Bold red blend back on top at 2022 North Coast Wine Challenge

2022-04-21 09:43:18 By : Mr. Jeremy Chen

The Roth Estate 2019 Heritage Red Wine, Sonoma County won Best of the Best, Best of Show Red and Best of Sonoma County awards. The 2019 Heritage Red is made from 36% cabernet grapes grown in the Alexander Valley and 36% malbec grown in the estate vineyards off Chalk Hill Road, plus 20% petit verdot and 8% merlot. The red blend is an homage to the heritage of both Sonoma County and French winemakers. Its well-balanced palate has concentrated flavors of black currant, blueberry and toasted oak, and the wine’s tannins are rounded out by a smooth finish. “(The year) 2019 was a relatively cool year, so that really helped with getting things ripe,” said Michael Beaulac, senior winemaker for Roth Estate. “With the cooler weather they get more flavor, and we were able to pick at the ideal time.”

Best of Show Sparkling: Gloria Ferrer 2012 Carneros Cuvée, Late Disgorged Sparkling Wine, Carneros

Best of Show White: Portalupi Wine 2021 Vermentino, Mahoney Vineyard, Carneros

Best of Show Rosé: Navarro Vineyards 2021 Rosé of Pinot Noir, Anderson Valley, Mendocino County

Best of Show Red: Roth Estate 2019 Heritage Red Wine, Sonoma County

Best of Show Dessert Wine: Sonoma-Cutrer Vineyards 2019 Late Harvest Chardonnay, Russian River Valley, Sonoma County

To learn about all the 2022 North Coast Wine Challenge winners, go here.

A classic Bordeaux red blend wine made from cabernet, malbec, petit verdot and merlot took home the top prize last week during the 10th annual North Coast Wine Challenge at Santa Rosa’s Sonoma County Fairgrounds.

During the contest hosted by The Press Democrat, the Roth Estate Heritage Red Wine, part of Foley Family Wines, went up against a Napa Valley cabernet for the Best of Show Red award. It then rose to the very top as the judges’ choice for the Best of the Best wine during the final judging on April 6. Along with Best of Show Red, it also was named Best of Sonoma County.

“It was a really great, seamless wine,” said Chief Judge Daryl Groom, the winemaker who organizes the contest each year. Groom was recognized this year with a Chief Judge and Visionary award presented by Press Democrat publisher Steve Falk.

The judges gave the wine 99 points and praised it as “a brilliant blend ... deep, dense and pleasurable.”

A Bordeaux red blend hasn’t won the top award since the contest’s inaugural year in 2013, when Beaulieu Vineyards’ 2009 Tapestry Reserve, Napa Valley took home the Best of the Best. Since then, the top prize has gone to three pinot noirs, two chardonnays, one zinfandel, one rosé of pinot noir and one sparkling wine.

One of the 27 judges at this year’s contest, Jesse Katz of Aperture Cellars, said he created the Heritage Red wine back in 2012 when he was still working at Roth Estate. The winery has built its reputation on Bordeaux varietals.

“The idea was to show what Sonoma County could do with some of the great blenders,” Katz said. “This wine shows some of the richness and decadence you can get from Sonoma County.”

Winemaker Michael Beaulac, who started out at Murphy-Goode Winery in Geyserville and later worked at well-known Napa wineries such as Markham and Pine Ridge vineyards, returned to Sonoma County in January 2021 when he joined Roth Estate as its senior winemaker. Roth Estate is directly across the street from Chalk Hill Estate, where Beaulac is also senior winemaker.

One of Beaulac’s first tasks at Roth was to blend the 2019 Heritage Red, made from 36% cabernet grapes grown in the Alexander Valley and 36% malbec grown in the estate vineyards off Chalk Hill Road.

“The wines from Roth are often softer, and a lot of that has to do with the malbec,” Beaulac said. “I love malbec, especially as a blender with cabernet. Malbec tends to have a lot of color and not as much tannin.”

Like many winemakers, Beaulac believes in being proactive in the vineyard, babying the fruit so it can find balance and the varietals can express their true character. Once the juice is in the winery, he tries to touch it as little as possible.

“(The year) 2019 was a relatively cool year, so that really helped with getting things ripe,” Beaulac said. “With the cooler weather they get more flavor, and we were able to pick at the ideal time.”

Of the 29 wines that made the final sweepstakes round this year, Groom noticed a shift in the white wines away from the warmer climate of Sonoma County toward the cooler temperatures of the Anderson Valley in Mendocino County.

“That could be climate change,” Groom said. “Or it could be that people are leaning toward more elegant, lighter styles, with less alcohol.”

The same was true of reds in the sweepstakes round, Groom added. Many were grown in cooler climates, apart from the pinot noirs that have always flourished in the foggy Russian River and windswept Carneros appellations.

Beaulac predicted that many of the red Bordeaux varietals are going to start showing well when planted in cooler climates.

“It’s pretty amazing when you first come onto Chalk Hill Road, and then you go up a grade and you start to lose some of the fog,” he said. “I think this is a great, great spot for Bordeaux.”

During blending, he said, he strives to make the same style of wine every year, but also the very best wine. The varietals and percentages vary year to year, depending on the quality of each varietal.

“My red wine style is to blend early, to let it come together and marry in the barrel, so it’s aging as the finished blended wine for about a year before it’s bottled,” he said. “And then we hold it in bottle for another six to eight months.”

The winemaker, who enjoys cooking at home, compares blending wine to braising a stew: “You put it together, hold it and it tastes better.”

With the Roth Estate 2021 Heritage Red, Beaulac said he likes to serve monkfish topped with a red miso sauce.

The Roth Estate 2019 Heritage Red Wine, Sonoma County won Best of the Best, Best of Show Red and Best of Sonoma County awards. The 2019 Heritage Red is made from 36% cabernet grapes grown in the Alexander Valley and 36% malbec grown in the estate vineyards off Chalk Hill Road, plus 20% petit verdot and 8% merlot. The red blend is an homage to the heritage of both Sonoma County and French winemakers. Its well-balanced palate has concentrated flavors of black currant, blueberry and toasted oak, and the wine’s tannins are rounded out by a smooth finish. “(The year) 2019 was a relatively cool year, so that really helped with getting things ripe,” said Michael Beaulac, senior winemaker for Roth Estate. “With the cooler weather they get more flavor, and we were able to pick at the ideal time.”

Best of Show Sparkling: Gloria Ferrer 2012 Carneros Cuvée, Late Disgorged Sparkling Wine, Carneros

Best of Show White: Portalupi Wine 2021 Vermentino, Mahoney Vineyard, Carneros

Best of Show Rosé: Navarro Vineyards 2021 Rosé of Pinot Noir, Anderson Valley, Mendocino County

Best of Show Red: Roth Estate 2019 Heritage Red Wine, Sonoma County

Best of Show Dessert Wine: Sonoma-Cutrer Vineyards 2019 Late Harvest Chardonnay, Russian River Valley, Sonoma County

To learn about all the 2022 North Coast Wine Challenge winners, go here.

“It’s a meatier fish, and the miso adds an umami and savory characteristic,” he said. “The wine has some savory characteristics as well.”

The Red Heritage is very drinkable upon its release, he said, and should last for up to 10 years. Because the winery was founded as an offshoot of Lancaster Estate, the Roth Estate wines tend to be relatively affordable.

“The brand doesn’t get the respect that it really should,” Beaulac said. “The wines are delicious, and it’s so satisfying to win this award.”

Among white wine varietals, a little-known Italian varietal made by Portalupi Wine of Geyserville took Best of Show White, reflecting the rising popularity of aromatic white wines and unusual varieties.

The Portalupi 2021 Vermentino, Mahoney Vineyard, Carneros earned 99 points and was described by the judges as “sassy fun.”

“A sauvignon blanc often wins the Best White, but this was the first time that a vermentino won,” Groom said. “It’s a refreshing and a delicious wine.”

Contest judge Barry Herbst, wine director for Santa Rosa’s Bottle Barn, noted there has been an uptick in consumer demand for lesser-known white varietals.

“People seem to be moving toward aromatic white wines in general,” he said. “Sauvignon blanc has always been popular. Now they’re buying albariño, chenin blanc, French colombard and vermentino. They’re food-friendly and good in hot weather.”

The winning vermentino, which narrowly edged out a sauvignon blanc for Best of Show White, was made by Portalupi Wines owner Tim Borges, a longtime Sonoma and Napa winemaker who launched the small, family winery in 2002 with his wife, Jane Portalupi. The winery only makes Cal-Ital wines, as a tribute to the Italian immigrants who planted some of the first vines in California.

“I’m pretty much self-taught, but I was blessed to be around really good, old-time winemakers,” Borges said. “Most wineries here were founded by immigrants from Northern Italy, and I’ve always had an affinity for them. Even my growers are all old Italian growers.”

The key to the winery’s success, Borges said, is that he works with the right growers, the right varietal and the right clone in the right places. Then he tries not to screw it up.

“The fruit is typically beyond reproach,” he said. “(The year) 2021 was unfortunately a light crop, but it was probably one of the best vintages we’ve had in the past eight to 10 years. ... It’s ironic that drought years tend to be some of the best vintage years.”

The vermentino grape needs to grow in gravelly river rock soil in a quasi-maritime climate, he said. It’s the main white wine grape grown on the Ligurian coast of Italy and the island of Sardinia.

“All those vineyards on the hillsides in Cinque Terre are all vermentino,” he said. “The vineyard from Francis Mahoney is down in the Carneros ... with the same marine influence and mineral-like soil.”

Although vermentino is similar in weight and crispness to sauvignon blanc, Borges noted that it’s less herbaceous and has a more floral characteristic, with hints of jasmine and gardenia and a tinge of lemon and peach.

“It’s really subtle,” he said. “The hallmark is the underlying minerality that is picked up from that soil.”

Borges makes the wine in a winery at the entrance to Alexander Valley which he shares with another winemaker. But the Portalupi tasting room run by his wife for the past 12 years is in downtown Healdsburg.

Borges chose his wife’s name for the winery because her family once owned a winery in a village in Italy’s Piedmont region. Portalupi Wines focuses on varietals from that region.

Borges also makes arneis, another aromatic white; two single-vineyard barberas; a nebbiolo that requires long aging; a primitivo, regarded as the Italian zinfandel; and charbono, a “big, dark brooding wine — definitely a rare beef wine.”

Borges likes to think he was ahead of the times when he started making Cal-Ital wines 20 years ago. He credits the American public, with its “more open-minded” palate, for the increasing interest in Italian varietals. While Americans have only learned about wine in the past 30 to 40 years, Europeans have had centuries to refine their palates, he said.

When producing a crisp, floral, fresh Italian varietal like vermentino, Borges said, “less is more.”

“It goes into the press, it goes into the stainless steel tank and it gets cold-fermented. I cold-stabilize it, and it’s bottled within four or five months of fermentation,” he said. “It’s all about good fruit and being clean.”

Among the 41 sparkling wines entered in the contest this year, two made it to the sweepstakes round, and both were made by Gloria Ferrer Caves & Vineyards, the first sparkling winery established in the Carneros region of Sonoma.

Founded by Spanish vintners Jose and Gloria Ferrer in 1982, Gloria Ferrer sits on a hillside above the vineyards, where wind and fog keep the grapes cool and allow flavors to develop.

The Best of Show Sparkling, not surprisingly, went to the winery’s most expensive sparkler: the Gloria Ferrer 2012 Carneros Cuvée, Late Disgorged Sparkling Wine, Carneros Brut. The judges gave it 98 points and described it as “pretty, classic and balanced” with “delicious and delicate notes of brioche.”

“This is our tȇte de cuvée, our uber-reserve, made from our best wines from the 2012 vintage,” said Harry Hansen, vice president of winemaking and winegrowing for Gloria Ferrer. “It’s been in the bottle since 2013.”

Aging it for such an extended time in the bottle on the lees (yeast particles) gives this sparkler a really fine texture, Hansen said, with tiny bubbles that create a creamy mouthfeel.

It was made from 55% pinot noir and 45% chardonnay grapes, mostly grown in the vineyards below the Catalan-style winery on Arnold Drive.

“One of the beauties of blending pinot noir and chardonnay together is that it allows you a great deal of latitude in terms of textural control,” Hansen said. “The chardonnay is more citrus and apple, and the pinot noir tends toward spices and sassafras.”

Hansen grew up in Santa Rosa, attended Santa Rosa Junior College and UC Davis, then started working in the wine industry. He got his first job at Gloria Ferrer in 1986, then worked for other wineries for 20 years before returning to Gloria Ferrer in June.

“We have all kinds of visitor experiences now, with wine and food pairings and different levels of wine for people, ” he said. “And we make a little pinot noir and a little chardonnay for people who would rather have still wine.”

An advantage to making sparkling wine, Hansen said, is that whenever he walks in the door with a bottle of bubbly, everyone turns to look.

“I love that look,” he said. “I’m the guy who’s always opening the first bottle of wine at the party.”

He also likes that the acidity of sparkling wine makes it a food-friendly drink, as welcome with salty caviar as it is with French fries.

“People look to me for a bottle appropriate for any celebratory occasion,” he said. “Even if it’s Taco Tuesday, that’s fine with me.”

Although it has never won the top award in the contest, the venerable Navarro Vineyards in Anderson Valley has consistently won big awards in the North Coast Wine Challenge, including several Best of Show Dessert wines and Best of Mendocino County.

This year, the Navarro Vineyards 2021 Rosé of Pinot Noir, Anderson Valley, Mendocino won Best of Show Rosé, beating out a rosé of sangiovese also from Anderson Valley. It also won Best of Mendocino. The judges gave it 98 points and praised its “beautiful color and balance.”

The small, family winery owned by Deborah Cahn and Ted Bennett has been growing grapes and making wine since 1974.

This rosé was made with four clones of pinot noir, Cahn said. Because of the drought, there were light yields and concentrated berries, creating more intense flavor.

“We only kept it on the skins for about an hour so that it would keep the tannins in check,” she said. “Primary fermentation is in stainless steel, and then we move it over to oak where it is aged on its lees (for four months), and that adds a lot of mouthfeel.”

Although the wine is dry, the mouthfeel adds a sweet quality that is nicely balanced by a tart finish, she said. The extra acidity comes from the old vines, planted in 1990.

“Usually, most people don’t make a rosé out of pinot noir because Anderson Valley pinot noir is so expensive,” she said. “But we grow most of our own grapes, and it’s a good way to deal with older, low-yield vineyards.”

The pinot grapes were night harvested, so they came into the winery very cold, allowing the fermentation to proceed very slowly.

“There’s a lot of cherry and raspberry in it,” Cahn said. “It’s our go-to wine for the spring. Being on the coast, we like having it with crab cakes or salmon or shrimp fried rice. ... It’s meant to be a good, everyday rosé.”

The winery owners are proud that they sell most of their wine directly to consumers, which allows them to keep their prices affordable, including for the rosé.

“We just released it last week,” she said. “Most of it sells out on a case special.”

The Sonoma-Cutrer 2018 Late Harvest Chardonnay, Russian River was the only dessert wine to make it to the sweepstakes round. The judges gave it 98 points and described its flavors as “roasted nuts, lemon peel and orange.”

The Best of Class Dessert wine, which already has won gold medals from several other wine contests, was harvested on Dec. 4, 2018, the latest day of the year for any Sonoma-Cutrer harvest.

According to the winery tasting notes, “The fruit for this vintage was just the way we like it, riddled with botrytis, giving us lots of raisins without any pristine chardonnay berries in sight.”

“We are just blown away by the incredible success this vintage has had,” said Mick Schroeter, director of winemaking for Sonoma-Cutrer Vineyards. “This ‘stickie’ (Aussie for late-harvest wine) is a powerhouse of wonderful concentration and style.”

The North Coast Wine Challenge is open only to wines produced and bottled in the North Coast American Viticultural Area (AVA), which includes Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, Marin and Lake counties and parts of Solano County.

The 27 judges blind tasted their way through a total of 1,090 wines while mentoring three associate judges, handpicked by Groom as young talents in the industry. The associate judges taste alongside the regular judges but do not vote.

“I’ve been a winemaker for 45 years, and I really honed my talent from judging,” said Kerry Damsky of Palmeri Wines, a first-time judge at the contest. “This is all North Coast, and I think the wines are standouts from the vintages represented. We’re tasting 2019 pinots, and that vintage was stellar.”

Other new judges this year included Erin Miller, the sommelier at Dry Creek Kitchen in Healdsburg; and Petra Polakovicova, the sommelier at Montage in Healdsburg.

Miller, who has a background in winemaking, said she likes to put her winemaker hat on while tasting and judging wine.

“I am looking for flaws while going through the wine,” she said. “But I’m trying to figure out the winemaker’s intention. Where is the wine coming from?”

Most of the judges credited the ideal growing climate of the North Coast, and the stellar vintages of 2018 and 2019, for the high-quality wines they tasted at the contest.

That the wines are not judged by price categories also raises the bar on quality, said Herbst of Bottle Barn.

“It’s all North Coast-grown grapes,” he said. “Once you get into California, it’s a mixed bag.”

There were 991 wines that received medals, including 119 double gold, 218 gold, 497 silver and 158 bronze medals.

“The quality was reinforced with 38.8% receiving a gold medal or above and 45.5% receiving a silver medal,” Groom said. “Certainly it’s a huge testament to the great wines we have in our area.”

The red wines were the largest category in the sweepstakes round, accounting for 17 of the 29 wines. After tasting through them, the judges narrowed the field of Best of Show Red contenders to a pinot, a cabernet and a Bordeaux blend, the Roth Estate Heritage Red.

In the Best of the Best voting, however, the Roth Estate 2019 Heritage Red was the clear winner among the Best of Show white, sparkling, rosé and dessert wines.

The public can taste the gold-medal winning wines from the North Coast Wine Challenge at the North Coast Wine & Food Festival, which will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. June 18 at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa. The festival also includes bites from local chefs such as Mark Stark of Stark Reality Restaurants.

Tickets are $90 (or $50 for designated drivers). The VIP tickets are $135 ($70 for designated drivers) and include early admission at noon. To reserve, go to northcoastwineandfood.com.

Staff Writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 707-521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @dianepete56

I’m interested in the home kitchen, from sheet-pan suppers to the latest food trends. Food encompasses the world, its many cultures, languages and history. It is both essential and sensual. I also have my fingers on the pulse of classical music in Sonoma County, from student mariachi bands to jazz crossover and symphonic sounds. It’s all a rich gumbo, redolent of the many cultures that make up our country and the world.

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