Wine Blogging Wednesday # 55 - North v. South

It's true that you can generalize about North v. South in Northern Hemisphere. It's cooler in the north and warmer in the south. Warmer climates mean riper grapes so a southerly wine will be fuller and fruitier right?

Now this is where wine starts getting its bad reputation for being complicated because now we have to think about microclimates.

Generally speaking, this is the climate of a smaller part of the region at large. (Actually, the correct term is mesoclimate and microclimate is actually whats going on in the canopy and smaller bits of the vineyard. But this is something all of us use incorrectly, just like variety v. varietal.)

The Los Carneros AVA that runs along the southern borders of Sonoma and Napa county is a perfect example of how the south isn't cooler than the north and it has everything to do with topography.

The northern border of Carneros is right where the Sonoma Mountain ridge starts to get taller. These mountains keep the Pacific Ocean breezes and fog from reaching the valley and as the valley heats up, it actually helps the low settling fog at the lowest part of the range to be pulled in across the vineyards of Carneros.

I tasted two different Pinot Noirs at the new urban tasting room in San Francisco, Winery Collective. Bryan indulged Thea and I with a little blind tasting / shell game and my first assumptions were correct.

Both Russian River Valley AVA and Carneros are considered on the cool side of wine growing areas but one wine was full-bodied, slightly more alcoholic and more extracted in its flavors. The second was a little more reserved and just felt like it came from a cooler place.

The Carneros Pinot Noir was the 06 Canihan Family Cellars and the Russian River Valley Pinot Noir was the 06 Stemmler Nugent Vineyard Pinot Noir.

TOURING INFORMATION

Canihan Family Cellars does not list any public tasting room.

Stemmler Nugent Vineyard tasting room directions can be found here.

Save yourself the trouble of driving and see the great new, multi-winery tasting room right in San Francisco at The Cannery: The Winery Collective.