Napa wines are far more complex than thought

I went to a wine seminar last week, thinking that I would learn how to identify a Napa Valley wine with one sip.

Instead, I learned that Napa, the most famous of U.S. wine regions, is virtually impossible to pigeonhole.

The seminar at Wine Merchants Gourmet featured the wines from various Trinchero properties. The Trinchero family goes way back in Napa. It is best-known for Bob Trinchero's invention of white zinfandel, which now sells by the millions under the company's Sutter Home label.

White zinfandel is the wine that wine lovers love to hate, calling it dumbed-down, simplistic and overly sweet. But Tim Hinckley, the district manager for Trinchero who led the seminar, rightly pointed out that white zinfandel and the Trinchero family are responsible for making wine drinkers out of people who never touched the stuff before.

Surprising number of brands

The theory is that after a few months of white zinfandel a person will be ready to move onto the good stuff.

And Trinchero does make good stuff. As Hinckley pointed out, the white zinfandel and other Sutter Home value wines "pay the bills." But Trinchero, one of the largest family-owned wine producers in the country, has 25 other brands. And you would never guess that some of those wines came from the same people who made Sutter Home.

Hinckley brought 12 wines for the seminar: three each of sauvignon blanc, merlot, cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel.

The zinfandel came not just from Napa but also from Amador County, which is farther south and more inland, in the Sierra Nevada.

So the zinfandels didn't provide me a good basis for any revelations about Napa. I also wish we had chardonnays to taste, as chard is the primary white wine of Napa, just as cabernet sauvignon is king of the Napa reds.

A lot of diversity

That left me with nine wines to assess, one varietal wine from each of three wineries: Folie a Deux, Napa Cellars and the single-vineyard reserve wines of the Trinchero label -- sometimes referred to as Trinchero Napa Valley or Trinchero Family Reserve.

The Folie a Deux wines sell in the teens; Napa Cellars run about $20; The Trincheros go from about $22 to $30.

Here are my notes on the wines:

□ Folie a Deux Sauvignon Blanc: Herbal, mineral nose. Unusual garlic or sulphur element noted by another taster. Racy acidity, also a slight bittnernes.

□ Napa Cellars Sauvignon Blanc: Strong tropical nose of candied pineapple. Lush and soft, but still with bracing acidity.

□
Trinchero Mary's Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc: Restrained nose, nice minerality, very good balance. Mellowed with a bit of oak.

□ Folie a Deux Merlot: Earthy, dusty nose. Rustic and tannic, big wine, with plum fruit in the background. Untypical for merlot.

□ Napa Cellars Merlot: Earthy, but with plenty of ripe cherry and plum. Smoother than Folie a Deux, but still a bit tannic and untypical for merlot.

□ Trinchero Chicken Ranch Vineyard Merlot: Earthy but elegant. More restrained with less fruit than Folie a Deux or Napa Cellars. Also smoother, less tannic, not as big a wine, more typical.

□ Folie a Deux Cabernet Sauvignon: Classic cabernet, with telltale bell pepper nose. Chocolate and black fruit flavors, integrated tannin.

□ Napa Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon: Richer, riper black fruit in the nose. Still classic, but headier, richer, more of a fruit bomb than the Folie a Deux.

□ Trinchero Chicken Ranch Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon: Restrained, elegant, not as heavy as either the Folie a Deux or Napa Cellars. Still a decidedly Napa cab, but slightly lighter fruit flavors, some raspberry, less tannin, smooth finish.

(For more information on these and other Trinchero brands, visit www.tfewines.com.)

My first conclusion is that all of the wines are consistent to their brands. Folie a Deux tends to offer bold, almost extreme examples of varietal characteristics. Napa Cellars aims for lush fruit bombs. Trinchero takes a more refined, elegant and old-school approach.

Conclusions about Napa in general were more elusive. The sauvignon blancs showed a tendency to cooler-climate growing. They reminded me more of New Zealand sauvignon blanc than Napa.

The merlots all were bigger and more tannic than the typically soft and fleshy wines most people have had.

Hinckley agreed that the sauvignon blancs and merlots don't announce themselves as Napa wines. For the sauvignon blancs, it's because of the cooler, northerly vineyards. "It allows us to have tremendous total acidity with more citrus -- lemon and lime -- and not the melon or tropical flavors you usually get (in many Napa and California sauvignon blancs)," he said.

For the merlots, it's the soil and great sun exposure of the Rutherford vineyards that produce a big, extracted wine. "I think those stand out now, but a lot of other people are getting interested in making that kind of merlot," Hinckley said.

The cabs were the only ones as a group that reflected a Napa style, though I think the Trinchero cab might even fool a few experts in a blind tasting. Hinckley said that the Napa Cellars wines as a whole probably conform most to what many people consider a Napa style. He added that what people think of Napa is different based on what wines they are drinking.

Hinckley said that garden-variety, less-expensive Napa wines generally don't reveal just how diverse the 30-mile stretch of land is.

Napa has more than 100 soil variations from ash, glass, volcanic rock, river, marine sediments and more. In fact, half of the soils on Earth exist in Napa, according to the Napa Valley Vintners trade group.

Different soils mean different drainage, which affects grape growth. And the topography includes benchlands and mountains as well as the valley floor.

Different topography produces different climates. Napa has three general climate regions, as well as microclimates. It also has the Pacific Ocean's marine influence on precipitation and particularly fog, which can keep vines cool and affect growth and flavor.

When wine drinkers try some of the single-vineyard -- and more expensive -- wines, they begin to realize that Napa can produce a lot of different styles. Napa also is suitable for a wide variety of grape varieties, Hinckley said.

"The rest of us have grown up with Napa chard and cab. Now people are beginning to realize there's some great dry riesling. There are some beautiful sauvignon blancs. As a region it's growing more diverse -- and more interesting."

■ Michael Hastings, the Journal's Food editor, can be contacted by phone at 727-7394, e-mail at mhastings@wsjournal.com, or mail at c/o Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. His most recent columns can be read on our Web site at www.journalnow.com.