2013 Vin Gris de Cigare 750ml 6-Pack
Pink Wine of the Earth
Deliciously dry, pale and utterly complex. Subtle aromas of grapefruit, strawberry, lavender and a rich, creamy texture.
This wine is perhaps the most emblematic of the great sea change that has occurred at Bonny Doon Vineyard since the sell-off/draw-down of the Ginormous Doonamath. This wine is a true Vin Gris, which is to say, made from bespoke grapes (not a by-product of red wine production), harvested at the appropriate ripeness level for its style, and receiving but minimal skin contact. The essential principle here is that less is truly more. The wine does not overwhelm one with fruitybombasticity; it’s charms are seductively subtle. Discreet nose of alpine strawberry, evolving into a refreshing mintiness with additional air and warming. On the palate, a beautiful natural crispness and a great sleek and savory texture, in virtue of the extended lees contact/bâtonnage the wine received postfermentation. Possibly the most elegant and complex Vin Gris de Cigare to date.
Our Vin Gris, a Provençal-styled pink, is a rather pale salmon color, owing to the fact that it is made from the lightest pressing of bespoke grapes, harvested at the appropriate maturity, i.e. not quite as ripe as those picked to produce a red wine. There is a lovely chalky/smoky gunpowder tea aspect to the nose,1 with a suggestion of bergamot, wild strawberry and maybe even a delicate trace of wintergreen. The fragrance is discreet and above all, elegant and draws one to the wine rather than mounts a frontal assault on one’s sensorium. On the palate, the wine has a sleek, salty, savory, mouth-watering aspect and a refreshing acidity. There is a wonderful persistent finish, making this one of the most food-friendly wines conceivable.
Production Notes: 200 cases
Food Pairing Notes: Oysters, scallops, ceviche, Provençal-styled dishes.
Production Notes: 200 cases
Food Pairing Notes: Oysters, scallops, ceviche, Provençal-styled dishes.
While Bonny Doon Vineyard began with the (in retrospect) foolish attempt to replicate Burgundy in California, Randall Grahm realized early on that he would have far more success creating more distinctive and original wines working with Rhône varieties in the Central Coast of California. The key learning here (achieved somewhat accidentally but fortuitously) was that in a warm, Mediterranean climate, it is usually blended wines that are most successful. In 1986 Bonny Doon Vineyard released the inaugural vintage (1984) of Le Cigare Volant, an homage to Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and this continues as the winery’s flagship/starship brand.
Since then, Bonny Doon Vineyard has enjoyed a long history of innovation – the first to truly popularize Rhône grapes in California, to successfully work with cryo-extraction for sundry “Vins de Glacière, the first to utilize microbullage in California, the first to popularize screwcaps for premium wines, and, quite significantly, the first to embrace true transparency in labeling with its ingredient labeling initiative. The upside of all of this activity has brought an extraordinary amount of creativity and research to the California wine scene; the doon-side, as it were, was perhaps an ever so slight inability to focus, to settle doon, if you will, into a single, coherent direction.
Bonny Doon Vineyard grew and grew with some incredibly popular brands (Big House, Cardinal Zin and Pacific Rim) until it became the 28th largest winery in the United Stated. Randall came to the realization – better late than Nevers – that he had found that the company had diverged to a great extent from his original intention of producing soulful, distinctive and original wines, and that while it was amusing to be able to get restaurant reservations almost anywhere (the only real tangible perk he was able to discern from the vast scale of the operation), it was time to take a decisive course correction. With this in mind, he sold off the larger brands (Big House and Cardinal Zin) in 2006 and Pacific Rim in 2010.
In the intervening years, the focus of the winery has been to spend far more time working with vineyards in improving their practices, as well as on making wines with a much lighter touch – using indigenous yeast whenever possible, and more or less eschewing vinous maquillage, (at least not to Tammy Faye Bakker-like levels). Recently, Randall has purchased an extraordinary property in San Juan Bautista, which he calls Popelouchum, (the Mutsun word for “paradise,”) where he is profoundly intent on producing singular wines expressive of place. There are also very grand plans afoot to plant a dry-farmed Estate Cigare vineyard. #staydooned.
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