A week ago I sat down for an afternoon wine tasting with
Byron Kosuge, a veteran winemaker and consultant for several wineries and estates in
California, as well as Kingston Family Vineyards in Chile. He’s probably best
known these days for his own B. Kosuge label. It’s still a pretty small brand,
but the wines are subtle and understated, just like Kosuge himself.
Kosuge was fortunate to land his first wine job at
Saintsbury, a rising star in the Carneros Pinot Noir and Chardonnay scene in
the mid-1980’s. It was an exciting time for American Pinot Noir as Napa
wineries focused on the cool southern part of Napa – Carneros – as a source of
higher quality Pinot Noir.
After working his way up to the head winemaking position,
Kosuge would help that Saintsbury cement itself as a leading California Pinot
Noir and Chardonnay brand in the 1990’s.
To hear the story told through Kosuge’s own memories, it
sounds like the story of an unassuming guy who was just tossed into the roiling
surf of a fast-changing California wine trend. Sure, he did catch a big wave,
but he also deserves credit for what he made out of that wave, at Saintsbury
and beyond.
His most recent work is a demonstration of what he has learned and
what he has become.
“I started out at Saintsbury after college in 1985. They had
just built a winery and they were only making about 7,500 cases a year. Between
‘85 and the early ‘90s it grew a lot, up to about 40,000 cases. They also
started buying vineyards and planted 3 estate vineyards.” Kosuge told me that watching
those vineyards being planted and seeing the thought process that went into the
process taught him a lot.
“Working there turned me into a Pinot and Chardonnay guy,
where before I didn’t have any specific ambitions,” Kosuge told me.
These days, Kosuge comes across as really well grounded.
He’s modest, thoughtful, introspective, and soft-spoken. He’s making a
different style of wine than he did in the 1990’s. It’s a more minimalist,
delicate style of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that’s less sweet and opulent, uses
less new oak, and aims to make wines that are more bright and elegant.
Kosuge isn’t the only winemaker that has headed down this
aesthetic path. He’s one of quite a few. Most of them are small producers that
know that they’re catering to a fairly small, but fast-growing, audience that
appreciates this fresher California style. But where some old school California
Pinot and Chardonnay winemakers are still being dragged kicking and screaming
into the modern era, Kosuge has been along for the ride all along and has
invaluable perspective. And it shows in the nuanced ripeness, richness and
elegance of his wines.
“My guiding principles: have changed over the years. I had
two not-particularly-reconcilable guiding principles about making Pinot Noir
and Chardonnay. Burgundy was the model everyone wanted to emulate. People
copied the techniques. On the other hand, it was also important for me not to
try to make wines into something that they were not. California Pinot Noir and
Burgundy just don’t taste the same. It wasn’t really possible to make
California Pinot Noir taste like Burgundy through manipulation. I learned to
appreciate Pinot Noir by drinking Burgundy and appreciated the perfumed style of wine.”
“It was a slightly uneasy compromise. “California shifted
toward riper styles of wine and there were people richly rewarded for pursuing
that style. I want to make fresher wines that aren’t Burgundy, but that have
some of that energy. The way to get there is not to copy Burgundy. This process
started around 2011. I started backing off of new oak, bottling earlier, and
choosing the right sites is really important.”
For a lot of winemakers pursuing a more elegant style led to
a migration of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay specialists from Carneros in the
1990s, to Russian River Valley in Sonoma, and then to even cooler sites on the
Sonoma Coast, Anderson Valley in Mendocino County, and the high coastal and
inland ridgelines of Mendocino County.
Kosuge told me that in the 1990’s Carneros was a great
source of grapes for larger Napa Valley brands that wanted to source decent
Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes from the cooler southern end of the valley.
There really weren’t that many boutique Pinot Noir and Chardonnay brands that
were based in Carneros and that were really raising the bar. Saintsbury was one
of them. Etude was another, and there were a few small brands like Ancien, but
Carneros was essentially delivering the ripe, fruity style of grapes that would
appeal to the same folks who buy big, rich Napa Cabernets. And some of the
vineyard sites are better than others.
There are still great Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays made in
Carneros. And Kosugue knows the best sites as well as anyone. Carneros still
has a special place in his heart. “I do still make Carneros Pinot, but I try to
make it in a fresh, energetic style. I’m not picking way earlier… well, a
little maybe. I’m also drawn emotionally and intellectually to making wine in a
relatively natural style. Not making ‘Natural’ wine per se, but not using a lot
of remedial techniques.”
Today Kosuge makes about 1,200 cases of wine a year, most of
it Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the Sonoma Coast and Carneros, but he does
consult with a number of other wineries, as he has done for years. His own
wines are distributed by Swirl in California, Skurnik wines in NY, NJ,
Connecticut, and he sells a bit in Massachussets and North Carolina.
“I started my own brand in 2004, but I had done a lot of
consulting on Carneros projects, sometimes with larger wineries that were
sourcing grapes from Carneros. It was fun being part of the brain trust of some
of those programs,” said Kosuge.
I had also met
Courtney (Kingston) and started to work for her around the same time,” Kosuge
explained. Kingston Family Vineyards is one of the handful of family-owned estates that
has been pioneering the cool, coastal frontier of the Chilean wine scene in the
last 15 years. Working with Kingston has been a great education for Kosuge,
allowing him to work two harvests per vintage under circumstances that are both
similar and different.
“My experience in Chile has been one of the most
oenologically invigorating thing I have ever done. I first went down in
December of ’02. I had met Courtney and talked about pioneering in Chile. At
Saintsbury, I had some interns and assistants from New Zealand – there was a
lot of back and forth. I thought they had an up and coming pinot industry, and
I was really interested in working there. It’s beautiful, people are nice and I
sniffed around for opportunities, but nothing really turned up. Then the Kinsgston thing happened when the
Kingstons visited Saintsbury doing their homework. Our paths crossed several times in the late
1990s. In 2002, I went to Steamboat Pinot Noir Conference retreat in Oregon.”
The Steamboat
Pinot Noir conference is sort of a ‘safe place’ for Pinot Noir makers from
around the world to come together in a relatively private setting away from the
bright lights to share ideas, tips, and receive some peer reviews. I haven’t
been, but that’s my rough understanding of the concept.
“Courtney was there with a bunch of maps. Originally they
wanted to be a named vineyard just selling grapes, but they decided they wanted
to make some of their own wine. The big Chilean wineries only wanted to market
and promote their own vineyards. Making
and marketing their own wine was the way for the Kingstons to develop their
vineyard’s brand.” Said Kosuge. He
decided to sign on for the commute.
“A couple of years later, we shared the first wines with
some tastemakers like Raj Parr and Debbie Zachareas and they thought the wines
had some commercial potential,” said Kosuge
Working with Kingston was an eye-opener for me
because I found Central Chile to be very similar to the Central Coast of
California. The light was similar, and the plants even looked similar from a
distance, even though they were different when you got up close. It didn’t take
very long for me to figure out in the tough 2004 and 2005 vintages that the
fruit behaves differently and needs to be treated differently in the winery,”
Kosuge told me.
“Chilean Pinot does not like new oak at all. It’s much more
tannic, and the tannins are different than California Pinot Noir. After the
first couple of years we had more used barrels to work with. It wasn’t easy to
buy used barrels when we started. We needed to rethink the extraction and use
less pumping over and punching down - that really started around 2011 or 2012.
By then, the vines were getting more mature, which made me more comfortable
picking earlier and using more whole clusters (including the stems in the
fermentation). Dealing with some of those challenges in the first eight or ten
years made me think a lot about how I make California wines and I started to
think that I could apply some of the same techniques to my California wines - especially
in the maturation process,” said Kosuge.
Kosuge has become fond of maturing wines in fashionable
concrete eggs. He says he could use square concrete tanks, too, but he also
notes that when you ferment wines in egg-shaped vessels they seem to circulate
the must naturally and gently. He first
had an opportunity to work with them in Chile and now uses them frequently in
California.
Making wine twice a year in North and South America meant
that he could learn more quickly by trying more new things.
“Between 2004 and ’08 I was frustrated with how the flavors
were developing in the Chilean Pinot Noirs. They have a bit of a tobacco,
smoky, not exactly 'green' flavor. I had to acknowledge that it was part of the
character of the fruit. If it got strong I didn’t like it, so I knew I had to
work on my extraction techniques. It was nice to get taken out of my confort
zone, and I think it made me a better winemaker,” Kosuge told me.
Today Kosuge also makes wine for Miura and Small Vines in
Sebastapol where he makes his own wines. He also makes a bit of wine for
McEvoy Ranch (probably best known for their olive oil, and Alder Springs, a high
altitude estate in Mendocino County.
“Alder Springs is not really a marine climate. It’s mostly
between 2,000 and 2,800 feet in elevation, and that combined with how far north
it is, gives you a short growing season. It’s cold in spring, hot in summer and
cold again in fall,” said Kosuge. For his own wines, he works mostly with fruit
from Sonoma Coast and Carneros, including vineyards like Hirsch on the Sonoma
Coast and Manchester Ridge in Mendocino County.
THE WINES
I know… finally, right!
B. Kosuge 2015
Chardonnay Sonoma Coast ($35) Caramel, white peach, lemongrass lemon curd.
A blend of two vineyards. 60% from Keller Estate’s vineyard and 40% brom
Barlow. Made in Concrete eggs and oak. I wanted to work with something not as
neutral as stainless steel but more neutral than oak. What is true about the
eggs is that the wine is more in motion while active. I think that’s because of
the motion, especially with malo, where the yeast and bacteria stay more
suspended. (91)
B. Kosuge 2015 Pinot
Noir Sonoma Coast ($30) I has a very pretty nose, and is made in a fairly
lean style with strawberry ,black pepper and cherry, very lively on the palate
with great acidity. It might be on the lean side for some, but it’s a good
example of contemporary Sonoma Coast PN. (91)
Byron Says: “I’m not trying to hit 12% alcohol. My style is
less sweet than it used to be. In 2004 to 2008 I used to make wines that tended
to be over 14% and now then tend to be under. One factor is that the vines are
older, and the growers are older and smarter. Many of the improvements have
happened in the vineyard like deficit irrigation and vine nutrition. A lot of
that happened in the 1990’s. At Saintsbury we sometimes picked riper to
compensate for weaker viticulture practices. Now, 25 years later, if you want
to pick at 23 brix, you can get it ripe at that sugar level.”
B. Kosuge 2015 ‘The
Habitat’ Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast ($45)
Sourced from Barlow Homestead Vineyard just outside of Sebastapol, which is very
densely planted, and a relatively young vineyard planted around 2009.
Blueberry, raspberry liqueur, white pepper, and sassafras notes with tangy
acidity. It has an intriguing sweetness to the fruit character, but is a very
dry, elegant wine. (93)
B. Kosuge 2015 Hirsch
Vineyard Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast ($56) Hirsch Vineyard is a fine
property,
but it’s also an extremely cool site quite close to the Pacific and it does
tend to make wines that are rather light, fragrant and on the lean side, even
for my liking. I like this one more than some other wines I’ve had from Hirsch
in the past. It’s perfumed and quite elgant with pretty wild strawberry fruit
and great acid. It’s not deep or hearty or dark, but it is very pretty, if a
tad fleeting on the palate. Not cheap, and probably not for everyone, but it’s
a very interesting, cutting edge wine, and very well made at that. (90)
B. Kosuge 2015 ‘El
Galpon’ Pinot Noir Carneros ($30) Supple and spicy with violet and cinnamon notes on the nose, plum, white
pepper, cherry, cola flavors.. Finishes lively. Not a lot of new oak on it.
This wine is matures exclusively in concrete vessels. Galpon means shed /
workshop . (91)
B. Kosuge 2015 “The
Shop” Pinot Noir Carneros ($35) A little more oak here. 60% aged in oak,
40% in Concrete. Toastier, woodier nose with some floral violet and rose and
herb notes. Sandalwood, very savory, salty, less fruity with supple plum,
cherry flavors, cardamom, mint. More whole clusters to add some carbonic
quality for fresh, grapey flavors. Not my favorite, but good. (88)
Next up is a Gamay – a variety that you won’t find much of in Napa or Sonoma these days.
Byron says: “In 2014 I went up to the Foothills and met with a
guy named Ron Mansfield and bought some
Gamay budwood because I love Beaujolais. Gamay grapes were impossible to find
in Napa and Sonoma. All of the true Gamay was up in El Dorado County, which
seemed too far away to source. At The Shop they were willing to graft over ½
acre if I supplied the budwood and promised to buy all of the grapes. GoldbudFarms is Ron’s property.”
“It gets no carbonic maceration as you might get with
traditional mass-market Beaujolais, but lots of whole clusters in the fermentation
tank, punched down and pumped over. I treated it a little more delicately than
I would pinot noir. It has a really low pH and more color than you might think.
It really likes to age in concrete tanks.”
B. Kosuge 2016 Gamay
Noir Carneros ($25) Kosuge says he is definitely aiming for more of a ‘cru’
style, high quality Beaujolais archetype. The wine has good depth, pretty
grape, violet, aromas, but it is still reductive and, needs some air. Tasting
it again over the next couple of days, it seems like a really nice wine, but it
doesn’t really have the minerally profile that distinguishes Cru Beaujolais.
It’s very good, but not spectacular. (87)
B. Kosuge 2016 Rosé Carneros ($18) This saignée from Carneros Pinot Noir and
Gamay grapes makes all kinds of sense.
The saignee process involves draining a bit of pink tinted wine off of fully
ripened lots of fermenting red wine and tends to result in rosés
that are less floral and more fruity and fleshy. Unlike rosé
wines made from grapes intended to make a rosé and accordingly picked
earlier, it is essentially a by-product of making a red wine. But when you pick
grapes when they are still fresh, as Kosuge does, you can make a lovely saignéee
rosé.
It’s fermented in neutral barrels, displays a bright pink color, watermelon
jolly rancher flavors, strawberry, violet, and racy citrus notes. Delicious. (91)
-Tim Teichgraeber
-Tim Teichgraeber
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