Robert Sinskey Vineyards

Let There Be Blanc...
Uncorked and Unplugged!

I climbed into the back seat of the 1967 Camaro, strategically leaned back between the two deck-mounted speakers and blissfully listened to the full stereo impact of Led Zeppelin II. It was excess to the max - and it was glorious! Though just a 5 watt “Jet Sounds” eight track player… all the good Jimmy Page guitar and John Bonham drums went straight to the middle of my brain and exploded.

In the Seventies and Eighties, excess ruled. My first concert was none other than the Rolling Stones at the Fabulous Forum. I had recently turned 15 and a half and had just gotten my learner’s permit. Who cared that I had nose bleed seats, I was going to see the Stones and I was excited. When those first notes of Keith’s guitar erupted into Brown Sugar, my pelvis vibrated and I, along with the entire audience of the Forum, jumped to our feet in a roar of ecstatic cheers and spontaneous dancing. Mick owned the night as he pranced on hydraulic platforms and straddled a blow-up phallus that spewed confetti into the crowd. I probably shot 10 rolls of film documenting the excess of the evening.

Then there was ELO and the laser lights beaming off the mirrored cello or Emerson, Lake and Palmer with smoke machines and spinning grand pianos or Pink Floyd and the giant flying pigs - but the most excessive and extreme was The Alice Cooper Show with 90,000 of my closest friends and guillotines, blood, snakes, explosions and deafeningly loud music. Damn it was good to be a teenager in the middle of a spectacle that was the 70’s and 80’s.

When I was young, more was more. I loved the excess that was arena rock. It was big, loud and in your face. When I moved to Napa in the mid-80’s I looked at wine in the same way. More was more. Give me a ripe, bold Cabernet Sauvignon aged in 200 percent new oak, yum! How about a barrel fermented, full malolactic Chardonnay? I liked big and bold because it stood out, it seemed different then, like it was a fully outfitted David Bowie glam rocker in a crowd of Buick driving Pat Boone fans.

Something started changing in the 80’s… punk made fun of corporate rock and big shows could no longer sell out. People wanted to see and hear the musician and impromptu “unplugged” shows started popping up. People wanted authentic, they wanted emotion over flash. Even the Stones started doing pop up shows in small clubs.

Wine was about ten to twenty years behind the musical curve toward authenticity. Those big oaky Cabs that I loved when I first arrived in Napa started to seem like hair bands of the 80’s. They were posers and, like overproduced music, they all began to look, sound and taste the same. I wanted something else, something real, something authentic.

The trick to authenticity is to grow it well and not f’ck it up… but growing it well is more than just choosing when to harvest. Selecting the right scion for the place is critical. If you select something that is not optimal for the location then you must mess with it to get it to taste and feel complete. Each variety has a ripening cycle that must match the local climate to be complete. If the climate is too warm for the selected variety, the fruit will sugar ripen before flavor has developed or, if it is too cool, the fruit will not ripen enough. By selecting the right variety, clone and/or selection for the place, it allows you to pick when the flavor is optimum while the sugar is balanced for moderate alcohol.

If it is grown well, it can perform unplugged. Think Pinot Blanc. It will never be the next Led Zeppelin Chardonnay. It was never meant to be. It is more like Neil Young or Ryan Adams. Strip them down to a guitar or piano and a microphone and you will experience one of the most authentic, intimate, elegant and sophisticated live performances. Not much else is needed.

Pinot Blanc is the unplugged act that’s brilliant in its purity but sometimes obscured by the din from more bombastic performers. It gets by on its strength of character. No tricks, no manipulation, just a well crafted wine to make life more enjoyable. Pure fun.

Fragrance and Elegance

RSV’s Pinot Blanc has the subtle, captivating fragrance of melon and pear that slowly releases as the wine swirls in the glass. The freshness and minerality of the Pinot Blanc, backed by a hint of salinity, has a wonderful affinity for the complexity of spices found in Indian Biryani. Break open your spice cabinet and crack open a magnum. Double the recipe for a gathering and don’t be afraid of leftovers of wine or food. They both will taste even more delicious the next day.

Until the Next Wine....
Maria

EAT: Chicken Biryani

When you plant the right scion in the proper spot, you end up with great fruit that requires less in the cellar to make a superlatively delicious wine.

RSV has planted Pinot Blanc in three of their CCOF certified Carneros vineyards. The selections mature slowly in the cool Carneros growing region, developing flavor as they mature in the long season. The fruit is night harvested by hand when it achieves optimal ripeness and allowed a long, cool fermentation on its native yeast in temperature controlled stainless steel tanks. The wine is then allowed to rest on its lees for added complexity and bottled in a small “drink it yourself” starter size of .375ml or the “communal” party size of 1.5L.