Reading as a Practice

The Sonoma coast does something to wine that I did not expect when I first came to California. I arrived thinking that California wine was a quantity proposition — big, generous, early-drinking. What I found along the coast was something more restrained, more mineral, more interested in complexity than volume.

I have been following a small producer in the Fort Ross-Seaview appellation for about six years. They make Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from vines planted on steep slopes above the Pacific, in conditions that would be considered marginal in warmer parts of the state. The vines struggle. The fruit that results from that struggle is more interesting than anything grown in comfort.

There is an Italian expression — vite che soffre — the vine that suffers. The idea is that a vine forced to work for its nutrients, to push roots deep into difficult soil, produces smaller clusters of more concentrated, more expressive fruit. It is a principle I find applies well beyond viticulture.

I drove up the coast last autumn with a friend who grows olives further south. We stopped at a pullout above the ocean and opened a bottle in the car because the wind was too strong to stand outside. The wine was cold, which was right for it. The light on the water was doing that particular California thing — all silver and enormous distance. I have been meaning to write about it since then.