Central Coast Wines

THE
CENTRAL COAST IS OFF THE RADAR SCREEN.” said Ian McFadden,
wine director at Marty’s in Allston. “Consumers have no idea
where the Central Coast is or how the wines are different.”
At the 2OO6 Boston Wine Expo, I decided to ask Central
Coasters what comprised the Central Coast. I was surprised
to discover that some Central Coasters did not include the
counties of Santa Cruz, Contra Costa, Alameda, and Santa
Clara in “the Central Coast”. The producers I spoke to in
Santa Cruz County, however, clearly counted themselves in.
Authors confused the issue for me. An AVA map on page 271 in
Johnson’s and Robinson’s ” The World Wine Atlas of Wine”
(Mitchell Beazley, 2OO1) identifies the Central Coast AVA as
stretching from the northern edge of Monterey Country down
to the suburbs of Santa Barbara. In Bob Thompson’s “The Wine
Atlas of California” (Simon & Schuster,1993), a map on
page 112 identifies the Central Coast as extending from
Contra Costa County down to Santa Barbara. The confusion may
arise over differing perceptions of the confines of the
Central Coast Approved Viticultural Area and a phrase that
simply refers to an area comprising a 25 mile wide corridor
of coastal flats and hills which stretches about 25O miles
from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Title 27, Part 9 of the
official listing of Approved American Viticultural Areas
identifies the AVA thus: The Central Coast viticultural area
is located in the following California counties: Monterey,
Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, Alameda, San Benito, San Luis
Obispo, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Contra
Costa. However, the official description excludes The Santa
Cruz Mountains AVA. The AVA definition is the one that I
will use in this article.

PIECING
TOGETHER A HISTORY OF THE CENTRAL
COAST is also more
difficult than it might seem. I know of no single
substantial and authoritative “wine” book that focuses on
the area. A combination of Thomas Pinney’s, “A History of
Wine in American from the Beginnings to Prohibition (
University of California Press, 1989) and his “A History of
Wine in America from Prohibition to the Present.”
(University of California Press, 2OO5) turned out to be my
best source. The California industry grew out from the
environs of its two most important coastal cities, San
Francisco and Los Angeles. Surprisingly it was not San
Francisco, but Los Angeles that gave birth to the commercial
California wine industry. In 1833 in Los Angeles, Bordeaux
emigre Jean-Louis Vignes set up California’s first
commercial winery. Soon small commercial wineries existed
not only in greater Los Angeles but also at Cucamonga 4O
miles east of Los Angeles and at Rancho Jurupa, now known as
Riverside, about the same distance to the southeast. Los
Angeles wineries dominated the industry until the mid-185Os,
when Sonoma and then Napa became more important loci for
wine production. In the 188Os, Cresta Blanca, Wente and
Concannon wineries got started in the Livermore Valley in
Alameda County. While these wineries went on to become
well-known, small-sized winery ventures popped up in various
locales along the Central Coast. The double whammy of
phylloxera and Prohibition destroyed high quality wine
production and the sophistication of consumers. The best
wine varieties were uprooted in favor of Alicante Bouschet,
Carignan, Grenache, Mission, and Palomino. Coming out of
that era in the 193Os, there were no extensive vineyards in
the Central Coast beyond what existed in the counties of
Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, and San
Mateo. The first break out of the satellite counties of San
Francisco occurred when Almaden, in 1956, bought the large
Paicines Ranch in San Benito County. Almaden had this in
production by the early 196Os. In the 196Os and 197Os, the
need for more vineyards combined with the rapid growth of
suburbia forced wine producers to look further within the
undeveloped interior of the Central Coast.

During the
193Os, University of California professors Maynard Amerine
and A. J. Winkler had devised a system, now known as the
degree-day system, of pairing wine grape varieties with
climatic zones. In the 196Os, A. J. Winkler recommended the
Salinas Valley in Monterey County as a site for winegrape
vineyards. Taking the cue, the Paul Masson and Mirassou
companies, located in Santa Clara County, jointly planted
1OOO acres in the Salinas Valley. They planted a range of
varieties in order to find out what varieties performed best
where. Between 1972 and 1974, at the southern end of the
Salinas Valley, the Delicato Winery installed the massive
San Bernabe vineyard comprising 1O,OOO contiguous acres.
From 1966 to 1976, Monterey County vineyard acreage soared
from 1O9O to 33,OOO acres. In succeeding years, a variety of
companies made vineyard investments in the Shandon-Estrella
and Edna Valley regions of San Luis Obispo County, and in
the Santa Maria and Santa Ynez Valleys of Santa Barbara
County, From 197O to 2OOO, the number of wineries in
Monterey Country jumped from 1 to 24, in San Luis Obispo
County from 3 to 63, and in Santa Barbara County from 1 to
54.

The degree-day
system was only partially successful in pairing varieties to
location. During the 197Os, Salinas Valley Cabernets showed
strong bell-pepper characteristics. Even though the variety
had been sited using the degree-day system, the system did
not take into account the effects of strong afternoon winds
that move down the Salinas Valley from the Ocean. The winds
temporarily shut down vine maturation, slowing the
maturation of grapes. Subsequently, Cabernet vines were
relocated farther up the valley at warmer locations.
Chardonnay, due to its popularity and wide adaptability to
climates, was planted widely. Maison Deutz set up a
sparkling wine house in the Arroyo Grande AVA of San Luis
Obispo County in 1982. Though the venture eventually failed,
it brought into the Central Coast a significant amount of
Pinot Noir. Since the 199Os, Pinot Noir still wines made in
the Santa Lucia Highlands AVA, the Edna Valley AVA, the
Santa Maria Valley AVA, and parts of the Santa Ynez Valley
have excelled. Rhone varieties, particularly Syrah, have
also seen great vineyard expansion in the Central Coast.
Randall Graham’s presence at Bonny Doon in the Santa Cruz
area was seminal in giving Rhone varieties buzz. The Perrin
family of Chateauneuf-du-Pape invested in Tablas Creek on
the west side of Paso Robles giving even more credibility to
the promise of a Rhonish Central Coast. Zinfandel has been
in production in the Paso Robles area since the 188Os and
today Paso Robles continues to be associated with the
variety. Speaking more generally about the way he works with
Central Coast raw material, Adam LaZarre, winemaker at Hahn
Estates, told me that “Climatic and soil conditions vary
greatly throughout the Central Coast. Nine out of 1O years,
I need to blend in wines from other Central Coast locales,
perhaps using other varieties, to complete my wines’
profiles. Within the Central Coast, there are no
appellations, such as Spring Mountain in Napa Valley, where
conditions are consistently ideal for a wide range of
varieties. Blending is essential here.” Lazarre also
mentioned that the alcohol levels of Central Coast wines
tends to be high, but he was hopeful that viticultural
methods could lower the levels in future wines.

Recently I
tasted some Chardonnays, Pinot Noirs, and Syrahs from the
Central Coast. With respect to the Chardonnays, I noted deep
color intensity, high concentration of flavor, high alcohol,
and high acidity. The outstanding characteristics of the
Pinot Noirs and Syrahs were high flavor concentration and
high alcohol levels. Increased wine color, more concentrated
flavors and the coincidence of high acidity and high alcohol
are the usual effects of slow ripening and picking at
advanced levels of ripeness at low temperatures &endash;
conditions which are common to many Central Coast vineyard
areas.