Tasting Report: First California Central Coast Reviews

For just over a month, I have been focusing my attention on tasting wines from the Central Coast of California. I have made two tasting trips to the key wine regions in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties and visited a couple dozen wineries, as well as top vineyards. The experience has been fascinating and I have found some truly great wines.

The best wines of my tasting were from winemaking genius Manfred Krankl at Sine Qua Non. His wines have such power but at the same time they have polish and balance. Manfred says that he wants to make true California wines, so he can’t tone down the opulent fruit too much. He doesn’t, but they are not overdone. He seems to have more than found a balance! I gave two of his wines perfect 100-point scores: 2007 Sine Qua Non Grenache Central Coast Dangerous Birds and 2007 Sine Qua Non Syrah Central Coast Dangerous Birds.

However, there are hundreds of other high-scoring wines in this tasting report and others to be posted in the next couple of months on www.jamessuclking.com. And most will be a lot easier to find than Sine Qua Non, which sells the majority of its production through a mailing list. Prices won’t be hundreds of dollars a bottle either; most of the wines are between $30 and $60 a bottle.

I found so many wines that I tasted from the Central Coast familiar to me, as someone who has been reviewing European wines for close to three decades. Most of the wines – both white and red – show the typical California intensity of fruit, but there is nearly always an underlying backbone of acidity that gives them freshness and vibrancy that many wines in the rest of the state lack.

In addition, I was most impressed with the wines made from Rhone grape types, especially Syrah, Grenache, Viognier, and Roussanne. However, there are plenty of wonderful Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays, not to mention the occasional Sauvignon Blanc and even Pinot Gris. I found very excellent Sangioveses as well as Tempranillos. I was less impressed with Cabernet Sauvignons and other Bordeaux varietals. Many were diluted and slightly green.

I also very much enjoyed meeting so many of the winemakers and vineyard growers. They have such a passion and dedication to their craft. They remind me of their counterparts in many of the more hands-on, family run areas in Europe such as the Rhone Valley, Burgundy, Piedmont, and Alto Adige. So many are “down to earth” with their feet firmly planted in their vineyards.

Enjoy this report and look forward to more to come. HD videos on the road trips to the Central Coast are forthcoming as well.

Also tasted, but not receiving marks of 90 points or more:

2006 Jonata Syrah Santa Ynez Valley La Sangre de Jonata

2007 Cargasacchi Pinot Noir Santa Rita Hills Cargasacchi Vineyard

2009 Clos Solene Paso Robles Mas Premiere

2009 Mc Price Myers Santa Barbara County Atlas Vinas

2009 Jaffurs Grenache Blanc Santa Barbara County Thompson Vineyard

2008 Cargasacchi Pinot Noir Santa Rita Hills Cargasacchi Vineyard

2010 Loring Pinot Noir Santa Rita Hills

2008 Barrel 27 Santa Maria Valley Bull by the Horns