When I started on my wine journey 8 years or so ago, (like many other wine lovers) I fell in love with California wines.
Over the last few years, I have been leaning increasingly to lighter wines from California with lower alcohol, spurred to a great degree by drinking many examples of mature California wines from the 70s and 80s.
In mid- to late 2007, I finally veered off the California bandwagon altogether. This has had many different reasons. Among them are:
- I almost always drink wine only with food these days. And...I do not enjoy many California and Australian, high ripeness (translation...high alcohol and/or residual sugar) with my food. Try drinking a Cali white with some strong cheese and then try a Loire Muscadet or an Alsatian Riesling with the same cheese. A world of difference.
- I dislike high alcohol. When drinking a 15%+ alcohol monster, I can't drink much before I feel tipsy. Not fun to have to "budget" my drinking to stay sober. And not healthy to ingest tons of alcohol.
- I really have come to dislike high ripeness and hyper-extraction. The problem with high ripeness and hyper-extraction is that the wine often gets too alcoholic (see above why I don't like that). Also, or at least in addition, many high brix harvests can't finish fermentation to full dryness because the alcohol levels would be stratospheric. Ergo...the vintners leave more RS in the wine, which means the wines taste slightly sweet. Even if the wine is technically completely dry, the high viscosity may impair the sensation of sweetness. That may be OK with some foods, but with most foods I like (salty, savory etc.), these wines clash. That is particularly true when one considers that high ripeness wines also often display low acidity (further proving problematic with food match).
- Many wines in California and increasingly in other parts of the world are spoofed (manipulated) to conform to critic and consumer preferences. The problem is that the spoofing process often means decreased aging potential, and a higher likelihood that the wines fall apart when the fruitiness begins to dissipate. In other words, the quality becomes unpredictable.
- The more I drink "terroir" wines that scream in aromatic and flavor profile of their geographic origin, the more I crave to try more wines of the same stylistic integrity. I am genuinely more excited to try a $13 Muscadet from the Loire that I know has been biodynamically farmed and vinified by a deft and uncompromising vigneron than to try any amount of California Cult wine.
- "Terroir" wines often cost less than California spoof wines. Let's look for a second at the top Muscadets (Luneau Papin), Chinons (Raffault, Baudry, Joguet), Languedoc (Mas de Daumas Gassac), or even Rhone (Combier etc) wines and it is astounding how low the prices on these wines are relative to California wine. At the supermarket, some mass produced brands cost more than the wines I just mentioned. In other words, "terroir" wines are often inexpensive because they take effort to understand, appreciate, and form a relationship with.
- "Terroir" wines IMO are by definition more distinctive than spoofed wines, so when you try lots of different wines, the degree of separation is more significant which makes tasting more fun.
- Aging potential...I am still a relatively young person, and I will probably enjoy wine for another 40-50 years (health permitting...knock on wood). That means I want some of the wine I buy today to be drinkable in another 10, 20, and in some cases 30 years. I don't want to feel forced to drink my wine within a year from purchase. Try doing that with a high degree of predictability regarding even the most expensive wines from California. There's currently a thread on Mark Squires' BB discussing 2003 Sloan. It's a textbook example of a wine that seems like it's all over the qualitative map.
With that said, I'll enjoy some nice 2006 Pepiere Briords Muscadet with a beautiful piece of grilled fresh swordfish tonight. I couldn't be more excited!
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