The American dream in a bottle

The JamesSuckling.com tasting team gets down to work, tasting some great American wines.

We’ve tasted and rated over 1,500 regional American wines in the last few years. Beyond the iconic West Coast, the best tell an impressive story. They are fun to drink. And many offer exceptional value.

Pursuing them can be a treasure hunt. Some are as rare as they are sophisticated because production can be just a few hundred cases. Most never enter distribution, so to get them you need to engage with the producers. That’s usually where the real adventure begins, often in small and remote tasting rooms where the welcomes couldn’t be warmer.

The wines tell a tale of fruit and terroir, and of the way producers and growers leverage technical skill, passion, and patience with a huge range of varietals, grown on almost every imaginable type of soil, in countless microclimates.

Earlier this month, at James’ office in Napa, we tasted some new releases from just a handful of the producers that grabbed our attention last year, when The American Wine Revolution reported on nearly 900 wines from 14 states. Check out the video from last year as well.

If you want the summary, here it is: from the Great Lakes and northern New York, down the eastern seaboard, from Texas across the southwest and up through the Rockies into Idaho, America’s best wine producers are advancing consistently. The top wines are world class. We still haven’t found any 98-100 point wines, but the trajectory is heading in that direction.

Cabernet franc is king of the reds in much of the eastern United States; bold western producers are growing beautiful high altitude wines from a slew of Italian and Spanish varieties; and Michigan and New York Finger Lakes’ racy rieslings, elegant bubblies, and a lot more, signal a fantastic future. Better still, as vines age, they are becoming more and more expressive of some remarkably diverse terroirs that, in their essence, are America. Pour a glass and see what we mean!

Intrigued? Read on.

It’s no surprise the emergence of high quality regional wines coincides with growing understanding of the influence of terroir and the importance of matching the right varieties to it.

You can learn that in any university winemaking course—and an enthusiastic new generation of producers does. But, there is no substitute for decades of patient and careful observation and experience, and the understanding that affords.

We think that understanding has reached critical mass in many of the “new” wine regions in the United States. (Let’s save for another day the history of the huge continent-spanning American wine industry that Prohibition killed in 1919.)

American terroir

Few expound on this with the simple eloquence of Jim Law, who nearly four decades ago founded Virginia’s Linden Vineyards near Front Royal. “It takes a long time to understand a virgin terroir. A lifetime is just the beginning.” We particularly love Law’s chardonnays and sauvignon blancs, which in the dry and relatively cool conditions of 2017 yielded wines with particular finesse and tension.

Law, a revered mentor to several generations of Virginia winemakers, is also a true believer in the importance of the age of his vines. They sit on the remains of ancient volcanos where soil type can vary even within a half acre.

“Wine shifts according to vine. At our Avenius and Boisseau vineyards the vines average 24 years. By that point they’re starting to calm down and regulate themselves. It begins to be less about varietal and more about terroir asserting itself.”

Over 1,200 miles away, in Texas’ Hill Country, top producer Fall Creeks Vineyard is all about terroir. They were pioneers in Texas viticulture, patiently exploring their sites for over 40 years. That process convinced them, for example, as winemaker Sergio Cuadra said, “that in our Salt Lick vineyard tempranillo grows each year as consistently and uniformly as you can get it, paying almost no attention to changes in the weather. You can tell the vines feel at home there. Very little intervention is needed.”

Their complex, rich and earthy 2017 Ex Terra tempranillo will reward lovers of great wine for years to come.

Go further west, to Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Idaho, and the real fun starts. In dry climates that seem tailor-made for low input viticulture, producers are homing in on the soils, climates, and grape types that, in concert, produce outstanding wines.

New York’s Fingers Lake region is making world class riesling like these.

The varietal adventure

It’s taken about 40 years for fine wine production to truly become rooted in what we call “regional” producers inhabiting the states beyond the West Coast. The learning curve was steep, first on technique, then terroir, and finally varieties.

Increasingly, specific regions are becoming associated with particular grape varieties that yield especially good wines in their diverse soils and climates. Great riesling is by now emblematic of the Finger Lakes, where leading producers like Red Newt, Hermann J. Wiemer and Empire Estate make reliably excellent wines. We’ve talked about them for years. Michigan is also emerging as a source of beautiful riesling (and traditional method sparklers). See below wines we just tasted from Aurora.

Red Bordeaux varieties seem to thrive in the East, despite some earlier doubts. Virginia’s RdV vineyards, on a granitic slope 60 miles west of Washington DC, offers a stunning example in their 96-point 2016 “Rendezvous,” a blend of merlot, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and a little petit verdot. Beautiful fruit, polished tannins, intensity and length make this stand out as a great world wine.

Other meritage wines, especially in New Jersey, New York’s Long Island, and Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, point to the current quality and greater future potential of these varieties in new homelands. We loved the BDX 2017 from consistently strong New Jersey producer William Heritage. This cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and merlot blend has a lovely light, but fine, palate of fresh and lively red fruit.

Without question, cabernet franc has emerged, among reds, as a star in the east —including New York Finger Lakes and Michigan. It has proven a reliable ripener across multiple terroirs, and capable of yielding elegant wines in a wide array of styles.

The best we have tasted is a new single vineyard release from Barboursville Vineyards, just north of Charlottesville, Virginia. Their Goodlow Mountain 2017 (100 cases) is full bodied and beautifully integrated. Fine tannins and subtle but intense fruit, with beautiful minerality, underline the elegance and age-worthiness. Several medium-sized producers in the east, including Virginia’s terrific Early Mountain estate, have recently taken advantage of special terroir and excellent growing years to produce lovely single-site bottlings alongside reserves and regular releases. It’s an approach worth following.

Experience is key. Barboursville has been growing franc since 1977. Winemaker Luca Paschina stressed: “It was a hard decision; we had been noticing, over many years, really distinctive results coming from franc planted at different sites. Finally, when [owner] Francesco Zonin and I were doing barrel tastings from the unblended 2017 vintage, we knew the time was right.”

Roanoke Vineyards (Long Island) 2015 cabernet franc “The Hill” was another favorite when we tasted recently. Complex spice, floral and dark cherry character gave the wine particular poise.

North Carolina offers distinctive varietal takes. At 1,200 feet, near the Yadkin River, Jay Raffaldini found a terroir suited to the central and southern Italian varieties that are his passion, montepulciano, sagrantino, and sangiovese. We consistently enjoy his big and earthy wines. Raffaldini admits: “It wasn’t following the path of least resistance that got us where we are—it was a lot of experimentation and risk taking. It’s about site and technique. We found that co-fermenting montepulciano and sagrantino, after an appassimento drying process, created the powerful yet balanced wine that became our flagship, Grande Riserva.”

Something great and different is going on in parts of the west, starting in the high desert of southern (and northern) Arizona. There, trailblazing estates like Callaghan Vineyards initially tried Bordeaux varieties. Then, along with many other local producers, they turned to an interesting mix of Italian, Spanish, and French plantings (commonly sangiovese, aglianico, graciano, tempranillo, and syrah, often with some tannat and petit verdot grown for structuring).

They’re making tasty and seductive blends like Callaghan’s 2017 Claire’s (mourvedre, graciano, and petit verdot), Sand Reckoner’s beautiful layered 2016 “X” (petit verdot, tempranillo, and cabernet franc) and Dos Cabezas’ distinctive and full 2016 Toscano (mostly sangiovese and aglianico). Plunge into Arizona wines and sometimes you’ll feel you can sense the sagebrush.

Heading north into Colorado’s high altitude Grand Valley, wine stays exciting. Bordeaux varieties can stand tall, exemplified by Colterris’ 2016 Riverside Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon and their other estate grown offerings. They even make delicious reds in cans!

Where next for US wine producers?

What’s the next great wine region in America? Looking at the quality and variety all over the country, it’s tempting to say “everywhere.” I think it comes down to the people.

When you talk to dynamic younger producers like Michele Padberg, co-owner of Vivac in Dixon, New Mexico, you sense enthusiasm that could take a state anywhere. Vivac makes what may be the best refosco I’ve had, including in Friuli. The fruit, from sites almost 5,000 ft high in southern New Mexico, is grown, appropriately, by a friulano to whom the Padbergs feel close in spirit and philosophy. It’s one of their best sellers.

She and her husband Jesse are champions of New Mexico marketing and promotion, especially important since development lags that of neighboring states. She’s animated about working with colleagues and the state university’s viticulture school, to bring in industry leaders and experts whose experience can boost wine quality. “We’re never content with where we are. Each vintage we look at what we could do better. We research, we experiment. New Mexico is on a fast trajectory toward world class growing regions. That’s fitting for one of America’s oldest wine growing regions. We have it all—with a multitude of micro climates, and a lack of moisture that favors low-input wine growing.”

You find that passion for place all over Wine America. Virginia winemaker (and Meursault vigneron) Michael Shaps is especially enthusiastic about the under-recognized potential of the Shenandoah Valley. He produces wines under the Michael Shaps label and for several other wineries throughout the state. “Wines from the Shenandoah have been off the radar for the most part, despite some high quality winemaking. But certain areas have some of the driest conditions along the east coast. The limestone, loam and clay soils that are prevalent, and cooler temperatures higher up, provide a big advantage for a lot of white grapes.”

Ron Bitner, who has been making wine in Idaho’s high, dry Snake River Valley for 40 years, sees an important and promising transition looming as an earlier generation of farmer winemakers yields to a newer, more formally trained generation of enologists. He’s particularly bullish on Idaho: “We are making quality wines most years because we have great hang times that allow the grapes to develop great fruit forward flavors with well-balanced acidity.”

Bitner, with a PhD in entomology, owns the only Idaho vineyards certified LIVE (Low Input Vineyard and Enology), but hails an emerging cohort of winemakers philosophically attuned to that approach. We always love his Terrosa syrah-led blend. The 2015 vintage has beautiful fruit and verve.

The evidence is that American regional wines are on an upswing. We hope you’ll look for them. They represent vision and hard work rewarded, plus good drinking. Every bottle embodies the American Dream, which is why we continue to taste and follow the American Wine Revolution.

– William McIlhenny, JamesSuckling.com strategy