2006-10-13
Jean Hoefliger, Winemaker for Alpha Omega
ALPHA OMEGA WINERY Giving It Your All by Richard Paul Hinkle
He stands six-foot-five-and-one-half-inches tall, and probably weighs two-thirty or so (he won’t say). But what he will say is that his passion for the grape is solid, from beginning to end, from alpha to omega as it were.
“I initially went to study law, in my native Switzerland,” says Jean Hoefliger, Alpha Omega’s winemaker, “but it was not creative enough to spark my passions. It was very rigid, and more geared toward theory than toward practice. I tried finance for a short time, and that has given me a good business background – which is, of course, most helpful in the wine business. But my true passion is in walking the vineyard to make sure that I am getting the best possible fruit to work with here in the winery.”
“Here” is that tiny facility behind the veterinary clinic on Mee Lane (across from Provenance) at the northern edge of Rutherford. Originally built as Quail Ridge (and, later, Esquisse), the small winery was just what owners Robin Baggett and Eric Sklar were looking for. “Robin had a couple of larger wineries in San Luis Obispo [Tolosa and Courtside], wanted a smaller project, and really liked this location on the ‘Gold Coast’ [Highway 29],” says Hoefliger, who used to play a mean game of ice hockey. “Remember, nearly five million visitors travel through the Napa Valley each year. When I was winemaker at Newton, I bought grapes from Eric. So I knew that he was committed to running a quality operation.”
The quality is apparent in the wines. Try the Sauvignon Blanc 2005 Napa Valley ($24), with its fresh grass and melon, with hints of roasted nuts and fennel, and wonderfully lean structure. This is a wine to put away in a corner of your cellar for a few years. Then the texture will have turned oily and the fruit will still be there in spades.
The Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 ($52) has remarkable depth for its initial softness, with dark chocolate, cassis and black currant fruit that lingers on the palate. Then there is the big one, the Proprietor’s Red 2003 ($60), which is almost equal parts Merlot and Cabernet, with a little Cabernet Franc (nine percent) and Petit Verdot (three percent). This one is more assertive, with peppercorn and green pepper, herbal tea and green olive, and plenty of obvious graham-like French oak. “This is a wine for the aging,” says Hoefliger, “with a good structure and good acidity.”
He notes that his mother is American, from Boston, and his wife French. “I kid her and our consulting winemaker [Denis Malbec],” he says gently. “I tell them, ‘The French always have problems; the Americans have solutions.’ But my wife is actually very good at solving problems.” She should be. She’s a San Francisco mergers-and-acquisitions attorney. The couple has a nearly three-year-old son.
Hoefliger is firm, and more honest than most winemakers, in noting that up to ninety percent of what can be done to influence the quality of any wine has been done before the grapes hit the crush pad. “Oh yes, I spend a lot of time in our vineyards. That’s where the quality comes from. Still, there are things we can do here, in the winery, to make sure that what we got in the vineyard comes through in the wines. We’re putting in a double sorting table. On the first pass, we’ll sort the clusters; on the second pass we’ll sort berry by berry. I do an extended cold soak, because we want to get most of the fruit extraction before alcohol comes into play. With the routine ripeness you see here in California, alcoholic extraction would put the wine out of balance, and balance is the most important thing in wine quality. We’re also going to barrel ferment some of our red wine lots. That allows the oak extraction to be more integrated, and adds a textural quality to the wine that you cannot get any other way. You get that integration from the outset, and it really helps the wine.”
Hoefliger laughs when he remembers his first wine experience. “I went to work a little at my godfather’s winery in Switzerland, as a young man. My first assignment was to taste through the wines. There were about eighty tanks. But I didn’t know to spit. I felt pretty good! But I did love the job. And I have a pretty good goal to shoot at. The best wine I ever tasted was the 1947 Cheval Blanc. Even if I miss by a little, what I make is going to be pretty darned good!”
Alpha Omega Winery is located at 1155 Mee Lane at Highway 29 in Rutherford. Phone them at (707) 963-9999 or check their website at www.aowinery.com. Open daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. for tasting and sales. Nice deck, picnic tables and pond, not to mention the view.
[Hinkle’s eighth book is Good Wine: The New Basics. He’s got a web site, too. For an overview, see www.RichardPaulHinkle.com.]
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