(In where our authoress goes rambling)
***
I have a difficult time accepting the reality of California's new world---the industrial approach to winemaking, the surrogate mother approach to winemaking, the disconnected approach to winemaking. And so I was on a mini-mission to find more like Hank, people who grow their own grapes, till (or no til) their own soil, prune their own vines (or most of them) and then make their one wines.
To hell with local and industrial, if it's local and hand tended, I'm interested.
So that's how I happened on Gideon Bienstock a few years back. 
Over the years we corresponded. When I wrote theirrigation story for the SF Chronicle he and I had a very interesting dialogue and I find myself always using the below passage.
**The very best fruits I have ever tasted were found in a deserted experimental farm established by the Russians in the Sinai desert. The trees (apricots, peaches, apples) were left unirrigated and unattended for years in the desert dunes. They were stunted, crippled, more like half-dwarfed bushes than like the trees we know, but the fruits, cherry- size apples and peaches - were so incredibly intense and concentrated in flavors, like nothing I have ever tasted before or since. The soil there was poor, but uncontaminated and alive. It is also my experience that the more 'controlled' is the environment and the processes which produce a wine, the less distinctive and authentic will this wine be - both in relation to the grape growing and wine-making. ***
So you see, I had to one day someone who wrote these words, even if he does irrigate up there in the desert but not quite Sinai area of the Sierra Nevada Foothills.
Gideon, who bears some resemblance to Pierre Bornard of Jura, is Israeli but also has some Jurassic connections. He started out as an artist in Paris, drinking supermarket plonk. For a friend's birthday he splurged on a cheap Bergerac, five steps up from his normal tipple and was hooked. Around the same time he also landed on the philosopher Gurdjieff. In 1979 he visited California and the Renaissance property--world headquarters for for The Fourth Way, strange off-shoot of Gurdjieff-ians.
(Look, let's suspend judgement, this is about wine .)
He returned in 1992 for good. Met his wife Saron. His first vintage for Renaissance was 1994 (correct? Gideon?). Amongst the outspoken fans of the wine are Matt Kramer.
The society's compound/vineyard complex is not far from Nevada City and New Oregon where Gideon works his own plots of land, Clos Saron. He maintains N. Rhone producer, Bernard Faury in his pocket as spiritual wine father. Between Gurdjieff and Faury he's got his abbas covered.
Typical of the area's iron-laced, ox-blood streaked stone. In this particular vineyard I went searching, bloodhound like for the smell of curry I get around Chateauneuf. No luck.
Gideon loves Pinot in addition to Chardonnay and Syrah, the first two just--just--can't wrap my head around out there. In fact, most people know that I don't understand the passion to grow these grapes in California. It's too hot. I believe Pinot loves limestone. But the soils in this part of the SN's are oxblood rich clay and confounding loam with some decomposed granite.
That aside, thank goodness mine isn't the only set of taste buds in the planet.
We'll get back to Renaissance but first we toured his own vineyards.
Lovely messy places! And guess what? Okay. Don't. Let me tell you. He plants by provinage. This is an ancient propagation technique; stretch a cane, lace it as if you were darning it into the ground, allow to root, then sever it from the mother plant. See it? (yes, most of his vines are own-rooted).
He lamented how even though he is organic/biodynamic/whatever--some of the plots had seen chemicals before and those damned star thistles and stubborn weeds keep on returning. Whomever says Round Up has a short-shelf life, is either stupid or lying.
Okay---Renaissance.
First time I reviewed the Renaissance them was in 1990, having actually found a cabernet I really liked. I still like them. Fun. Restrained. Strange place. Driving through this spectacular vineyard I had the feeling I was in some strange, lost and abandoned civilization. Hell, there are water buffalos on the property!
Me being inarticulate. Must learn how to talk.
++++
Over the years we corresponded. When I wrote theirrigation story for the SF Chronicle he and I had a very interesting dialogue and I find myself always using the below passage.
**The very best fruits I have ever tasted were found in a deserted experimental farm established by the Russians in the Sinai desert. The trees (apricots, peaches, apples) were left unirrigated and unattended for years in the desert dunes. They were stunted, crippled, more like half-dwarfed bushes than like the trees we know, but the fruits, cherry- size apples and peaches - were so incredibly intense and concentrated in flavors, like nothing I have ever tasted before or since. The soil there was poor, but uncontaminated and alive. It is also my experience that the more 'controlled' is the environment and the processes which produce a wine, the less distinctive and authentic will this wine be - both in relation to the grape growing and wine-making. ***
So you see, I had to one day someone who wrote these words, even if he does irrigate up there in the desert but not quite Sinai area of the Sierra Nevada Foothills.
Gideon, who bears some resemblance to Pierre Bornard of Jura, is Israeli but also has some Jurassic connections. He started out as an artist in Paris, drinking supermarket plonk. For a friend's birthday he splurged on a cheap Bergerac, five steps up from his normal tipple and was hooked. Around the same time he also landed on the philosopher Gurdjieff. In 1979 he visited California and the Renaissance property--world headquarters for for The Fourth Way, strange off-shoot of Gurdjieff-ians.
(Look, let's suspend judgement, this is about wine .)
He returned in 1992 for good. Met his wife Saron. His first vintage for Renaissance was 1994 (correct? Gideon?). Amongst the outspoken fans of the wine are Matt Kramer.
The society's compound/vineyard complex is not far from Nevada City and New Oregon where Gideon works his own plots of land, Clos Saron. He maintains N. Rhone producer, Bernard Faury in his pocket as spiritual wine father. Between Gurdjieff and Faury he's got his abbas covered.
Typical of the area's iron-laced, ox-blood streaked stone. In this particular vineyard I went searching, bloodhound like for the smell of curry I get around Chateauneuf. No luck.
Gideon loves Pinot in addition to Chardonnay and Syrah, the first two just--just--can't wrap my head around out there. In fact, most people know that I don't understand the passion to grow these grapes in California. It's too hot. I believe Pinot loves limestone. But the soils in this part of the SN's are oxblood rich clay and confounding loam with some decomposed granite.
That aside, thank goodness mine isn't the only set of taste buds in the planet.
We'll get back to Renaissance but first we toured his own vineyards.
Lovely messy places! And guess what? Okay. Don't. Let me tell you. He plants by provinage. This is an ancient propagation technique; stretch a cane, lace it as if you were darning it into the ground, allow to root, then sever it from the mother plant. See it? (yes, most of his vines are own-rooted).
He lamented how even though he is organic/biodynamic/whatever--some of the plots had seen chemicals before and those damned star thistles and stubborn weeds keep on returning. Whomever says Round Up has a short-shelf life, is either stupid or lying.
Okay---Renaissance.
First time I reviewed the Renaissance them was in 1990, having actually found a cabernet I really liked. I still like them. Fun. Restrained. Strange place. Driving through this spectacular vineyard I had the feeling I was in some strange, lost and abandoned civilization. Hell, there are water buffalos on the property!
Me being inarticulate. Must learn how to talk.
++++
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