2006-07-07
Winemaker Profile –
Gloria Ferrer Champagne Caves’
BOB IANTOSCA
by Richard Paul Hinkle
Gloria Ferrer’s winemaker Bob Iantosca figures he’s got the best job in the world. He gets to make both still and sparkling wines from California’s famed cool-climate region, the Carneros. Better yet, one of those wines is Pinot Noir. Though it is the world’s most difficult wine to make, when it’s done well it absolutely sings.
“We have Pinot Noir down on the clay-loam soil flats, and that fruit is perfect for making sparkling wine at five and six tons to the acre,” says the pony-tailed Iantosca. “We also grow Pinot Noir up on the rocky, stone-laced slopes, and there we get only two or three tons to the acre, but what fine table wines we can get from that fruit.”
The finest Pinots at Gloria Ferrer are dubbed “JSF,” or “José S. Ferrer,” to honor the winery founder (husband, yes, of Gloria). We sat down the other day to taste through a half dozen recent vintages of the JSF. They were glorious. The oldest, the 1998, opened up beautifully, with black cherry and mushroom fruit and a wonderfully supple mouth feel. “When we first bottled this wine,” recalls Iantosca with a shudder, “it went through some odd color changes. Yikes! Seems that Pinot needs a little time to achieve color stability.”
The 1999 was equally open and giving with its cherry-cola-mushroom fruit, and potpourri spiciness (bay leaf, fennel, peppermint and menthol). “That spiciness really identifies Carneros Pinot,” notes Iantosca (whose wife, Julia, is also a noted winemaker).
The 2000 and 2001 were still a bit closed in at this point in time, with dense black cherry and cola fruit that was just itching to really open up and show itself.
The star of this tasting, though, was the 2002 JSF, a wine so open and so giving as to bestow credence to Hinkle’s Second Wine Law: “Great Pinot Noir inspires one to create new sins … and wish to commit them!” The 2002 is so supple, so juicy, so sensual, with every bit of the sweet, lush and expansive black cherry and sweet mushroom fruit that you can think of nothing better than to match it up with a juicy rare hunk of filet mignon, and I mean now! The spices are there – the nutmeg, the clove – and that subtle cola hint is there, too, to further the complexity of this dazzling wine.
“It’s the vineyard – and our vineyard guy, Mike Crumly – that makes this wine so good,” enthuses Iantosca. “It’s always the vineyard.”
Located at 23555 Highway. (121), Gloria Ferrer Champagne Caves is open daily for tasting from
10 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. Call (707) 933-1999 or visit the website at www.gloriaferrer.com.
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