Wine & Spirits - June 2017 - 31

with someone who wasn't even growing it. Through
importer Kermit Lynch, he and Cornelia St. John
had landed a visit to Domaine Tempier in Bandol.
There, Lulu and Lucien Peyraud insisted on cooking dinner for the newlyweds and putting them up
for the night. Over the meal Edmunds recalls asking his hosts if they'd ever plant white grapes on the
property. Lucien thought about this for a moment,
then replied, "Rolle," and mentioned how much he
admired the rolle-based wines of Château de Bellet,
some hundred miles east along the coast, in the hills
above Nice.
Four years later, in the Cinqueterre, while washing
down seafood with copious amounts of Ligurian vermentino, Edmunds remembered this conversation
and wondered why winemakers in his home state
weren't making wines like this. "It was so light and
expressive," he says. "Not all tarted up the way they
made white wines in California."
In 2005, Edmunds prevailed upon grower Ron
Mansfield to plant vermentino at Wylie Vineyard
in the Sierra Foothills. Mansfield happened to have
some grenache blanc budwood and talked Edmunds
into considering a commitment to that variety as
well. He planted them side by side and, ever since,
Edmunds has cofermented them in his white blend,
Heart of Gold. "The grenache blanc adds a little fat to
the wine," says Edmunds, "countering the leanness
and acidity of the vermentino."
Vermentino handles the dry climate of the Sierra
Foothills so well that Edmunds thinks it might actually perform better in drought conditions. "In the
last four years, we've had the same scenario," he says.
"Low soil moisture, consistent mild temperature; the
vines start pushing ripeness, and as a result we're able
to pick at 19 degrees Brix and get plenty of flavor, low
pH, lovely acidity." The 2016 Heart of Gold is lemony
and pithy, with white blossom scents that provide
length and complexity to the finish.
Vermentino's heat and drought tolerance probably accounts for all the new plantings in Clarksburg,
Yolo County and Lodi, from which winemakers like
Steve Matthiasson (Tendu) and Jim Moore (Uvaggio)
are making vibrant vins de soif-and we're likely to
see more.
But the most intriguing vermentino project in
the state comes from Megan and Ryan Glaab,
the husband-and-wife team behind Ryme Cellars.
Each came to the variety with completely different
notions of what to make with it. Megan wanted a
crisp Corsican or Ligurian style of wine, while Ryan
wanted to try his hand at something that resembled
the Maremma producer Massa Vecchia, which makes
a skin-contact vermentino that he loves. "The only
way to compromise," says Megan, "was to each make
our own."

The two cuvées-His and Hers-both draw on
fruit from a windswept vineyard in Carneros called
Las Brisas, abutting the saltwater of the San Pablo
Bay in a roughly Ligurian fashion (though without
the cliffs). The fruit for each is grown in the same
way and picked on the same day. "We tend to draw
more of the sun-side of the clusters for the 'His' bottling," says Megan, "since we're looking for a little
more phenolic development, though vermentino is
fairly low in phenolics. It has a very peachy floral tone
to it, and in the skin-fermented wine, you want to see
that coming through."
In fact, that tone comes through in both the 2016
Hers and the '15 His (they release His a year later): a
warmth of fruit that marks a parallel between California and the Mediterranean. Beyond this, these wines
diverge wildly. Hers is crisp and citrusy, its tangerine
accents enveloped in a salty tang. His hints at citrus
but adds a brisk cidery note, a mild clutch of tannins
and a satisfying, saturated breadth of flavor.

"Vermentino is fairly
low in phenolics. It
has a very peachy
floral tone to it, and
in the skin-fermented
wine, you want to
see that coming
through."
-Megan Glaab

Picpoul was the last
of the Little Three to
become available to
American growers-
Tablas Creek released
the first cuttings in
2003. A late-ripening
variety, it tends to have
more amplitude in
California than in the
Languedoc's Picpoul
de Pinet AOC, delivering wines with a lush
pineapple core marked
by firm acids, finishing with a spiky brevity. Some producers-
even some who make
picpoul, like Randall Grahm-consider it to be serviceable but somewhat boring. However, Neil Collins
finds that, along with grenache blanc, it's one of the
surprises of the Rhône pantheon. "It has more structure than it's given credit for," he says. "You don't
anticipate that because of Picpoul de Pinet, but it
doesn't feel like a simpleton. It's a wine you really
feel on the palate."
Plantings remain small-less than 50 acres-
but it's remarkable how many bottlings there are.
Tablas Creek's picpoul has been joined by versions
from Bonny Doon, Copain, Broc Cellars and Forlorn
Hope; Gramercy Cellars in Washington State is also
making a single-variety picpoul. And it has, for Chris
Brockway of Broc Cellars, the building blocks for a
promising future on the West Coast. "It ripens slowly,
but it maintains good acid," he says. "It seems like a
grape meant for the California sun." n
WINE & SPIRITS

Megan and Ryan Glabb
of Ryme Cellars

JUNE 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - June 2017