Robert Sinskey Vineyards

King of the Hill... With Pinot Blanc, Less is More!

I’m thrilled that we’re finally getting over the ‘mine is bigger than yours’ syndrome. It started several years back as a few sommeliers quietly came out against overdone wines. Then, the tipping point came with the second most infamous onscreen wine moment when Miles critiqued a high alcohol, overdone Pinot. Now, we have achieved critical mass as an outcry against overdone wines reaches mob-like proportions with a chorus of newspaper articles exposing winemakers who have reversed course and changed their style. What’s the buzz? It would seem that less buzz is the buzz! New World winemakers are reinventing their image and reengineering their wines to have less kick.

When I read this stuff, all I want to say is: “Hey, look at us! We’ve been quietly making elegant, balanced, understated wines all along...” but no one wants to read an article about understated elegance, that’s a boring story. A winemaker in search of redemption is much more interesting.

We’ve seen it played out over and over again with different varieties during our almost thirty years in wine. First it was Chardonnay that suffered the wrath, leading to the creation of the acronym, “ABC” for “Anything But Chardonnay.” A few years later, Merlot became part of a famous movie epithet, upending its run toward red wine dominance. Then the quirky Zinfandel garnered a reputation as rocket fuel and now Pinot Noir’s elegant image is slowly tarnishing under a blanket of ethyl alcohol.

This keeps occurring because winemakers ignore balance in search of a competitive edge, often in the form of a vineyard technique or a cellar trick, that makes the wine scream, “Look at Me!” And, for a while, critics and consumers do look - until they finally question why these “good” wines hurt with excessive alcohol burn, are sweet when they should be dry, or are just plain unbalanced and don’t work with the food on the table. It is then that those same critics and consumers lash out at a whole category of wine and come looking for the opposite ... something elegant. I like Pinot Blanc because it is off the radar—no one is expecting it to be the next big thing. It plugs away in obscurity, grown in places like Alsace, Nahe, Alto Adige or, in our case, Carneros, where it has earned a reputation as a superlative table wine. It is never going to be king of the hill, it doesn’t even want to be competitive. Instead of braggadocio, Pinot Blanc is happy to be clean and pure, elegant and balanced ... and one of the most flexible culinary wines money can buy.

There is a reason RSV only makes it in half bottles and magnums, because it is a great way start a meal or a phenomenal wine for a party - refreshing, pure, elegant and flexible ... less is more!

They're Back

Maybe they never left. Perhaps it was short sightedness that caused me to overlook the omnipotence of THE DIP.

Last summer, our family spent the latter half of July in Little Compton, Rhode Island. We packed up our whites and reds, along with everything else necessary for a summer sojourn, and headed for the beach.

The first evening, our friends who had summered there for ages told us to bring a couple of bottles down to the beach to watch the sunset. So we packed a couple of magnums of Pinot Blanc, along with some fine local cheddar and joined in. At first it seemed we were premature with our libations. Others were at the beach, but there was nary a bottle or glass in sight. It seemed that the tradition was to take a dip before sunset, towel off and then imbibe. So we sat and watched the various groups bobbing in the swells or swimming around the great rock and waited.

After about an hour, when the sun was halfway to the horizon, people started to appear on the beach with bowls of dip, chips, and crackers. Bowl after bowl arrived borne in the hands of handsomely dressed men, women and children. I was amazed. It was a Dip Happening. There were cheese dips, spinach dips, hummus dips, all kinds of dips. I was dipless, but I had an ace in my pocket… the perfect wine for this plethora of dips—Pinot Blanc. The citrus and floral notes of the wine held court with the many flavored dips. It met them head on and joined them in a wonderful mouth dance. After that evening I went to bed dreaming of the dips I could create to contribute to this time-honored tradition, smiling with satisfaction that the wine was taken care of.

Until the next wine…
— Maria

P.S. I couldn't resist throwing in the cracker recipe. They are divine on a Chip-n-Dip tray or with your favorite cheese.

EAT: Herbed Cucumber Dip

EAT: Smoky Lemony Chickpea Dip

EAT: Caramelized Two Onion Dip with Nigella Seeds

EAT: RSV Farmstead Cheddar & Nigella Seed Crackers

Grow Pinot Blanc well and try not to mess it up in the cellar! RSV grows Pinot Blanc in three CCOF Organic and Demeter Certified Biodynamic Vineyards in Carneros where the cool climate allows slow flavor development while retaining a natural,
refreshing brightness.

The 2010 vintage was slow to start, then ended with a bang, allowing for a long hang time that was finished with enough heat for perfect ripening. Since the heat came late in the season, the grapes reached physiological ripeness without gaining excessive sugar that can lead to elevated alcohol levels. Selective harvesting assured that only the best grapes entered the cellar. The grapes were whole cluster pressed then stainless steel fermented for a clean, elegant and tremendously satisfying wine.

Sheep in the Vineyards?

A successful integrated farm models itself on nature. It finds the right number of animals to balance the resources within a closed-loop, sustainable system. Sheep graze in the winter, birth their lambs in the spring, have their wool sheared before the arrival of the heat of summer and a few grace our table in the fall. It is the cycle of life. The sheep reduce tractor use, enrich the soil, keep us warm with their wool and nurture us with their meat.