Wine Review

Flora Springs Trilogy, Napa Valley, 2003
Few American enterprises still bother to consider the benefits of long-term planning over short-term profits. Management’s goal, by and large, is to ripen a business for a harvest of equity. Even the wine industry has, to an extent, succumbed to the temptations of the immediate bottom line.

Against this backdrop of high margins and cheap wines, a few independent, family-owned vineyards have upheld the tradition of producing high-quality, small-production wines that express the uniqueness of their place—their terroir.

Such has been the mission of the Komes family of Flora Springs Winery for more than 25 years. The winery has a reputation for producing remarkable Chardonnays. The red wines, too, have grown in stature, beginning with the first release of Trilogy, a Bordeaux-style blend, in 1984. The 2003 vintage ($60), though it contains a larger percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon than past releases, exhibits the vibrancy and character for which this landmark wine is known. An intensely fruity amalgam of cherry and toast greet the nose, giving way to darker essences of blackberry, plum, leathery tobacco and oak.

Flora Springs Winery, 707-963-5711; florasprings.com.

Grgich Hills Estate Fumé Blanc, Napa Valley, 2005
For many, the single most important event in the California wine industry’s regeneration took place 30 years ago in Paris. The now-famous 1976 blind tasting included a selection of the finest French red and white wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy alongside an assortment of California vintages. The judges, all French critics, chose as the winners in both the red and white categories wines they believed were Bordeaux and white Burgundy, respectively. To the great shock of the wine world, both were from Napa Valley.

The chosen white was the 1973 Chateau Montelena Napa Valley Chardonnay, made by Miljenko (“Mike”) Grgich, a Croatian immigrant to California, whose sudden fame as a winemaker prompted him, in 1977, to establish his own label in partnership with Austin Hills of the Hills Bros. coffee company.

Grgich Hills Cellar, as the new winery was named, has continued to produce superb Chardonnays, but its other white wine, Fumé Blanc, deserves equal attention from the wine lover’s palate. A long, cool summer enabled the 2005 vintage of this dry Sauvignon Blanc ($25) to ripen evenly. Grown in the southernmost tip of Napa Valley, near the San Francisco Bay, this crisp, clean white is enticingly acidic with refreshing lemon-lime flavors, hints of tropical fruit and a pleasing sweet, herbal note that puts one in mind of a freshly mown lawn on a summer day.

Grgich Hills Cellar, 800-532-3057; grgich.com.

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