Palate Lovin'

Introducing...
A Guest Blogger for your reading pleasure

I have asked aspiring, home-grown wine-maker Michael Christian to write me a short and informatiional blog on his journey to becoming San Diego's rogue winemaker. He and his partner, Coleman Cooney, are branding themselves as the 'Raw Wines' guys. As described by Michael himself:

"I am an amateur winemaker in San Diego looking to turn pro. The local wineries rarely fail to disappoint me. When I ask them what they are trying to achieve with their wine they reply either with a blank stare or with platitudes. My winemaking partner and I have strong (almost dogmatic) ideas about making unique San Diego wine with San Diego fruit." The ideas being keeping wine 'raw' or without all the oak, high alcohol, overly ripe styles that the market is bombarded with. They are keeping it clean, simple, and home-grown. Gotta love that!!! Anyways, without further delay, here is his latest report:

Basically, great wine has only one ingredient -- great grapes. That's an oversimplification, but you get the idea. Some winemakers seem to have forgotten about the fruit in their search for lots of oak flavors, high alcohol, extreme ripeness, and artificially tweaked wine (with added tannins, 'adjusted' acidity, and even chemical compounds added for texture).

Okay, if great wine is made from great grapes, what are great grapes made from? The answer is: varietal, place, treatment, and some magical intangibles. A lot of sub-ingredients go into each of these ingredients, and the whole is so complicated that it straddles art and science.

An example should help. We have been searching for the right vineyards from which to buy grapes to make a wine that is unique to San Diego County, not a copy of something else. We found a tiny and very special vineyard near Warner Springs (Code name: Secret Peak). It has what we seek in terms of place, varietal, treatment, and the intangibles.

Varietal. Secret Peak is planted to Syrah. Okay, we are speculating here, but we think that Cab, Merlot, and Pinot are not quite right for San Diego. We want something that can take a lot of sun without developing excessive sugar before the flavors are ripe. 15% alcohol just doesn't pair with most food. They grow great Syrah in the South of France; we take that as a clue.

Place. Place means so much -- latitude, altitude, soil, exposition, and climate. Secret Springs is at a very high altitude for grape vines, about 3,400 feet. At altitude you tend to get poor, rocky soil and lower temperatures. Good for growing fairly tannic grapes. We like that. The vineyard is on a south-facing slope for sufficient sunshine. The soil is poor, decomposed granite, with some oxidized dirt thrown in. The vines are planted medium-close in the rocky slope, forcing them to dig deep for nutrients.

Treatment. The vines at Secret Peak are head-trained, meaning that there are no trellises to hold them up to the sun. So they struggle and sprawl a little. They are tall and fully mature, having been planted over ten years ago. This, along with the poor soil, affects the leaf:root ratio. A big, leafy, trellised canopy can make for too-sweet grapes. We think a lower leaf:root ratio makes for more complex flavors.

Intangibles. Well, our grower is to grapes as the Old Man and The Sea was to fish. He lives on the property and seems to be in hiding there for peace and solace. He loves the vines and, although he's not growing to make money, he wants people to appreciate what he's doing.

The farming at Secret Springs is completely organic. No pesticides of any kind. No herbicides. No machines. No ploughing even. The grower encourages wild mustard as ground cover. His only fertilizer (and we saw it, no joke) is, at the foot of each vine, a small handful of dry llama pellets that come from a ranch down the road. Incredibly, unbelievable, he had to abandon the fruit last year. Nobody seemed to know what a treasure he had cultivated, and he does not want to act like a businessman seeking customers. We aim to make sure his treasure never goes to waste again.

Of course, there's a price to pay for growing like this -- hard work and low yield.

And that's why these grapes and (hopefully) the wine we make from them will be special.

-Michael Christian and Coleman Cooney of Raw Wine(tm) are San Diego winemakers looking for great raw materials. rawwines.com