California wine trip a reminder of China links
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It’s been five months since I’ve been back to California. A long stretch for a place I called home for the past 25 years until recently. I’m here to attend the weeklong Master of Wine residential seminar in San Francisco. It’s always nice to catch up with old friends in the program — even more so when new students are coming from China’s mainland these days. An exciting trend.
This time though, I’m most looking forward to my road trip to and from Los Angeles. The route along Highway 1 hugs the Pacific Coast and will allow me to revisit some of my favorite producers. But first, I needed to make a stop further north in Napa Valley.
My first visit brought me to Philip Togni up in the hills of Spring Mountain. It’s an often-overlooked producer but well regarded by locals. This certainly isn’t helped by its discreet signage. In fact, I was hopelessly lost, and very late, trying to make my first tasting appointment many years ago.
It was getting late in the afternoon and the road was icy. So it was quite the relief when I was warmly greeted by Philip ushering me into the winery. Tasting his Cabernet Sauvignon from the barrel, I remarked how easily it could be mistaken for an elegant Margaux. Hearing those words, Philip’s eyes instantly lit up, not only because it was high praise, I suspect, but it gave him the opportunity to recount his time making wine at Château Lascombes. The comparison wasn’t much of a stretch after all.
My next stop took me to Buena Vista in neighboring Sonoma. After driving past giant redwoods on the meandering dirt path, I arrived at California’s oldest winery. The wines were passable; mostly though I wanted to marvel at the original stone cellars built by Chinese laborers starting in the 1850s. It’s a forgotten chapter in the story of California’s wine industry. Those fresh immigrants from southern China were the backbone of the labor force: pruning vines, bottling wines and everything in between. It’s been said viticulture in those early days would have been set back several decades without them.
A century and a half later, Chinese interest in California’s wine industry has taken on a decidedly higher profile. The most well-known has to be Yao Ming’s project in Napa Valley. Yao Family Wines capitalizes on the fame of the former NBA basketball star, but early efforts show the flagship wine can stand on its own in the ultra-premium category.
Competing for the spotlight is the sale of Sloan Estate to a Hong Kong-based conglomerate. That transaction raised more than a few eyebrows in the industry. They represent the larger trend of Chinese investment in Napa and across the state. Those investors are convinced there is an untapped market for the fruit-driven, robust wines of California on the mainland. It’s a vision that’s easy to buy into.
With these thoughts in mind, I left Buena Vista behind — finally driving south along Highway 1. Stopping at a grocery store in Santa Cruz, I noticed all the countless bottles of sweet Moscato and Stella Rosa. I wondered how long it would take the Chinese consumer to discover these liquid candy so popular with American drinkers. With every can of syrupy Wang Lao Ji I see at hotpot restaurants, it seems only a matter of time.
On the last leg of my trip, I arrived in the Santa Barbara wine country. It’s a magical place where the cooling coastal breeze allows Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to slowly ripen so far south. I often detect a signature Oolong tea note in the local Pinots, especially those from the cooler Santa Rita Hills sub-region. Actually, I cut my teeth those early years in my wine studies hanging around local winemakers there. It’s the closet premium wine region to Los Angeles and easily accessible on a weekend.
As I drove past Foley Estate, memories of my first-ever wine tasting awkwardly came back to me. We were inquisitive college students, my then girlfriend and I. We stumbled upon Foley purely by accident. Philistines that we were, neither of us had any knowledge of wine protocol or tasting etiquette. We desperately tried to fit in with the older couple next to us discussing the merits of malolatic fermentation. Sensing our discomfort, the host graciously walked us through each wine with what to her must have been baby talk.
In the end, we left the tasting room with a rosé of Pinot Noir in hand. We were intrigued; it smelled of sweet fruit on the nose, yet finished on the palate dry. It was a pleasant, balmy afternoon that day and we shared the bottle on the vineyard grounds waiting patiently for the sun to set.
I only had two days to run errands and meet with friends in Los Angeles before heading back to San Francisco. The drive back was much faster along Interstate 5. Yet somehow I managed to almost miss my flight. The next morning back in Hong Kong, jetlagged, I wondered if next year I would be better off attending the MW seminar in New Zealand. But before then, there will be many more bottles of wine to be shared with new friends in my new home. And many more columns to write.
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