San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
These wines don’t fall into a single bucket — some taste funky, some taste clean and pure.
Last week I published a feature about Northern California’s growing ranks of “zero-zero” winemakers, an avant-garde wing of the natural wine movement. These vintners make wine in the most extreme, minimalist way possible — no additions of yeast or acid or sulfur, no modern technologies like filtration.
Zero-zero winemaking is a polemical topic, inspiring intense partisanship. Yet as I tasted through many bottles as part of my research for this story, I found it hard to characterize the wines in any general way. They don’t all fall into a single bucket. Some taste funky, of course, which is not to everyone’s liking. I tasted more than a few that showed evidence of a wine fault called “mouse,” an off-flavor that can appear right as you swallow. (Some people say it tastes like a dead mouse; a more helpful comparison is cereal milk. Either way, I’m not a fan.)
I also tried zero-zero wines that tasted clean and pure, with no telltale signs of being natural at all — no notes of barnyard or nail polish remover or rotten eggs.
Below I list some favorite Northern California zero-zero wines from my recent tastings. This is by no means a comprehensive list; there are many other producers doing great work in our region. In addition to the wineries named here, I recommend that you look out for wines from fully zero-zero wineries like Ambyth, Ashanta, Caleb Leisure, Coturri and Purity.
All of the wines here can be found from the wineries’ individual websites. If you’re interested in trying more zero-zero wines, your best bet is to visit a shop that specializes in natural wine and ask what’s available. The local outlets that sell zerozero bottles include Ruby, Gemini, Bar Part Time, Verjus, Tofino and Terroir in San Francisco; Ordinaire, the Punchdown and Minimo in Oakland; and Vineyard Gate in Millbrae. A fresh, pristine white wine:
Although this Viognier is in a sparkling wine bottle, under a crown cap, it’s a perfectly still wine — winemaker Brent Mayeaux simply bottles all of his wines that way. It’s a prime example of how clean zerozero wines can taste; there are no hints of funk here. The wine smells like clean linen and feels pleasantly creamy on the tongue, with accents of crunchy papaya and just-underripe peach. A pink pet-nat reminiscent of a Popsicle:
This dusty pink-colored sparkler comes from Graham Shelton, a Petaluma
winemaker who also farms vineyards for the natural wine producer Les Lunes. It’s a petillant naturel, a type of sparkling wine made by trapping carbon dioxide in the bottle during fermentation, from Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. The soft effervescence makes the juicy, bright flavors here really pop; the dominant flavor is of a strawberry Popsicle.
A tangy, tart blend of white and red grapes:
Rosalind Reynolds, who has a day job as assistant winemaker at Pax Winery in Sebastopol, makes several different wines from grapes grown at the Ricetti Vineyard in Mendocino County’s Redwood Valley under her Emme label. This cuvee, which she calls Pink Lemonade, is a 50-50 blend of a white grape, French
Colombard, and a red, Abouriou. The result is a translucent, fuchsiacolored wine that recalls the tangy fruitiness of its name. It smells like rose petals and tastes like tart, mouth-puckering fruits — blood orange, cranberry, pomegranate. A wild, bold skin-contact white:
This deeply coppertoned Gewurztraminer comes from Shiva Osteen and Connor Lee, who farm high-altitude vineyards in Nevada County. It’s a rich, flavorful wine, tasting of tangerine peel, bruised apricot and canned peaches. Fans of orange wine who enjoy a little bit of wildness will find plenty to love here. A light, chillable red:
This refreshing
Rosalind Reynolds of Emme Wines, above, makes some zero-zero bottlings. Others to try, left: Subject to Change Lune Juice ; Slow Dance Pet-Nat Rosé; and Absentee Elephant Syrah.
red may not look like your typical California Zinfandel — it’s much lighter-bodied — but it retains some of Zin’s signature flavors, like brambly blueberry and blackberry. A portion of this wine was made with carbonic maceration, in which uncrushed grapes undergo partial fermentation within the individual berries. That tends to result in a bubblegum-like aroma, which is present here. Give this one some time in the fridge before you drink it. A hearty, approachable Syrah:
While many natural winemakers gravitate toward lower alcohol contents and ever-lighter hues in their red wines, Avi Deixler excels with weightier, fuller reds. This Syrah is one of his more delicate specimens but still has plenty of oomph and intensity. Its screeching acidity cuts through an otherwise rich wine, which smells like strawberry buttercream and tastes like cinnamon and raspberries. The flavors are clean and approachable; this is a zero-zero wine to secretly pour for a Napa Cab drinker who thinks they don’t like natural wines. A textbook Cabernet blend:
Carlos Caruncho moonlights as a zero-zero winemaker after work as a language teacher at a school in Nevada City. The Maestro 2 is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon (60%), Merlot (20%) and Cabernet Franc (10%), and would satisfy anyone who enjoys lighter, greener Bordeaux blends. Initial hits of plum, candied pear and cola lead into a more vegetal profile with the impression of jalapeño pepper. Clean, balanced and savory.
Tomatoes that set fruit in cool, damp weather can show “catfacing,” left. Too much heat can cause sunscald, as with this East Bay tomato, above.
We hear many concerns about fire danger related to the higher temperatures of climate change, but gardeners and farmers are becoming aware of another hazard. That is that photosynthesis ceases at above 100 degrees F, meaning that the plants are no longer removing CO2 from the air. Further, plants respire, as do all living creatures, and this process can continue above 100 degrees, so the plants will be removing O2 from the atmosphere, while not removing CO2, a double whammy of a negative effect. There is nothing we can do about this in the garden, but it is yet another reason that encouraging economic changes that will reduce human CO2 emissions is a very good idea.
What’s good about cool summers? They allow gardeners to grow coolpreferring crops, such as cauliflower, kale and lettuce all summer. What’s good about hot summers? They allow success with some of the truly heatloving crops that coastal gardeners can only dream about, such as watermelon, sweet potatoes and Malabar spinach.