San Joaquin Wine Competition Tries an Interesting (and More Fun) New Judging Method

April  2013

By Mac McCarthy/SavvyTaste

I had the opportunity and pleasure to join SavvyTaste founder Lew Perdue in my third year of judging at the San Joaquin Valley 2013 Wine Competition, which was held at the Ramos Torres Winery tasting room in Kingsburg, south of Fresno, in the Central Valley of California.

This warm, flat, sunny land is the heart of California’s enormous productive farmland producing rice, fruit, vegetables, most of the almonds grown in the world, and is also the center of grape production. Most of these grapes go into cheap jug wines and box wines (and eating grapes), but also popular volume wines from Turning Leaf, Barefoot Cellars, Carlo Rossi, Weibel, and Naked Grape, among many others. The wineries in this area also offer, as it happens, some finer wines a considerable step up from the mass-market high-volume wines, and the annual San Ramon Valley Wine Competition is intended to highlight and publicize these efforts. I get a big kick out of driving out from the San Francisco Bay Area to see what their efforts are producing.

In previous years I've judged, the process was long tables with the judges sitting side-by-side tasting flights in unison and judging on their own, with little or no discussion or kibitzing. I have to say, it tended to be a bit boring, especially since you start tasting and spitting before 9 AM, finishing up at noon. The tastiness of the wines varies a lot; occasionally you taste a really good one but you don’t know whose it is because it’s a blind tasting – all you have is an ID number.

This year they have a new head of the competition and he made a radical change – and I like the change a lot.

We were seated around tables, four or six judges at each. Our orders were to reach a consensus of the table as to the wines we were tasting – to discuss each flight and decide what we thought. This turned the judging from a lone slog into an interesting, even educational social event.

The judging process was much simpler than in years past – instead of a 20-point scale of several dimensions, this time things were reduced to their simplest: We were to decide whether each wine we tasted deserved a medal – Gold, Silver, or Bronze – or no medal at all. Couldn't be simpler.

Our table included wine journalist and marketing consultant Mike Stepanovich; Jessica, a young woman who works in the Ramos Torres tasting room (I didn't get her last name; apologies); and a young winemaker, Nick DeHart, of Fasi Estate Winery in Friant, a tiny town in the foothills outside of Fresno.

Nick’s expert commentary on the wines as we tasted them was invaluable: He’d point out aspects and elements of the wines that helped us focus and form our opinions – especially when it came to the “balance” of the wine, a key aspect that really summarizes the whole wine. Nick’s quiet guidance was much appreciated; he didn't push his opinion or his expertise, he just pointed out this or that feature of the wines, giving us things to think about.

It was also interesting to see Jessica’s reactions. She often had a different take on the wines from the rest of us, liking some much more than we did, disliking others that we liked. Just as interesting was seeing how entirely self-assured she was in her tastes: She might have been considerably younger than two of us, and she wasn’t a winemaker, but she knew exactly what she liked, and was unfazed when her opinion varied from ours. I liked that about her, especially since our slogan here at SavvyTaste is “Drink what you like.”

To my disappointment, we got few whites and no Roses to taste. But we did get and appreciated the ’10 Alicante Bouschet from Cedar View Winery (which got a Gold), and the NV Alicante Bouschet from Silkwood Wines (Best of Class), the ’11 Chenin Blanc-Viognier Blend from Pepi (Gold), and the ‘09 Petit Verdot from Cardella (Gold).

So a good time was had by all. Though I could see that the approach in this competition would tend to yield more medal winners than a complex 20-point scale might, it was a lot more fun. And we didn’t give medals to any sub-par wines. I also recognize that this approach helps the competition hand out more medals, which the winemakers love, of course, because it helps move the merchandise, since so many casual wine buyers are much impressed by medals (as by 90-point labels).

Another purpose of this competition is a dual one: To persuade the public, over time, that the San Joaquin Valley is capable of producing fine wines in addition to jug wines and eating grapes – and to reward Valley winemakers who stretch to produce fine wines even when that’s not where the volume or big money is.

So how are they doing? The first competition I judged, four years ago, there were not many truly fine wines in the tasting; almost all were drinkable, but only a couple of Syrahs and a really fine Chenin Blanc were truly fine wines. The following year, the quality of the entries overall had noticeably risen. I missed last year’s event. This year I only tasted two wines I thought sub-par and a few that, while fun to drink, could not be considered high level. The majority were quite good; many were better than quite good; and a few were indeed fine wines.

The San Joaquin Valley is heading in the right direction. They aren’t Napa yet and, given their environment probably never will be; they aren’t even Lodi yet. But they are good enough that if you find yourself in the Valley it would be worth your time to search out a few tasting rooms and checking them out. I’d especially like to point out Nick’s Fasi Estate Winery in Friant, Saviez Family Estates in Fresno, Pepi in Parlier (near Fresno), and Cardella in Mendota (smack in the Central Valley between Interstate 5 and State 99). And especially Cedar View Winery in Sanger, just east of Fresno: their Syrah, Grenache, and Tempranillo are delicious.

Judging the (Surprisingly Good) Wines of the San Joaquin Valley in California

Image via Wikipedia

So Lew Perdue (CEO of SavvyTaste) and I drove down from the San Francisco Bay area and Sonoma to the middle of California, most of the way down Highway 99, south of Fresno, to the hamlet of Kingsburg, a small farming community that serves as headquarters of the San Joaquin Valley Winegrower's

Association.

This area is also the center of the bulk-wine industry -- growing grapes to go into inexpensive wines, sometimes called jug wines because many are sold in half-gallon jugs. EJ Gallo, largest winemaker in the country, is headquartered here, for example.


For that reason, and because the Valley is a hot, flat, featureless plain lying between the Sierras and the Mountain Range, where most of the fruit, vegetables, and nuts in the western part of the U.S. is grown -- it has never been considered capable of producing a quality wine. Wine with 'character' and depth and complexity needs well-drained soils (which means hills and often rocky or sandy soil), and some cool weather, especially night and morning fog, to cool the grapes heated during the day.

The San Joaquin Valley, by contrast, is one of the flattest places on Earth -- it has a slope of only 1%, according to John MacPhee's book on the state. Coolness is something you experience if you are next to an air-conditioning unit. And the soil is rich, ideal for vegetables, but too luxurious for wines, which apparently have to be abused to do their best work.

But San Joaquin wine-grape growers beg to disagree, and have introduced novelties such as spraying the grapes to cool them down in order to produce wines of character. Or so they claim.

To give this claim some weight, they hold an annual wine competition -- local winemakers submit their best examples, and a dozen judges taste them blind and rate them as to whether they are any good.

By which we mean are they wines of character, with sufficient complexity and flavor to be enjoyable. Are they, in fact, wines that taste a whole lot better than you'd think they should taste, considering where the grapes are grown. In other words, are they any better than a Carlo Rossi half-gallon jug of "Burgundy" from the local supermarket?

Judge and Ye Shall Be Judged

The judges are a collection of wine distributors and wine writers from across the state, many from this area. Lew Perdue, my partner, is a longtime wine-industry inside commentator who publishes Wine Industry Insight for the trade. I am a wine blogger (this one), cofounder of the SavvyTaste.com wine-advice site, and enthusiast who might be thought to represent the average wine drinker, in that I have no insider connections with the wine business.

The dozen of us gathered on a Friday morning in June at the ungodly hour of 8:30am at the Hye-Life Restaurant in town. We were divided into two panels, where we were to have the 88 submitted wines divided between us. We'd each be tasting-and-spitting 44 wines. Plus, as it turns out, retasting the top finishers to rank them for best-of-show. All the wines were tasted blind, in flights of similar types/styles/grapes.

As I say, we were basically trying to decide whether each wine we tasted was, basically, any good; not whether it was the best example of whatever it was we'd ever tasted. That made it easier for me; is this Syrah the best example of the winemaker's art of Syrah? I wouldn't know. Is it drinkable? Is it a decent wine? Is it worth recommending to a friend? That is a question I can answer--for my own tastes, anyway.

We dived in, with soda cracker and filtered water as the only palate clearers. I wasn't entirely surprised to find that almost everything I tasted was at least drinkable -- these were the winemakers' idea of their best efforts, so they ought to be at least decent.


Surprise Me, I Dare You

I was, indeed, surprised to find several submissions to be really, really good.

The eight Syrahs our panel tasted were outstanding! Big, gigantic, red-almost-black, cocktail wines I'd be happy to see at my table anytime, baby! Zowie!

To my surprise, the four Zins were disappointing. One of the judges said Zins are a grape that really needs poor soil tilted at an angle (hilly) to be any good. Apparently! If they can knock out blow-your-head-off Syrahs but wimpy Zins, it's got to be the fault of the Zins!

The real surprise for some of us was one of the two Chenin Blancs offered to us. In the U.S., Chenin Blanc is mainly a wine that brings a little acidic kick to jug wines, so basically, nobody takes it seriously. That is, U.S. Chenin Blancs; some French Chenin Blancs, on the other hand, are highly regarded, though pricey.

The Chenin Blanc we were served was absolutely delicious! We were smacking out lips and considering cheating by swallowing instead of spitting, it was so good. The judges around me kept exclaiming with pleasure as they sipped, and so was I. I'll take a case of that, please!

Another surprise, for me, was the Tempranillo. Now Temp is a funny grape: It can produce a full-bodied wine (Rioja in Spain, eg), but it all too often can be a thin, light, and, to me, less interesting wine. In California, it has often been used as a blending grape for jug wines. We were served the three Tempranillo's after the gigantic Syrahs, so I joked that we would hardly be able to taste them, after our taste buds had been bombed by the Syrahs.

I was wrong -- I admit that, ok? The three Temps were terrific: full-bodied, round, full of flavor.

Winners

Later we were emailed a list of the 51 wines (out of 88) that scored well enough to recommend. I searched the list to find what wonderful things I was tasting. Here are the best of the wines, as far as I was concerned:

Chenin Blanc, NV, Ehrhardt Estates, Clarksburg
Syrah, 2007 and the 2008 both, Cardella, Fresno County, Fundus Vineyard
Syrah, 2004, Silkwood, California
Syrah, Fresno State, 2006 Madera County, Fasi Vineyard, and the Syrah, Fresno State, 2006 Fresno Sounty, Saviez Vineyard.
Syrah, 2006, from Pasos Vineyards, Lodi, Alta mesa.
Syrah, 2006, Z Wines, Fresno Country, 1st Release. Z Wines is famed for their Zinfandels, but they didn't submit one of those, for some reason.
Tempranillo, Cedar View, 2007, Paso Robles
Tempranillo, South Coast Winery, 2007, Temecula Valley
Tempranillo, Sunfire Esate, 2006, Amador County

Also tasty were the 2006 Estate Viognier from Cedar View, the 2007 Grenache, fro South Coast Winery's Temecula Valley vineyards; the 06 Cab fro Sunrie Estates' Sierra Foothills; the Alicante Couschet from Cedar View (2006, Estate); and the Black Jack Port, NV, from South Coast Winery, South Coast.

Oh, there were two more surprises for me:

They served us a nice, light, refreshingly dry rose that turned out to be a White Zinfandel. Actually, that's unfair: It was actually a 2008 Dry Zin Rose, from Chateau Lasgoity in Madera. You can, of course, make an excellent rose of Zin without making one of those flabby white zins that are the bane of the wine-drinking world.

The other surprise for me was that, after our tongues were raw from the tannins in the big reds, especially the Syrahs, they served us -- bubbly! An NV Blanc de Blanc from South Coast Winery, an NV Sparkling Muscat Canelli from South Coast Winery, and an Almond Sparkling from Weibel, also nonvintage. Turns out, nothing refreshes and revives your taste buds after tannin abuse like sparkling wines! (Even the Almond Sparkling, which was pretty awful from our point of view -- it had the aroma of almond-scented hand soap -- yet for those who like flavored bubblies, it would probably be considered tasty, as would be the Raspberry Sparkling, also from Weibel.) So the next time you host a tasting, have sparkling wine or champagne on hand to refresh the flagging palates of your guests! (I tried this at the Pinot tasting in San Franisco last week too, though this time with Gloria Ferrar bubbly, and it worked again!)

There were a few we tasted that didn't make much of an impression, but unfortunately I don't know which ones those were, or I'd say so.

Conclusion: The Association has done a good job of demonstrating the truth of their assertion: San Joaquin Valley is capable of producing some great-tasting wines. Yes, they are.

So where do you get these wines, and what do they cost? That info was not given to us. A little work with Google gives me some info, but not all: Prices but not necessarily on the exact wine-year judged, little info on production size, little on where available. Here's a little:

Ehrhardt's Chenin Blanc seems to be around $12 a bottle.
Cardella's Syrahs: the 2004 is sold out at $23 a bottle, with only 100 cases produced - ouch; the 2005 was 200 cases and no price is given on their site; their more recent Syrahs aren't mentioned. Don't you hate it when the high scorers aren't available?
Silkwood's 2004 Syrah seems to be about $25, available online.
South Coast Winery's extensive online collection includes their Tempranillo at $20 a bottle. They also operate a winery-based spa, by the way. Temecula is about 50 miles east of LA, in the so-called Inland Empire.

Sunfire Estate, a tiny but interesting winery that produces one of the extraordinary Tempranillos, as well as pretty decent Cabs and other Reds, sells its Temps for about $45, which takes your breathe away to think of a Temp at that price -- until you actually taste it, and then you change your mind very quickly.

Cedar View produced a great Tempranillo, which they price at a bargain $18. They also submitted a tasty Alicante Bouschet ($18), and a nice Viognier ($17).

And finally, Fresno State Winery (which sounds like a ag college) produced a couple of the knockout Syrahs; their site sells only the 07, priced at $25.