“Is that a note of melon or is it a hint of Goodyear rubber?”
For the past few decades orange wine has been steadily gaining followers in the world of wine, while also an ever larger stream of dissenters. What is it about a skin contact white that has everyone in such a tizzy? Why is it so controversial to make a wine with white grapes that are treated just like red grapes?
For the uninitiated, red wines typically are fermented along with their skins, and sometimes even left to age with them for a period of a few weeks to even months. The fermenting juice extracts color and flavor from the skins of a red grape, giving the wine its color and a good deal of its tannin. For this reason, red wines generally need a little more time to ‘come around’ – in other words, for the tannins to soften enough to where they are pleasant to drink.
White grapes, on the other hand, are typically pressed as soon as they enter the winery, and the lightly-colored juice then ferments on its own. This world order has existed for thousands of years, in relative harmony, until bad boy orange came along.
“Orange wine has arrived to slap jaded palates around.”
The first modern winemaker associated with the ancient practice of orange was Jose Gravner in Friuli, Italy, who revived the practice of its vinification in the early aughts (God bless the Italians). This wine has now reached cult status – you practically have to give away your first-born child just to get a bottle. More and more wineries across the world have followed suit, and the quality is all over the map.
As a wine buyer for Pico Restaurant I have tasted a good many orange wines, because our customers are requesting it more and more. A good portion of the orange wines I taste are pretty horrid – dirty, acrid, or just plain stinky – but that is to be expected. This is a new style of wine, and winemakers are still figuring it out.
One thing that has struck me about orange wines is that not every grape variety works. There has to be something interesting (and balanced) going on with the skins of those grapes, and all white grapes are not created equal. I have also learned that pick date (determining sugar and acid levels) and style of treatment in the winery are of equal importance. For example, you can’t pick a Sauvignon Blanc at 29 brix and make an orange wine, then age it in new oak for a year – the result would likely be a full assault on the senses.
“The fact that orange wine is challenging—that its appeal is more cerebral and gastronomic than carnal and epicurean—is central to its identity.”
Enter Pinot Gris. A close cousin to Pinot Noir (hence the Pinot first name), it literally means ‘grey Pinot,’ just like Pinot Blanc means “White Pinot’ and Noir ‘dark.’ The Gris seems stuck about half way between being a red grape and a white grape. It’s skins, when ripe, seem almost translucent, like an opal gemstone. The flavors that emanate from those skins, I mused, might be equally mysterious and interesting. Turns out I was correct.
I didn’t do this without help and inspiration. I contacted my old friend Ryan Beauregard of Beauregard Vineyards, who made a Pinot Gris orange a few years back that was fabulous. (If you haven’t had any of Ryan’s wines, but the way, you are blowing it. He is making some of the most incredible wines in California.) Ryan told me the secret for him was to pick early. Well that’s easy, I said, Lane and I always do. After all they called her Low-Pick Lane for a reason. No, he said, I mean earlier. Like 21 brix max.
Hmmmm…. ok.
Hence Lumen Escence was born in the 2019 harvest. We called an early pick of Pinot Gris, at a time when most winemakers are just starting to pick for sparkling wine. We fermented 12 days on the skins, then pressed and barreled it down in neutral oak for seven months. We just bottled it a month ago, and I am proud to say that it is one of the better examples of orange wine I have ever tasted. Meyer lemon zest, grapefruit rind, persimmon, and a slightly saline minerality. Just a tinge of orange funk. Get yourself some and breathe deeply.
NOTE: Lumen Escence is currently available to wine club members ONLY. If there is any Escence left after wine club members place their orders, we will make it available to the general public at $40 per bottle. Don’t want to wait? JOIN THE CLUB
NOTE 2: The above quotes are excerpts from a New Yorker article entitled “How the Orange-Wine Fad Became an Irresistible Assault on Pleasure,” by Troy Patterson. READ IT HERE.
– Will Henry
I’ll never forget the first time I fell in love with Grenache. I was at a fancy restaurant on an otherwise unmemorable date, and I decided to splurge on the tasting menu with wine pairing. The main course came with a glass of red wine, and upon my first sip my taste buds ignited with pure pleasure. What on earth was this wine? It had the light body of Pinot Noir, but clearly was something different. Swirls of fruit wrapped around an earthy core. I summoned the sommelier and proceeded to give him far more attention than my date sitting across the table.
The wine in question was A Tribute to Grace Grenache, from Santa Barbara Highlands Vineyard. I was floored. Outside of Chateau-Neuf-du-Pape, I had never tasted anything quite like it. The sommelier sauntered off, and I joined Grace’s wine club the following day.
Fast forward a few years: my first vintage working side by side with Lane Tanner, and crafting the 2012 Lumen Pinot Noir. I mentioned my experience with Grace Grenache, and the fact that I wanted to make one like it (or at least die trying). Lane explained to me, gently, that she would make anything that I wanted, but that Pinot Noir was the only red wine she would ever take home for herself to enjoy – all other varieties were, in her mind, subpar. (This, of course, says nothing about Lane’s love affair with Champagne, a topic for later discussion).
In 2013 Lane and I made our first SBC Grenache. Despite the grape’s likeness to Pinot Noir in the glass, it behaves completely different in the vineyard and winery. For one, Grenache is late-ripening, and hence needs a hotter climate than Pinot. Secondly, its skins are thick and durable relative to Pinot’s thin skin, and hence requires a bit of extra muscle once it crosses the winery threshold. Lane and I were somewhat unprepared for this second fact.
When harvest time came, the Grenache grapes arrived and went through the de-stemmer. They dropped into the fermentation bins like a ton of ballbearings. There wasn’t a drop of juice visible. Pinot Noir usually breaks apart in the de-stemmer and yields a fair amount of free-run juice, but now we had a whole new challenge – how do you start fermentation from outside a rubber ball? Thankfully I had a pair of surf trunks in the car, which I donned in order to climb into the vats to break up the fruit by foot. In reality it was more of a body slam.
By the end of harvest, Lane had become more attached to Grenache. She loved it more than she expected to, although more like a friend next to her long-time lover Pinot. And once it was in bottle? She took one home to enjoy like a clandestine love.
– Will Henry
Images (clockwise from top left): Grenache berry between my fingers; winemaking legends Lane Tanner and Angela Osborne confer in the vineyards; body slams by the Henry girls, Taylor and Chandler; fresh-picked Grenache from Martian Ranch Vineyard.
LUMEN has officially kicked off the 2019 harvest with an early pick of Pinot Gris from Sierra Madre Vineyard, and Lane has once again donned her magic yellow boot. What seemed to me like a late year for harvest got a chuckle out of Lane. “This is a normal year,” she said, which made me realize that the last six years that we have worked together have been abnormally early. “Newbie,” I thought to myself. While our other grapes are still at least a few weeks out, Lane has once again earned her nickname “Low Pick Lane” by being in the vineyards long before anyone else.
We deliberately picked this lot of Pinot Gris early in order to make an orange wine, following the guidance from one of my favorite fellow winemakers, Ryan Beauregard of Beauregard Vineyards, who has made a stellar Pinot Gris orange wine in years past. And what is orange wine? It is one made from white grapes that are treated like red grapes. In other words, we ferment the juice on the skins, with regular punch-downs, to extract extra tannin and flavor. (White grapes are normally pressed and separated from the juice as soon as they come into the winery.) Many of the orange wines I have tasted as the wine director at Pico Restaurant are pretty funky and weird. Ryan’s wine was an exception – elegant, balanced, full of fruit and minerality – and far more interesting than most rosés.
While the orange wine bubbles away in the fermenter, Lane and I are wandering the vineyards in anticipation of our next pick. We are picking samples of the fruit in many of the vineyards – mostly Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris (as the Grenache varieties are still a long ways off) – and taking the samples back to the winery, where Lane stomps the grapes with her magic yellow boot. Okay, I admit, sometimes I wear the yellow boot, but it doesn’t fit me very well. The boot has been with Lane since her winemaking start in the early 1980’s.
We then test the juice for sugar and acidity and then most importantly, taste it. We base our decision to pick almost completely on the flavor maturity of the juice, always aiming for lower sugar and higher acidity. That makes for more scintillating and age-worthy wines.
This marks the first year that Lane and I are really stepping outside of our normal comfort zone to make an orange wine. There will only be 40 or so cases, and only available to our wine club. So if you want to try it (release date April 15, 2020), sign up today!
[vc_row show_full_width=”1″ padding_setting=”1″ desktop_padding=”no-padding”][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Fickle Nature of Single Vineyard Pinot Noir
The 2015 vintage was more temperamental than a cat in heat. In the Santa Maria Valley, high temperatures and tropical humidity made for a challenging harvest, to say the least. But one little pocket seemed to be hiding its true potential – Pinot Noir grapes of unparalleled grace and complexity – something that Lane and I weren’t to discover until almost a year later.
Presqu’ile Vineyard lies just to the south and east of the city of Santa Maria, along Clark Rd. In the whacky vintage of 2015, the vines got hit by high wind and rain during flowering, which caused a good deal of shatter. Shatter occurs when there is damage to the vine’s flowers, and it greatly reduces the crop size. Grape clusters form erratically and incompletely: a nightmare for grape growers (who get paid by the ton), but not always for winemakers (who like low yields).
Lower yields usually result in wines of greater complexity and concentration of flavor. The reason for this is simple – the vine puts much more of the sun’s energy and the soils minerals into a smaller amount of fruit. When Lane and I first walked our rows at Presqu’ile that August, we were shocked. There was barely any fruit on the vines. We both wondered if we would be making any Presqu’ile Pinot at all.
Harvest came in late August. The Presqu’ile fruit was de-stemmed and placed into open fermentation vats alongside other other Pinot Noir lots from Sierra Madre and Garey. The first sign we saw that this was a different breed of Pinot was in the berry size – the grapes were so small that they looked more like purple peas. Secondly, when we did our punch downs (stirring the fermenting cap of skins in with the juice), the Presqu’ile vats were so thick and viscous that I broke a sweat after my first one. Lane and I both agreed at this point – Presqu’ile Pinot Noir was worth making on it own this year.
I often say that wine is like a baby: you have little idea what it will grow into in its youth and early adulthood. You have a sense of it – good breeding, nice bone structure, good skin – but you never really know until it starts walking and talking. Lane and I tasted the Presqu’ile from barrel more than once, and shockingly the wine seemed rather plain and underwhelming. We started to question whether we should make it a single vineyard wine at all, and were very close to blending it into our Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir last year.
At this point, all I can say is thank goodness we trusted our gut on this one: the 2015 Presqu’ile Vineyard Pinot Noir is now in bottle, and is one of the most glorious wines we have ever crafted. Now almost two years later, it is one to collect and revisit as it matures into a sexy bombshell over the next 20-30 years. And given that we only made 40 some cases of it, there is no time like the present to put it into your cellar – or your mouth! Check out our initial Presqu’ile Pinot offering below.
– Will Henry[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Thoughts on the Wettest of Vintages
The vineyards are flooding. Southern California is currently experiencing what the forecasters are calling “the largest weather event in the last six years.” (Let’s just forget about “Stormageddon” two years ago – too bad they used that one up already). Some of the vineyards in the Santa Maria Valley are currently under water. Many people have been asking me, what does this mean for the grapes? Is all this rain a good thing or a bad thing?
My stock answer is that in February, what is a good thing for the state’s water system is a good thing for all of California agriculture. After six years of drought, the reservoirs and aquifers are in serious need of replenishment, and the soil could use a good soaking, too. Notwithstanding erosion in the vineyards (bad), the vines themselves are all tucked up inside their blankies and asleep for the winter months (good). All this raining and pouring means very little to the old man who’s snoring. Furthermore, it helps cleanse the vineyards of salt, which tends to build up over the dry years.
Rain (and other forms of severe weather) can certainly be bad at other times of year. Once the vines reawaken from their slumber, they are far more susceptible to damage, especially during bud break and flowering. Once the buds emerge, the crop is instantly vulnerable to frost – which can really stunt a vineyard’s growth. Rain or hail can also wreak havoc on a vine’s delicate flowers, and can destroy an entire crop depending on timing or severity. This happens far more often in France than it does here, but we are not out of the woods this year by any means.
For now we will relish every drop that falls from the sky. Pop a cork, pour some Lumen into your glass, and listen to the rain drum against the roof. When it rains, it pours!
– Will Henry
Are Winemakers Magicians?
Years ago I wrote an article for The Surfer’s Path Magazine about my good friend, Oded Shakked, who was then winemaker at J Vineyards. During the interview he commented about how people make such a big deal about winemaking. “Winemakers don’t really deserve all that attention,” he said. “After all, we are only making a beverage.”
I have heard other winemakers make similar proclamations. One told me that successful winemaking is, simply put, not making any mistakes. I took all of these comments with a grain of salt, though, thinking they came from famous people who were just shrugging off the attention.
On the flip side, on trips to France winemakers would wax exultant about their craft, talking about it as though the entire process were infused with winemaker pixie dust. “Winemaking is an art that I have learned through six generations of working in our cellar,” or something along those lines. Oh la la.
What I have discovered after five years of working with Lane Tanner is this: it’s a mixture of both magic and common sense. It is a little pinch of not making mistakes, mixed with a smidgeon of routine, a sprinkle of trial by error, and accented with a dash of pure blind luck. Much of what we do is exactly like what we did last year. The glory of it all is that every year is totally different, and carries with it delicious new surprises – some of which are challenges, and some of which are revelations. The longer I participate in this craft, the more I realize that it is the decisions along the way that define a winemaker’s style. What blocks to choose from, what vineyards, when to pick, how long to cold soak, when to press and barrel down: these are the tiny details that make our wines different than our neighbors, even if they may be using the fruit from the next row over.
With our 2014 vintage now on the market, I can say that we have made some good decisions along the way. Our wines have been scoring high marks with the critics, and are as affordable as ever. Thank goodness for all that common sense, and for that little bit of winemaker pixie dust.
– Will Henry
Looking to taste our wines? Stop by the Pico at the Los Alamos General Store at 458 Bell Street in Los Alamos, CA. Lumen flights are always available at our new wine bar.
Will 2016 be the vintage of the decade?
2016 marks the fifth vintage that I have worked alongside my partner and friend, Lane Tanner. One of the things we love about making wine is that every vintage is different. While some tasks in the winery may seem mundane, the uniqueness of every harvest ensures that the work never gets old. Even Lane, who has been making Pinot Noir for upwards of three decades in this valley, relishes each year’s harvest as though it were her first.
Every now and then a vintage comes along that winemakers describe as having “perfect numbers.” What that means is that the fruit has a perfect balance between acidity and sugar. We measure this in three ways: titratable acidity, pH, and degrees brix. As fruit nears maturity in the vineyard, Lane and I sample the fruit every few days and measure these three things, from which we glean sugar levels (brix), and acidity (pH and TA). We use that information, along with the flavor we taste in the grapes, to make one of the most important decisions we will make all year: when to call the pick. And, muy importante: we won’t call the pick, no matter what the sugar or acid, until the fruit reaches an appropriate complexity of flavor.
Perfect numbers are usually a result of cold nights and warm (not hot) days during the ripening of the fruit. As fruit matures, it’s sugar goes up and its acid goes down. Cold nights keeps the acidity from decreasing too quickly, as does a lack of extreme heat during the day. 2016 seems to have produced the perfect combination of weather patterns in the Santa Maria Valley, yielding fruit that has reached flavor maturity much earlier than normal. What that means is that we are able to pick with lower sugars- and higher acidity – than any harvest I have seen before.
So what does that mean for the final product? The 2016 wines will have impeccable balance, lower alcohol, and a striking acidity. They will also age phenomenally well. Paint by numbers might not be what most people call “real art.” But perfect numbers for Pinot will most certainly be.
Looking to taste our wines? Stop by the Pico at the Los Alamos General Store at 458 Bell Street in Los Alamos, CA. Lumen flights are always available at our new wine bar.
-Will Henry
Thoughts on El Niño and General Lack of Z’s
“I don’t pay the mortgage that I do for rainy weather,” my Irish friend said to me a few days ago. “The drought sits just fine with me.”
And it’s true: the last few winters in Santa Barbara have been the nicest summers I have ever experienced. And with the only worry I currently have being whether or not I can water my lawn, I guess it’s not so bad. People frequently ask me if it is negatively impacting the vineyards, and my answer is generally “no.” Vines in general don’t consume a lot of water relative to other crops. They are drought tolerant, and survive quite well on minimal drip irrigation. Furthermore the vineyards in the Santa Maria Valley draw water from a very healthy network of aquifers, none of which are depleted like many of those in the rest of the state.
Yet this year, I am starting to change my mind. The problem with our succession of warm winters is not so much the lack of rain, but the lack of cold weather. Vines like chilly winters. They go into dormancy in the late fall and like to get a good, solid winter’s sleep. If the temperatures are too high mid-winter, they have a restless sleep, and wake up feeling like we would after less than eight hours. It’s like falling asleep with the lights on.
During the last few springs, bud break has been increasingly early in the season. Vines have been lured out of dormancy far too early due to spiking temps during January and February. This causes the vines to wake up groggy and have a bad day (year). And when it happens for a few days (years) in a row, they get tired and cranky, just like I would. (And since I currently have an infant sharing my bed-space, I can totally relate.) The other potential harm comes in the form of spring frost, to which the young buds are particularly susceptible.
Bud break has come very early again this year, and what it portends for the fruit, we will have to wait and see. Last year it came very early as well, and some people were harvesting Chardonnay in August. That, my friends, is unheard of. We started picking Pinot Noir the first week in August, a record for us. A little dose of cold weather and rain would be a welcome guest at this point.
If this weather pattern persists, we in California will have to start seeking ever-cooler vineyard sites. Thankfully we at Lumen are in one of the coolest zones already – and I don’t just mean our attitudes.
BREAKING NEWS: Lumen tastings are now available at The Los Alamos General Store and Pico restaurant, located at 458 Bell Street in the sleepy town of Los Alamos, CA. Drop in and pay us a visit!
Cheers!
– Will Henry
The Spanish and French have argued for centuries over which side of the border Grenache originates from. In Spain it is known as Garnacha, and is the most widely planted varietal in the country. In France it is Grenache, and is a major blending component of wines from the Southern Rhone, most famously in Chateauneuf-du-Pape. In Italy it is known as Cannonau, and is planted mostly in Sardinia. For whatever reason, we in the new world have sided with France on this one, and call it by its French name, Grenache (Gren-osh). (Although history tends to suggest it did, in fact, originate in Spain). So be it. Grenache is the fifth most commonly planted wine grape world-wide, and for good reason: it produces phenomenal wines with a wide variation of styles and flavor profiles, no matter how you pronounce it.
In California, the varietal has a rich history. Many of the state’s original plantings in the Central Valley were Grenache (but alas, not planted in the right zone and not all that tasty), and today it still occupies over 7,000 acres of vineyard in the Golden State. Where the varietal really seems to shine is the Central Coast. Here the fog-influenced climate – with cool mornings giving way to hot, wind-blown afternoons – provides a perfect zone for producing world-class Grenache wines. And that, my dear friends, is why LUMEN makes it.
We prefer our Grenache as a 100% varietal expression. While in many places it is blended with Syrah or Mourvedre to give it more body and darker color, our experience has taught us that it shines best by itself. Maybe like John Lennon without the Beatles, or Michael Jackson without the Jackson 5, we find that the solo artist makes the purest music. Our first year making Grenache we tried test-blending it with Pinot Noir, and the strange thing was that the Pinot dominated it. So we left it alone. The LUMEN Grenache can now sing its own aria.
The 2014 Lumen Grenache comes from two vineyards in our region: Martian Vineyard in Los Alamos, and Camp 4 in Los Olivos. We make it exactly like we do our Pinot Noir, and the end result is a wine much like Pinot in body, but with a vastly different flavor profile. Our Grenache is fruit-driven, with raspberry and chocolate flavors on the palate, accented by cinnamon and white pepper. We think we are joining the forefront of a new movement that will put Grenache on the map as Santa Barbara’s next best offering to the world of wine.
Grab a hold of our new Grenache offering while it is still in stock, and don’t worry about how to pronounce it! And while you’re at it, grab a few others to boot. Our Newsletter members get a killer deal – 20% off! Just use this code at checkout:
Cheers!
– Will Henry
