I'm Talkin’ ’bout Terroir	Pinot Shmino Cabernet Franc
Interview With A Winemaker

Pinot Schmino, Try Our Cab Franc Wines
By Paul Roberts, Winemaker

Deep Creek’s top red wines are built from Cabernet Franc, originally
from the Loire Valley of France and now the most widely planted premium
red wine grape in America’s Eastern vineyards. This short disputation, it is
hoped, will give customers some idea of what to expect from this noble
variety — perhaps the most noble of all — when they encounter our
Watershed Red Reserve at the winery or in stores or restaurants.

Although there are two Cabernet grapes with similar names —
Sauvignon and Franc — their wines are very different. Perhaps the key
difference is that Cabernet Franc wines are “more about aroma.” They also
have less body and tannin, and a lighter color, but they are not lighter in
flavor than Sauvignon.

In fact, Cab Franc more resembles Pinot Noir, another noble variety
esteemed for its aromatic, elegant, and subtle wines, and which was
popularized in 2005 by the movie Sideways. Their flavors fall more in the
spectrum of cherries and red currants, rather than in the dark fruits like
blackberry and cassis so often associated with Cab Sauvignon wines. And
just like Pinot, Cab Franc wines have the uncanny ability to age well, often
surprising their keepers after five or six years with extraordinary richness, a
fine sensual texture, and marvelous depth of flavor.

They are wines of youthful paradoxes: seemingly light, even innocuous
at first, yet majestically personable when older, with a multi-faceted character
that encompasses all the good qualities of memorable wine without any of the
excesses. For this reason, the French have long considered Cabernet Franc to
rank side by side with Pinot Noir as the grape capable of the winemaker’s
greatest expression.

True, most wine drinkers who know of Cabernet Franc consider it a
lesser blending grape in the great Cabernet Sauvignon-dominated wines of
Bordeaux. (It was in fact recently discovered to be one parent of Cab S, along
with Sauvignon Blanc.) The great majority of the Medoc’s classic growths
contain anywhere from 10 to 30 percent Cabernet Franc, contributing a
classic mineral note of lead pencil-shavings in the aroma, and the grape is
also elemental in fine California meritage wines. The true regal nature of the
grape may be glimpsed unequivocally in the wines of Cheval Blanc, the
Bordeaux Grand Cru that is almost exclusively Cabernet Franc.

Continuing this tour of the vinous motherland, if we go a few hundred
kilometers north and west, into the center of France, we find Cabernet
Franc’s ancestral home. This is the France of Rabelais, of kings and queens
and grand country estates, of rustic rural charms blended with the decadence
and faded extravagance of imperial ambitions. The Loire is also, not
surprisingly, the birthplace of haute cuisine, and surely it must be said that
Cabernet Franc wines, with their delicate and subtle pleasures, are far better
suited to fine cooking than Cabernet Sauvignon, where heavy body and bold
flavors can be distracting and ponderous. Only a well-aged Pinot Noir
competes with Cabernet Franc for its versatility and usefulness when great
red wine is paired with great food.

Most years at Deep Creek Cellars, we offer three expressions of
Cabernet Franc — all labeled Watershed Red Reserve. On the front of the
label, below the Watershed name, one will find the three cuvées: Portfolio,
Chinon, and Provençal.

Portfolio is our winery’s top wine, our highly versatile best-seller year
in and year out, and the original Watershed Red, dating back to 1998. Since
2001, it has contained Cabernet Franc from our property in Garrett County in
a blend with grapes grown by Richard Penna in Washington County,
Maryland, and sometimes, if need be in poor growing seasons such as 2002
and 2003, with Cabernet Franc from California. The aim with this wine,
which is typically about three-fourths Cab F, is a bright berry flavor and great
subtlety and smoothness after two to three years in the bottle. Although this
gloriously fruity wine is certainly enjoyable upon release, its velvety texture is
not so pronounced when young. “Its satiny riches,” writes the winemaker on
’04 Portfolio label, “may not be revealed before 2009.”

Cuvée Chinon is named for the village in the Loire famous for the
finest Cabernet Franc wines, and it usually contains at least 90 percent of the
variety. This blend is made only in years when distinctive wines are possible
due to particular growing conditions, and is usually the lightest of the three
reserve blends.

Cuvée Provençal uses the least amount of Cab F and evokes the
so-called “Super Provençal” wines of France’s south, where native grapes
such as Grenache and Carignan are blended with the Cabernets to produce
especially flavorful “New World” wines — imminently fruity with husky
body and exotic spicy aromas of rosemary, thyme, and cumin. Our take on
this popular emerging style also includes Zinfandel, a Mediterranean grape
originally from Slovenia and grown widely in California since the 1850s. All
of our California additions to Provençal come from vines at least 45 years
old, and the Zin is 65 years old, adding great character and concentrated
flavor.

Provençal is the Reserve highest in alcohol and flavor punch, but its
best quality is its wonderful sense of harmony and power, without excessive
oak or bulk. Massive wines of full flavor are fairly mundane, and tend to
over-shadow, even diminish, subtle foods. Great wines are never “soupy,” as
the French say, and earn their accolades through more refined proportions,
without sacrificing any loss of personality.

So, please remember, great wine is not thick, dark, and tasting of 2x4s.
Cabernet Franc is a noble variety that works with other varieties to render
beautiful wines in a lighter, more modest style. Like Pinot Noir, it does not
shout “look at me, look at me.” Its admirers are required to try a little harder,
as it evokes… suggests… teases

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I’m Talkin’ ’bout Terroir
By Paul Roberts, Winemaker

A subject provoking a fair bit of preoccupation in the wine world these days
is terroir, a French word with no exact English translation that describes the
combined effects on a wine from grapes grown in a particular climate, soil,
and site. “Terroirists,” as the most ardent proponents are sarcastically called,
believe that such wines are the most authentic and usually best-tasting. Not
surprisingly, “great terroir” is in places in the Old World — France, Italy,
Spain, Greece, Germany — where exciting wines have been produced for
eons using the traditional grape varieties of a given region.

“Terroir wines” are not necessarily great wines; the term does not so
much describe quality as the idea of “typicity,” another pan-French concept
which merely means that a given wine from a given area, produced from
traditional grapes, has qualities typical of most other wines from that region.
And closely allied to a preference for typicity and authentic terroir is the
age-old winemaking axiom that good wine starts in the vineyard: the human
ability to influence a good wine is minor, goes the thinking, compared to the
natural advantages offered by the soil and sun of a special place.

What difference does it make? A fair question, given that the vast majority
of wine consumers could care less where the grapes come from, so long as
they enjoy the wine. It should be admitted that the whole topic verges on
wine geekism, yet those interested in the subject are many of the great
importers in the industry who make such treasures available outside their
traditional markets, while the customers who buy such wines also do much of
the serious wine-drinking and wine-collecting; such consumers (including this
winemaker) are interested in the culture of wine, its history, and its future in a
world where so few foods and consumables are produced locally, and are
becoming more and more homogenous.

In a little bit, the winemaker will take his geeky stand on this terroir issue,
but I first want to make note of some recent works of literature and art that
have touched on the issue, and therefore have influenced my thinking and the
wine we make at Deep Creek Cellars.

Most interested parties would call Sideways, the quirky movie set in the
heart of California’s top Pinot Noir production area, the most important “wine
film” in history. Yet another wine movie from the same year (2005) was far
more important to wine professionals, I would argue. It was Mondovino, the
documentary work of New York –based free-lance filmmaker and wine
afficianado John Nossiter. His movie gives ample forum to the discussion of
terroir, while offering a compelling case for winemaking’s importance in
human civilization. In the end, Nossiter argues that the vast majority of
California wines, especially the prestigious brands, are nothing more: just
brands, with no special connection to the California landscape. They are, he
suggests, certainly palatable, certainly successful, yet rather unremarkable
intellectually because they are not terroir wines.

He also advances the argument that the French, especially some
Burgundians and a few in southwest France, are the last defenders of terroir,
while Italy in general is more susceptible to the Californian concept that since
most consumers don’t care, a wine’s terroir doesn’t really matter.

But for me, the revelation of 2005 was Lawrence Osborne’s The
Accidental Connoisseur. His book and Nossiter’s film are shockingly similar
in the ground covered, down to interviewing of the same people on the same
topic. Osborne is another New Yorker, though British by birth, and seems
more prepared than Nossiter to allow in certain obvious counter-arguments,
e.g., that you can’t hold it against Californians that they’ve only been making
wine on a big scale for about 150 years, which is insufficient time for
“age-old” bonds between land and man to occur. But a book is just a better
place for such discussions than a movie because a film, given its medium,
prefers to show with images, while words are clearly more suited to detailed
exploration. Interestingly, Osborne in his acknowledgements tips his hat in
appreciation to “wine musketeer” Nossiter.

The full significance of Osborne’s journey (a philosophical journey as well
as a wine travelogue) came down to his depiction of the Jean-Pierre Jullien
family in France’s Languedoc. He describes an impromptu, festive afternoon
party in which three generations of vignerons from the village, topped by the
90-year-old patriarch, “were singing and downing glass after glass” of the
local traditional (obscure) white wine from the Picpoul de Pinet variety, while
in the old language of Occitaine singing of how happy they were to be from
where they are!

Jean-Pierre, Osborne observes in summation at the chapter’s end, “existed
within a magnetic force filed of ancestors which he could not rationalize or
leave. His wine, too, could not really be other than what it was.”

If you have a chance, seek out the wines of Mas Jullien. The personable
terroirist and New York wine importer Neal Rosenthal, who recently offered
good advice to this winemaker during the early weeks of Maryland’s tussle
with its backward alcohol regulators, makes Mas Jullien available in
America. I never miss a single vintage.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

If Osborne is saying that terroir wines are possible only from the mind of
the rare winemaker who has little other choice because he is bonded forever
to his region by generations of family experience, the author also gives
Randall Graham ample opportunity to extol the virtues of having broken free
of village strictures. Graham owns Bonny Doon Winery in California, and his
wines, to my mind, lead off a very short list of California wines consistently
worth seeking out.

“I’m like the agnostic who’s agonized by the absence of God,” Graham
tells Osborne in explaining the California condition. “I wish we had terroir.
But we don’t. I’d like to make a terroir wine before I die. But who knows if I
will…. I’m doing what Americans should be doing. I’m experimenting, I’m
free to make stuff up, I’m using other elements. I play with fruit…. Our great
advantage is our freedom from tradition.”

Well, I feel that I am sort of the East Coast equivalent of Randall Graham,
though it’s cheeky, for sure, to even compare us since his wines are
distributed in virtually every state and ours are found at a dozen or so stores
in a 200-mile corridor between Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and our winery at
the very western edge of Maryland.

The eastern, Inner Harbor terminus for Deep Creek wines is Chesapeake
Wines, which, for my money, is the best wine store in Maryland, and
certainly among the top ones on the East Coast. It is owned by the great
palate who is Mitchell Pressman. Mitchell’s recent comments in his store
newsletter illuminate so nicely some of my points here: “Paul Roberts makes
interesting, compelling wine by cobbling together grapes (and occasionally
fruits like pear and blueberry) from disparate sources (California,
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland). I know that I’ve always maintained
that wine is 90% made in the vineyard, and I’m sticking to it, but Paul
imagines a wine from a variety of sources that works out better than I could
ever imagine. It makes my head hurt to think about how he does it, so I don’t
bother, I just enjoy.”

Maybe it will make Mitchell’s head hurt a little less if I explain a few
things here. For the red grapes I purchase outside of Maryland, I buy old-vine
(45- to 65-year-old) Mediterranean varieties from California (Zinfandel,
Carignan, Grenache), not only because I like the wine made elsewhere in the
world from these varieties but also because I reckoned long ago that the older
the vines, usually the better the wine. Such old-timers simply aren’t available
in eastern America. They form the basis of our $8 red blend, Artisan Red, and
go into some of our other wines in small proportions.

I make this “everyday red” Artisan with the same care that I give our top
reserves. In most vintages, roughly three-fourths of the grapes are crushed
into open containers, and the other 25 percent is added as whole fruit, stems
and all; retaining some whole berries is an old Burgundian trick that adds a
small carbonic “Beaujolias-like” element in the finished wine, increasing its
fruitiness, complexity, and sheer likability. The must soaks for about 48
hours, then fermentation starts with cultured yeast in certain batches and wild
yeast in others — again, striving for additional complexity with this dual
approach.

The wine ferments at ambient temperatures in our cellar, with most
temperatures reaching the low 90s. No human control is required to maintain
this temperature; it occurs naturally. I punch the cap down in the morning and
the evening with a hand-made wooden tool of my own design, rather than
using the alternative, faster method of pumping the wine violently with a
high-speed motor. Again, technology is eschewed if the hand works fine.
After fermentation is over, I extend the maceration for an average of 18
days, just as they do in Gigondas. The finished wine soaks in its own juices,
and the secondary fermentation begins, to finish once the wine is pressed.
Again, no human intervention is needed; malolactic fermentation occurs
naturally. The wine ages for a few months in neutral containers, and at
bottling it is neither fined nor filtered. All the grapes have to give goes in the
bottle, and no flavor is lost to a filter.

Or take our 2003 White Linen Reserve, which Mitchell has called the best
evidence of “world-class wine” coming from Deep Creek Cellars. The wine
is fermented 85 percent in stainless, 15 percent in neutral oak, so as not
overwhelm the delicate flavors with aggressive wood aromas. Again, both
native and cultured yeasts are used. After primary fermentation, it is aged on
its original lees with occasional stirring until late spring after the vintage —
sur lie aging, as the French say and do with their best White Burgundy, or
Chablis, or Muscadet — and finishes its natural secondary fermentation as
our underground cellar warms up in summer.

Every effort is made to treat the wine gently, and no sulfites are used
during the aging of any wines because the chemical would disrupt and retard
natural processes. The White Linen blend, which may vary slightly each year
depending on what individual components are better, is composed and held
another eight months before being bottled unfiltered, with as little sulfites
added at bottling as is absolutely necessary to make the wine perfectly stable.
This is really the only concession to natural winemaking, and probably isn’t
even necessary. But no one can know how a wine will be stored once it
leaves the winery, and sulfites do help extend the shelf-life.

One gets a wonderful whiff of spearmint aroma from this wine, along with
creamy peach and citrus flavors. But its most attractive aspects, I think, are
its vibrant gold color and lively bounce in the glass. A filtered wine is
stripped of these natural attributes, and may still taste good enough — sure,
most people probably wouldn’t notice — but the wine has lost is soul, its
texture, its real substance.

Now, Mitchell calls me “a brilliant winemaker who happens to have a
small vineyard in western Maryland,” but he also knows I’m not really doing
anything brilliant here. These are the ways great wines of their type are made
traditionally in parts of the world that do have terroir to express. So, my
point is, even if one doesn’t grow the grapes, making expressive wine is
possible if artifice is avoided or at least held to a strict minimum. Both the
grapes and the mysteries of winemaking alchemy should be respected.
Good wine is made in the vineyard, yes, but “terroir wines” are at least
partly a mind-set, a way of doing things, a way of being.

I have two rules that serve well: 1) Do what the wine needs. If it’s 12
midnight at harvest-time, but some extra step is required right then to treat the
wine properly, we do it. We have stayed up late on many a harvest night. 2)
One can taste the hand. This is true in cooking, and it’s true in wine. Basil
pesto, to me, tastes better when the basil is chopped with a knife by hand,
rather than whizzed up in a food processor. There’s no rational explanation,
but I have proven it many times to myself and to guests. As the grizzled old
Frenchman in a favorite novel tells his son, the apple brandy turns out best
when he breaks up the cake of pomace by hand before beginning the
distillation. Although a machine does it faster, “it just tastes better by hand,”
explains the old man. “I don’t know why.”
The human touch can often be tasted, if the taster is prepared to notice.

Waverly Root, a mid-20th century historian of French cuisine whose The
Food of France is the largest-selling book on the subject in history, describes
another long-standing French tradition that I believe is appropriate for ending
this tiny treatise on terroir. The worlds of cuisine and winemaking overlap
quite a lot, since great food so often depends on the freshest-possible
ingredients in a recipe, and logically, fresh means local. Nonetheless, Root
observes how the French (in the 1950s, when he wrote) were quick to
recognize and value the cuisine of “fortuitous accidents” in which a chef who
was not born in the region made himself famous with a dish using non-native
ingredients. Root speculated that, since the chef was not native, he was more
willing to experiment, to play around, to, as the famous late 20th century
saying goes, “think outside the box.”

I, too, hope to live long enough to determine which grapes grow best in
Garrett County, and to make a wine from them that reflects our peculiar soils,
climate, elevation, and orientation to the sun. But more than likely, this task,
hopefully, will be left to my daughter, or even more likely, to my daughter’s
children. Such traditions develop as a slow process. It’s understandable to
hope all wines can reveal their heritage, but in the end, as Osborne says,
terroir wines can only come when it is their time.

Until then, I’m with Randall Graham. I’ll mix the best white grapes I can
find — types I cannot always reliably grow myself — with Asian pears and
the grapes I can grow abundantly; or red grapes from all over with
blueberries, which I can grow abundantly in my setting, and hopefully I’ll live
long enough to also learn what grapes for making the best wine will grow
best around my Garretty County home. Hopefully I’ll have the time, finances,
and energy to plant more of them.

In the meantime, I’ll do the things that thoughtful winemakers the world
over do to make fine wines: let nature be the guide wherever possible; avoid
mechanical and chemical shortcuts that leave their alien imprint on the wine;
and concern myself with the earnest flavors, smells, and textures that the
human hand and heart working with nature can create — no matter where or
in what era one is born.

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Interview with the Winemaker

Kevin Atticks, author of Discovering Maryland Wineries, and executive director of the Maryland Wineries Association, sat down in 2003 with Deep Creek Cellars Co-Owner and Winemaker Paul Roberts, to discuss the pleasures and pitfalls of making wine in the remote mountain region of western Maryland.

Kevin Atticks: A lot of people want to know more about the basic approach, the philosophy, of how a winemaker makes his wine. Tell us something about your philosophy.

Paul Roberts: Most of all I want our wines to be harmonious; I want them smooth and full of personality and "light on their feet," rather than bombastic and overly oaky. I cannot stand wines that taste like 2-by-4s, as if they were made by carpenters rather than winemakers. I want my wines enjoyable when they're released, and even those wines that can improve with bottle age, especially some reds, I want to be good right from the start.

My models are really European wines, especially those of the Loire and Rhone valleys of France, and the country wines of Tuscany: the whites are usually tart and sappy, and never overpowered by oak; the reds often seem acidic to the American palate, but even though they are considered light to medium-bodied, they can age well in certain vintages, softening and mellowing. Such wines are not intended to be profound vinicultural statements of the ages. No, they're for everyday human enjoyment. For me, these wines are the most enjoyable and generous and genteel in the world, and it's how I want ours to be, as well.

This is not a well-understood model right now. Ravenswood in California has a motto: "No wimpy wines." What does that mean? Americans seem to want only huge flavors, with scorching levels of oak tannin in their reds, and buttery tropical, almost fruit-cocktail flavors in their whites. I don't know, maybe such wines make it easier to forget all the troubles in the world today. They're usually far too acoholic. I can enjoy such wines, but as a rule they don't impress me, because I drink wine every day, with meals, and one can't possibly enjoy such behemoth beverages every day. Lighter, more subtle, quirky wines, with interesting layers of texture and surprising flavors, work with a broader variety of foods, and they're more enjoyable every day. Big wines tend to burn out; small really is beautiful in wine.

KA: What do you mean? What does "small" mean in winemaking?

PR: I think it could be said that I emphasize aroma -- floral and berry smells -- more than most winemakers. With reds especially, it seems there are "berry" lovers and "oak" lovers, and wood definitely displaces the lighter "smaller" berry smells and flavors in wine. I make wine for both palates, but I usually drink the berry stuff!

KA: Do any of your recent wines come to mind as good examples of what you mean?

PR: Yes, as a matter of fact, there are a couple. Both the 2001 Maryland Chardonnay and the 2001 Artisan Red Garden Path Cuvée are good examples. The Chard has these very distinctive mineral and rock smells, and while it's medium-bodied, it has what the French call "nerve," and what good Loire whites have, a kind of tensile strength in their texture. The texture is taught, elastic, and the wine has quite a long finish for its body. I love it. It was made entirely using wild yeasts, and I can really detect that in the bouquet. I also made a small lot of Sauvignon Blanc from Maryland grapes in 2001 that had that same texture in spades. It went so fast! These wines are fantastic with Maryland seafood, by the way. Our Chard was absolutely pre-ordained with soft-shell crabs in the spring time.

And then the Artisan is the best I've made yet. You just can't believe there can be so much flavor in a wine of such light body. Several customers have remarked about this, and a lot of winemakers would not think it's a compliment, but to me, it's the best thing one can say: "Light but very flavorful." Because anyone can make big-flavored heavy wines! Our '01 Artisan reminds me a lot of a 1992 Rhone red that I was stuck on for several months back in the mid-'90s. You could smell the pebbles in that wine's soil, and it had these sort of bright candied strawberry flavors. The '92 vintage was notoriously "light," but that wine had such soul, and it was so refreshing with summer foods.

KA: Isn't it also true, though, tha in most years in Maryland it's not so easy to make big, full-bodied wines in Maryland, because of the climate?

PR: Yes, that's true. It takes lots of summer heat and a long growing season to make concentrated, heavy, alcoholic, California-type wines. Grapes derive flavor from light, sun, and heat, and pretty much in that order. Sometimes Maryland summers are hot, but in the mountains where we are, hot summers are rare. This works well for me, though, since I don't really care to make big, heavily extracted sorts of wine all the time. But we have great light, with long, fairly cool days, and I'm very excited about the potential of our vineyards.

KA: Let's talk about that. You've made your wines since you opened in 1997 mostly from purchased grapes, rather than your own. Why? Tell us more about that.

PR: Well, when we opened the winery, we planted our first grapes the same year. No one had ever grown wine grapes in our area before, so we've had to pioneer the entire way. But we needed to generate revenue right from the start, because we expected to depend on the winery for our livelihood within a few years, so we wanted to get the business established.

Plus, I felt certain that perfectly fine wines could be made from purchased grapes, as we waited for our vines to reach maturity.

KA: But I don't think your plan has worked out the way you thought it would, has it?

PR: No, no it definitely hasn't. It never really does in farming! We've had to make wine from purchased grapes much longer than I thought we would. Let me telly about growing grapes!

Once we go past April that first season, when it snowed several times while we were planting grapes, summer was nearly perfect for establishing the vines, with plenty of rainfall. But then 1998 and 1999 were both horrible drought years. I always figured too much rain in the summer would be our problem. But in 1999, which shoud have been our first season with grapes on the vines, we had less than 2 inches of rain from the start of the growing season until late August. It was the dryest summer on record here. The vines were crippled, and so they were not in a position on the trellis system by the end of 1999 to produce fruit for the fourth season. And I had expected by the fourth season to be pretty much in full production.

So, in that fourth year, 2000, we had our home built, just ahead of our move from the city to live on the property. So, we were not at the property that summer while the work was going and the contractors kept forgetting to close the gate and turn on our electric anti-deer fence around the vineyard when they left in the evening. So, the deer ate and ate, about as fast the vines grew, and crippled the vines still again. So they were not ready by the end of that fourth summer to produce for the upcoming year.

KA: So, the following year -- that would be 2001 -- did the vineyard produce any grapes at all?

PR: Yes, even with the deer troubles of the year before, we produced a small crop in 2001 -- some Cab Franc and some Chardonnay, which we just blended in with our purchased grapes. It got me very excited about the next year, because even though the vines were young, I felt the wine, especially the Cab Franc, showed great promise.

KA:Then the real disaster, huh?

PR: Yeah, that's right. In early April 2002, the temperatures were in the low 80s for most of week -- unheard of weather here Ñ and all of the plants pushed out their new growth in the warmth, and then of course it got cold again. Very cold. Our efforts to grow grapes seem to encourage the setting of weather records! On three consecutive nights in the second week of May 2002, the low temps were 23, then 22, then 21 degrees. I've heard those were the coldest nights ever for that late in May here.

The entire season's production was lost. All of the green growth was killed, and in fact, it was late June before there was anything green in the vineyard. So, shut-out again. Year 5, no grapes. Nada.

KA: You must have been devastated! What went through your mind?

PR: I remember getting up at 4:30 to go out and light my big bonfires that first night, to try to stir up enough warm air to create some wind currents to keep the frost off, only to find that it was already 24 degrees. There was nothing I could do, or coud have done. It wasn't just frost, which the grapes can tolerate down to about 29 degrees, it was a complete freeze. Everything was frozen. The new green growth on the conifers all around us here in the mountains was even frozen dead. An Amazing sight.

About the only good thing is I got some summer vacation time for the first time in 10 years because I didn't have grapes to tend!

KA: You must be really anxious for Spring 2003 to arrive, huh?

PR: Very much so. But I also have to believe the extreme variability of the weather in the last decade has something to do with global warming. I know there are scientists who believe this, too: it almost seems like the earth is trying desperately to make the needed corrections, with heavy winter snowfalls like this year's [in 2003] to correct the extreme drought in much of the East during the previous two years, and so on. Maybe such variability will be the rule from now on.

KA: So, Paul, what is your long-term strategy, once you do begin producing grapes from your own vineyard? What kinds of wines do you want to make?

PR: Well, even though we have quite a bit of Cab Franc planted, and have encouraged our other main growers working with us to plant Cab F, I really believe our best wines will be white. I see improving demand for white wines. Red wine has received a lot good publicity in recent years due to its perceived health benefits, and now I love red wine. But the possible range of subtlety in making white wines is pretty cool, too.

Several white varieties are adapted well to our conditions, and in general reds prefer longer seasons and warmer temperatures to bring out their best features. And we can definitely ripen Cab F. But Chardonnay, Vignoles, and Traminette all do well here, and can be harvested early enough in September to avoid frost dangers, and all can be made into the brisk, fruity sorts of wines that I described earlier.

KA: I know you've told me before that you also have a legendary weakness for Mediterranean grape varieties, and your red wines so far have been made mostly from California fruit, so will you continue red wine production with California fruit?

PR: Yes, but to a lesser extent. We will use more and more estate and locally grown grapes, and grapes grown elsewhere in Maryland, and less from California as our own vineyard production and that of the rest of Maryland continues increasing. There still aren't enough grapes being grown in Maryland to supply all of our needs, but this picture will be changing in the years ahead.

But, about the California grapes: when we opened in 1997, I looked around the state and there just weren't enough grapes available, and I felt then -- and still do -- that the best everday red wines in the world come from the south of France, made primarily from Grenache and Carignan. I knew from working in California in the 1980s that there was lots of Grenache and Carignan grown there, much of it old-vine, from 50, 60, 70-year-old vineyards. The quality is extraordinary, and the grapes are being wasted and even pulled out in the last few years, because of the American infatuation with Cabernet and Merlot. So, I've been buying these grapes because they are not available in Maryland, and because they make excellent everyday dry red wines. Put our Artisan Red up against a basic Cotes-du-Rhone, with the right food, and the similiarities are really striking.

You know, we had a pure Carignan with vegetable lasagna at dinner the other night. It was from France, from 100-year-old vines in the Cotes du Thongue region, and it was thrilling, rich yet light -- a powerful wine. You could truly taste "history" in that wine!

KA: Like what? What sort of food?

PR: Oh, let's see. Pizza. Pasta. Grilled stuff. Simple foods.

KA: You've also bought a fair bit of old vine Zinfandel grapes, right?

PR: Yes, that's true. I've brought in some fantastic Zin, and the wine world is really buzzing about old vine wines, so it makes sense to produce a Zinfandel. I use Zin in blends, too, the way Syrah is used in France, to add richness and finesse to the mix.

But, as I said, I hope to gradually shift our winemaking emphasis to white wines, to take advantage of our superior conditions. But I can't go too fast, because right now consumers still want red wine at about a 2 to 1 ratio.

America is funny about its fermented beverages. Take beer. As recently as about 15 years ago, you could find only watery, sweet Budweiser-type Pilseners being made across America, mostly by large corporations. But now, in a new century, America is the most diverse country in the world for brewing beer; micro-breweries are everywhere, and beers of great personality are made in tiny towns. The same is starting to happen with wine now. People seem more willing than ever to try new grapes and new blends, and to appreciate the differences beteween hot-climate Chardonnay grown in California and wine from that variety grown in, to be specific, cool mountain conditions in Appalachia. And both Vignoles and Traminette, as I mentioned earlier, can make spicy, crisp, distinctive Alsatian-type dry wines. So I'm very excited. I love reds, but I'm very excited about the years ahead for Deep Creek Cellars and white wines.

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Interview With A Winemaker

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