September 30 2007
California Wine Month comes to a close today, a month of celebration for the contributions that the wine community makes to the state, nationally and internationally.
With all of the success of California wines and the thousands of worthy wine-related stories, I’d be remiss if I didn’t lob my vote for what I think is one of the more deserving California stories for praise and greater consumer awareness.
The good news about being into wine blogging is you get into the jetstream of wine press. Likewise, the bad news is you get into the jetstream of wine press and therefore have more of a 360 degree perspective on what’s working and not working. There just seems to be times where you see efforts that seem to have all the pieces put together, but for whatever reason larger consumer mindshare seems to have proven elusive. Coro Mendocino is a good example of that.
Coro Mendocino is a collaborative effort by Mendo winemakers to create an ultra-premium wine line-up that showcases the heritage and terroir of Mendocino County. Actually, I call it collaborative, but referring to it as a collective is a bit easier because the group of wineries, including Brutocao Cellars, Dunnewood Vineyards, Eaglepoint Ranch, Fetzer Vineyards, Golden Vineyards, Graziano Family Wines, McDowell Valley Vineyards, McNab Ridge Winery, Oracle Oaks Winery, Pacific Star Winery and Parducci Wine are all in it together to make a winery/winemaker/vineyard designate that bears their individual winery/winemaker name.
Started in 2000, the Coro Mendocino project made history as the first U.S. proprietary appellation-specific blend managed by self-imposed winemaking protocol. Similar to Chianti or Chateneauf-du-Pape, the idea, now in its 4th vintage, is to take a group of wineries who are committed to the project to make a proprietary red blend that is predominantly Zinfandel based (in between 40 -70%).
The “Coro” in Coro Mendocino stands for “chorus” in both Italian and Spanish, symbolizing many winemakers singing from the same hymnal, as it were.
The parameters for the blends ensure a level of quality to reward those with the purest intention to express an extremely high-level of quality for the region. For example, and obviously, all grapes must come from Mendocino County and must be made at a Mendo County bonded winery. Other criteria include:
1) Coro blends must be in between 40 – 70% Zinfandel and Zin must be the predominant grape in the blend
2) Blending varietals that can comprise an additional 40% of the blend, but cannot exceed the percentage of Zin include: Carignane, Grenache, Petite Sirah, Syrah, Barbera, Charbono, Dolcetto, Primitivo and Sangiovese
2) An additional “free play” 10% of the blend can be comprised of other varietals from Mendo—including Pinot for which Anderson Valley is known.
3) Ranges for alcohol and acidity are managed against metrics to ensure there’s no individual palate domination and that the wine is food-friendly. For example, the alcohol cap is 16%
4) The wine must be in barrel for at least 12 months and new oak must account for at least 25% of time in barrel, but no more than 75%. Wines must mellow in bottle for 6 months after bottling, as well
5) A panel of five judges, including three participating winemakers, review every blend at least three times and vote to reject wines that don’t meet standards of quality.
6) All bottlings have the same label with customization for each winery name, the winemaker’s signature, bottling specific notes and a listing of the varietals in the blend.
7) Each of the wines are priced at a flat $35 per bottle
Production for Coro Mendocino is limited, creeping up over 3000 cases for the ’04 vintage and varying by winery. The inaugural vintage in ’01, for example, had Fred Nickel from Brutocao making just 70 cases. Limited production is one of the primary appeals to me, as well (aside from being a lover of Zinfandel and all that is esoteric which Mendocino comes by easily).
I think most wine fans can appreciate the law of scarcity and the fact that $35 for a bottle of wine of which there are so few available is pretty interesting.
These wines are not in distribution and according to this quote from a San Francisco Chronicle article from a couple of years ago, Fred Nickel from Brutocao says,
“The low production is intentional,” he says. We want the scarcity to help generate demand from the public and attention from the press. The point of this whole program is perception, not production.”
These wines are only available via the Coro web site and at the individual wineries that produced the wine. So, as an end-cap to California Wine Month, celebrate a uniquely California initiative celebrating California’s grape, Zinfandel, and a well-kept secret that needs to find a larger audience. Did I mention you can do so online, which is healthy for the industry, as well?
The Coro Mendocino web site can be found here.
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