roessler at Elmaro Vineyard near Trempealeau.)
Q: Do you have a favorite Wisconsin fruit wine?
A: My favorite is cranberry — wine that’s redolent of cranberry — ooh, wow! It’s a wine I might drink by itself, but it also has enough acid that you could have it beforehand with salty snacks. And I could imagine sitting there with a glass of ice cold cranberry wine and fried smelt — it would be great. And that’s opposed to the last time I had smelt in Wisconsin and we drank it with Coors Light.
I poured the Spurgeon Vineyards cranberry wine at a class I gave at Fresno State in April. People loved it. I told them it was a cranberry wine from Wisconsin and they loved it.
Q: What’s your pet peeve when it comes to wine lists?
A: This is not just an issue with Wisconsin, but why is it that restaurants that pride themselves on serving local food — that list the farms where they get the eggs and that sort of thing — don’t serve the local wines?
I don’t drink California wines when I’m on the road. When I come to town I want to taste the wines that are made here.
You go into a restaurant in Europe — even if it isn’t a region renowned for its wines — and they’ll have the local wines, they pride themselves on it.
I’d especially like to see local wines being served by the glass at every restaurant — at least a red and a white.