Sourcing grapes from varied locations in Napa, hand picking at night, and being very fussy about it all. Aging the wines deep inside the mountain. The results are impressive.
Trip to Napa: Pine Ridge
Pine Ridge Winery is one of the larger producers in the Stag’s Leap District of the Napa Valley, although it would have to be considered small on a California or national standard. But it is not the size of their output, the number of cases produced that really counts. What impresses the visitor is the enterprise and aspiration of the people involved, and in the end, the quality of the wines they make.
The Mediterranean style building, surrounded outside by hilly vineyards, leads on to interior to caves tunneled into those hills, cool, dark and still, the perfect environment for aging wines in their oak casks. Grapes come from the property surrounding the winery and from vineyards scattered in the Napa Valley, Carneros to the south, and Oakville and Rutherford and Howell Mountain to the north. These individual vineyards range from a couple of acres to more than fifty, totaling about 220 acres.
It is not unusual for a Napa Valley winery to have more than a single vineyard property. One in the northern or central valley for cabernet sauvignon and one in the cooler south of Napa, with the marine influence of San Pablo Bay, for chardonnay or pinot noir or merlot, is part of a pattern. But it is unusual to have as many different growing sites as Pine Ridge. The multiple vineyards of Pine Ridge, sixteen of them, must certainly take more work to manage than a contiguous property, and the grapes must all be trucked to the winery in Stag’s Leap. Pine Ridge has an extremely rigorous standard for handling grapes prior to crushing, which no doubt adds to the work. They hand pick at night, carefully transport, and meticulously sort clusters and then berries
But the varied locations also give the vineyard manager an ability to fine tune, to plant vines that are exactly suited to the site, the sun, the soils, the winds and everything that makes up the microclimate, and that in the winemaking phase produce wines whose components reflect terroir. This is about as anti-generic as you can get.
Pine Ridge has the right man for the job. Viticulture and enology are under the direction of Pascal Marty, who worked for twenty years at Chateau Mouton Rothschild in Bordeaux. If the name sounds familiar, you might have heard it locally, for Mr. Marty is also a consultant at Bedell Cellars, here on the North Fork. Stacy Clark, the winemaker has spent her entire career at Pine Ridge since graduating from the University of California at Davis, and she emphasizes “the distinct characteristics of the various growing regions where our vineyards are located.”
Like a number of other Napa producers, Pine Ridge shows great strength in Bordeaux type blends, cabernet sauvignon predominating, with small quantities of merlot, petit verdot, cabernet franc and malbec used in the blends. It can be a bit confusing to the consumer, however. Some are labeled cabernet sauvignon and some have proprietary names.
Among the new releases are the 2003 Charmstone, a cabernet sauvignon and merlot blend ($30), 2003 Onyx, a cabernet sauvignon and malbec blend ($55), and the 2003 Andrus reserve, cabernet sauvignon with three other grapes ($100). Currently available cabernet sauvignon labels from Pine Ridge include the 2004 Rutherford ($48), the 2003 Oakville ($65), and the 2003 Stag’s Leap District ($75). Each of the versions has its own characteristics. If you taste some of them side by side you can easily discern the differences. All are well-crafted wines, so the choice really depends on your taste and your budget.
Pine Ridge offers three chardonnay labels with Burgundy clearly as their model. They range from $33 to $55. For everyday sipping, try a blend you don’t find everyday, chenin blanc and viognier ($13.50). The grapes are from a different grower, and the profile is quite different from the chardonnays. It has a lovely floral quality, hints of sweetness and plenty of fruit, but remains crisp and refreshing.
Pine Ridge Winery seems to have made a decision several years ago to make wines of greater substance and consequence than they had in the past. They revised and refined grape growing and winemaking procedures, they brought in Mr. Marty, they gave Ms. Clark the right material to work with. The results are impressive.
