The American Grand Cru Debate
California winemakers are (with a few notable exceptions) fairly laid-back. But there's one question, I found, that can provoke even the most mellow of them to a near-feverish state. And it's not "Are you happy with your Parker score?" but "Should California have its own wine classification system?"
It's a question I've been mulling over for a while. After all, California's greatest wineries and vineyards today can rival the best in the world, and a formal system of classification like those employed in Burgundy and Bordeaux could be a good way to herald the fact. And yet to most of the California winemakers I talked to, it was an idea full of controversy—and potential strife.
The two most famous ways of classifying wine are, unsurprisingly, French. (The French have an affinity for regulation that even the Japanese must admire.) Classification by vineyard is the Burgundian model; estate is the model used in Bordeaux. There are other systems, such as the German Prädikat, that rate wine based on the ripeness of the grapes; in general, the riper the grapes, the better the wine. But the French systems are the most renowned. (There aren't many places besides Germany where grape ripeness is as greatly valued or, for that matter, as elusive.)
The estate system of Bordeaux began in the Médoc district with the 1855 classification. For the purpose of the Paris Exhibition, a handful of local wine brokers grouped the region's top estates (61) into five different classes, or growths, in descending order of quality and price. (Oddly, this now legendary classification was meant to be only temporary.) A few years later, in 1861, Burgundy classified its vineyards. Today, the top 33 are grand cru, 570 second-best premier cru, and so on.
The result, in both cases, has been the creation of a sort of vinous shorthand that the world now understands to mean the best in wine. The names of the five Bordeaux first growths—Latour, Lafite-Rothschild, Haut-Brion, Mouton Rothschild and Margaux—are known even by non-oenophiles, as are Burgundy grand cru vineyards like La Tâche and Montrachet. They are names that can bestow a kind of instant validation; that's what classification can do.
And so I've wondered, don't California wines deserve the same treatment? Shouldn't our top wines be every bit as familiar as the best of the French? Serious collectors may know great California producers like Araujo and Sine Qua Non, but less-informed drinkers would have a hard time placing them in the hierarchy of wine, let alone figuring out which vineyards are the equivalent of La Tâche.
But which classification method would be the most accurate and ensure that the greatest California wines are properly recognized? I could make a good argument for rating wines via vineyards; after all, there are many outstanding vineyards throughout the state (To Kalon, Eisele) that have been a consistent source of great wines. But there are also wineries, such as Phelps, that have regularly produced great wines like Insignia from multiple vineyards—a compelling case for classification by estate.
How would the classification, in either case, actually begin? Would it be based on price, or numerical ratings, or some combination of both? And who would the judges be? Government officials, winemakers, critics? Or even wine merchants and brokers, à la Bordeaux? I decided to solicit the opinions of some winemakers and vintners I know.
Jeff Smith, the proprietor of Hourglass, a small, highly regarded winery in Napa, was opposed to classification of any kind. "I have a hard time with the idea of signing over my future to anyone," he said.
But doesn't Smith and everyone else do just that when they submit their wines to critics for review? That's not the same thing, replied Smith. The impact of a review is temporary; a classification is forever. Just look at Bordeaux. Practically every one of those 61 châteaus from that first classification has retained its original ranking. The sole exception is Château Mouton Rothschild, which was promoted from a second growth to a first thanks to some fierce lobbying by the late Baron Philippe de Rothschild. He struggled for some 20 years to get Mouton promoted, then adopted a defiant victory motto when it finally happened, in 1973: "Premier je suis, second je fus, Mouton ne change." ("First I am, second I was. Mouton does not change.")
And yet the Bordeaux system has had an undeniable influence on California: I've heard quite a few vintners refer to their wines as first growths, including Bill Harlan, proprietor of the acclaimed Napa wineries Harlan Estate and Bond. Harlan is frank about his ambitions. "About 25 years ago we wanted to create a first-growth California wine," he said. It might take another 20 years, he conceded, before they know for sure whether they've attained that goal. "The real validation happens with layers and layers of time." (The critics seem convinced he's already there: Harlan has already produced four 100-point wines.) And yet Harlan doesn't desire a formal rating system, saying it runs counter to our country's cherished political beliefs. "It would be almost impossible to create a classification system in a democratic society," he opined.
But is it really our democratic ideals that hold us back or is it some form of insecurity? Naoko Dalla Valle of the lauded Dalla Valle Vineyards in Napa Valley told me that she believed her winery, founded in 1986, hadn't been around long enough to be classified. "California is too young," she said. Mia Klein (Selene Wines, former Dalla Valle winemaker) was more concerned about the inertia that might result from classification. "I think a classification system breaks down over time," she said, meaning that a first growth might not be top-notch year after year, yet it would still retain its ranking, while a second growth might improve but have no way to move up in the system.
Bob Lindquist of Qupé Wine Cellars, a self-avowed traditionalist who "loves all those French rules," was in favor of classification in California, "though I think the judges will need bulletproof cars." But he favored the Burgundian rather than the Bordeaux model. Since Lindquist is famous for producing great Syrahs from one of the best-known vineyards in America, Bien Nacido, for nearly 20 years, his emphasis on vineyards didn't surprise me. The feelings of Bien Nacido's owners, however, did.
Nicholas Miller, whose family first planted Bien Nacido vineyard (now 800-plus acres) in the Santa Maria Valley near Santa Barbara in 1969, didn't think that his vineyard or anyone else's should be classified because he thought this was "a bad deal from a consumer's point of view." Was he worried that prices for wines made from grand cru vineyards would go up, given the Burgundy example? It didn't seem to me that many consumers were complaining; on the contrary, Burgundy sales—not to mention overall quality—especially at the high end have never been better. But Miller admitted that the real reason he was opposed to a formal classification system was that Bien Nacido didn't need it. "We're self-selecting," he said, meaning that he and his family determine who could or could not buy their fruit and taste all Bien Nacido wines every year to ensure that quality remains high.
Andy Beckstoffer, who owns over 1,000 acres of vineyards (including the legendary To Kalon) and sells his fruit to top winemakers such as Paul Hobbs, was in the midst of a historic vineyard registry project when I called. Beckstoffer was not opposed to the idea of a classification. And he had some specific ideas as to how it should work. "A California grand cru vineyard would have to have some age on it. And it would have to be a vineyard that isn't famous just because of the winery," he said, adding that he could think of quite a few appropriate properties just in Napa Valley alone. Would he serve as a judge? (I said nothing about the bulletproof glass.) "Sure," said Beckstoffer, adding, "I think anyone who really cares would want to. And besides, I think it could change the focus of people from numerical scores to vineyard rankings."
But numerical scores seemed to me like a good place to begin, at least initially. They have, after all, been the primary tool of measuring California wine quality to date. Other factors should be considered too: performance history, perhaps even price. But what did the world's most powerful scoremaker, critic (and F&W contributing editor) Robert M. Parker, Jr. think? I had the chance to ask Parker about this over lunch and was surprised to hear he liked the idea of a California classification. And he agreed with Beckstoffer that any classification should be vineyard-based. "I bet there are 100 vineyards up and down the California coast that would qualify as grand cru sites," Parker said, and even rattled off the names of a few: Eisele, To Kalon, Pisoni.
I wondered if, in the meantime, some state or local institution might be addressing the classification issue too. So I decided to give Gladys Horiuchi at the Wine Institute in California a call. Gladys sounded suspicious when I posed the question. Had someone told me the institute was doing such a thing? No one had ever broached the topic with her before, she said. Never? Never, Gladys repeated. There was a moment of silence. Finally Gladys suggested, in the tone of someone who wanted to end a call, "Why don't you call the Napa Valley Vintners? Maybe they're doing something up there."
But Linda Reiff, the executive director of Napa Valley Vintners, seemed equally puzzled by the idea. "No one has ever approached us about a classification," she said. Not even the Napa winemakers who wanted to create a first growth? Reiff paused, as if trying to think of something to say. "We have talked about creating a Super AVA, something more stringent than the current regulations," she finally offered, "although we haven't done anything about it yet." What would a Super AVA do? I wondered. "It would ensure that Napa wine is really made in the Napa Valley."
I thought about everything the winemakers had said, the pros and the cons of each kind of system. I thought about Bill Harlan and his feelings about democracy and free will and how much Americans believe in the power and the importance of the individual even more than they do a particular place. And then it came to me: The perfect classification system of California wine wouldn't be based on estates or vineyards but on the winemakers themselves. It was the winemakers, after all, who had first made California famous. Didn't the truly talented, groundbreaking professionals deserve to be formally recognized by some sort of ranking? The best among them could be designated grand cru. It was, I thought, a brilliant solution. I couldn't wait to call Gladys at the Wine Institute with my news.
Comments? E-mail your thoughts to Lettie Teague at winematters@aexp.com.
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