Bordeaux 'garage winery' movement hits Napa

ARTIST'S RENDERING

Ready for the California version of "Les Garagistes"?

Most people probably don't know because they don't know the French term. To explain, the term was coined in the 1970s by Belgians Marcel and Gerard Thienpont who purchased land in Bordeaux and established Chateau Le Pin, the concept of "garage wines."

The movement, which allows smalltime winemakers to work in boutique settings at affordable prices, grew in the early '90s when St. Emilion's Chateau de Valandraud was created in Bordeaux.

Now, a self-contained "artisinal village" of 12 spaces custom built for limited-production wineries has been created in Napa Valley's American Canyon. It will offer spaces ranging from 3,500 to 6,500 square feet, located in four buildings surrounding a 16,000-square-foot courtyard. The complex is projected to open by August 2009.

Founders John Hawkins and Tony Cartlidge explain their idea this way:

"The garagiste winemaker, intimately involved in every step of the process, is practically bound to make a wine which reflects his or her personality, just as a painting reflects the personality of the painter. It can be wine made to your own standards, with passion coming before profit."

In other words, it is "for winemakers and owners of limited production, high quality wine brands who are dedicated to their craft and wish to affordably assume more control over winemaking and promotional activities."

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Ranch Winery big on storage

Sometimes you have to do more than just make wine to succeed in the wine business.

Take Joel Gott (right). He had entered into a partnership with Trinchero to produce his Three Thieves wines, then wound up heading a group that purchased the Trinchero family's Chicken Ranch Zinfandel Road winery in St. Helena, CA.

That led to creation of The Ranch Winery, a new custom crush facility under development. Its first stage is a 33,000 square-foot barrel-storage room Gott sees as helping meet "a big need for barrel storage in Napa Valley."

He plans to be one of his own major customers, storing Joel Gott Wines, in the open room that can hold 10,000 to 15,000 barrels. The company plans to build a second, similar storage area as demand grows.

The storage room and the other plans for the huge facility are being supervised by Mark Beringer, The Ranch's general manager and head of winemaking operations, and formerly winemaker at Duckhorn Vineyards.

The Ranch eventually will occupy a 120,000 square-foot casegoods storage facility. Gott is leasing part of the operation back to the Trincheros.

According to Wines & Vines magazine:

"Gott is providing plenty of capacity for small start-ups, though he also expects to serve existing wineries and handle overflow from big wineries, too. Many of them have to process grapes out of county because of lack of capacity in Napa Valley. ... The Ranch is now installing 22 fermenters ranging from one to five tons in size, and expects to crush 500 tons there this year. There are plans to have 60 small fermenters and crush 2,000 tons in 2008, 5,000 in 2009, then 20,000 tons -- 1 million gallons -- in 2010. After that, the partners take over the whole facility, which has six million gallons of bulk storage and one million in fermentation tanks, as well as the presses and other equipment needed for this volume."

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Letters: Is my '85 Bourgogne Pinot worth anything?

Dear William:

I was wondering if you could tell me a little about the following wine that I have had laying around for some time. All the information on the bottle is as follows:

1985 Produit de France
Bourgogne Pinot
Appellation Bourgogne Pinot Controlee
Mis en bouteille par
Picard Pere & Fils
Chagny (s.-&-l.)

As you can see it is a little old. What do you think? Is it worth holding on to, or is it worth nothing? Any advice greatly received. Many thanks.

-- Adam Sutton

Dear Adam:

Your question sent me on a merry chase. Tracking down much information on a 22-year-old wine is spotty at best, given the explosion in available wines over the past two decades and how fast wine merchants shuffle their stock and get on to the Next Great Thing.

I can tell you unequivocally that Picard Pere & Fils is a respected Burgundian wine house, and the Bourgogne Pinots of this century have been generally of good quality. But I have my doubts about anything that has been around this long unless it was stored in perfect conditions as far as temperature and light are concerned.

Why? Well, the pinot noir grape is genetically unstable and susceptible to just about every vine disease that comes along. That sometimes affects its storability even if the wine is OK when young. Color retention is a problem as well.

You may very well have a gem on your hands, but the only way to really know is to open it and try it. Then, of course, you are left with an open bottle of wine and no particular value except for the taste of the moment. If you want to learn more about the fussy grape, I suggest checking in here with the Professional Friends of Wine.

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Wisconsin wants to tangle wine sales

While some states are untangling their cobweb of wine sales rules, Wisconsin may be going the other way.

A proposal slipped into the state budget document this week would require all wineries to go through a distributor when selling wine. That would effectively prohibit wineries from shipping directly to stores and virtually end direct mailing of wine to residences. It also might prevent wineries from selling their own products on their premises.

The proposal comes in response to a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision that all wineries should be on a level playing field, but some area wineries say the proposal will end up doing more harm than good.

The budget, along with the proposed wine law, was passed Tuesday in the Wisconsin State Senate. The Assembly version of the bill is scheduled to come up for a vote next week.

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Draining Europe's 'wine lake' a desperate idea

Sometimes widespread panic can last more than just a moment. In Europe, it seemingly is becoming a way of life for the alcoholic beverage industry.

Member nations of the European Union have been working themselves into a lather trying to redefine and re-regulate everything from niche products to entire swaths of the industry, such as Scotch whisky and wine. A September vote on a whole package of changes is scheduled by the European Parliament, which is creating enough tension as it is without the latest proposal.

The EP, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, has proposed the destruction of hundreds of thousands of acres of European vineyards in an attempt to drain the "wine lake" and reconquer markets lost to non-European competitors such as the U.S., South America and Australia.

The European Union's annual "wine lake" of unsold wines is equivalent to about 1.7 billion standard-size bottles. The Parliament is proposing to pay producers of unsaleable wines to tear up their vines and, beginning in 2013, lift individual nations' restrictions to encourage wine-grape growers to shift to types of wine more in demand from consumers.

Part of the EU budget for supporting the wine industry would be shifted to a campaign to promote European wines on the international market. The distillation of surplus wine into industrial alcohol or disinfectants -- which costs about $680 million a year -- would end in 2009.

Mariann Fischer Boel, the European commissioner for agriculture and rural development, said the proposal would "boost competition, drain the infamous wine lakes and make things more simple. ... Until now we have been spending in an inefficient and indefensible way."

Some wine producers' organizations in France and elsewhere object to the plan, labeling it a "betrayal" of traditional European winemaking traditions to market forces and "ultra-capitalism."

According to the UK newspaper The Independent, "Much of the French, Spanish and Italian wine industry is already willing, in some cases eager, to take this approach. But there are fierce divisions between, and even within, wine-growing regions. The ban on the sugaring of wine would, for example, be very popular with southern French growers and disastrous for producers of cheaper red wine in Bordeaux.

"How much, and when, the EU plan would affect wine drinkers is unclear. The proposals will be fiercely opposed by some governments in the EU council of ministers. Much will finally depend on decisions still to be taken at national and regional level on the future of wine-making in Europe."

Despite a falloff in consumer demand in France, Italy and elsewhere, particularly among younger people, Europeans drink 60% of the world's wine. France, Italy and Spain are the EU's and the world's top producers by volume, but Europeans increasingly are drinking wine from beyond the EU. In 2005, the last year for which comp;ete figures are available, exports just barely outpaced imports.

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