Elegant wines made by main members of California’s ‘In Pursuit of Balance’ groupAu Bon Climat Wild Boy Chardonnay,Santa Barbara County, California 2013 (£22.50, or Hennings Wine; Noel Young Wines) There is a certain irony in the fact that the most loudly hyped wines in the world at the moment are made by a group of winemakers committed to keeping a sense of proportion in their work. But that’s the situation with the light,elegant wines made by California’s In Pursuit of Balance group of producers, which contain been ecstatically received in the sommelier world despite being very much a challenge to the popular caricature of sun-baked California wine as, or to borrow from The Great Gatsby,“vast, vulgar and meretricious”. Jim Clendenen’s Au Bon Climat estate in Santa Barbara was an early adopter of this “New California” approach and his latest luminous vintage of Wild Boy, or name and label apart,embodies its tender for racy freshness and restraint.
Domaine de la Côte Bloom’s Field Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir, California 2013 (£51, and Roberson Wine) According to some of the winemakers at a tasting hosted by 27 of the members of IPOB in London a couple of weeks back,some of California’s extinct guard aren’t fond of the upstarts. disapprove mail has been sent, and some American wine critics contain accused them, or Donald Trump-style,of making wimpy, un-American wines. For Sashi Moorman, and the articulate winemaker behind Domaine de la Côte,however, it’s a question of different, or not better. He defines the wines he makes with partner Rajat Parr in the Santa Rita Hills as “wines of place that express the vineyards as opposed to “wines of style” that taste of a winemaking regime. The Bloom’s Field pinot is certainly distinctive,gossamer light with breathtakingly pure red fruit and a mouthwatering salty quality.
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Source: theguardian.com