The Grapevine: Pinot winemakers caught up in a nature vs. nurture debate

Land or hand? That’s the way winemaker Grant Stanley of Quail’s Gate Winery in British Columbia described “the eternal question” of whether the vineyard or the winemaker is most responsible for the character of a wine. It’s also a question that provoked a lot of discussion at the two-day World of Pinot Noir, held recently in the San Luis Obispo area.

WOPN (participants say “whoppin’) attracts pinotphiles from around the country, who can’t seem to get enough of their favorite grape.

This year, they paired pinot with braised beef short ribs and blue cheese soufflé cooked by chef Bradley Ogden; elbowed their way through crowds to sample their preferred wines at two walk-around tastings; and considered wines from California, Oregon, Burgundy and even Switzerland and Tasmania at a series of seminars.

Which brings me to the WOPN seminar that examined whether pinot is losing its regionality and the impact of the winemaker on the wine.

A hot topic in recent years has been whether pinots (and other wines, for that matter) have started to exhibit a certain sameness, no matter where they’re from.

Although many pinot lovers will tell you that their grape, more than almost any other, has a transparent quality that lets the site shine through, I think the site can be easily obscured. I taste a lot of pinot noirs that seem to be made to a formula. They could be from anywhere.

In the seminar, six winemakers, representing different appellations (mostly in California), poured samples of their wines. Because winemakers have at their disposal a variety of pinot subtypes, or clones, each with their own flavor characteristics, panel members brought samples of 2007 wines made from a single clone, 115. By controlling for that variable, the idea was to show the impact of vineyard site on the wines. The wines had similar color intensity but otherwise displayed big differences, though it was nearly impossible to tell whether those differences were due to vineyard location or to factors such as picking decisions, oak treatment or myriad other variables related to the hand of the winemaker.

Even the winemakers themselves are grappling with the question. Adam Lee of Siduri Wines wondered whether some of the more recently available pinot clones—the so-called Dijon clones, which include 115—are defining or obscuring regionality. “I’ve got more questions than I’ve got answers,” he said.

Steven Rogstad, winemaker at Cuvaison Winery in the Napa Valley, talked about terroir, the French concept that wines reflect where the grapes were grown, but he added that “you cannot separate terroir from the people” and their actions both in the vineyard and the winery.

Still, Rogstad believes that New World pinot makers are not moving toward a homogenization of styles. Rather, he said, “we’re on a path of defining ourselves more and more.”

The Burgundians, of course, have been at this for hundreds of years and long ago discovered which vineyards were the best and what made them special. Still, even the Burgundians don’t always let the vineyards speak.

“Burgundy is sold on the notion of terroir, but not everyone respects that,” said Allen Meadows, who publishes a quarterly newsletter called Burghound.

Meadows was the moderator for a tasting of the wines of Domaine Jacques-Frederic Mugnier of Chambolle-Musigny. Meadows has written that Frederic Mugnier’s winemaking signature is actually the absence of a signature; instead, the wines are understated, pure and lacking in embellishment.

Mugnier said that he sees his role as “protecting” what nature has given the grapes. And the wines that were poured—three vintages each of Chambolle-Musigny, Nuits-St.-Georges Clos de la Marechale and Musigny—reflected their different sites.

The 2004 Chambolle-Musigny (about $70) was lively and elegant; the 2004 Clos de la Marechale (about $70) was spicy, dark and structured; and the 2004 Musigny, which costs hundreds of dollars if you can find it, was elegant, minerally, long and constantly changing in the glass. The highlight of the tasting was the complex, concentrated 2001 Musigny.

“The soil created three different wines here, not me,” Mugnier said.

That’s a concept that many New World pinot makers seem to want to embrace. Time will tell how successful they are.

Next year, WOPN will be held March 6-7. The event always sells out quickly.

If you want to be notified when registration opens, go to www.worldofpinotnoir.com to get on the mailing list.