I Now Pronounce You Stolpman and...

 

Stolpman Vineyard Wines I’m Using to Write About Me

Stolpman Vineyards 2012  Rosé Santa Ynez Valley $16

Stolpman Vineyards 2012 Viognier Santa Ynez Valley $22

Stolpman Vineyards 2010 L’Avion Roussanne Santa Ynez Valley $38

Stolpman Vineyards 2011 Syrah Estate Grown Santa Ynez Valley $30

Stolpman Vineyards 2011 Syrah Originals Santa Ynez Valley $38

Stolpman Vineyards 2011 Angeli Santa Ynez Valley $68

Stolpman Vineyards 2009 Sangiovese Santa Ynez Valley $36
Stolpman Vineyards 2011 La Cuadrilla Santa Ynez Valley $22

Working as a sommelier is more about handling customers and awkward restaurant situations than it is about selecting the wines for the list and successfully selling them. Assembling a couple of hundred wines from the tens of thousands available isn’t really that challenging. However, there’s a reason so many wine lists seem random—they are. Thoughtfully conceived wine lists are rare, and there are lots of reasons for that. In a restaurant that’s been around awhile but is struggling to stay open, the list is often made up of wines from suppliers to whom the restaurant doesn’t owe any money yet. I smell those lists all the time when I’m dining out. Also, these days, it’s often the case that the sommelier takes himself too seriously and sees the list as a way to educate people to his own palate, teach them the wonders of natural wines, of wines from obscure regions, or of wines made from grape varieties that score a lot of points in Scrabble. I’ve often laughed out loud at that sort of pretentious and self-glamorizing wine list. Yet the real challenge of being a sommelier is dealing with the unexpected. An M.S. exam cannot teach any of that.

Richard Thomas, the actor who’s had the “John-Boy from ‘The Waltons’” albatross around his neck forever, was a regular customer of mine. He’s knowledgeable about wine, and always ordered something good with his meal. One night, he was dining with his wife and another couple, and he ordered a bottle of red and a bottle of white for the table. It was an especially busy evening, but I opened his wines promptly, and he asked for an ice bucket for the white. I collared the brand new busboy in the service station and told him, “Will you please put the white wine in an ice bucket for table 152?”

About ten minutes later I was walking near Thomas’ table and I noticed he was waving frantically for my attention. Normally quite pleasant, he could be a handful, so I was a bit nervous. “Yes, Mr. Thomas,” I asked, “what can I do for you?”

“You can pour me some more white wine.”

“Certainly.” But the wine bottle wasn’t in the ice bucket. “Do you need another bottle?” I asked, though I couldn’t imagine they’d killed the first bottle.

And then I noticed.

“Oh no, don’t tell me…” The new busboy, taking my instruction a bit too literally, had put the bucket of ice next to table 152, picked up the expensive bottle of Chardonnay, and, quite seriously and ceremoniously, emptied the rest of the bottle into the ice. I laughed, but no one at the table seemed to think it was funny. Then I walked over to the service station and grabbed an empty wine glass. I set the glass on Thomas’ table, picked up the ice bucket, and, holding back the ice with a napkin in my hand, I poured myself a nice glass of Chardonnay. I swirled it, took a sip, and proclaimed, “It smells like peaches, a bit of pineapple, and an unemployed busboy.” Everyone laughed, and, of course, the wines were on the house that night. And John-Boy didn’t tear me a new one.

I have no idea why Stolpman Vineyards’ wines made me think of that story. Except another thing that happens to sommeliers that we have to deal with diplomatically--the customer who one day says, “You know, I just released my first wine and I’d like you to taste it.” It’s equivalent to a customer saying, “I’ve taken on dentistry as a hobby and I’d like to give you a free root canal.”

Tom Stolpman was a very regular and valued customer at Pacific Dining Car, an attorney with his name on the door at a prestigious law firm in Long Beach. The restaurant was crawling with attorneys. Really didn’t matter how often we sprayed. I had known that Tom had purchased a big hunk of land in Santa Ynez Valley and was growing grapes. He’d been selling his fruit, but it seemed he had started his own label as well. And he wanted me to try the wines, and, “if I liked them,” put them on the wine list. A customer of his stature, it didn’t matter “if I liked them,” they could taste like Paula Deen’s toilet donut and I’d buy them. Luckily, the wines were pretty good (not nearly as good as they are now). Not great, but fine. I have no idea who made those original bottlings, it was pre-Sashi Moorman (maybe Peter Stolpman can chime in here and tell me), but I agreed to serve them by-the-glass, knowing full-well Tom Stolpman’s lawyer colleagues would gladly buy them if only to give him a hard time. And so I believe I was one of the first sommeliers to buy Stolpman wines, if only to have them judged by a jury of his peers.

Peter Stolpman, Tom’s son, offered to send me a selection of Stolpman wines for my enjoyment.  (I just checked the Stolpman website and it seems Peter just got married on July 27^th! Wow, congratulations, Peter! The HoseMaster wishes you and your gorgeous bride health, happiness and boundless good luck. I’m pretty sure my invitation was intercepted by the NSA.) Seems Peter reads my humble blog, likes it (one of my valued eleven readers), and is just reckless enough to take the chance I’ll write about the wines in a favorable light, though that was never part of the deal. So why not? Just looking at the Stolpman name on each bottle triggered an avalanche of memories for me. Well, in my case, maybe mudslide is a better metaphor.

The fun of writing these occasional wine reviews is in seeing and tasting a lineup of wines from a single producer, and having the luxury of sitting with each through a meal. It’s really interesting to see if there are more hits than misses in the winery’s portfolio, taste what their strengths and weaknesses are, get a sense of their house style. I think I know how hard wineries work at their wines, so I try to pay attention to each wine, and to each wine as it relates to the other wines under the same label. After tasting through all the new Stolpman Vineyards wines Peter sent me, I ended up impressed with nearly all of them.

I won’t spend a lot of time talking about the Stolpman 2012 Rosé because it’s rosé. I hate when folks overanalyze rosé. That completely destroys the fun of it. It’s like overanalyzing The 3 Stooges—they’re funny to you, or they’re not. Don’t get all Pauline Kael on me. The Stolpman Rosé, of Grenache and Sangiovese, is delicious, almost savory. With seared Ahi (remember the 3 Stooges bit with the maharajah? “Oh, Maha?” “Aha?” We imitated that a lot as kids), it was quite lovely. It has just what I want out of rosé—it’s clean and refreshing and yummy. I've had a ridiculous number of really lousy California Rosés, most of them stupidly overpriced. So if you love rosé, buy the Stolpman. It's gorgeous.

Are you like me? Do you get scared when you see Viognier on a label of California wine? I always think, “What the hell is this wine going to taste like?” Viognier has run its course as the fashionable wine of sommeliers (What is that white wine now? Grenache Blanc? Ribolla Gialla?), and, while it can be awfully pretty, it seems sort of dead in the water to me--the Natalie Wood of grapes. The Stolpman 2012 Viognier didn’t win me over. It has some nice Viognier varietal character, peach and apricot, but I found the texture rather unappealing, and the finish struck me as slightly, and unappealingly, bitter. That can be Viognier, too, but this wine seemed very disjointed to me. It’s quaffable, but I don’t think it wins Viognier any new friends.

I can still remember the first truly great Roussanne I ever tasted. It ranks as one of my wine (Oh, Maha?) Aha moments. I attended a fancy release luncheon thrown by Chateau Beaucastel for the wine trade, this must have been early ‘90’s. As we arrived for the luncheon, we were handed a glass of white wine, the first release of Beaucastel’s now legendary bottling, their Roussanne “Vieilles Vignes.” I was floored. This wasn’t just the best Roussanne I’d ever tasted, it was one of the best white wines I’d ever tasted. The Roussanne ended up being the talk of the luncheon, overshadowing the amazing Chateauneuf-du-Papes they were pouring, which is no small accomplishment. It’s been a while since I last tasted Beaucastel’s Roussanne “Vieilles Vignes,” but if you ever get the chance, it is worth going out of your way to taste it.

Now, Stolpman 2010 “L’Avion” Roussanne is, after all that, damned good. It’s about as ripe as you can get, yet it has tremendous energy. Roussanne has a tendency to flabbiness (takes one to know one), but the Stolpman, while fleshy and concentrated, never comes off that way. It’s so perfectly Roussanne, honeyed and spicy, and it has wonderful length. I always think of Marsanne as a superior variety (for no apparent reason), but the “L’Avion” is superb, and a fine example of Roussanne, of how wonderful a wine it can make if handled properly. This wine has precision and energy. How does one define “energy” in wine? To me, it’s a quality of persistence on the palate, the brightness of the fruit reappearing with every sip, the vividness of the flavors lingering long after you’ve swallowed, a feeling that the wine isn’t just laying there like a bad date. Really terrific Roussanne.

California Sangiovese may be the red Viognier. I’d hate to think that anyone forms an impression of either of those two varieties based solely on wines from California. Fine examples do exist, I’m thinking Alban Viognier and Noceto Sangiovese (and the tiny production Villa Ragazzi Sangiovese), but they are fewer and farther between than the teeth of a crack addict. The Stolpman 2009 Sangiovese would have fooled me in a blind tasting, or a bland tasting, for that matter. It certainly didn’t remind me of Sangiovese. It came off as overblown, and seemed very manipulated, like a Real Housewives reality show. I wanted to like the wine, but, while it might be a nice red wine, it didn’t ring the Sangiovese bell for me. In a weird way, it seemed like an Italian wine trying to be more like a California wine, and failing. Yeah, I know, I don’t know what that means either. In the case of this wine, I think it’s about personal preference. I suspect others will like this Sangiovese far more than I did.


The Stolpman 2011 La Cuadrilla is a wine you should buy for a number of reasons, not the least of which

And a cool label, too!

is it's delicious. Better yet, profits from the wine go to the vineyard workers at Stolpman as their year end bonus, an idea I love, and a wonderfully classy gesture on the part of the Stolpmans. The blend is Sangiovese, Syrah and a splash of Grenache, and it drinks like a cross between Cotes du Rhone and a simple Italian red quaffer, a little Sangiovese from Umbria perhaps. It has the nice dried cherry character of Sangiovese, and lots of pretty herbal notes as well, lavender and sage, almost that garrigue quality you find in the Cotes du Rhone. Very bright and very fresh, it's lighthearted wine, one you just want to sit around and drink. And for a measly $22! There's just no reason not to drink a wine like this. And, for you liberals out there, a great way to feel better about yourself!

Peter sent me three different Syrahs under the Stolpman label, and I was impressed with each of them. The wines are all from the 2011 vintage, the kind of cool vintage that makes for the most interesting Syrah from Santa Ynez Valley, I think. When I was drinking the 2011 Stolpman Syrah Estate Grown I kept thinking, “What a nice bottle of Syrah.” It has lots of flavor interest, is keenly layered, and tastes like Syrah. I wish I thought that of more bottles of Syrah I taste. I very much liked the feel of the tannins in this wine. I wish I understood more about how tannins are structured in fine wines, how the kind of fine tannins in this bottle is achieved. It adds grace to the wine, which drinks very nicely now, but certainly promises to be much better in a year or two, and then age quite nicely.

But as good and as delightful as the Estate Grown is, the Stolpman 2011 Syrah Originals is a big step up. Made from the oldest vines on the Stolpman Estate, this wine shows the wonderful effect on Syrah in such a cool vintage from such a normally warm place. There’s a freshness here to the blackberry and white pepper fruit that makes your mouth water. It’s juicy, and it enlivens your palate. Absolutely classic Syrah, one that doesn’t try too hard, has pinpoint balance, and never wanders into jamminess. If I measured success by how fast I drank the bottle, here’s the winner. It’s funny, but even after seven years absent from the sommelier game, I often ask myself the question, “Would I buy this wine for my wine list?” Which is more pathetic than relevant. But the answer is, yes, unquestionably.

Finally, and don’t I make my wine reviews an ordeal, there is the breathtaking Stolpman 2011 Angeli. This is great wine, a description I use only rarely. I, somehow, had the sense to decant it, and even as I was pouring it into the decanter I was enamored of it. It is beautifully measured, spicy with underpinnings of herbs (a bit of whole cluster fermentation, I would guess), great breadth and depth, expansive and very elegant. It just drinks like everything went right in its production, from the acidity the vintage delivered, to the richness of the fruit, the graceful use of oak, and the talent of the winemaker. But you don’t think that when you drink it. You just think, yeah, this is really good. The finish, as with any great wine, is electrifying. You could take a sip, reread this ridiculously longwinded post, and still be able to taste it. If you love Syrah, you should spring for the 2011 Angeli. It’s worth every penny. 

STOLPMAN VINEYARDS