California Wine Country

Dan and Mark.

Mark McWilliams from Arista Winery is our guest on this edition of California Wine Country with Steve Jaxon and Dan Berger.

Dan’s weekly cellar dweller bottle is a 2022 Chenin Blanc from Les Atlètes du Vin in France. $15 a bottle at Bottle Barn. Chenin Blanc is coming back. You can get 7-9 tons an acre of Chenin Blanc and it makes nice wine. Mike says it’s refreshing.

Mark’s parents started as grape growers when he was young. They grew a lot of Cabernet. His mom lived in Burgundy after college and got to know Pinot Noir. They family felt a calling to make wine. In 2002 they started the Arista brand to make wine. They use their own grapes and grapes grown elsewhere. Their Chardonnays have been very highly rated. In December they did a 10-year retrospective tasting of their Chardonnay. In 2013 their new winemaker Matt McCourtney was on the job. Now those wines are aging very well and still have years to go.

Arista’s style has been to focus on the fruit, not on manipulating the wine to make something that the grapes don’t want to do. Acidity is always front and center in their wines. They also have the 2021 Russian River Valley Chardonnay. The appellation wines are the top of their production. Wines like this which are not single-vineyard estate wines, are put together on purpose to combine elements ideally. This wine has so much complexity that it promises to age well.

Steve Jaxon quotes Wine Spectator, which declared, “Arista Wines are the shining star of California Chardonnays.” Mark says that’s because they use the best fruit and they have the best staff. There is a hazelnut component in the flavors that Dan detects. It resembles Meursault which is a district in Burgundy. The wines have trace flavors of hazelnut. There is also a lemon peel component in the nose. But the wine is only 3 years old. “A great Chardonnay like this really deserves time in bottle,” says Dan “Lay It Down” Berger. Mark declares that there is world-class Chardonnay coming from California and Oregon and that Burgundy no longer is the only place that makes the best wine from that varietal.

Julie Pedroncelli St. John is back as a guest on California Wine Country with Steve Jaxon and Dan Berger today. Her last time on this show was this episode of April 26, 2023. The Pedroncelli family winery began when her grandparents bought some property in Dry Creek Valley that contained a vineyard, a home and a shuttered winery. This was seven years before the repeal of Prohibition. They sold grapes and then after Prohibition was repealed in December, 1933 they started producing wine. They have been family-owned and operated ever since then.

The Dry Creek Valley has ideal conditions for certain grapes including Sauvignon Blanc and Zinfandel. The Pedroncelli property is on the hillside. Different ends of the property have different microclimates and today they farm about 11 different varieties on all of their vineyards. By owning the property the wine production is not subject to the financial pressure of a mortgage.

Their winemaker in Montse Reese who just celebrated 18 years there. Everything they grow comes into the winery. They also buy from growers all around Dry Creek Valley. The Zinfandel they are tasting today is an example of their product that comes from their own vineyards and from other local growers.

There is a tab on the Pedroncelli website called Vino in my Dino, which comes from the Flintstone’s Dino the Dinosaur cup. When Julie was 5 years old her first taste of wine, watered down, of course, came from one of those.

Julie has brought a 2023 Chardonnay that comes from F. Johnson vineyard in southern Dry Creek Valley. The winemaker Montse Reese put it in French oak barrels for 8 months, and it undergoes malolactic fermentation sur lies. This makes a wine with complex citrus and melon flavors. It is a candidate for at least a year of aging but is already tasty. It has a wild tropical fruit component which suggests that the wine will improve with aging or when decanted. “Time in bottle or time in the air,” giving aeration helps a lot, says Dan.

Brandi, Dan, Steve and Mike.

Mike Carpenter, The Redd Collection owner is back on California Wine Country with Steve Jaxon and Dan Berger. His last time on the show was this episode on November 3, 2023.

Dan Berger has brought a magnum of a wine that he himself made 33 years ago. It is a 1991 Cabernet from the Napa Valley. Its aging was in an old French oak barrel. It was a project for his family, when his sons were young, the youngest was 4 that year. They opened it last night and it was still really good.

Mike Carpenter from the Redd Collection is back on California Wine Country. The Redd Collection is a wine retail business that is built on a stock of old, rare and collectable wines. There are some rare wines, such as an old vine Chablis, from 2020. Dan Berger says this is French style Chardonnay “to beat the band.” This drinks like a $100 bottle but sells for $45, says Mike.

The Redd Collection began with a large inventory acquired from a single collector. His name was close to Redd, and the client did not want his own name on it, so the name Redd is a derivation from that.

Visit Chigazola Merchants online to shop their unique selection of fine Italian wines.

Mike used to work in a wine store in LA, where there was a stock that is boring and overwhelming. “150 feet of the same varietal.” He wanted wines that were unique, old and rare. Dan points out that these wines are already aged, so the wines have the mature character that you cannot get from underaged wines. Also, it is expensive to store wine properly. Dan also mentions that these wines have been carefully vetted, for origin and quality but also for how they have been kept. The first thing that goes in the fruit, when a wine has not been aged properly.

He is currently offering private collection of a famous Napa Valley winemaker named Zelma Long. There is a wide selection of wines that go back to the ‘50s and ’60s. The oldest is a half bottle of 1929 wine. Zelma Long was a great collector of wine. She was a winemaker at Robert Mondavi. He wrote in his book that losing Zelma Long from his staff was his biggest regret. She became the winemaker at Simi for a long time. She became the president at Simi which made her the first woman top executive at a major winery.

Melissa and Dan

Dan Berger selections are the focus today on California Wine Country with Steve Jaxon and Dan Berger, with Melissa Galliani special guest. Melissa was also on the show on this episode just about a couple of months ago, on Nov. 1, 2024.

Joy Sterling from Iron Horse Vineyards was due to be our guest today but at the last minute she was not available. Instead, we have a table of Dan Berger’s selections, including one from Iron Horse, for tasting and discussion. Melissa Galliani (Wine Country Radio General Manager) is also in the studio today.

Dan’s cellar wine is a 2017 St. Andrews Chardonnay which brings up the subject of the currently depressed wine market. Dan offers some reasons for it, including the plethora of other beverages that are available for drinkers. One of them is RTD which means ready-to-drink cocktails in a can.

Visit Chigazola Merchants online to shop their unique selection of fine Italian wines.

This Chardonnay is from Wakefield, in Clare Valley, Australia. It has a little bit of toasted hazelnut flavors, along with fruit flavors that are still strong, apple and pineapple. Wakefield also makes a Shiraz and a dry Riesling that Dan likes.

Australia consumes a lot of wine, although they are working under some restrictions on total alcohol. The Australian consumer cares about flavor profiles, which are stronger when alcohol is lower. The driving laws in Australia are also quite strict. If you can keep the alcohol below 14% you can pay 50 cents per gallon less in taxes.

The next tasting is a much y0unger wine, a 2023 Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. “Whoa! This is a whole different ball game!” says Steve. This comes from Marlborough. It has an “unbelievable” nose. It’s a little sweet but has plenty of acid. It comes from a property that Gallo purchased in New Zealand about 20 years ago.

We have seen lots of wine coming from New Zealand in the last few years, including lots of Sauvignon Blancs. Dan’s opinion is that their cold climate Pinot Noirs are the most interesting wines coming from there and they are also some of the most popular wines in the country.

Dry Creek Vineyard winemaker Tim Bell is back on California Wine Country with Steve Jaxon and Dan Berger today. Tim has been on CWC a few times but the last one was this episode on August 4, 2021.

Dan Berger gives credit to Tim Bell for making wines that are interesting for their subtlety. He tells how his first exposure to wine was in retail. He went to UC Davis, worked at a custom crush facility for a while, then at Freemark Abbey for 10 years making Rutherford Cabernet. From there he worked at Kunde estate, where they had more then 600 acres of vineyards. After five years there, he got the opportunity to move to Dry Creek Vineyard. It is one of the rare family-owned wineries that is still in the hands of the original family owners. The other winemaker is Brian Pruett.

Dan Berger talks about when David Stare planted Sauvignon Blanc in Dry Creek Valley, he had an intuition that it would work, but nobody knew yet. Tim describes a lot of the varietals that they have planted.

Visit Chigazola Merchants online to shop their unique selection of fine Italian wines.

They have a 2022 Chardonnay from Marchelle, Greg La Follette’s brand. After all these whites, they also have some Zinfandel. Dry Creek Vineyards claims credit for being the first winery to use the term “Old Vines” on the label. There are several old vineyards in the area that are also family-owned, which produce fruit that they use. These vineyards are field blends of Zinfandel with a scattering of other varieties. There are head-trained vines and are dry farmed. Dan detects a violet spice and bay leaf flavors. But the best part is the structure, which makes it ideal for food like pizza. The one they are tasting is a 2021.

Dan Berger and Clark Smith.

Clark Smith is back on California Wine Country with Steve Jaxon and Dan Berger, to discuss WineSmith unusual varietals and more. Clark Smith is an influential wine consultant, university instructor, scientist and musician. That is his website, Who Is Clark Smith? which is about wine and more. He is also one of the most frequently appearing guests in the history of California Wine Country. His most recent CWC show is this one last May.

Clark Smith applies the full spectrum of creative powers to making wine. He is known for making wine from unusual varietals, many that nobody has heard of. Dan Berger has known Clark Smith for decades and their conversation is one of hundreds they have had about wine over the years. This is the full unedited live show, nearly an hour of Dan and Clark’s combined experience.

Visit Chigazola Merchants online to shop their unique selection of fine Italian wines.

Clark Smith has brought a Chardonnay that he made, in a Faux Chablis style. A lot of people have grown tired of the big buttery toasty Chardonnays. That wine can be made in a very different way that gives it a steely, mineral flavor, not the oaky creamy kind that comes from ML (malolactic fermentation). As an example of WineSmith unusual varietals, it is at least an alternative way of making a common varietal. This is a 2003, so it is well-aged.

This wine is an example of Clark’s Forgeries and Oddities. This is Clark’s other website, WineSmith Wines, devoted entirely to wine.

Jeff Mangahas

Winemaker Jeff Mangahas from Williams Selyem Winery is back on California Wine Country with Steve Jaxon today. Jeff has been on this show a few times before, the most recent was this episode from last March.

Williams Selyem produces a limited quantity of wine in the Russian River Valley, primarily Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Most of their wines come from a single vineyard and so they express varietal and terroir characteristics. While Williams Selyem wines are very famous among well-informed wine enthusiasts, it does not have enough production for its fame to be as widespread as others who make more product and can get it out into more places. Dan Berger calls Williams Selyem, “…one of Sonoma County’s greatest wines.”

Visit Chigazola Merchants online to shop their unique selection of fine Italian wines.

The founders Ed Selyem and Burt Williams were early garagistes making wine in the late ‘70s. They came out with the 1985 Rocchioli Vineyard bottling that won the California State Fair Sweepstakes in 1987. After that, demand shot up and they had to allocate individual bottles of wine to people.

Jeff’s first career was as a cancer research biologist with a degree in molecular biology from University of Washington. He became curious about wine while living in the pacific northwest. Wanting to try something different, he took a degree from UC Davis in viticulture and enology and has been working in the Russian River Valley since then.

They make many individual bottlings of single vineyard varietals, and Jeff is happy that he gets to work with the same top quality vineyards year after year. “Greatness in the bottle starts with greatness in the vineyard.” Because they are a vineyard-designate specialist, each wine has a unique profile that is a reflection of the location.

Christian Adams from The German Wine Collection is our guest on California Wine Country with Steve Jaxon and Dan Berger.

Christian has brought three different German wines, each from a different producer. The 2021 Pinot Blanc is the first wine tasted. Its name Weissburgunder is German for Pinot Blanc, literally it means ‘White Burgundian.’

You don’t see much Pinot Blanc here in California but there is some in Menocino County and even in Idaho which Dan says is excellent. Also, Germany is producing “an unbelievable array” of delicious wines from new and different varieties. Christian likes the German Pinot Blancs that have “the tri-fecta” of good acidity, fruit and minerality all together.

Visit Chigazola Merchants online to shop their unique selection of fine Italian wines.

The next wine tasting is the estate Chardonnay from Friedrich Becker. It was fermented in German oak barrels, and spends about 5 months in the fine lees. It has undergone malolactic fermentation but not so much to overpower the minerality. Dan says he prefers this style even if there is really only a trace of oak.

The German Wine Collection began from a portfolio put together by Rudy Wiest Selections. Dan laments that at the time, there were too many sommeliers who did not know the German wines, to everyone’s detriment.

The last tasting is a Pinot Noir. The entry-level estate Pinot Noir gets a “wow” from Steve. It is not Burgundian nor is it New World, says Dan. But it has a combination of delicacy and richness. Dan gets flavors of fresh beets, blueberry jam and the acidity in the aftertaste that you get from German wines. Christian makes bratwurst and found some old recipes that were handwritten. He has been able to make and recreate these flavors and styles that you can’t get any other way.

Doug Nalle, co-founder of Nalle Winery, is our guest today on California Wine Country with Steve Jaxon and Dan Berger. The last time Doug was on the show was this episode of April 19, 2023.

Doug Nalle and Dan Berger have been friends for fifty years. They have three Chardonnays to taste. First, a 2021 Chardonnay from Hopkins Ranch.

Doug and his wife Lee founded the winery in 1984 and they just finished their 41st harvest. They produce about 2000 cases per year. Mostly they make Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel. Their Chardonnay is about 200 cases. Doug’s son Andrew is the winemaker now. He got a degree in enology from Fresno State. His wife April is a viticulturalist who went to Australia for training and works with the winery. They have roughly 24 acres of grapes and they use some and sell some. His wife’s family bought property in Dry Creek Valley 95 years ago and it is still in the family.

Visit Chigazola Merchants online to shop their unique selection of fine Italian wines.

Doug has brought two 2021 Zinfandels. Dan describes the Nalle property as “spectacular.” They have an above-ground cave. It is grade level with retaining walls on two sides. There are 6 feet of dirt stacked inside the walls, so the interior is naturally cool like an underground space.

Back in the 80s and 90s Zinfandel was a moderate alcohol wine, between 13 and 14 % ABV. Then the trend was for higher ABV but Doug did not follow that trend.

They are tasting the 2021, 2022 and 2023 Chardonnays from Bob and Tony Hopkins’ vineyard in Russian River Valley. The 2021 is smooth and pure fruit. The 2022 has an extra layer of something.

Nalle Winery is open Friday Saturday and Sunday and maybe other days too at 2383 Dry Creek Road. Exit in Healdsburg and go west about 2.1 miles to their sign.

The 2023 is young, obviously and has barely been bottled. It is interesting to taste one that is so young just to know where the wines start out. Then the starting point for aging is five years, in Dan Berger’s opinion. Doug Nalle give credit to his son Andrew for the quality of the 2023. Andrew just finished a Masters degree in Enology at Fresno State. He studied particular strains of yeast and ways to use them.

Zinot Noir is something Doug and Andrew came up with by blending 60% Zinfandel and 40% Pinot Noir. They liked it for the forward fruit of Zin plus some “mysterious Pinot Noir thing going on.” It is a modest 13.65 ABV and they made only 280 cases of it.

Meissa and Dan.

California Wine Country today features Melissa Galliani, GM of Wine Country Radio, with Steve Jaxon and Dan Berger. Melissa is a frequent guest on the show, and was with us most recently on this episode with winemaker Dennis McCarter.

Dan Berger’s first wine today is a 2023 that comes from Bibiana Ravé called Shared Notes. It is 75% Sauvignon Blanc and 25% Semillon, aged on the lees for a long time. That is what gives it a silky texture. It sells for $80 and it is hard to find because they don’t make very much of it.

Next is a Vermentino. Where the last wine is subtle, this one is “in your face.” Dan Berger made this Vermentino himself. This is the 2023 bottling. The grower in Carneros is Las Brisas Vineyard. It is on a rise that overlooks the bay. There aromas of peaches and a little bit of pineapple. It is 100% natural and sells for $28 on Dan’s Bahl Fratty website. “…almost effervescent on the tongue,” as Melissa observes. This is Dan’s second year of making wine and he has moved his operation to a new location. The Vermentino was made at Ektimo Winery.

Visit Chigazola Merchants online to shop their unique selection of fine Italian wines.

The next wine is a Gruner Veltliner from Austria. It’s the most popular white wine in Austria and goes perfectly with Austrian style cuisine. Melissa makes a comparison between Austrian Wiener Schnitzel and Texas chicken fried steak and Steve waxes nostalgic for some. It’s only slightly sweet but is delicious. “Wow! That is a smooth sucker!” exclaims the host.

Next they are tasting a 2022 Governor’s Bay Sauvignon Blanc. It has typical New Zealand gooseberry and passion fruit flavors. Gooseberries are sweet and tart. There is also the under-ripe grapefruit flavor always there.

The next wine is a 2023 Diatom Chardonnay that has gotten rave reviews. It is all from Santa Barbara County, in a place where the soil is made of diatomaceous earth. In fact, DE filters are Diatomaceous Earth. The Diatom Chardonnay is produced by Brewer Clifton, a prominent Santa Barbara brand. It has more peach and pineapple components. There is no secondary fermentation and it is “quite soft.” They didn’t chill it but that would work well for it.

There is a DOC Pinot Grigio delle Venezie, Villa Borghetti from Italy, that is made with Pink Pinot Grigio grapes. It retails for $5.99 at Trader Joe’s. Pinot Grigio grapes will turn pink if you let them stay on the vine for an extra week or two or three.

Dan has a Pinot Noir, a 2019 Scherrer Green Valley Pinot Noir, from the Halberg Vineyard. Dan calls it “outrageously good.” “Fantastic,” says Steve. Melissa likes the spicy character that comes from Green Valley fruit.