California gets classified

What was good enough for Bordeaux in 1855… A shorter version of this article is published by the Financial Times.

At a reception at Wild by Tart in London one evening last month I was able to take my pick from 40 different top California wines. They were grouped by style and/or reputation and at one of the six or seven tables was Opus One 2018, Harlan Estate 2016, BOND St Eden 2016, Colgin IX 2016, Eisele Vineyard 2014 and Ridge Monte Bello 2011, for example. The Chardonnay table offered the delights of Kistler, Les Noisetiers 2019, Kongsgaard 2019 and Ramey, Woolsey Road 2018.

I hope that any fellow fan of California wine appreciates just what a great opportunity this was. There were many old friends there in human form but I mainly ignored them, I’m afraid, in favour of the old friends in a bottle. After all, I have ample opportunity to chat to my fellow wine professionals, but in the UK we see top-quality California wine all too rarely. (Although Thorman Hunt regularly offer a handful of the top wines, as reported by Andy Howard MW in yesterday's collection of California tasting notes.)

The occasion was the launch of Edition 1 of The California List, an idea dreamt up by Damien Jackman and Justine McGovern, who are responsible for the generic promotion of California wine in the UK (and Ireland, UAE and India). Their reasoning was that classifications such as the famous 1855 classification of Bordeaux help to highlight the best producers and can act as an aid for potential purchasers or, in their own words, ‘classifications can help shape how consumers and the wine trade engage with a region’.

To come up with this list of 51 top California producers* (not individual wines) of relevance to the UK market they asked five of us to adjudicate. Wine writer Stephen Brook, California buyer for The Wine Society Sarah Knowles MW, another Master of Wine Mark Andrew of Noble Rot, Master Sommelier Ronan Sayburn of 67 Pall Mall and I were chosen because we all have a particular affection for California wine.

Way back in October 2020 we were sent a long list of about 100 producers who export to the UK and urged to add to it as we saw fit so that in the end we considered closer to 200 candidates. We were asked to mark each producer on the basis of three criteria: wine quality (15 points), availability in the UK (5 points) and the overall impact each producer has had here (a further 5 points). Then we all got together online for what the organisers described as ‘a robust Zoom discussion’ to thrash out our final selection.

We weren’t given a total number to aim for and the extent which we judges were left to make our own decisions is perhaps evident in the total number of wine producers we chose. We just couldn’t agree on which name to exclude in order to round it down to 50. Several American commentators got very hot under the collar because of the omission of so many producers of great renown in the US but of course that’s usually because they don’t export to the UK, the most important export market for California wine by volume and second biggest, after Canada, by value. Other commentators saw the List as an attempt by the British to lord it over them, or pointed out that no other classifications are perfect. All of this comment, I should imagine, will delight Jackman and McGovern.

The organisers wanted to transform our selection into a fancy video and framed classification of use to retailers and educators. Since they were determined to make this as sustainable as possible they ended up having the classification printed on a material made from recycled coffee cups – in dramatic gold on black – so it was not until the end of last month that the classification was finally revealed at the reception described above. (There was also the difficulty of getting a date agreeable to most of us judges.)

I take my hat off to McGovern and Jackman for their exceptional devotion to sustainability. The day before the classification was unveiled, they also organised for wine writers a giant showing at Smith & Wollensky in London of 280 more-modest California wines currently available in the UK – with a decidedly sustainable twist.

For the first time at a professional wine tasting as far as I know, they included the weights of each full bottle in the tasting list they provided for us tasters – highlighting some of the most egregiously heavy bottles that will weigh particularly heavily on their carbon footprint as they are transported around the globe, not to mention during the production process. Black mark to Daou whose Cabernets each come in a bottle weighing 1,814 g when full – so over a kilo empty. Praise to Tablas Creek for their Esprit de Tablas whose full bottle weighs just 1,110 g.

As well as this, Jackman and McGovern dispensed with the sort of printed tasting booklets that are often wasted and use up so much raw material and instead provided masses of information digitally via QR codes. The wines were presented, within their categories, upwards in price order – a surprisingly unusual and useful protocol.

An Edition 2 of The California List is planned for 2024 and I for one hope that some of the producers whose wines showed well in this bigger tasting will find their way on to it. There are now so many new-wave producers in California taking advantage of regions and grapes less expensive than the most famous ones that they can provide real value – quite a contrast to stereotypical Napa Cabernet.

Only the morning after the launch of The California List Sarah Knowles presented her latest California finds in an online presentation of new wines by The Wine Society’s buyers to wine writers. She admitted that it is difficult to find interesting California wines that could be sold in the UK under £10 a bottle, ‘but at £10 to £15 there are wines I believe can really go head to head with wines at the same price from elsewhere’, she said, citing in particular family companies such as Cline, McManis and Pedroncelli, who own their own vineyards so can control their own costs and ‘bring something different to the table. That’s why I love California.’

The main thing I’m happy about is that there seems at last to be a real will to get interesting California wine – not just the inexpensive, high-volume brands – into the glasses of non-Americans.

California wines worth chasing

Whites

Giornata Fiano 2020 Paso Robles 13%
£19.99 All About Wine, £24 (2019) Drink Finder

The Joy Fantastic Chardonnay 2019 Sta Rita Hills 13.5%
£35.50 Wanderlust Wine

Rhys, Alesia Chardonnay 2018 Santa Cruz Mountains 12.3%
£38.68 Justerini & Brooks

Chanin, Los Alamos Vineyard Chardonnay 2019 Santa Barbara County 12.5%
£44 Stannary Wine

Reds

Cain, Cuvée 2012/13 Napa Valley 14.3%
£26.68 Justerini & Brooks

Valravn Pinot Noir 2020 Sonoma County 14.3%
£24.95 Jeroboams, expected May

Lieu Dit, Sans Soufre Cabernet Franc 2019 Santa Ynez Valley 13%
£28.50 Wanderlust Wine, £150 per case of 6 North & South Wines

Bedrock, Old Vine Zinfandel 2019 Sonoma Valley 14.5%
£29.45 Q Wines, also NY Wines, Fortnum & Mason, Harvey Nichols, The Wine Reserve

Ridge, East Bench Zinfandel 2019 Dry Creek Valley 14.5%
£33.50 James Nicholson, also Uncorked, Highbury Vintners, Marlo Wine, Woodshire Wines

The Joy Fantastic Pinot Noir 2018 Sta Rita Hills 13.5%
£35.50 North & South Wines, Wanderlust Wine

The Joy Fantastic Syrah 2017 Sta Rita Hills 13%
£35.50 Wanderlust Wine, £210 per case of 6 North & South Wines

Ridge, Estate Cabernet 2018 Santa Cruz Mountains 14%
£60 approx Lay & Wheeler, Highbury Vintners and many other independents (not cheap but great value)

*Edition 1 of The California List

Tasting notes on Purple Pages. International stockists on Wine-Searcher.com. See also yesterday's collection of California tasting notes.