A great white adventure – the Roussanne of Stephane Asseo

I’ve written about Stephane Asseo and his adventure of l’Aventure before, and this time I’ll focus on his white, the Roussanne Estate. If Rhône styled reds are well know and more and more popular among consumers as well as growers and producers, the whites counterparts are less known and made in minuscule volumes. There are 1 204 hectares of Viognier planted in California, less than 150 hectares of Roussanne, and just slightly more than 100 hectares in total of Grenache Blanc and Marsanne. The lion share of these whites is planted in the Central Coast, where producers such as Tablas Creek (partly owned by Châteauneuf-du-Pape based Château de Beaucastel), Alban Vineyards and Sine-Qua-Non have played a great part in spreading the knowledge and passion about these whites.
If the American chardonnays are notably different from the burgundian wines, the California white Rhône blends can, and actually often are, relatively similar to the French versions.
There’s only one white wine from the l’Aventure estate in the beautiful Paso Robles west, which is marked by the proximity to the cool Pacific, but also by the warm days. But is i a true white gem of the Paso Robles. At least if you enjoy rich and powerful wines in the style of Alban Vineyards and Sine-Qua-Non. This is another one …

2008 Roussanne Estate / 95 p
There is around 15 percent of Viognier in the Roussanne wine, which is fermented in 15-30 percent new French oak barrels and kept there for six months. Since yields are very low, only 13 hectoliters per hectare, the wine offers a great concentration of ripe but not too sweet yellow fruits like apples, sweet lemons and pineapples. There’s also a lovely honey note as well as a touch of bees wax and licorice, all quite common aromas in Roussanne. It’s full bodied, yet elegant, it’s ripe and lush with a silky texture of glycerol and an almost sweetish fruit, but there’s also enough acidity to balance all that fruit, body and alcohol, which in this wine almost touch 15 percent. Sweet lemons and honey lingers for a while in the lovely aftertaste, that’s completely dry and surprisingly fresh. I prefer to serve it at 12-14 degrees, but thanks to its fine acidity and great balance, it also tastes damn good at 16-18 degrees, just as many northern Rhône whites.
Drink it 2010-2018.

Estate Cuvée 2006 of l'Aventure

It’s really an adventure, and it all started when vigneron Stephan Asseo left Bordeaux and the strict French appellation system, to find a new place to fulfill his dreams of making wines just as he wanted to. He found the right place in the western, cooler parts of Paso Robles. Today, his vineyard covers 24.25 hectares, only 15 kilometers from the cool ocean, with various soil types and exposures. This is a young venture, vineyards were planted in 1998 thru 2004, and the first wines were made in 1998, back then from bought in grapes. Over the ten years, his vineyards have matured, and from 2008 all wines are estate grown.
Bordelaise grape varieties and Rhône ones, made as separate wines or blended together, is the philosophy here. The only white, Roussanne Estate, which includes 15 percent of Viognier, is one of the most impressive ones in that style in California. The rest of the wine list is also very exciting. The top wine, however, is the Estate Cuvée, and that’s what I had tonight.

2006 Estate Cuvée / 96 p
Talking to Stephan Asseo, you realize that this kind of wine was his reason for leaving Bordeaux. This is a blend of 49 percent of Syrah, 37 percent of Cabernet Sauvignon and 14 percent of Petit Verdot, all fermented in small stainless steel tanks, and then kept in all new French oak barrels for 14-16 months. It’s truly a great wine, dark and very dense with high viscosity, good amounts of glycerol and a warm sensation of the alcohol. Yet it is a very well balanced wine – however, thinking about its body and power, I cannot describe how it can be so "elegant" – with a silky, rich and ripe dark fruit with notes of blackberries, cassis, blueberries and plums. Tannins are huge, but I would call them perfectly ripe and therefore very well integrated in the lovely body, and the aftertaste lingers for a minute or two, at least. Oak is of course present with sweet note of vanilla and hints of chocolate, but within a year or two, there will come more complexity out of this wine – so just wait and see. As all wines of this caliber, this is not filtered, so you will see some very fine sediment in it already today. There is no way to get rid of it by decanting, so I guess you have to accept that. And for me, that’s fine. Also, this is Paso Robles and a great producer, so alcohol is of course very high, 15.9 percent, and therefore the wine should not be served at higher temperatures than 18 degrees.
Drink it 2010-2020.