April Starlight – 24 March, 2009

Organolepticians Number 77

How the seasons roll round! I wrote a song called “April Starlight” in 1977, when I was a tour guide at Mondavi, and my younger daughter was still waking up nights, needing a little snack. Just by sitting up with her for half an hour, in the wonderful silence of a chilly night, on a back street in a small town where there were a thousand times more vines than people, I could ride the turning wheels of eternity! It was a magic time, when I could feel my own heart beating with the slow rhythms of land and sky.

Now here we are in the 25th year of the adventures of Edmunds St. John, and the wheels are picking up steam! I’m glad to say I’m still making wine. In fact, I feel like I’m just learning how, in a way, to make wine that makes sense to me. I’m coming around to the idea that, if wine has an important place in the Grand Scheme of Things, (and our Western mythologies, at least, insist that it does) it’s surely not just for the mere aggrandizement of the mortals who shepherd wine from the ground to the glass, and therefore said wine needn’t be aiming to be thought of as “important.” But it damn sure ought to make us glad to be alive, and these days, that’s as important as it gets.

So! Let us be glad, in three new ways!

2008 HEART OF GOLD

This blend was such a happy surprise the first time out, I felt confident about repeating the approach last year. It was an intuitive hunch when we dumped the Vermentino and Grenache Blanc together into the press in August of ’07. Lookiing at the way the ’08 turned out, I’m beginning to think it’s taking on a life of its own. One might be tempted to think of it as a beating heart of gold.

There’s more Vermentino this time around: 59% as it happens. It’s pale gold in color. The nose reminds me a bit of a Ligurian white (that’s where Vermentino first captured my attention): fresh, a bit floral, and that whisper of crushed rock, and lemon zest. A small, pretty note of fresh mint. Despite a little baby fat, it dances on the tongue, no boubt due to ample acidity. Lip-smacking, from start to finish!

$20.00/ bottle $216.00/cs.

2008 BONE-JOLLY GAMAY NOIR ROSÉ
Rosé needs, above all else, to exude freshness. Interesting about freshness in wines; you can open up a 20 year old red, from a good producer—from Burgundy, or the Southern Rhone, even, occasionally from California, and the freshness might be the first thing that strikes you, because so much time has passed since the wine was harvested. On the other hand, a wine that’s bottled just five months after the grapes were picked carries a freshness that’s all about being brand new. And after the dark, cold stretch between November and April, that burst of freshness from a new rosé carries the spirit of Spring, of renewal, of a fresh start. I don’t think any red grape does fresh as nicely as Gamay; that’s why we decided to make a pink wine from it in the first place!

There’s a trace of blue in this wines’ electric red-pink color. It’s got a really lively, fresh nose of strawberries and a little citrus (blood orange?), and a strong mineral streak. Vibrant in the mouth with great acidity, the pretty Gamay fruit just singing through the finish. What a barbecue season wine this will be!

$15.00/ bottle $162.00/cs.

2006 THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC

Edmunds St. John has had to re-invent itself a few times, now; in an era of frequent and dramatic change, it’s the only way to stay viable, I think. Humans started out as hunter-gatherers, and had to be highly adaptive to the conditions in their environment. I think maybe being able to locate one’s own inner hunter-gatherer is becoming an evolutionary advantage. It doesn’t hurt, either, if you know a little magic.

Speaking of magic, in 2006 I co-fermented Syrah and Grenache from Fenaughty Vineyard in Placerville, did the same with those varieties grown at Eaglepoint Ranch, in the hills East of Ukiah, and with separate lots of Syrah from Wylie and Fenaughty Vineyards, too. Each of these three lots were pretty nice, but I learned a long time ago what kinds of magic can happen if you put the right ingredients together, and after enough time had gone by, and the wines had settled down after malolactics were done, I constructed a blend that seemed impossible to even imagine when the wines were separate. The only way to honor such a mystery is to name the wine for it—so I did!

It’s a really dark wine, appropriately. The nose is fresh, and teases with licorice, dried roses, lavender, pepper, violets. It’s expressive, yet mannerly, on the palate—kind of like a well-trained cellist, practicing. I can’t wait to hear the concert! Flavors are framed by attractive, firm tannins, and a core note of iron. This is a shade above 14 degrees in alcohol, but moves like it’s much lighter. A bottle greatly enjoyed one recent evening with grilled rack of lamb was awfully nice. The rest of same bottle was no less enjoyable, and not a bit diminished, tasting over the succeeding three nights. Subtle magic, the best kind.

$20.00/bottle $216.00/cs.

If you’re tempted by something here be sure to contact me at:

(510) 981-1510, or info@edmundsstjohn.

Before the sun is high

I’m gonna bathe my feet down in that peaceful river;

I may not feel the ages roll,

But that water’s cold

And clear as April starlight…