Pinot Blanc, the Betty Draper of Forgotten Grapes

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Pinot Blanc: More Than

Just A Pretty Face

Before we dive on into this week’s examination of Pinot Blanc and what it has to do with that pretty lady to the right, we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that our last Forgotten Grape, Grenello, was an April Fool’s Day joke. Several of you wrote us to inquire about the grape and its origins, and you’re absolutely correct in the assumption that you’d never heard of this grape before. You hadn’t. Because we made it up entirely.

In fact, we even took the joke a bit farther, which no one picked up on. First, the pop culture icon we equated with Grenello, reluctant baseball player Sidd Finch, was actually an April Fool’s joke in his own right. A creation of famed writer George Plimpton, the Finch article appeared in the April 1st, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated and immediately launched an uproar among baseball fans who had never heard of Finch. It took several weeks before both Plimpton and SI came

What It Looks Like, What It Smells Like, and What It Tastes Like

Pinot Blanc looks like:

Pinot Blanc smells like:

Pinot Blanc tastes like:

With Alsatian Pinot Blancs, you will definitely pick up that unique glycerin/medicinal/sterile scent that seems endemic to all white wines produced in Germany, Austria, and the Alsace. On all Pinot Blancs, there should be a very floral or perfumed scent to the nose, not as distinct as a Viognier, but still floral. The wine should have a very clean scent to it, with citrus tones (sometimes lemon, sometimes pineapple and mango or more tropical), and you might also pick up some nuttiness on the wine, or even a little smoke on it as well. Finally, a very unique scent on Pinot Blancs is that of pastry icing–not overly or cloyingly sweet but some sweetness nonetheless.

As we mentioned above, the taste of your Pinot Blanc might differ based on where and in what style it was produced. Pinot Blancs can be made into dry wines, sweet wines, and sparkling wines, and the dry wines sometimes are oaked and malo-ed and softened and buttered like they are a Chardonnay(as happens in certain California wineries) or they’re left very dry, crisp, and tart with just a trace of sweetness (as you find in Oregon and Alsatian Pinot Blancs). We’ll be focusing on this latter category, as that’s what we personally prefer and what we tasted more of. These Pinot Blancs have good tartness and a firm acidity with orange, pineapple, and sweeter lemon flavors all coming into play. You often might get a hint of orange blossom honey on the end of the Pinot Blanc as well, or something resembling a cheesecake flavor, that salty and tart but also sweet flavor. A typical Pinot Blanc will start off very strong on the attack, weaken a bit on the mid-palate, but then finish strong and linger on the tongue for longer than you’d expect a white wine to.

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• We mentioned above the inferiority complex that poor Pinot Blanc suffers from, not only around the world but also in its home and most favored regions, but what we wrote doesn’t even begin to describe the half of it. For example, it seems like Pinot Blanc has a completely different name in every country in which it is grown. In France and the Alsace, it is of course Pinot Blanc, and in Italy, Spain, and Argentina and Uruguay, it goes by Pinot Bianco (easily translatable). But in Germany and Austria, the grape is called Weissburgunder (or white Burgundy, which we’ll touch on it a second) and Hungary refers to it as Feher Burgundi (which translates into, you guessed it, white Burgundy. The Czechs call the grape Rulandskie Bile, which Slovakia modified that name slightly to Rulandskie Biele. Basically, no one can agree on a name for the poor grape.

And yet that’s still not the worst. Pinot Blanc used to be grown fairly prevalently in both the Burgundy and Champagne regions of France, which make sense given the grape’s striking resemblance to Chardonnay (and also explaining the White Burgundy name). But as AOC regulations in those regions have become more and more strict, and as Chardonnay has risen in popularity, the Pinot Blanc vines in those areas are becoming scarcer and scarcer. In fact, Pinot Blanc can now only be found in the southern Maconnais region of Burgundy (where it is turned into the more generic “Bourgogne blanc” wines instead of a separate AOC designation) and in Champagne, it isn’t even called Pinot Blanc; it’s known there as Blanc vrai.

But all of that pales in comparison to the travesties committed against the grape in California. Because of its resemblance to Chardonnay, it was early on mis-labeled as “Pinot Chardonnay” (which is a huge misnomer since Pinot Blanc shares no characteristics with Chardonnay whatsoever, save for a passing resemblance), and worse still, an entirely different grape that also resembles Chardonnay–one we’re familiar with here and will be covering soon enough–Melon de Bourgogne (used to produce the Muscadet wines of the far-western Loire valley) was actually called Pinot Blanc for a number of years until scientists were able to use DNA to determine that Melon and Pinot Blanc were entirely different grapes. And if that isn’t a slap in the face, I don’t know what is.

• Despite all the different locations in which Pinot Blanc is grown (either under its name or another one), we have to say that we’ve found that outside of the Alsace, Oregon is where the best and brightest Pinot Blancs are being grown and produced today. This may be our personal opinion or due to the fact that so many producers in Oregon are growing Pinot Blanc (as you’ll see below), but there is something about the specific soils, the cooler climates, and the moistness of the Dundee Hills area, the Willamette Valley, and the Rogue Valley of Oregon that produce striking wines that best mirror Pinot Blancs being produced in the Alsace and Germany. It certainly makes sense, though, that Oregon would be an ideal spot for Pinot Blanc, as the state is also a prime ground for exemplary Pinot Noirs–the origin grape of Pinot Blanc–and it has similar microclimates and terroir to both Burgundy and the Alsace, regions in France where Pinot Blanc once and currently thrive.

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Fun Facts to Impress/Bore People At Parties

From Brein’s Brain to Your Plate

“I don’t normally do this, but I’m going to start with dessert first, since you already kind of touched on this. So you mentioned cheesecake above, and I think that would actually make a dynamite pairing with a Pinot Blanc. Pinot Blancs–good dry crisp Pinot Blancs–have that very assertive citrusy tartness and a nice dose of acidity, and sometimes you can even pick up a bit of saltiness from the wine, depending on how it’s produced. Cheesecake functions in the same way, as it has that saltiness and savoriness to it that is usually countered by a subtle bit of sweetness, but not too much. Oh, and I’m talking about a classic New York style cream-cheese cheesecake here, not one of the fruit flavored ones or a chocolate turtle one or whatever. Anyway, try a Pinot Blanc with a slice of good homemade, Philly cream cheese cheesecake. I think you’re going to be really surprised.”

“One of the really nice things about a Pinot Blanc is that because it has such tartness and high acidity, but is still very full-bodied, it can pair nicely with a lot of foods, including a lot of really rich foods, like the cheesecake. At first, I was going to say that a Fettuccini Alfredo might be a good pairing with a Pinot Blanc–or I guess a Pinot Bianco in this case–but the more I think about it, I think the Alfredo flavors are too subtle for this wine. The wine might overpower it and you’d miss out on a lot of what the Alfredo has to offer, particularly if you’re like me and like a little nutmeg in your Alfredo sauce. So a better pasta dish would be a Carbonara. Still rich and creamy like the Alfredo, but not as subtle, and the saltiness and savoriness of the bacon or pancetta or guanciale is really going to match the wine nicely. The Pinot Blanc will just cut through that like butter.”

“Because it’s a white, most people are going to think either chicken, fish or seafood with it, and actually because of the strong acid and strong flavors in the wine, you can actually take on a fishier fish with a Pinot Blanc. You don’t need something mild like Halibut or sole or Mahi Mahi, you could just do a simple grilled piece of swordfish, and I think it’s going to pair really nicely. Nothing overly complex, just a little olive oil and salt and pepper on each side of the fish, sear it on both sides, then spritz it with
a little lemon and pair that with a Pinot Blanc. I think you’ll
find the results work out pretty awesome.”

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Chef Brein Clements is the chef/owner of Bistro O (formerly Restaurant Omakase) in Riverside, CA, which is quickly becoming SoCal’s answer to Taillevant. Minus the molecular gastronomy. He began his cooking career at Domaine Chandon in the Napa Valley and moved on to become Chef de Cuisine at the famed Balboa Bay Club before opening his own restaurant. Plus he’s only 28. My man knows his wine and he knows his food. Each week he’ll provide ingredient and dish recommendations that match up well with the week’s forgotten grape. You should heed what he says. No, seriously, heed it.

2004 Trimbach Alsace Pinot Blanc

We’ve got a lot of wines to get through, as you’ll see, so we’ll jump right into it. And we start with an example of a Pinot Blanc from its original home and the region in which it’s most popular. Trimbach is a huge producer in the Alsace, their version of Mondavi or DuBoeuf (they also produce Rieslings and Gewurztraminers and Pinot Gris from the region as well). But that doesn’t mean the quality is lacking by any means. This Alsatian Pinot Blanc had that classic aroma and flavor that it seems all Germanic whites have, as well as citrus and banana on the nose. The nose on this wine was not overwhelming and rather subtle (as can be the case with Pinot Blancs) but we picked up some nuttiness and mango on the nose as well. The flavors were just like the nose, though: very clean and very tart with a lot of citrus flavors. The wine had an awfully full roundness to it and was long and soft on the palate, with lemons and pineapple to start before turning more sour and grapefruit across the middle and end. All in all, it was a very nicely balanced wine. We picked this up at our local Total Wine & More and recommend you do to, to at least use as a barometer by which to compare other Pinot Blancs. Oh, and it drinks nicely too.

2008 Elk Cove Willamette Valley Pinot Blanc

We’ll run through these in the order we tasted them, so please don’t read in any preference-related organization into the order. So the Elk Cove comes from the heart of the Willamette Valley in Oregon. The Pinot Blanc fruit for this wine was hand-selected from numerous different vineyards in the Valley, and according to what we’ve heard and read, 2008 was one of the best vintages to date for Oregon wines in general. The Elk Cove Pinot Blanc was a lot paler than the Trimbach, with almost a grayish color to it. Gray, however, would not be the proper word to describe the nose or taste: there was a magnificent floral quality to the big, big nose of this wine, along with the subtle sweetness of that pastry frosting (just like that little canister they give you with the Pillsbury Cinnamon rolls–and it takes every ounce of strength and will I have not to just devour that icing on its own straight out of the jar). We found this wine had a mellower tartness to it, with more yellow apple flavor and softer lemon, but was still nicely tart and very round. The flavors were consistent across the entire sip, and though it got a little thin mid-palate, it picked up at the end and had excellent length to it, with just the slightest touch of honey on the aftertaste. We really, really enjoyed this wine and can see why it’s regularly considered to be one of the finest Pinot Blancs in the U.S. Pick some up from Elk Cove’s website today, and you won’t be sorry.

Our Friend of the Forgotten Grapes Tasting Squadron tastes all of the wines you see here ahead of time to ensure that you aren’t getting anything rotten or clunky. We also try to ensure that most of the wines highlighted here are affordably priced ($20 or less) so you can try them out for yourself without having to take out a second mortgage or sacrificing your kid (or future kid’s) college fund to do so. Lastly, the Friends of the Forgotten Grapes has relationships with all the fine wine purveyors we link to in this section. We know them, we trust them. You can order these wines from them online right now and be trying them out in the next couple of days. Do yourself a favor and order from them by using the links below. It’s totally worth it. And tell them that ForgottenGrapes.com sent you, too.

Pale blonde. Pale white skin. Classically Germanic or Scandinavian looking. These are the traits we think of when we look at Betty Draper (and the actress who plays her, January Jones), and they’re the same traits that best describe the appearance of Pinot Blanc wines. Most will have a very pale blonde color to them, sometimes even delving into shades of gray (the actual color gray, not the issues of moral turpitude). Depending on where the wine was produced, some might have a more golden or robust blonde color to them (especially if they’ve been oaked), but in most cases, a Pinot Blanc will have a very pale pallor to them.

Go On. Try It. You’ll Like It.

2009 The Four Graces Dundee Hills Pinot Blanc

The Four Graces Pinot Blanc takes zooms us into the northern half of the Willamette Valley and into the sub-appellation (and designated AVA) of the Dundee Hills, which exist just to the west of the town of Dundee between Portland and Salem and are home to some of the more famous names in Oregon Pinot Noir, including Domaine Drouhin, Eyrie, Sokol-Blosser, and Domaine Serene. If you were to draw a straight line between the Trimbach and the Elk Cove Pinot Blancs, The Four Graces Pinot Blanc would fall directly in between them. The nose was not as floral as the Elk Cove, but substantially more floral than the Trimbach, with green melon and orange blossom scents replacing the citrus of the other two. There was also a distinct saltiness to the nose of this wine, or as one of our Tasting Squadron members described it, “like saltines slathered in butter.” On the tongue, the lemon of the other wines was replaced with a softer orange flavor which got a little rind-y on the finish. But there was some serious complexity to this wine. It had an excellent tartness on the attack–definitely enough to make you take notice but not bold enough for a pucker–then the wine mellowed across the sip before dipping into the rind zone on the finish. All the while, that subtle sweetness of pastry icing was present, but cut, as if there was a moist light cake there to counter it. A most delightful drink, we really enjoyed this and found it different and refreshing. The Four Graces has this most recent vintage available on their website, so have them ship you a few bottles and drink it in. You’ll be glad you did.

2008 Erath Dundee Hills Pinot Blanc

Another Dundee Hills Pinot Blanc and a wine that, at least on the nose, really brought out the pastries (as opposed to bringing out the pasties, which was an entirely different evening altogether). Seriously, opening this wine, pouring it, and then taking in the bouquet reminded quite a few of us of being in a bakery, with lemon creme cookie scents and also key lime pie, but the tarter key lime pie, the real Florida key lime pie, not one of those overly sweet pale imitations you sometimes get. And a Graham cracker crust. That key lime pie definitely needs to have a Graham cracker crust. Sorry, just made myself hungry. Back to the wine. So the nose was very citrus/pastry combination, but when we took a sip, this was as tart as the day was long. We’re talking all lemon and pineapple and almost no subtle or residual sweetness to the wine at all. It had elements of the Verdehlo or Picpoul in that regard, but made for a very refreshing drink. And that tart flavor was consistent across the entire sip and held on for a long, long time. Definitely higher acid in this wine, and an interesting contrast to the others. This is going to pair very nicely with food, and would stand up well to any fish or chicken and perhaps even pork. Erath has this available on their website for a low, low price, and we’d recommend buying a bottle. Hey, we may recommend buying every bottle, but that’s only because we really came to love Pinot Blancs. They became our new favorite white after this tasting. Anyway, Erath’s website. Pinot Blanc. Go buy now.

2008 Adelsheim Chehalem Mountains Bryon Creek Vineyard Pinot Blanc

We will tell you right off the bat that we had to fight with one member of our Tasting Squadron (coughcoughTeresacoughcough) to get her to maintain her impartiality with this particular wine, because Adelsheim just happens to be her favorite wine producer to this day. Fortunately, theirs was a pretty excellent Pinot Blanc, so we weren’t forced to remove Teresa from the room. With Adelsheim’s Pinot Blanc, not only do we get a sub-appellations/AVA designation (in this case, the Chelhalem Mountains, the Willamette Valley’s newest designation located west of Dundee Hills and east of the Yamhill-Carlton AVA), but a single vineyard Pinot Blanc as well. It should also be pointed out that David Adelsheim, founder and owner of Adelsheim Vineyards brought to Oregon the first identified cuttings of Pinot Blanc, so if it wasn’t for him, Oregon might not have this magnificent Forgotten Grape.

On to the wine: this wine had a much earthier nose to it than the others and a much more subtle and complex bouquet. Instead of just flat-out citrus, it was more the essence of pineapple and regular apples. That complexity carried over to the taste as well. The wine was a bit lacking on the attack but picked up across the mid-palate, picking up tartness toward the back of the tongue. However, all of the tartness was cut with a distinct mellow sweetness, something similar to butterscotch or a honey-lemon cough drop (without the medicinal flavor, of course). It’s like if you ate a bunch of Lemonheads candies, but those Lemonheads had their sourness extracted so you just get pure lemon flavor. Either way, a very unique wine and very different from the others we tried. Well worth buying from Adelsheim’s website, and while you’re at it, try some of their Chardonnay as well, which will not disappoint you in any way (are you happy enough with that plug, Teresa?)

2008 Foris Rogue Valley (OR) Estate Pinot Blanc

One last dip into Oregon Pinot Blanc bring us to the Rogue Valley, one of Oregon’s southernmost appellations, forming a crescent above the Calfornia and the Siskiyou Mountains and encompassing the town of Ashland in its borders. Foris sits in the western portion of the Rogue Valley, within the Illinois valley (yes, we’re still in Oregon. Illinois is just a name). The fruit for this wine comes exclusively from Foris’ estate vineyards, and from two specific vineyards, the Maple Ranch and Three Creeks Vineyard. The Foris Pinot Blanc had a perfumed nose to it, not as big as a couple of the others, but definitely not subtle by any stretch of the imagination. The pastry icing scent also lingered in the bouquet of the wine as well. In the mouth, the wine was sharp up front but a bit mellow, not as tart and with more of the pineapple Jolly Rancher flavor to it than just out-and-out pineapple. The wine was also much more restrained across the palate until the finish, when it exploded awake and left you with something to remember it by. Excellent roundness on the wine and better-than-decent length on the finish. Consider us big fans of this. Foris would like us to let you know that this lovely bottle of Pinot Blanc can be yours for only $13.50 (and it’s award winning!) and you can purchase it directly from Foris via their website. So don’t let us stand in your way. Do it!

forward and revealed that Finch was a hoax, and that there was a secret message embedded in the article’s lede that spelled out “Happy April Fool’s Day – ah[sic] fib.”

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the introductory text for Grenello that was on the home page for the last couple of weeks. Pay close attention to the first letter of each word:

When enologists lecture on varietal elements, a percentage regularly incorporate limited facts of output, like sustainability, deportment, and yield. Grenello refutes every new explanation leveled. Like Okuzgozu, it shares not one thing related, except a likeness in the delineation of embryonic seeds. Not only that, embryonic xygotes instigate secondary transformation. Given our tremulous comprehension, has anyone wagered everything for one obliging look expecting depthless yields of understanding?

Do you see it? If you take the first letter of each word, it spells out: “We love April Fool’s Day. Grenello is not real. It does not exist. Gotcha. We fooled you.”

Hopefully you enjoyed our April Fool’s Day hoax, discovered our homage to Plimpton and Sidd Finch, and didn’t embarrass yourself by walking into your local wine shop and asking for Grenello. You’re welcome.

Now, on to more serious matter...and a Forgotten Grapes that actually does exist: Pinot Blanc.

If you’re a fan of the TV show Mad Men like we are and have been following it for the last three seasons, then you’re already aware of the dichotomous and complex character of Betty Draper. Appearing from the outset to be the typically young 1960’s housewife–pretty, vapid, intended only to keep house, make and raise babies, and satisfy her husband whenever he so demanded–she has instead become an incredibly divisive figure, a woman trapped both by the expectations of her, societal norms and pressures, and her own decision to keep her interests, needs, and emotions bottled up inside, so as not to upset the apple cart. She’s gorgeous and sexy yet cold to her husband, whom she knows is cheating on her. In public, she’s always subordinate to him, yet around the household casts him out when his infidelity becomes public. She considers an affair of her own, resents her own children, and cries out desperately for an escape to the gilded cage she’s crafted for herself, yet does so in perfectly pleated skirts and petticoats and never has a single hair or pearl out of place.

Basically, there’s a lot more to Betty Draper than just her stunningly good looks, even if that’s precisely how everyone on the show and of that era want to define her.

Pinot Blanc (PEE-no BLAHNK) suffers from much of the same expectations and complexities that plague Betty Draper. It’s an incredibly popular varietal, grown in the United States; down in the cooler parts of Argentina and Uruguay; throughout central Europe from Italy through the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia; in Spain; and of course in the lands of its origin, Germany and the Alsace region of France. And yet, in the Alsace, where more Pinot Blanc is planted, it’s afforded almost no respect, given a one-note purpose to just slip into the background, look pretty, provide proper acidity, and not interfere while the primary grapes of the region interact in the foreground.

Of course, this is a completely unfair role for such a unique and complex grape to play, but in the Alsace (one of the few regions in France where they actually put the name of the varietal on the bottle as opposed to the appellation), Pinot Blanc isn’t even afforded that luxury. Most Pinot Blanc is instead harvested and used to make either the Cremant d’Alsace sparkling wine or else it is blended with many of the other white varietals grown in the Alsace (Riesling, Gewurztraminer, and Pinot Gris) to make the popular Edelzwicker wines widely drunk in the region. And while there are plenty of single varietal Pinot Blancs being produced in the Alsace (it seems almost every winery in the region has their own Pinot Blanc), the actual “Pinot Blanc” designation is muddled, not always implying a single varietal wine made from 100% Pinot Blanc, but sometimes meaning a white wine made from a blend of Pinot grapes, which include Pinot Gris, Auxerrois blanc, and Pinot Noir that has been crushed and pressed with minimal skin contact.

So you can imagine how trapped and inferior and unsure of yourself and the entire life you’ve built up around you if you had to deal with this same pigeonholing and ever-changing definitions and expectations.

To make matters worse, Pinot Blanc isn’t even allowed its own birthright or unique origin. Instead, it’s a clone grape, a mutation of a previously existing varietal, and not just any clone, but a clone of a clone–in this case, a mutation of Pinot Gris, which is itself a mutation of the notoriously fickle and unstable Pinot Noir. And the grape itself so closely resembles the Chardonnay grape when it is on the vine, it has been and still is often confused for that more well-known grape. In fact, several wineries in California that produce Pinot Blancs are doing so under traditional Chardonnay treatments (full malolactic fermentation, stirring of lees, lots of new oak). It’s enough to make a poor fragile, unstable grape like Pinot Blanc want to break down, take a bunch of pills, or run away and just end it all.

The thing is, when you boil down Pinot Blanc to its essence, it actually is a grape with an amazing amount of virtue. It’s got something to say, and something very interesting at that. It’s incredibly versatile, given all the different regions and conditions it is grown in and that it very easily can adapt into drier, sweeter, or sparkling wines. The drier wines–produced in the typical Alsatian style with colder, slower fermentations in stainless steel tanks with little to no oak in the aging–often have a spiciness and smokiness to them along with a crisp, bright acidity that makes them perfect wines to pair with food. They are gorgeous and blonde and have quite a bit of depth to them, natural depth, not artificially created in barrels or with chemicals.

Unfortunately, like Betty Draper, Pinot Blanc is being held down by a bunch of men who just want her to exist in the background, who want her to exist as eye candy, who want her to entertain them and then eventually go away so they don’t have to think about her anymore. But like our beloved Betty, she’s not going anywhere and she’s learning to stand up for herself. She’s found others like her, others willing to stand up for her
(France and Oregon, we’re looking at you) and she’s starting to forge a new life for herself, outside of her previous existence. It’s a new dawn for this week’s Forgotten Grape Pinot Blanc, the Betty Draper of Forgotten Grapes, and the more she
asserts herself and strikes out on her own, the more the world will appreciate
her and she’ll be able to define herself, instead of letting her be defined by
others.

2008 Robert Foley Vineyards Napa Valley Pinot Blanc

So we now cross the Oregon border, head south into Napa, and make our way into the Napa Valley to taste the Robert Foley Vineyards Pinot Blanc. This wine is an anomaly in several ways: first, it’s the only white Robert Foley produces (and we’ll be talking more in a few weeks about another Forgotten Grape they work with there–Charbono); second, it comes from Napa and not the Monterey area, where more of the Pinot Blanc in California seems to be grown; and third, Robert Foley produced this wine in the true Alsatian/Oregon style, meaning no oak, all stainless steel, and no malolactic fermentation. The results are a big sweet and perfumed nose filled with lemon meringue and pineapple upside down cake and the hint of cream cheese. It’s a nose that seems to be continually evolving the longer it swirls in the glass, more so than most of the other wines we tried. The color of the wine was still grayish but a little more golden than the others. The flavor of the wine, though, was very different from the others we tried: much sharper, tarter, drier, and more acidic than the others, and decidedly less round and not as soft. The citrus flavors were decidedly darker as well, and there was a hint of mint on the attack before the flavors became creamier and more cream cheese-like. A very interesting contrast to the Oregon and Alsatian Pinot Blancs despite being produced using the same techniques. Robert Foley has this for sale on their website for only $25 per bottle, so definitely pick up some to hold your own “Which State Produces the Better Pinot Blanc?” tasting. We’ve done it and you should too.

2007 Alma Rosa Santa Rita Hills Pinot Blanc and

2007 Alma Rosa Santa Rita Hills La Encantada Vineyard Pinot Blanc

Four our last two wines, we head further down the California coast to just north of Santa Barbara and the Santa Rita Hills AVA, where cool ocean breezes blow through numerous valleys to cool down the grapes substantially after hot days. Alma Rosa Winery is producing Pinot Blanc in these parts, and not only are they one of the few doing it in the Central Coast, but they’re producing two different Pinot Blancs: one with fruit sourced from multiple Santa Rita Vineyards, and one with fruit only from the westernmost and coolest La Encantada Vineyard, planted in 2000. The regular Santa Rita Hills Pinot Blanc had a bit of a subdued nose to it, with some pie crust, a little bit of funk, and grass and melon notes in the bouquet. Flavorwise, this wine was not nearly as tart as some of the other Pinot Blancs we tasted and had a very restrained attack up front, but got brighter and tarter across the palate. Really, it was as soft as you’d expect from a Pinot Blanc, but not nearly as crisp and acidic. There were almost Sauvignon Blanc notes to the wine, and it finished on a somewhat dark note. You could definitely tell that this was a warmer climate Pinot Blanc.

The La Encantada Pinot Blanc, by way of comparison, had much more of a nose, with soft florals and the scent of fresh laundry. The nose was bigger and drier, not as subdued as the Santa Rita Hills Pinot Blanc. The first taste of the wine, though, was almost sweet with some earthy notes and an initial rhubarb flavor that gave way to more tropical citrus flavors. One member of our Tasting Squadron was sure he tasted Hansen’s Mandarin and Lime Soda (remember those?) and more than a few members compared this wine to some of the Semillons and Malvasia Bianca we had tasted in the past. Still a delightful drink and once again, very different from the wine made from the same varietal in the same region, just sourced from different vineyards. It really proves how much terroir does come into play in winemaking. You can purchase both of these bottles directly from Alma Rosa, and why wouldn’t you, as you really cannot compare one without the other. So just go ahead and do it. You know you want to.

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