California Bountiful Magazine - July/August 2020

Tour participants explore soils and thin grapevines with the help of growers including Steve McIntyre.

Bringing it back to the glass One of the participating sommeliers in last year’s tour, Kenji Makino of Alexander’s Steakhouse in Cupertino, said being in the vineyards and hearing from the SLH winemaking community helped him appreciate each winery’s approach to winegrowing. “Thinning the crop, I saw that they could have kept all the fruit on the vines and hadmore grapes. But they chose to keep only the best on the vine to create better wines,” Makino said. “You can’t make great wine without great grapes.” Vineyard tours gave him a better understanding of the region’s terroir and its effect on the wines, he sa id. Ta st ing semina rs of fered insight s into winemaking styles. “I’ve taken those things into considerationwith food

pairings in my restaurant, or when guiding someone with a recommendation based on the style of wine that they like,” Makino said. Gary Franscioni, founder of ROAR Wines and another third-generation Santa Lucia Highlands farmer, says the tour helps wine specialists and their customers appreciate what it takes to make wine. “We try to cover the whole spectrum, fromgrowing towinemaking,” Franscioni said. “Wework in the vines and we do side-by-side tastings to compare the wines. It’s all an experience.When someone is wearing a jacket in our vineyards at 1 o’clock in July, they really get that this is a cool growing region.”

Jolaine Collins info@californiabountiful.com

MORE ONLINE How does the pedigree of a winegrowing region such as the Santa Lucia Highlands show through its wines? See what sommeliers learned during their 2019 tour of this cool-weather appellation at www.californiabountiful.com.

its label, at least 85 percent of the wine’s grapes must be grown in that AVA. For county names, that proportion is 75%. • Napa Valley was California’s first AVA, established in 1981. • If a wine’s label lists California or a California AVA as its origin, it means 100% of the grapes were grown in the Golden State. • Farmers grow grapes in nearly every California county. California produces about 80% of the nation’s wine and is the fourth-largest wine producer in the world.

Every California wine label lists the geographic origin, or appellation, where the wine’s grapes were grown. Knowing which appellations you prefer for the varietals you enjoy will help guide you through your wine adventures. • In California, the geographic origins of winegrapes are either identified by county or other political boundaries, or by federally recognized growing regions called American Viticultural Areas, or AVAs. • California has 139 AVAs—each with a distinct, grape- growing pedigree that delineates it from other AVAs. • For a wine to display the name of an AVA on

Source: Wine Institute

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