A guest post from John Compisi about Coro Mendocino

To paraphrase the noted philosopher Monty Python, “and now for someone completely different,” instead of “the larch,” I would like to introduce you to John Compisi.

John is a retired Army officer, lives 15 miles from Hopland, tastes and writes about wine. Expect a very different piece, as anything I wrote would have been informed by my experience as an Army non commissioned officer, living 15 miles from Hopland, tasting and writing about wines. Okay, this might be very similar to something I would write, and I have written about Coro Mendocino, Mendocino County’s flagship wine, about a hundred times, but as with all wine, the story of Coro continues to unfold with each new vintage.

John Compisi is the first wine writer invited to join the Coro winemakers for the unique collaborative blind tastings and this, as well as future pieces, by John will chronicle that process.

Coincidentally, I was at this tasting, representing Guinness McFadden, for the day. The experience was wonderful, I knew how it works but being part of it, even once, was illuminating.

Without further rambling, enjoy this guest post by John Compisi, originally published Sunday, January 25, 2015 at Examiner.com:

John Compisi

Sonoma County Food & Wine Examiner

Coro Mendocino (Part I): A Chorus of Wine

Last week, nine Mendocino winemakers rendezvoused at Parducci Cellars in Ukiah for their second consultation in a collaborative process to create the 2013 vintage of Coro Mendocino. This is the first in a series of reports meant to examine the winemakers, the wines as well as the highly defined parameters and meticulous processes they follow to achieve their collaborative and individual objectives. Concurrently, these reports are intended to help you appreciate the unique nature and heritage value that Coro Mendocino represents. Hopefully they will pique your interest and enlighten your understanding of Coro and how it is achieving its goal of producing a variety of small lot signature wines.

The Coro Consortium was created in 2000 to create a strict regional winemaking protocol similar in style and purpose of respected historical European wine regions like Chianti Classico and Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The original group of winemakers chose the name Coro, Latin for Chorus, as they intended these wines to sing in harmony, with each unique voice resulting from a blend of heritage Mendocino varieties with Zinfandel as its underlying melody.

In 2001, when the founding Coro Mendocino winemakers produced their first vintage they understood they had embarked on an important and challenging journey. They wanted to showcase Mendocino’s heritage Zinfandel grapes while producing a collection of very high quality, individually unique blends that are priced and labeled to represent the collaborative nature of this endeavor. Thirteen vintages later that journey continues.

Key to establishing an identifiable wine, vintage after vintage, was to create the specific protocol involved in making, blending, aging, bottling, labeling and pricing their historic joint effort. Over the course of this series the various allowable varieties of grapes and other requirements will be discussed. For now, keep in mind that the baseline is that all grapes in the blend must be 100% Mendocino County grown with a minimum of 40% but no more than 70% Zinfandel to assure that the wine would remain a blend. The remaining percentage can be can include lesser percentages of nine other approved varieties with Mediterranean origins.

Keep in mind that this is a two-and-a-half year cycle from harvest to release. The current release is the 2011 Coro Mendocino. The 2012 Coro will be released in June. The 2013 Coro were harvested in the fall of 2013, fermented as individual varieties, individually aged in barrel for 1 year (minimum) and are now being blended in anticipation of bottling later this summer. The final blend will age in bottle for another year before their release in June 2016.

Prior to the December blending meeting, each winemaker had established their individual first best effort. They followed the prescribed protocol to create their Coro candidate using their knowledge and experience and blending their best Zinfandel with the other accepted varieties. As Mark Beaman, associate Parducci winemaker commented last week, “each vintage is like a Stan Lee comic book with at least one varietal possessing super powers!” Because the grapes in each blend come from different Mendocino vineyards expressing the unique terroir of each, the winemakers challenge is to identify and exploit the grapes with the superpowers and then creating the perfect balance for these special wines.

Last week’s meeting at Parducci Cellars repeated the sequence that had been followed at the first meeting, only this time, the percentages and varieties may have been tweaked in response to the comments from the previous collaboration. The eight (8) candidate blends were brown-bagged into 2 flights of four (4). The blind tasting is an effort to keep the collaboration unbiased as each winemaker does not know which wine is theirs. After tasting each wine, comments were made and recorded by each winemaker. Acidity, fruit, tannin, color and other characteristics were noted with a professional and collegial air for each wine. After all the wines had been evaluated there was an atmosphere of anticipation as each winemaker was anxious to see how their wine had fared. As the wines were ‘revealed’, self deprecating comments were heard, like “I knew that fruit bomb was mine”. The air of camaraderie and fun continued as another round of comments ensued once the wines and winemakers were matched. Serious, passionate, professional and fun perfectly describe last week’s blending event.

The third blending event will take place in February. Curious to see how the winemakers adjust the varieties and percentage to make the 2013 Coro Mendocino the best reflection of the 2013 harvest possible. All with the help of their winemaking collaborators. Stay tuned for the next in the report series.

 

Wine blends, both European and local

John On Wine – Wine blends, both European and local

Originally published in the Ukiah Daily Journal newspaper on Thursday, October 2, 2014

Recently, I received an email from David and Merry Jo Velasquez of Cannon Falls, MN; after visiting the tasting room where I work and finding this wine column, they visited France and suggested a column, “outlining the GSM grape varieties that make Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine so popular, and which winemakers are doing similar blends in Northern CA,” as well as exploring the “French law/custom [that] allows 13 grape varieties to be used in CdP wines…[and] other stringent requirements which were fascinating to learn about.” They also mentioned the “terroir” (the land, climate, the environment grape vines grow in) and sent some terrific photos.

Châteauneuf-du-Pape vineyard

Châteauneuf-du-Pape is a town in the Rhone wine region of southeastern France. Red varieties allowed are Cinsaut, Counoise, Grenache Noir, Mourvèdre, Muscardin, Piquepoul Noir, Syrah, Terret Noir, and Vaccarèse (Brun Argenté). White and pink varieties are Bourboulenc, Clairette Blanche, Clairette Rose, Grenache Blanc, Grenache Gris, Picardan, Piquepoul Blanc, Piquepoul Gris, and Roussanne. The 13 varieties historically mentioned by David and Merry Jo have expanded to 18, as today the Noir (black/red), Gris (grey), and Blanc (white) versions of individual grape varieties are considered separate.

Châteauneuf-du-Pape red grapes reaching maturity – note the rounded stones in the vineyard that the vines fight through

Famed for GSM (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre) Rhone blends, some of my favorite wines tasted have come from Châteauneuf-du-Pape. By far, most of Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines are red, and most use Grenache as the base, or largest element, of their blends. Lighter in body, two things allow for wines of greater intensity:

First, yields are reduced with local laws prohibiting greater than 368 gallons to be produced per acre of fruit. By dropping fruit during the growing season, the remaining fruit receives greater vitality from the vine, and the result is greater flavor. Second, instead of holding the wines in oak barrels, and having the oak overpower the flavors of the grape, much of the wine is held in concrete containers, a neutral container that better protects against oxidation than oak during winemaking. Here, in northern California, there are a number of wineries using Rhone varietals who have purchased concrete ‘eggs’ to make their wine in.

Richly ripe white grapes from Châteauneuf-du-Pape

Blends done right are wines greater than the sum of their parts. Often Cabernet Sauvignon, a big firm wine, will have some Merlot blended in as the Merlot will soften the wine; and the reverse is true, an overly soft Merlot can benefit from the backbone a little Cabernet Sauvignon can offer to the blended wine’s structure.

Just as Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot are often blended together, so too are Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, and Zinfandel and Carignane. There are many ‘classic’ blends, and they are classics because they work, the wines blended are often better than the wines held separate.

In California, as long as there is 75% or more of any single wine grape variety in the wine then that grape variety can be used on the label; in other words, the Zinfandel you buy at the store has at least 75% and up to a full 100% of Zinfandel in the bottle, but might contain some other wine grape varieties – up to 25% in total. There are many local wineries that make stellar blend wines, and do not bother with hitting 75% of any varietal, instead giving their blend wine a fanciful proprietary name like Black Quarto, Atrea Old Soul Red, or Campo de Stella.

In Europe, wines are named for the areas they come from, and a Châteauneuf-du-Pape red wine can be made from any of nine grape varieties and is most often a blend, while a red wine from Bordeaux will be made from a shorter list of grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec and Carménère. Just as Châteauneuf-du-Pape has a protocol, part law and part tradition, for making wine, so too does Bordeaux, and nearly every other geographically identifiable wine area in Europe.

Meritage (rhymes with heritage, it is an American wine, not French, so please do not force a French mispronunciation) is a wine made outside of Bordeaux using the grapes used in Bordeaux, where an individual grape variety does not meet the minimum percentage threshold allowing the wine to receive a grape variety name. Starting as a California only association of blended wines, Meritage wines expanded first to the United States, and then internationally.

In all of the United States, there is only one geographically identifiable area that makes wines from an agreed upon list of grapes, and following an agreed upon production protocol, following the European model, but is by agreement among the participating wineries and not under force of law, and that unique in America area is Mendocino County, and the wines are Coro Mendocino.

A Quintet of Coro Mendocino Wines

Coro is Italian for Chorus and, just as a chorus should be a harmonious blending of voices, Coro wines should be a harmonious blending of grape varieties. Every Coro Mendocino starts with Zinfandel, Mendocino County’s most planted grape, and must contain no less than 40% and no more than 70% Zinfandel. Of note is that there is not enough Zinfandel, 75% minimum, to label the wine as a Zinfandel. The supporting ‘blend’ grapes include Syrah, Petite Sirah, Carignane, Sangiovese, Grenache, Dolcetto, Charbono, Barbera, Primitivo, plus up to 10% “free play” where an individual participating Coro Mendocino winery can allow their signature style to shine through, with an Anderson Valley winery blending in some Pinot Noir or inland Mendocino winery blending in some Cabernet Sauvignon as an example. None of the supporting blend grapes is to exceed the percentage of Zinfandel in the finished wine.

Coro Mendocino wines also adhere to winemaking protocols, with wine chemistry limits and oak and bottle aging spelled out for participants. Perhaps the most unique aspect of the Coro Mendocino program is that each winery puts their wines through a rigorous quality assurance regimen; first the wines are blind tasted several times as barrel samples by all the participating wineries with constructive criticism offered up for each wine in an effort to produce the very best wines possible, and then the wines go through a pass/fail, Coro/No-Coro, blind tasting before they may carry the Coro Mendocino label.

Each Coro within a vintage, winery to winery, is different, just as each Coro within a winery, vintage to vintage, is different, and yet there is a thread that ties all Coro Mendocino wines together, in much the same way that all wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape or Bordeaux are tied together, but with an assurance of quality.

Barra, Brutocao, Clos du Bois, Fetzer, Golden, McFadden, Parducci, and Testa each made a Coro in the most recently released vintage, 2011, and the wines can be tasted and purchased at each individual winery’s tasting room, or all can be purchased at SIP! Mendocino in Hopland. The best of the Coro from each vintage, produced from organically grown grapes, is also available at the Ukiah co-op and on Patrona restaurant’s wine list in Ukiah.