Rajat Parr shows his distinctive Sandhi Chardonnays and Domaine de la Côte Pinot Noirs on a rare outing to London.
Rajat Parr was excited himself to have so many of his precious bottles open at the same time.
“We don’t usually open so many,” said the sommelier and ex-restaurant co-owner turned winemaker.
Parr was in London to present the unusual Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs from four single vineyards in the Sta. Rita Hills AVA in Southern California.
While the vineyards are at the same latitude as Tunisia, the wines defy every cliché about Southern California because the climate is entirely governed by the cold Pacific.
It is just north of Santa Barbara that you will find the twin mountain ranges of Purisima and Santa Rosa Hills, “the most clearly delineated transverse ranges, from Alaska to Chile, on the Pacific Coast,” according to the Growers’ Alliance. So you have lots of fog, a cool Winkler Zone but also brilliant sunshine and a long growing season.
“What we have seen,” says Parr, “is that Chardonnay and Pinot Noir like it there.” He mentions the area’s silica-based diatomaceous earth and the fault line between the North American and Pacific plates that give shale, chert, silica and clay soils.
Parr showed wines from two projects he runs with his business partner and fellow winemaker Sashi Moorman: Domaine de la Côte and Sandhi, from four vineyards: Sandhi Chardonnays made from grapes grown in the legendary Sandford & Benedict Vineyard, the first to be planted in the area in the 1970s. The grapes are bought “by a handshake deal,” Parr says.
Then the Sandhi Chardonnay from the Bentrock Vineyard – both these vineyards are north-facing. The Chardonnays unite absolute freshness and chalky, salty texture with incredibly full, almost golden fruit with initial flinty aromas of slight reduction.
Parr says that he and Moorman aim for these: “We like naturally reductive wines, which happens with slow malolactic fermentation.” But he also says that there is very low nitrogen in the vineyard soils and thus in the fermenting juice, especially in Bentrock which, says Parr, “is virgin land” that was never farmed before being planted in 2007 on a silica-clay formation of chert and silex.
Low nitrogen levels in fermenting must can lead to reductive aromas. “There is reduction in Bentrock every year,” he says. The grapes are crushed, pressed, not settled and go straight to fermentation and only receive a light bentonite fining before bottling. “We haven’t got lots of tech equipment. Just a press,” Parr confesses.
Parr hails the unusual Sta. Rita Hills climate; acidity levels are so high that “finished pHs after malolactic fermentation on his Chardonnays are around 3.0 to 3.1. Sometimes total acidity is almost 8g/l.”
Parr tells us that Moorman got calls saying “you will never ripen grapes there” – disparaging these intrepid winemakers from planting their coastal vineyards. Parr references California legends Jim Clendenen of Au Bon Climat and But Williams, one of the original founders of Williams Selyem, as his mentors and friends and clear influences on his style.
As a founding member of the now disbanded In Pursuit Of Balance movement, Parr says: “It was just to show that California does not only make one style of wine.” He clearly knew that he was aiming at finesse, utter drinkability and elegance, regardless of prevailing style.
About his vineyards he says: “If you stand there and look, you just know you are in the right place.”
Moving on to the Pinot Noirs from Domaine de la Côte.
The Pinot Noirs are also from two vineyards: Bloom’s Field and La Côte, both are south-facing and both are planted with massal selections from Calera, Swan and Mount Eden – widely seen as California’s clonal Pinot Noir heritage.
The wines are 100% whole-bunch fermented in concrete vats, not temperature controlled, free from any enzymes and have at most 20% of new oak.
They are beguilingly fragrant: there is white pepper and the herbal savour of rain-wet briar hedges, an amazing acidity structure and silky tannin, coupled with incredibly lush, bright and expressive red cherry and berry fruit.
It is sumptuous generosity held by a taut, deliciously tart and delicate frame and simply heaven for Pinot lovers.
Parr also looks to the future: “The next thing in California is finding identity in place, moving away from brands.”
His wines have a very clear sense of place – they unite the brooding coolness of the Pacific, its luminous sunshine and the daredevil attitude of completely marginal sites. They lead the way.
All wines are distributed by Roberson.
