A brilliant trio from Lioco

IPOB, In Pursuit Of Balance, is a manifest to look for and celebrate totally balanced wines of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, crated in 2011 by master sommelier Rajat Parr of Michael Mina and RN74, and Jasmine Hirsch of Hirsch Vineyards in Sonoma Coast.

One of the members is the 10 000 cases young wine company Lioco, founded in 2005 by sommelier Kevin O’Connor (Spago, in Beverly Hills) and wine merchant Matt Licklider (North Berkley Import). Longing for other types of wines than the fruit driven, full bodied and oaky wines that came in fashion during the 1990s, they started out to craft elegant wines with low alcohol, high natural acidity, and a good expression of their terroir.
   They hired John Raytek as their winemaker, purchased Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from cool vineyard sites in Russian River Valley, Sonoma Coast, Chalone and Anderson Valley, and old vine dry farmed Carignane from Redwood Valley in the northern Mendocino, and begun to make a series of fine tuned wines with a true expression of the variety and its birthplace.

The wines are all “hands off made” with early harvested grapes, normally at 21-23 Brix, which end up in wines with alcohol levels at around 12.0 to 13.5 percent. The Chardonnays are slowly whole cluster pressed and then fermented with their natural yeast in either stainless steel tanks or smaller steel drums. There is no oak at all! Due to the high levels of malic acid, all wines are full malolactic, but there’s enough of acidity to make them taste super fresh. They are all bottled after six months on their lees, with just some bâtonnage.
   Chardonnay would be their mayor production, but they also make a series of very fine and elegant Pinot Noirs that shouldn’t been overseen, and a superb old vine Carignane called Indica.
The very good news is that these wines are not expensive, they range from 20-50 dollars!  

This is one of the most thrilling producers of the new age of California winemaking. Don’t miss them!

2010 Russian River Valley Chardonnay / 90 p

This is not a second wine, it’s a wine crafted from two vineyards, one in the central part of Russian River Valley, and one much cooler at Bodega Highway in the southwestern corner of Green Valley. Since the grapes are very slowly whole cluster pressed, the juice is in contact with the skins for almost eight hours, which add a good structure and a touch of golden color. The funny thing is that it reminds me of a more classic wine from Meursault, due to its slightly diacetyl flavor and creamy texture. As in the other wines, there’s a steely touch to it, but there’s so much more complexity than in most of the steel fermented Californian Chardonnays. There are no traces at all of alcohol, and yes, it’s just 12.3 percent. That’s the beauty, and the persuit of balance! This is the first vintage of this 400 case bottling.
Drink it 2012-2016

2010 Chardonnay Demuth Vineyard / 92 p
The Demuth Vineyard is located at 520 meters of altitude in the high end av very cool part of Anderson Valley, north of Roederer Estate. It was planted 40 years ago with the Old Wente clone, and although the vines were planted on their own roots, there are just small signs of phylloxera and the yields are less than 20 hectoliter per hectare. Of all Chardonnays in the line up from Lioco, this is the most astringent and mineral driven one, the most Chablis like if one should compare to the French wines (which normally if a quite stupid and meaningless idea, yet common).
   This is an absolute pure expression of Chardonnay, more marked by its birthplace, the cool climate, which results in a cooler and crisp fruit (lemon, green apples) and high acidity and, the poor slate soil, which add a load of minerality and structure to the wine. Although note the same chalky minerality of Chablis wines, it offers a lovely energy that lingers for a minute, and it’s really delicious. Serve it at 12 degrees Celsius, and with some air in the glass (or decanted 20-30 minutes), it will be even more complex.
Drink it 2012-2020

2010 Chardonnay Hanzell Vineyard / 91 p
The famous Hanzell Vineyard was planted to Chardonnay over 50 years ago, and they have never sold grapes to anyone in the past. Of pure interest to find out how a wine from their grapes in the hands of Lioco, with their minimalistic philosophy, would taste like, they decided to sell some grapes to them in 2010. This wine is made from the clones Old Wente, Robert Young and the Hanzell Selection, harvested at 22.7 Brix. Of the trio, this is the most powerful wine and in that sense it is the “grand cru” of them. It offers a rich and slightly nutty, almost toasty nose with a flinty minerality, its medium bodied and very intensive with a rich and creamy texture, but lively acidity and a tickling minerality. With its 13.4 percent alcohol, it’s quite Burgundian in its structure. It’s a very good wine, that opens up just lovely with decanting, just lika the wines from Burgundy.
Drink it 2012-2016

No oak please!

Chardonnay is by far the most popular white wine in California, so it’s no surprise that it’s the most widely planted green grape variety in the state. However, it wasn’t in the past – few grape growers planted this variety in the 1960s, and those who did, were recommended not to. The change came in the 1970s, and even more in the 1980s, when Chardonnay took its first steps to its present glory. Over the years, the oak fermented wine from Chardonnay had become the most typical California white wine. Also, the style changed into something very different from what was found in the rest of the world from this classic variety. The American winemakers had finally defined their own style for the beloved Chardonnay. The wines were now riper (most of them were often harvested at high Brix levels), richer and seasoned with sweetish and toasted oak. At first, everybody seemed to like them, and sales skyrocketed.
In the early 90s, a change came – a movement known as ABC, Anything But Chardonnay, came. More and more, consumers had enough of the sweetish, overly ripe and rich, and oaky chardonnays. In Australia some winemakers started to ferment Chardonnay in stainless steel tanks and labeled the wines as “Unoaked Chardonnay”, a style that over the years gained popularity. In the mid 90s, dry and crisp wines of aromatic grape varieties such as Riesling, Grüner Veltliner and Albariño came in fashion just because they were crisp and always unoaked. More than the ABC movement, this new trend “forced” winemakers of Chardonnay to change their philosophies.
Since then, I’ve seen this change at almost all wineries I have visited. In a long term perspective, vineyards have been planted in cooler areas than in the past to get grapes of this new, more elegant quality. But equally important, grapes are now harvested at lower Brix to retain a fresh natural acidity (and avoid acidification), to get lower alcohol levels, keep more bright fruit flavors and more floral notes, and to give an overall better balance. In the wine cellars, some winemakers started to work with cold soak to extract more aromatic compounds from the grape skins, but more important, the use of vessels for fermentation changed dramatically.
From using one hundred percent oak, and a high proportion of that would be new oak, winemakers moved into more neutral oak (one to five year old barrels) and larger barrels, or even into stainless steel tanks, smaller steel drums or cement eggs. At first, this was only done for wines in moderate price levels, but in the early 2000s, more and more high end unoaked chardonnays (20 dollars, and above) were introduced on the market. At Melville Estate in Santa Rita Hills, winemaker Greg Brewer started to make a very crisp Chardonnay Cuvée Inox, which inspired him to make a series of chardonnays fermented in steel and neutral oak under his own label Diatom. In Russian River Valley, Marimar Torres started to make her Chardonnay Acero, fully fermented in stainless steel. These pioneer wines, and many more with them, are now just part of what is widely seen on the market – fresh, crisp and aromatic chardonnays with no or just little oak.

2008 Chardonnay from Rivino Winery / 88 p
From the 80 hectares Schrader Ranch located between US 101 and Russian River in Redwood Valley in the heartland of Mendocino, Jason McConnell and his wife Susanne Jahnke-McConnell started to make small amount of wine in 2008. The ranch was bought in 1993 by Gordon Jahnke, a law professor from British Columbia in Canada, but he had no intention to make wine. Instead grapes were sold to other wineries, among them Kendall-Jackson. Still around 95 percent of the grapes are sold, but under the stewardship of Jason McConnell, who started to make some wine for fun in 2005, there’s now a tiny production of around 1 300 cases per year.
The grapes, only Dijon clones from Block 2 close to the river, were harvested at 24 Brix, and whole cluster pressed. The juice was then cold settled at 8 degrees Celsius for a few days before it was fermented for almost a month at low temperatures in a small stainless steel tank. There were no malolactic fermentation and no bâtonnage during the ageing, and the acidity feels a bit higher than the 5.6 grams per liter there is. This first vintage is a wonderful effort, it’s totally dry, fresh and ultra pure with notes of brownish-green pears (just like you’ll find in white burgundies), lemon and almonds as well as the steel itself. It's a very attractive wine.
Drink it 2011-2014.

2007 Chardonnay from Roederer Estate / 87 p
No wonder Roederer Estate in the cooler northern part of Anderson Valley is one of the best sparkling producers outside of Champagne. The climate is considered cool by Californian standards, but not as cold as in Champagne, still this wine shows a quite European structure and fruit flavor. Grapes are all estate grown, harvested at low Brix in mid September and then pressed in whole bunches. After débourbage, the juice is transferred into stainless steel tanks (80 percent) and neutral French oak barrels to ferment. The latter fraction goes through malolactic fermentation, the stainless steel one not. Tasted completely blind, one would never put this wine in California – unless you have tasted a Californian wine like this before. It’s more like the wines of Mâconnais in the southern part of Burgundy, well, not totally. It doesn’t have that kind of minerality. There’s not a single note of oak, just that fine texture that the ageing in oak, on lees, results in. It’s delicious, light and fresh, a bit short, but very elegant. The only sad thing is that production is only 200 cases, and that the wine only is sold in the tasting room at Roederer Estate in Anderson Valley. And when you are there, take the opportunity to buy some of their great sparkling wines!
Drink it 2011-2014.

2008 Chardonnay Del Lago from Ceago Vinegarden / 87 p
Ceago Vinegarden is the new home for Jim Fetzer, past president and co-owner of Fezter Vineyards before the family sold it to Browne-Forman. In 2001 he bought a 66 hectare walnut ranch close to Clear Lake in Lake County. Here he cleared land to plant 20.25 hectares of vines and made his first wine (a Cabernet Sauvignon) in 2005. This is Sauvignon Blanc and red wine country, but this wine is proof of the potential of Chardonnay. Grapes are whole cluster pressed, and the juice is the completely fermented in stainless steel tanks, but left on the lees for some months to gain texture. It’s a lovely unoaked chardonnay – very pure, crisp and fresh with notes of lemon (almost sweetish lemons) and Granny Smith, it has that typical steely character, but also some complex notes of almonds that don’t come from oak – it’s either terroir or the effect of the lees. The finish is long, and very elegant.
Drink it 2011-2013.

2006 l'Hiver Syrah from Copain

Not all winemakers are born into their profession. Actually, very few are, and in California they are even harder to find. What most often makes the California winemakers to choose their profession in wine is passion, and to me that’s one of the important cornerstones in quality. Wells Guthrie started his career in wine as a coordinator for the blind tastings at Wine Spectator in 1995, and although his job didn’t include the actual tasting of the wines, he gradually got more and more involved in wine. After two years, he left to go to Europe, where he worked one vintage at Chapoutier in Tain l’Hermitage. There, he learned a lot about viticulture and winemaking. Back in California again, he contacted the winemakers he admired since the wine tasting days at Wine Spectator, among them Mia Klein and Ehren Jordan. It resulted in one vintage with Ehren Jordan at Turley Cellars, and then he was on the hook. The only way to go, was to set up his own wine company, Copain.

2006 l’Hiver Syrah (Copain) / 89-90
At first, I found the nose to be a bit closed, even if it offers a quite intense dark fruit which is quite appealing. But to be honest, it’s not more than that. It’s ripe but not too sweet, more on the fresh side with pure notes of blackberries, and not a single nuance of oak. That’s good. But be patience, after just a few minutes in the glass, notes of violets and licorice, as well as some meaty aromas rises through the fruit and adds a good portion of complexity to the fruit. And now I really like the wine and find it interesting. Of course this sudden transformation from fruit to complexity is due to the youth of the wines. The same effect, but with an even more complex result, will occur with a few years of bottle age. On the palate, the wine is fruit forward and rich, again quite intense and almost slightly sweet at first, but there is a serious structure of silky tannins and fresh acidity to balance the fruit. The spicy note comes with air, and the finish is fresh and fruity, as well as silky and elegant. Drink it over the next 4-6 years.