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The Americas Producers
Name: The Americas
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Grace Bridge is made by Scotto Family Cellars, who are by no means the biggest Californian producer, but aren`t the tiniest either. They have good vineyards and know how to manage them effectively too. Their wine benefits from economies of scale and they have chosen to produce Grace Bridge in a drinkable style, not dark coloured, jammy and overextracted.
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It`s still early days for Bill Harlan’s lofty, 200-year vision of a Californian First Growth. But since its first vintages, Harlan Estate has established itself among the very acme of world wines. On an exceptionally diverse set of soils (part sedimentary, part volcanic, all with thin topsoil and entirely exposed) in the western hills of Oakville, Harlan’s vines have been forced to burrow deep into the bedrock to survive.
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The Rochioli family may be a taciturn bunch, but their focus is on great winegrowing, not public relations. They were early into everything they grow and one of their great advantages is older vines than most people possess. Since they started winemaking (only in the eighties) they have won numerous awards and enormous respect and affection. Many of these are in extremely short supply, with a five year wait to get on the mailing list. The wines are beautifully pure and current family head Tom Rochioli was inspired by trips to Burgundy to further exploit the fine terroirs of his land.
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The history of Pulenta goes back to the arrival in 1902 of the splendid looking Angelo and Palmina from Ancona in Italy and this year the fifth Argentinian generation was born. Ten years ago saw the birth of the company in its present form, with many of the lesser vineyards sold off and the company - always excellent growers - now concentrating on producing their superb estate wines of different levels. They have two main vineyard sites about an hour, and slightly higher than Mendoza.
Pulenta has a definite house style, or should I say determined influence on the wines they make.
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Ridge is one of the defining names in American wine. High in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the Monte Bello Ridge was first terraced for winemaking in the nineteenth century. It was later abandoned, recovered in the 1940s by a group of amateurs, then famously developed from 1969 by Paul Draper. Draper unlocked the real potential of this extraordinary site, and under his tenure, Ridge Monte Bello was one of the wines on the winning team at the 1976 Judgement of Paris.
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It`s all about the family at Shafer Vineyards. TD-9 may seem an odd name for their calling-card blend of Merlot, Cabernet and Malbec, but when you learn that it was the brand of tractor that John Shafer drove in 1973 when he boldly threw over his Chicago office job and decamped to Napa to start laying out a vineyard, it makes more sense. And what kind of a name is One Point Five for a classy Napa Cabernet? It stands for a generation and a half, the 35 years since John and his son Doug arrived at the foot of the Stag`s Leap Palisades. -
Larry Turley is a man with a mission. He started off in the 1970s as the co-founder of Frog`s Leap Winery, making Cabernets and Chardonnays. But over time he came to understand his interests lay elsewhere. By the early 1990s, when Cabernet was king in California, Larry had realised that one of the state`s great viticultural treasures was in danger of being lost; old vine Zinfandel plantings, often predating prohibiton, sometimes on original, ungrafted rootstock.
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No fuss, no drama might be the motto of twins Bob and Jim Varner and their eponymous winery tucked away in the Portola Valley. They’ve been planting vines there since the early eighties and receiving critical acclaim for just as long. Their techniques are simple, plant the best clones you can get, dry farm unfertilised impoverished soils and use no chemicals – they have insect controls rather than insecticide and hoe by hand instead of chemically cleansing their vineyards with soil deadening chemical blitzkriegs.
