San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Sauvignon Blanc gets a bite of crunchy pear
Welcome to Wine of the Week, a series in which Chronicle wine critic Esther Mobley recommends a delicious bottle that you should be drinking right now. Last week she highlighted Cep Pinot Noir, an exceptional value at $35 a bottle, from Peay Vineyards in Sonoma County. Check for a new installment online every Wednesday.
Increasingly, winemakers are using more than just grapes to make wine. Around the country, fruits like quince, elderberries and plums are finding their way into wine fermentations, often to delightful effect. In California, apples are particularly popular, an extension of our state’s craftcider movement.
These fusions may be difficult for some wine purists to wrap their heads around, at least initially. But some of them are so unassailably delicious that I think they’d convert even the most stubborn skeptic. In Sonoma County, producers like Emme and Ashanta are making applegrape wines; I’ve written before about the peargrape and applegrape collaborations between Vinca Minor and Buddy Buddy in Berkeley. And Matthew Niess, the subject of my recent story about indigenous North American grape varieties, makes a Gravenstein apple cider spiked with grapes foraged around a butterfly sanctuary in Sebastopol.
A lot of the energy around these experimental bottlings has been centered, unsurprisingly, in the naturalwine community. One unlikely entrant into this brave new world, however, is Obsidian Wine Co., which just released a very tasty cuvee called Pear Blanc, made from Lake County pears and Sauvignon Blanc. (Some readers may be familiar with the company through its Obsidian Ridge or Poseidon labels.)
Sold in small, 500ml bottles, the 2020 Pear Blanc is pale, fizzy and slightly cloudy. It smells like a stillcrunchy, justunderripe Bartlett pear, marrying that fruit’s juiciness with
Sauvignon Blanc’s grassy, vegetal aspect. The pear seems to soften the zippy, citrusy bite you might expect from this kind of white wine, resulting in a flavor profile that reminds me of both Meyer lemon and lychee. The gentle carbonation gives those flavors an extra lift.
These two fruits make sense together: Sauvignon Blanc and pears are both Lake County specialties. (The county was long known as the “pear capital of the world.”) Even if Obsidian’s fruits aren’t coming from the same exact property, they can still collectively convey a sense of terroir and history, similar to the synergy between Gravenstein apples and wine grapes in Sebastopol.
The Pear Blanc is part of a new line of wines that Obsidian Wine Co. calls Down the Rabbit Hole, incorporating experimental techniques. In addition to the Pear Blanc, this new line includes a piquette (made from water and pressed grape skins) and a sparkling petillant naturel — categories that have traditionally been the purview of the natural crowd. The lead winemaker on these projects is Casey Graybehl, though one of Obsidian’s cofounders already has a strong track record with alternativefruit beverages: Michael Terrien, who makes dazzling wines from Maine blueberries under his Bluet label.
For now, the Pear Blanc is available only through Obsidian’s website.
Obsidian Wine Co. Pear Blanc Kelsey Bench Lake County 2020 ($16/ 500ml, 11.6%)