The role of "flying winemakers."

Wines & Vines, June, 1995 by Larry Walker

Now the first of these international-styled wines are being made in California in a partnership between Kerry Vix, general manager and partner at Arciero Winery in Paso Robles, wine industry consultant Robert Nicholson and famed flying winemaker Hugh Ryman. The partnership came together in Chile when Nicholson needed a team of wine-makers to improve wine quality for one of his clients. After that, the partners turned their attention to producing wine in California for the European market.

They produced seven wines from the 1994 vintage that are being sold in England under the Kings Canyon label through Threshers Wine stores. All the wines are priced at under [pounds]5 (the magic price point for thirsty Brits). The first wines in, a Sauvignon blanc and a Chardonnay, were priced at [pounds]3.99 and a white Zinfandel at [pounds]3.69. Later this year, an oaked Chardonnay and Caber-net Sauvignon, a Zinfandel and a Petite Syrah will be shipped.

The wines have been very well received in the UK with leading wine writers such as Joanna Simon, Oz Clark, and Jane MacQuitty giving them high marks. Simon included the Kings Canyon Sauvignon blanc in her Sunday Times Bottles of the Week recommendations. All the writers particularly mentioned the "gooseberry" fruit of the Sauvignon blanc, a style the Brits love (they've made a cult wine of New Zealand's Cloudy Bay Sauvignon blanc) that is less appreciated here in the States.

The white Zinfandel drew high praise from Clark, who made the point that the wine was finished dry. "White Zinfandel," he wrote in the London Daily Telegraph," is usually characterized by being fat, flat and sweetishly pink, which is a pity, because the Zin-fandel grape can make smashing rose. The Kings Canyon version is so pale it is almost white - and it's dry...a zingingly dry wine perfumed with banana and pear and tasting slightly of rather acid nectarines." The clue here is that Europeans don't expect any residual sugar in table wine.

The success of these wines perfectly illustrates a point made again and again at the International Wine Export Seminar put together by Wine Institute in San Francisco in April: California producers need to learn the markets and in some cases at least, make wine especially for a particular market at a particular price point. Everyone else does and makes money doing it.

Nicholson, the principal of International Wine Associates, a group that works in strategic planning, marketing distribution and other wine industry transactions, also mentioned that there are some "stunning" 1995 wines coming up from Chile in the near future.

Be prepared. And keep a sharp lookout for flying winemakers.

Another point made at the WI seminar was that Americans might be too hung up on regional designations and varietal purity. Since we are already dealing with the often difficult Brits, here's what Robert Joseph wrote about the subject in the May issue of WINE Magazine, a leading UK consumer wine publication. "Two of my favorite regional designations are 'California' and 'South East Australia.' The first was pioneered by Fetzer, the Men-docino winery, and is now increasingly found on blends put together for British retailers. It describes wines made from grapes grown all over the state, and could only be bettered by 'North American' or 'West Coast' which could include wines from Washington state, Oregon and California.

"South East Australia looks more specific, until you find a map. The only significant wine-growing bits of the continent it omits are Tasmania and Western Australia. The rest, every vine in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, comes under the South Eastern Australian label allowing skilled blenders to make reliably tasty despite regional climatic hiccups."

What price California wine? The fuss continues over what some are claiming to be inflated prices for California wines, especially new releases of Cabernet Sauvignon. Top California producers such as Caymus, Mondavi, Joseph Phelps, Diamond Creek and a handful of others can claim with justification that their prices are still below that of many French producers and the wines are every bit as good.

One reliable gauge of what a wine is worth is what the customer is willing to pay. Recent results in international wine auctions show California prices holding up well against French wines. At the Christie's auction of April 6 in London, a case of 1988 Opus One, the Mondavi-Rothschild venture, brought [pounds]528 while an '88 Latour fetched [pounds]572. On the London market, 1985 Opus One was selling from [pounds]354 to [pounds]599 a case, compared to '85 Mouton Rothschild at [pounds]575 to [pounds]740 a case. A second growth, Montrose '85, was priced at [pounds]220 to [pounds]241.

Bruce Kaiser of Butterfield & Butterfield, a San Francisco auction house, said prices for California Cabernet were going up, especially for strong brands in the better vintages.

The popular concept of a wine auction being an event where only single bottles of very expensive wines are sold is wide of the mark. Auctions, as Kaiser and others have pointed out, have grown much more important in establishing the international price of wines. Although Bordeaux still makes up about 70% of auction sales, the bulk of sales are wines from the 1980s and both the trade and consumers are buyers.