Financial Gamble Pays Off With Superb Chardonnay : Seagram Making Serious Commitment to Grape With Sterling Vineyards

For the past several years a prime topic at meetings of American wine fans and vintners was whether Sterling Vineyards’ reputation for excellence would be dissipated by its new owner, corporate giant Seagram Co. Ltd., one of the world’s largest wine and spirit firms. Many fretted that Seagram’s serious wine intentions would ultimately give way to the fast buck, quick profits and lowered quality.

Recently at Sterling, I attended an informative taste-confirming wine and viticultural seminar. Clearly, Seagram is well launched onto a long-term expensive quality wine program that may be the best in the valley. Sam Bronfman, Seagram wine head, removed all doubts by bankrolling the venture with seemingly unlimited funds and by mounting an eager and competent team of young experts, including Tom Ferrel, formerly of Inglenook and Franciscan Vineyards, as winery chief (a wine maker in his own right); Dr. Tucker Catlin, an ex-Gallo viticulturist, as vineyard chief; and Bill Dyer, who started at Sterling in 1977 when he moved hoses as a cellarman, as wine-maker chief.

Tall Mountain Vineyards

Bronfman’s commitment is now in the form of Chardonnay, Diamond Mountain Ranch, 1983. This is the debut white made exclusively from grapes grown sometimes at as high an elevation as 1,700 feet in the Mayacamas Range near the winery at Calistoga. These tall mountain vineyards, where vines are difficult to cultivate and mechanical harvesters and human pickers fear to tread, represent an enormous financial and agricultural gamble. Grapes are on hills so steep that high-wire walking experience is a must. By the yield standards of the valley below, the two tons per acre harvest is so low that hardened Seagram accountants still question the venture. Moreover, terracing is extremely costly, resulting in only 400 vines per acre compared to Seagram’s lower ranches at 726. Figure in the cost of erosion control and costs mount higher yet.

Another expensive factor is the soil, which changes composition every 10 feet. Catlin, now a confirmed mountain vineyard authority, has developed his own drainage system to prevent gully erosion as well as a strong crop program. To hold the soil, especially during severe winters, he has experimented with several grasses, including rye grass and blue grass, but has finally settled on Zoro Fescue.

Released in July, the 1983 is a superb, history-making Chardonnay. It has that kind of complex austere steely taste and style that is rarely seen in California Chardonnay or even in the best of white Burgundy. It has excellent, unobtrusive yet ample fruit in a delicate, rich, integrated mode that may well be as fine a Chardonnay as the state is able to produce. Certainly it ranks in the first five. Considering the quality, cost and monumental production effect, the $15 price is not high. A must for three to five years aging, the wine drinks well now but patience will be taste rewarding.

Why does Sterling make such a high-production-cost wine when it can call on grapes from 10 other Seagram-owned vineyards, including the recently acquired Winery Lake Vineyard at Carneros? Bronfman cites it as yet more evidence of serious grape commitment. Catlin, Ferrel and Dyer agree that stressful mountain conditions make for fruit intensity while increasing aging ability and valued distinction.

As late as two years ago, the same Sterling team, except for Dyer, did not display the same accord for this exclusive mountain grape Chardonnay. A 1980 Sterling Chardonnay, for instance, contained only 10% to 15% mountain grapes and showed a difficult to overcome taste of oak tendency.

The others felt it was safer to blend with the certain richness of flatland vineyard taste. Dyer persevered, but not without putting his career and job on the line. It was a bold move that should propel him to the top of his profession. Only recently did he take over from the now retired Theo Rosenbrand, who worked with senior statesman enologist Andre Tchelistcheff at Beaulieu Vineyards in the late ‘50s and ‘60s.

Completely Different Style

Sterling’s so-called regular valley floor Chardonnay, 1983, at $14.50 is a good bet, too, but in a completely different style. Possessed of assertive, aggressive Chardonnay fruit, there is no attempt at austerity. It has greater acidity with a sharp, lemony, almost sweetish taste coupled with buttery overtones that may be preferred to the harder, more restrained style of the Diamond Mountain Chardonnay. At 13.7% alcohol, the wine’s richness and fruitiness is more consistent with Sterling style since its inception, and later when owned by the Coca-Cola Co.

Cabernet Sauvignon, Diamond Mountain, 1983, was also a gamble that has now paid off. This Cabernet will live long and gracefully for it shows remarkable structure and balance with in-depth, long, multiple flavors suggesting cherry, spice and the kind of textured richness Dyer anticipated from Diamond Mountain grapes. Made principally from Cabernet and blended with Merlot and Cabernet Franc, it is a big, vigorous, fleshy wine and a prime cellar addition for complex drinking well into the 1990s. About 3,000 cases were produced, and bottles are priced reasonably at $15.

To showcase some of its older wines, Sterling presented a dinner cooked by one of America’s finest French chefs, Jean-Louis Palladin of the Watergate Hotel in Washington. Served with cabbage stuffed with fresh duck liver was one of Sterling’s staples and early pioneered wines, Merlot, 1980. Few collectors these days age Merlot, believing the varietal should be enjoyed only for its early, forward flavor and silky texture. The 1980 is an intense, big-structured wine showing a bit of heat but exceptional length and bigness of style and is likely to age as well as Cabernet and develop into an interesting complex top red.

Merlot, 1983, priced around $11, is an excellent buy reflecting the best of cherry taste, richness and a beautifully developing finish. While many may enjoy drinking it now, it would be a shame because I am convinced that Sterling Merlots are made for aging even as long as a decade. This is dramatically different from the industry-intended image and style of making Merlot for today’s consumption. It would be better to age. Indeed, it might be well to experiment by aging a case and occasionally drinking a bottle early to enjoy the best of both worlds.

Today, with Seagram’s assistance, the winery owns or controls 1,548 choice vineyard acres of mountain, hillside and valley floor sites with total net currently bearing acreage of 1,020 acres and 400,000 vines yielding 4,200 tons of grapes. It is well on its way to becoming the crown jewel of a beverage giant with $2.65 billion in annual sales.

More than 200,000 people visit Sterling annually to take the $5 tram ride to the winery atop a Calistoga hill for tastings and a self-guided tour. Most are not concerned whether the wine is from Diamond Mountain on high or Winery Lake below since earlier and current non-Diamond Mountain vertical tastings of Sterling’s Reserve Cabernets, Merlots and Chardonnays revealed good, even great, bottles. The 1974 Reserve Cabernet is aging superbly with all the promise of the gloriously fine vintage, whereas the 1977 offers luscious, silky, straightforward, appealing, generous drinkability. By comparison, the Diamond Mountain wines are better, which should end any fretting or speculation that Sterling is not in good hands.