The array of microclimates within the Santa Cruz Mountains winegrowing region is as nuanced as its fog-cooled slopes and sun-drenched summits. This 480,000-acre appellation famously produces a range of intriguing wines. Rather than delivering a single, unmistakable hallmark, our wines seem to specialize in diversity driven by eclectic terroir.
But as you make the drive inland over any of our mountain passes—Highway 152 from Watsonville to Gilroy, Highway 17 to Los Gatos or Highway 84 from Pescadero to Woodside—the landscape changes in certain predictable ways. The redwoods and ferns of the coast give way to the oak-crowned hills and scrub brush of the mountains’ inland foothills. Inland temperatures display more extremes—hotter in the summer, cooler in the winter—and the humidity drops significantly. The mountains have an innate yin and yang duality. Could there be a corresponding distinction between the wines grown on the two sides of the range?
While there is no single defining flavor signature of wines in the Santa Cruz Mountains American Viticultural Area (AVA), I set out to see if it was possible to identify some unifying characteristics of two major subregions—one inland, one coastal. The answer came with about as much straightforward simplicity as the twistiest, gnarliest mountain back road: sort of.
Almost everyone interviewed for this piece was loathe to make generalizations, but wine consultant Laura Ness graciously provided some traction on the vexing east-west question by calling attention to a grape that responds well, but very differently, to inland and coastal locations.
“The interesting thing for me,” says Ness, “is that syrah is a grape that works reasonably well in both western and east-facing vineyards. Alfaro, Muns, Burrell School, with lots of east-facing acres, and Big Basin, a cooler property—all make award-winning syrahs. I think of syrah as a party animal that enjoys all locations.”
The location of the vineyard can create intriguing variations in the final product. “Coastal vineyard syrah tends to have more floral aromas and bright spice,” she says. “Warm vineyards make a syrah that is more plummy and chocolatey.” And then, just to keep us disoriented, she quickly adds, “You can get those characteristics with longer hang time, and choices of yeasts and oak, in grapes from cooler vineyards.”
So no, it isn’t simple at all.
Running Hot And Cool
Factors that influence the flavor of the ultimate wine involve an almost artistic collaboration between geo-climatic forces—temperature, soil type, harvest time, rootstock, elevation—and the tools of the winemaker’s trade: yeasts, barrel type, irrigation and chemical tinkering.
“That’s what terroir is all about,” says Jim Schultze of Windy Oaks Estates, who makes pinot noirs exclusively from his own vineyards, which are perched at 1,000 feet elevation on west-facing coastal slopes in the mountains near Corralitos.
The one crucial distinction in the AVA, he says, is temperature.
“At the risk of generalizing greatly, I’d say varietals that do well in cooler vineyards tend to be chardonnay, pinot noirs, gewürztraminer, riesling and a few others. Growing those in a cool climate, with a long, slow growing season, gives you complexity as well as the right acid-to-fruit balance.”
Schultze notes that our growing region is located in the same viticultural zone, climate-wise, as “the best parts of Burgundy, with long cool days, slow ripening, and full maturity of stems and seeds in the grape.” The coastal Santa Cruz Mountains pinot noir style is “layered, complex, with a spiciness in the nose,” Schultze says. “Pinot noir likes cool nights, and we drop into the 40s even during the peak growing season.”
Over the hill, though, other grapes reign supreme. “On the eastern side you get very good cabs—Kathryn Kennedy, for instance, as well as zinfandels. Bates Ranch, toward Morgan Hill, also creates fine cabernets.
“Chardonnay is an interesting grape because it can actually produce good wines in the three warmest zones,” he continues. “The warmer zones will produce chardonnay that is buttery, whereas the chardonnays grown in cooler areas are more like white Burgundies, very minerally and without detectable oak.”
Patchwork Apppellation
“Like families with different children, each with their own talents and qualities, so with grapes,” asserts vineyard consultant Prudy Foxx, who grows grapes for award-winning labels such as Soquel, Big Basin, Martin Alfaro and Pleasant Valley Vineyards. “You can love wines grown inland or on fog-cooled coastal slopes—but for different reasons.”
Like children, grapes are ultimately the product of genes and environment, nature and nurture, or in winespeak, clones and terroir. Even identical genes will create different individuals because of the influence of the location and viticulture. Foxx admits that a very good sommelier might be able to identify a wine grown inland versus one made from coastal grapes, but she cautions that in general, wines are more complicated than that.
One factor is the effect heat has on grape skins. Skin, in wine grapes just as in humans, tends to thicken with heat and thin with age. “Skin exerts a huge influence on flavor,” Foxx explains. “The thinner the skin, the more vulnerable the grape to heat, cold, moisture—and pinot generally has a thin skin.” Last September’s “heat event,” she says, “fried the skins and it was hard to hydrate those which had approached optimal ripeness when the heat hit.”
Many grapes are simply grown in the wrong place. “Some vineyards are always shrouded in fog—that’s very challenging to any kind of fruit. Not having enough heat is almost always why fruit does not achieve its potential.”
Though reluctant to generalize, she admits that “west side vineyards can’t produce consistent cabernets.” The operative term here is “consistent,” which, if you’re in business to make money as well as wine, is very important.
“Kathryn Kennedy, inland, where it really bakes, makes fine syrah and cabernet. Ridge is another example,” she notes. “Thomas Fogarty occupies a unique microclimate, with plenty of inland heat and also enough coastal and Bay Area fog to create elegant pinot noirs.”
Still, “grape growing is not a science. It is not quantifiable,” Foxx grins.
Highs and Lows
Nathan Kandler, associate winemaker at Thomas Fogarty in Woodside, is quick to point out that much depends on what you mean by “cool.” Some coastal vineyards, he says, “don’t reach high temperatures, but nonetheless have higher average temperatures than higher elevation sites.” Thomas Fogarty’s Gist Ranch estate vineyard, a 100-acre parcel almost 15 miles inland, offers proof of the difficulty of pinpointing a single defining influence on wines. The property’s 14 acres of vines are planted to grapes including cabernet sauvignon, syrah, chardonnay and pinot gris. High atop a 2,300-foot ridge, the property is affected by the Pacific Ocean. In other words, it’s inland, yet its elevation insures that it is also influenced by maritime cooling.
Matt Oetinger of Fernwood Cellars hastens to underscore the difficulty of applying any simple rule of thumb involving vineyards. “Our vineyard is located on the eastward—inland—side, but faces west,” he says.
“Really what it has to do with is proximity to the summit, because the fog comes up to the ridge and either blows over the top, or settles in to cool things off.
“You’re always battling fog-generated issues, like mildew, but also heat spikes. And within that, in a single vineyard there are notorious hot spots.”
Fernwood’s three vineyards produce radically different wines. Historic Vanumanutagi is all chardonnay, Bates Ranch produces cabernets, and the Redwood Retreat estate vines are planted to many different varietals.
“All of our vineyards are planted on west-facing slopes, but given the changes in the width of the canyon, there can be more sun in the land closer to Gilroy, or much more shade, in Vanu, where we lose the sun by early afternoon. And that keeps the acids up.”
Burgundian Journey
Oetinger offers a “broad stroke” flavor profile of the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA: “We’re a warm version of a cold growing region,” he says. “That means chardonnays with more tropical fruit flavors: pineapple and mango.”
He offers a vivid comparison. Zinfandel grapes produced on vineyards in the Sierra foothills grow “high sugar with not a lot of tannin. Whereas our estate zinfandel is far more tannic and needs aging to give you the full desirable flavor profile. It makes a spicy, rather than jammy, wine.”
He also notes that very low tonnage per acre helps to create Santa Cruz Mountain wines with “more structure and complexity. To generalize, our soil is lean, weather is cool, and there’s a distinct Pacific Ocean influence.”
For many viticulturists, the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA reaches its height in pinot noir. The appellation grows consistently fine pinot grapes, full of enough complexity to make exciting wines.
“SCM wines have a lot going on,” viticulturist Prudy Foxx says. “Cooler west-facing grapes generate real complexity, they can take you on a real Burgundian journey and they’re all great, no matter how much they may differ. Some pinots from other wine districts create a great opening salvo, then continue without change until the very end of the bottle. But that’s like a rock concert—no matter how great, it’s still all loud.
“Santa Cruz Mountain pinots are more like an opera or a symphony,” she contends. “They change continuously, offering complexity, a fruit center and a long finish—in short, a changeable journey.
“Wine is alive,” Foxx says. “That’s why it’s such a mystery.”
SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS PASSPORT DAY is Saturday, April 16, 11am-5pm. $40 passport provides map and admission to 50 winery tasting rooms throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA, both inland and coastal. www.scmwa.com or 831.685.8463.
