San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Wines in the Alpine style take root in Mendocino
The county’s coolweather altitudes suit European varieties well
If you’ve driven through Mendocino County, especially this time of year, you might find it hard to imagine that just 6 miles off Highway 101 from toasty Ukiah is a chilly, mountainous vineyard where grapes are routinely harvested with snow on the ground.
“You can get 2 inches of snow up here,” says Mike Lucia, who bought the vineyard, known as Cole Ranch, in late 2019. The cool weather in this unique pocket causes grapes to ripen slowly, and the last of them often aren’t ready for picking until around Thanksgiving.
That led Lucia to wonder: Could this site be described as … Alpine?
Cole Ranch is among a few vineyards in Mendocino County that are being reimagined as a home for the grape varieties that thrive in Europe’s cold mountainous regions, especially the Alps. Lucia, the winemaker behind Rootdown Cellars, based in Geyserville, sees in his property the potential for grapes from the Savoie, in the French Alps, and the Jura, a French region bordering the Swiss Alps.
Meanwhile, about 30 minutes away from Cole Ranch, in Mendocino County’s Yorkville Highlands AVA, winemakers — and best friends — Sam Bilbro (of Idlewild Wines) and Evan Lewandowski (of Ruth Lewandowski Wines) are reviving a property, now known as Lost Hills Ranch, as a site for grapes that thrive in Italy’s Alps or Alpsadjacent regions. They’re making a similar play at Fox Hill Vineyard near Ukiah.
According to Bilbro, Lewandowski and Lucia, some of these grape varieties — such as Cole Ranch’s Jacquere and Lost Hills’ Timorasso — have never before been planted in California. For wine geeks who have fallen for the European versions of these wines, the prospect of these Mendocino Alpine plantings is deeply exciting.
Do these developments run the risk of looking faddish? Sure. In recent years Alpine wines have become darlings of sommeliers, celebrated on hip restaurant wine lists. But could they fall out of favor with the hipster set just as quickly? Is it worth the years of toil and financial expense that these three winemakers are committing?
They say yes — that these corners of Mendocino County, counterintuitive though it may seem, are promising ground for the Alpine crops. “We’re not planting things because they’re a trend,” says Lucia. “We’re planting them because they’re correct.”
“Alpine wine” is a vague term, referring to wines grown in and around the European Alps, which span not just Italy and France but also Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland and more. It would be impossible to characterize the diverse outputs of these regions as having a single identity, but broadly speaking, these areas can produce crisp white wines high in acidity, and lightbodied, fruity reds. Imagine dewy mountain air, iciclelike purity and the bracing freshness of fallen snow — that’s the Alpine mood.
Bilbro’s winery, Idlewild, has always been modeled on Piedmont, an Italian wine region that’s surrounded by the Alps on three sides. But there’s also something in Idlewild’s Nebbiolo that recalls the fragrant, delicate versions of Italy’s Alpine Valle d’Aosta or Valtellina.
“The Nebbiolo we grow here,” Bilbro says of Lost Hills Ranch, “is deeper and broader aromatically, but also lighter.” Alongside Lost Hills’ Nebbiolo are sections of Dolcetto, Barbera, Arneis, Cortese, Moscato Bianco and Timorasso.
Lost Hills is aptly named: On the winding, rugged stretch of Highway 128 between the Russian River Valley and the Anderson Valley, its 724 acres feel wild, with fastwhipping winds and steep slopes that rise to 2,200 feet. Veins of schist and quartz run through its fractured sandstone soils. Bilbro’s father, Chris, bought the piece in 1998 to use for his winery, Marietta Cellars, which his brother Scot now runs. Only in the last few years has Bilbro committed the vineyard to an Italianate theme.
This new era is a partnership with Lewandowski, a rising star of natural wine who previously worked in Alto Adige, an Alpine region on the ItalianGerman border, at Tenuta Loacker. At Lost Hills, he’s planted Kerner and Schiava, two of the classic grapes of Alto Adige. “I’m super obsessed with that whole AustroHungarian part of Europe,” he says.
Lewandowski and Bilbro are not chasing obscurity for obscurity’s sake. They just think it’s time to see how some of these great European grape varieties can do here. The world doesn’t need another singlevineyard, $65 Pinot Noir, Lewandowski says.
Plus, just look at the hills. Feel the wind. “This area was settled by immigrants from northern Italy,” Lewandowski says. “They stopped here because they saw something that looked like home.”
Cole Ranch has its own peculiar history and physicality. For one thing, it’s its own appellation — at 180 acres,