Castor Membership October 2022: Said Location and A Singular Tradition…of Blending
Morning sun in the vineyards of Lieu Dit, Santa Ynez Valley.
“Said Location”
Lieu-Dit Chenin Blanc, Santa Ynez Valley, California, USA 2020
Ye olde adage comparing wine and real estate when it comes to the guiding principle of “location, location, location” is a little tired, but it doesn’t make it any less true, and the analogous properties are virtually endless: like neighborhoods, winegrowing regions’ terroir can be completely stunning throughout, or more “block to block” in producing quality grapes. The ebbs and flows of the housing market are the climactic conditions that make each vintage a singular experience for the vigneron. And just like a rental property that is well-maintained by a conscientious tenant for decades can become an overgrown eyesore in the hands of the ensuing disinterested leaseholder, so a vineyard or estate can languish in obscurity for a generation only to be resurrected by the arrival of a person or persons with a vision in their minds and love for the land in their hearts. Sometimes one location serves to define another via inspiration; how many times have we visited the home of a friend and been taken with how they arranged a certain room or outdoor space, resolving to recreate their success not by plagiarizing the particulars but by copying the warmth, the sense of peace that it brought to us, how it made us feel. Out of the endless ways to connect location to wine, this last comparison feels most appropriate in discussing two gentlemen who are lifelong residents of one place but whose creative muse came from another, resulting in a new way to appreciate their homeland-Santa Barbara County natives Eric Railsback and Justin Willett, and their winery whose name stems from a French term literally translating to “said location”-Lieu Dit.
Lieu Dit co-founders Eric Railsback and Justin Willett.
When Eric and Justin first met in Santa Barbara, the former was just finishing college and the latter had begun a career in winemaking (as an assistant at Arcadian Winery) that would eventually lead him to found Tyler Winery (also a Santa Barbara County project that focuses on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in minute quantities). Justin’s philosophy of non-interventionist farming and fermentations with wild yeasts and biodynamically principled practices appealed to Eric’s palate, and the two struck up a friendship that saw them make many trips together in search of-well, things younger guys search for: good wine, good food, good times. With time, they began to zero in on France’s Loire Valley; the sheer variety of grapes employed across the region and varied climates and soils made for a beautiful variety of wines produced, but the more they toured and tasted, the more Railsback and Willett sensed a throughline in Loire Valley wines: balance, elegance and purity of fruit, and manageable ripeness levels and structures that seemed programmed for drinkability. For Justin, who was born and raised in Santa Barbara and received his degree in winemaking from UC-Santa Barbara, he began to see parallels between the Loire and his home turf; minerally, marine-based soils and a cornucopia of microclimates made Santa Barbara County ideally suited to host the traditional Loire Valley grapes, and so in 2011 he and Eric founded Lieu Dit (the term is used in French wine law to describe a vineyard or place that is deemed of sufficient quality to have its name printed on the wine’s label) in order to concentrate on small productions of Sauvignon Blanc, the red Cabernet Franc, and the high-acid, yellow-apple dominant deliciousness of Chenin Blanc.
The Jurassic Park vineyard off of Zaca Station Road is the source for Lieu-Dit’s old-vine chenin blanc fruit.
The Santa Ynez Valley is a study in contrasts; long established but still relatively unknown, with subzones such as the Pinot and Chardonnay-heavy Santa Rita Hills that have become more renowned than Santa Ynez itself. An inexact circle of vineyard land that stretches from the town of Lompoc on Highway 1 in the west to the borders of Los Padres National Forest on the eastern and southern appellation borders, Santa Ynez Valley AVA has some highly commercial producers (Zaca Mesa, Fess Parker, Firestone) but also a deep-rooted history of smaller winemakers and passion projects. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine Jurassic Park vineyard, the source of Lieu-Dit’s old vine Chenin Blanc that makes up part of their limited-production Santa Ynez bottling, existing in a more bourgeois area such as Napa (where my cynicism tells me these amazing 40 year old Chenin Blanc vines would have been uprooted long ago and replaced with even more Cabernet to satisfy a line on some winery’s P+L statement). With vines at up to 1,100 feet in elevation, steep slopes, and intriguing soils of Arnold Series sandstone together with loam, this vineyard of old-vine Chenin planted originally by farmer Jeff Newton in 1982 is a tiny treasure that brings forth characteristics so intrinsic to Chenin Blanc’s success: an intense mineral character, almost saline with its inorganic earth and oceanic influence. This non-fruit element pairs well with the yellow apple and bosc pear fruit of Chenin, always tasting slightly bruised but somehow (in the best examples) never oxidized or baked. Lieu Dit’s youthful release of Chenin Blanc balances this Jurassic Park vineyard-derived juice perfectly with fruit from the Happy Canyon vineyard in the east. A place so off the beaten path that it was a haven for bootleggers during Prohibition (the area’s name derives from this time period, when people would venture out to “get happy”), Happy Canyon is the foil to Jurassic Park: relatively low-lying (300 meters), dry and quite hot, but with some of the most extreme diurnal temperature swings around, routinely topping 100 degrees on summer days but then dropping by 50 or even 60 degrees overnight. Putting these two “said locations” to work together, Justin and Eric have produced a Chenin Blanc example that is eminently drinkable, refreshing but still true to Chenin’s pome fruit profile, and with a ripeness/alcohol level that makes a second glass (or bottle) almost imperative. As we journey forth into all the climactic and culinary delights of autumn, I am grateful for Eric and Justin’s work in bringing us a case study in terroir, marrying the “said locations” of their Loire travels with their Santa Barbara roots; for me, a glass of Lieu Dit is (to beat this metaphor into the ground one last time) “move-in ready”. -D.
Lieu-Dit Chenin Blanc, Santa Ynez Valley, California 2020
Country of Origin: United States
Places and People: Lieu Dit is the product of a friendship: Eric Railsback and Justin Willett met at the outset of Justin’s winemaking career, while Eric was just finishing college. Remaining close and sharing countless wines and frequent trips through France together, Eric and Justin founded Lieu Dit (literally “said location” in French, lieu dit is a term for when vineyards are deemed sufficient quality to be named on a label) in 2011 to focus solely on grapes originally from France’s Loire Valley. The Chenin Blanc in their 2020 is sourced from two vineyards in the Santa Ynez Valley: Happy Canyon vineyard in the subzone of the same name, and Jurassic Park vineyard. The two diametrically opposed vineyards run the gamut in elevation, from 300 feet (Happy Canyon) all the way to 1,100 feet above sea level (Jurassic Park, whose vines are also older at 40 years). The total production for all Lieu Dit’s wines is less than 10,000 cases, and the Chenin Blanc is only a tiny piece of this puzzle, as most of the winery’s output is Sauvignon Blanc.
Soil: The two vineyards also bring a blending of soil types: clay loam (Happy Canyon), and Arnold Series sandy soils laden with limestone at the surface (Jurassic Park).
Grape Varieties: 100% Chenin Blanc.
Winemaking: Organic and Sustainable farming. The Chenin Blanc making up Lieu-Dit’s bottling is fermented in a combination of stainless steel tanks and neutral oak barrels. Only native yeast strains are used in fermentation.
Aging: After harvest and fermentation, the Lieu Dit is aged first through the winter in neutral French oak barrels; in a unique twist, the wines are racked back into stainless steel the following spring prior to release, as Willett believes this emphasizes the freshness and natural acidity of Chenin Blanc.
Flavors and Foods: The Lieu Dit is a fantastic combination of Chenin Blanc varietal box-checking and refreshing, juicy enjoyment. A subtle nose of yellow apple, pineapple, and preserved lemon is infused with mineral, loamy notes from the soils of Jurassic Park vineyard. The yellow/golden delicious apple notes, a trademark of the Chenin grape regardless of location, are present on the palate, but unlike the slightly dessicated nature of these fruits in its Loire Valley counterparts, the Lieu Dit comes across as youthful, fresh, and lively rather than tired and withering. Pleasant secondary notes of rolled oats and sweet cereal are also featured. Chenin’s higher acidity level is evident but balanced with juicy fruit, and the finish is soft, reflective of the medium alcohol content. A fresh salad of mesclun greens and orchard apples would be an outstanding fall accompaniment, but the Lieu Dit could just as easily accompany pork chops with cider or a buttered whitefish.
Service and Cellar: The Lieu Dit is best served at the upper end of the White Wine temp spectrum (I like it approaching 48-50 degrees F, where the grain secondary flavors are most easily found). I think the 2020 is drinking excellently now and meant to be enjoyed in the next 12 months. I’m told by a particular client that the Lieu Dit holds onto its fruit and lasts very well after being opened (3 days in the refrigerator), a fact that I admittedly would never have observed myself due to a complete lack of willpower to let this wine last that long.
Vines and olive groves cling to the hillsides above the Douro River at Quinta Dona Matilde.
A Singular Tradition…Of Blending
Quinta Dona Matilde Douro Tinto, Portugal 2017
“I love blends”. This three-word sentence, when uttered by anyone who isn’t a master painter or about to bake me a cake, often causes convulsions and reverts me back to a time when I would stand unnaturally still with a perplexed look on my face listening to a guest profess their love for a particular wine…which was, in fact not particular at all but wholly vague. “Alright, you love blends…of what?” I would say (actually that’s not what I would say, my choice of words and tone being much more loving than that, which is why I remained employed as a sommelier). “I don’t know…I just love blends!” At this point I would typically suggest a wine from our winelist that included more than one grape variety and excitedly tout its virtues before retiring to the nearest dark room to stare silently at the blackness and wonder where it all went wrong. Ok, so perhaps there’s a little exaggeration happening here, but the point is this: why do many of us blindly prefer wines that are blended mixes of grapes rather than single-varietal examples? Is it just a marketing ploy, a wine-industry buzzword, or is there something more at play? Why are certain grapes always blended together, and why do certain regions almost exclusively produce wines from amalgamations of different varieties? To better understand these probing questions (well, they’re probing to me, anyway), we will consider an area where blending grapes is such a longstanding, prevalent tradition that it is now the singular entity, the law of laws-Portugal’s Douro Valley.
Touriga Nacional…or is it Touriga Franca? Centuries of field blends in the Douro Valley can cause even the hardiest of enologists to wither at the prospect of this varietal guessing game.
I’ve written before about Portugal’s autonomous culture-this is a country that benefited greatly from its seafaring exploration and relative historical stability (its land borders have basically remained unchanged since the 13th century). This has created both enormous cultural lynchpins and cause-and-effect challenges for the nation; while having musical, artistic, and architectural practices that are very unique to the country, sometimes having your own thing for so long hinders your ability to piggyback on the success of similarity, and this is particularly true in the world of wine. For example, here in the United States, where so much of our wine consciousness identifies with grape varieties (we order a glass of cabernet, not a glass of, say, Howell Mountain), this cognitive dissonance has caused wines from Portugal to exist several rungs below other European nations on the ladder of wine consumption here. Thankfully, that trend is changing, as more interest in and acknowledgment of Portugal’s ability to make fine table wines, and not just the fortified sweetness of Port and Madeira, has brought more examples of delicious dry white and red wines to us in the US than ever before. A recent seminar I attended indicated that Portugal wines are the fastest-growing import sector that we have, and with that increase will come the need to understand the native grape varieties of Portugal, and their tradition throughout most of the country of being blended together. Much like Italy, Portugal possesses a staggering array of indigenous grape varieties (over 250!); unlike Italy, very few if any of them sit on the tips of the average wine enthusiast’s tongue. In the northern part of Portugal, east of the city of Porto, the Douro Valley boasts some of the most spectacular and continuously cultivated vineyards in the world. In fact, almost 90 of those 250 native grape varietals are legally able to be used in the production of port wine, the Douro’s (and the country’s) vinous claim to fame. With so many permissible varieties, Douro Valley wine production is steeped in the art of the blend, which historically occurred strictly along farming lines. Whatever was planted in the particular Quinta (estate)’s rows of vines precisely dictated the proportion of the final blend. Even this already-loose method was fraught with complications due to the sheer time for which field blends in the Douro have taken place; centuries of willy-nilly planting and cross-pollination has created a maze of vines in parts of the Douro that would wither the assessment of even the hardiest enologists. In modern viticulture, processes such as compartmentalized grafting (where a vine’s grafting is undergone in stages in a lab environment to properly assess that grape’s specific virtues and what it might contribute to a final blended wine) have allowed the winemakers more freedom to create around each grape’s strengths, which is really the heart of the answer to the “why make blends?” query. In the Douro Valley, the red table wines are now principally created around three grapes: Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, and Touriga Franca. In a land with so many blending options, Touriga Nacional is perhaps what its name implies. The principal red grape in both the Douro and the Dao regions, Touriga Nacional is now recognized as one of Portugal’s finest red grape varieties and is planted everywhere from the northern borders to the Algarve in the extreme south. Dark fruited and armed with floral secondary notes, Touriga Nacional gives the Douro blends its shape and has a textural softness that rounds out edges, adding an all-occasion friendliness. The sweet cherry and inky structure of Tinta Roriz (which most of you will know as Tempranillo, its synonym in Spain, but please spare yourself the blasphemy of calling it that in front of the Portuguese-they have their own synonym for Tinta Roriz in the Alentejo region, where it’s called Aragonez) adds depth to a red blend and is equipped with a solid tannic structure that improves a wine’s ability to age. Touriga Franca, meanwhile, is a staple in Douro Valley wine production (and particularly the fortified port) for its easy cultivation, durability, and higher yields. A slightly more delicate grape than Touriga Nacional or Tinta Roriz, the Touriga Franca provides blackberry compote and a distinctive ruby color that is apparent in the robust shades in the glass of a Douro red blend.
The notoriously difficult to work vines of Quinta Dona Matilde have been documented as high-quality and tough sledding since the eighteenth century.
So, back to those probing questions: why are blends so popular with wine drinkers? I think the answer in the USA lies some in the preponderance of marketing that has been put behind the word; there has been a not-so-subtle attempt by corporate beverage powers to foster the belief that blends somehow produce more complex wines than single varietal bottlings, which can be true in the best examples but ultimately is solved by the better (or certainly simpler) question: is the wine good or not? Blends, to my mind, are best explored in more of a historical or geographical context rather than a blanket appraisal of quality. Did the country or region actually have enough of multiple varieties to produce blended wines? Did climate challenges (Champagne, Bordeaux) or economy (the Rhone Valley, Spain’s Catalunya) impact the necessity for a “whole is better than the sum of its parts” approach to making wines? In the Douro, the answer to both of these questions is a resounding yes, and the ability to assemble wines like a painter mixing so many oils to create his palette of colors is essential to enjoying the dry red wines of this beautiful winegrowing area. A perennial winery favorite throughout my career in DC/VA and one of the most exciting Castor Member wines to yet hit my glass, the 2017 Douro Tinto from Quinta Dona Matilde showcases the varietal traits I list above and then some, proving that for the Douro Valley, the plural has in fact become the singular-D.
Quinta Dona Matilde Douro Tinto 2017
Country of Origin: Portugal
Places and People: Quinta Dona Matilde sits just beyond the village of Peso da Regua, directly on the Douro River in the heart of the Douro Valley DO. Owned by the Barros family since 1927 (save for a brief six month period in 2006 when the family sold the estate only to have immediate regret and buy it back), the Quinta formerly known in the 18th and 19th centuries as “Enxodreio” has been recognized as one of the best terroirs in the Douro since the Marquis de Pombal classified it as such in the 1780s.
Soil: Predominantly Schist.
Grape Varieties: A traditional Douro Valley “field blend”, the Douro Tinto 2017 consists primarily of Touriga Nacional (black fruit, smooth texture), Tinta Roriz (red cherry, tannins structure), and Touriga Franca (black/purple fruit, floral aromatics), with other smaller blending grapes (Tinto Cao, Tinta Francisca) also present.
Winemaking: The grapes for the Dona Matilde are hand-harvested (no small task given the grade of these steep slopes) in 25 kg containers. There is a detailed assortment done prior to the crush, which is done very gently. The wines are fermented under controlled temperature.
Aging: Douro Tinto 2017 is aged for 12 months in a combination of used French oak barrels and stainless steel tanks.
Flavors and Foods: The Dona Matilde Tinto 2017 is a “postcard wine”-one sip and you’ll pull feel like a Douro Valley winemaker has pulled you up a soft chair and sat you on a steep ravine overlooking the river. Blackberry, cassis, red and black currants, and a touch of red fruit (pomegranate) spirit along the alluring palate. A silky smooth textural mouthfeel is present throughout, and the finish is marked with hints of wild herbs (thyme, the licorice of tarragon) and soft spices (chinese five-spice, black peppercorn). The Dona Matilde is a quintessential bistro red, and one could imagine worse fates than marrying a bottle of the Douro blend with a flat-iron steak and au poivre sauce alongside frites with herbed butter. Asian-styled sauces such as hoisin or black bean and garlic would also work wonders (rubbed on bone-in chicken thighs, perhaps?) with the spice notes and viscous dark fruit of the wine.
Service and Cellar: Five years in the bottle and it feels as though 3-5 more are a given; there is still plenty of fruit and more than enough balance in the wine’s acidity to aid cellaring. An incredible value given the price point.