Wine Words

Merlot then, Pinot Noir now
by Millie Howie
Back in the mid-1970s everyone interested in wine was on a crash
course, absorbing as much information as possible, and running ever
faster as more information became available. It seemed we had
barely learned how to spell Chardonnay and pronounce Cabernet
Sauvignon, when folks like Louis and Mike Martini, Bill Dyer —
then winemaker at Sterling Vineyards, — and Dan Duckhorn tossed
Merlot into the mix.
The first California Merlots were released in 1971 by both
Sterling and Martini, and the public thought they were just grand.
By 1978 a number of smaller wineries, including Duckhorn, were
offering limited quantities of Merlot and had joined in the search
for sources of more grapes.
I first heard of Merlot when the Northern California Chapter of
the Society of Wine Educators invited Dan Duckhorn to be a special
speaker at their winter meeting in 1979. The meeting announcement
invited attendees to “Hear Dan’s enthusiastic comments about
Merlot.” And Dan certainly was enthusiastic. He gave each of us a
printed copy of a treatise on Merlot, which he had studiously
researched and documented. (Note: My copy of that valuable document
is now safely preserved in the Sonoma County Wine Library). From
that cold February day on, I considered that Dan Duckhorn had made
this grape his own and was the final authority on Merlot.
Fast forward to the year 2000, and it is easy to see why, with
this background, it came as a bit of a shock to attend a Pinot Noir
conference in Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley, and find that Dan
Duckhorn was one of the featured speakers.
The story he told was that, in 1990, after nearly two decades of
thinking about Pinot Noir, he and his wife, Margaret, began making
some experimental lots, drawing their grapes from selected
vineyards in prime growing regions from Anderson Valley, Carneros,
Russian River Valley and as far south as Hollister. Finally, in
1996, they purchased the former Obester property in Anderson Valley
and began to research Pinot Noir with specific emphasis on Pinot
Noir in the Anderson Valley.
“Our initial goal,” says Dan, “was to sit back and observe. I
saw Pinot Noir as being in the same position as Merlot was 20 years
ago. We came north and tasted and it got very interesting when we
began to follow clones and rootstocks.” In keeping with what Dan
refers to as “our flyway of wines,” the new winery was named
Goldeneye, after a coastal duck.
They now have four vineyards. The largest, Goldeneye Confluence
Vineyard is 85 acres off Highway 128 in the heart of Anderson
Valley. Three smaller parcels form a total of an additional 85
vineyard acres to the west where temperatures are cooler. They also
have one grower, the Jones family, with a vineyard in the warm end
of the valley near Booneville.
“Our vineyard has 15 clones on at least seven rootstocks, and
this, plus the diversity of location of the vineyards, should
provide us with great flexibility to produce, with greater
continuity, excellent wines,” Dan explains. “Our intent is to
produce a number of unique bottlings, each reflecting the site
specificity of the fruit and the vineyards.”
There have been four vintages of Goldeneye released, with the
fourth, 2001 due out in March, 2004. The current vintage, 2000 is
already sold out. Production has grown from 400 (six-pack) cases in
1997 to 3,000 cases from the 2002 harvest.
“Our overall strategy is to develop a national Pinot Noir brand
at the ultra-premium tier using the current distribution channels
we have established for the Duckhorn label in all 50 states and 15
foreign countries,” said Duckhorn. “We will shortly be releasing a
second label, ‘Migration,’ at a different price level, but still
100 percent Anderson Valley Pinot Noir.”
So now, not only do I have a source for my questions about
Merlot, I can go to the same source to checkup on Anderson Valley
Pinot Noir.
And I will.