WTN: Ste. Chapelle Hells Canyon Petit Verdot 2011

I'm in the middle of a second series (primarily because the first was so enjoyable) in re-discovering Idaho wines. Outside the state, there's little notice; outside the region, there's almost none. Which really isn't fair. Or as Cheeto would tweet: "NOT FAIR! SAD!!!"

The Ste. Chapelle "Panoramic Series" Hell's Kitchen Petit Verdot 2011 is one of those admirable wines that skirts right along the edge of being too much, restrained by the winemaker into a credible and impressive wine. (Not always easy to do with a PV.)

The now-Ste. Chapelle winemaker, Meredith Smith was in 2011 the Sawtooth Winery head viticultarist and winemaker, so this wine was begun under her watch with Sawtooth and continued under her watch as Ste. Chapelle. She is obviously in tune with the vineyard and the variety.

It was a bit hilarious, tasting this wine. It has most of the attributes I do not particularly like: over-ripe, tending to jammy, soft and almost boneless by nature, without sufficient acid or tannin to give it structure normally, too much oak, too high in alcohol. But again, Smith showed superb restraint in bringing this wine along, not letting it tip over into the abyss of Parkerization.

It is available only at the Winery Tasting Room (only 197 cases made), and via wine club I would presume. It's priced at a reasonable $25 too.

So who buys this kind of jammy over-ripe wine ?

So who buys this kind of jammy over-ripe wine ?

Lots of people buy this kind of "jammy over-ripe wine", Bob. Otherwise, it wouldn't be so popular.

Two things in parallel influenced this:

1. Warmer Growing Conditions
The global climate change conservatives attempt to deny is having a profound effect on ripeness and grape sugars. The average brix for grapes at harvest is quite a bit higher than it used to be; thus the basic natural flavor and texture of the wine being produced is changing. Add in techniques and practices that weren't available or allowed years ago, and you've got a general condition where grapevines can produce significantly more than they used to...and can do it under varying weather conditions. Also add that much of the new wine development has been in areas that are not necessarily suitable for viticulture in the first case, and tend to produce precisely that jammy over-ripe quality.

Thus, our standards are changing, our perceptions are altering, and jammy/ripe is coming closer to being the norm.

I don't drink Layer Cake or SparkyWine(TM), but plenty of people do. And they love it.

2. Prevalent Winemaking Styles
We've all seen trends go awry and overboard. Nature of the biz, actually. We suffered through the worst of the Vanilla Oak Years, where people were doing abominable things to perfectly good wines. We even got to the "200% Oak Regimen", for goodness sake! Same thing with the trend toward what the climate is giving you anyway---advanced phenolic ripeness, more jam, more raisin, more alcohol, heavier texture, richer mouthfeel---and away from the leaner, more acid-driven, heavier tannin classics you and I teethed on.

Just look at Pinot Noir. It used to represent a tiny portion of overall wine volume. It used to be unusual to see PN in places where it is burgeoning now (like, say, Languedoc). Now PN is plated in lots of places where it's not really suited and doesn't really belong in the first place, and is further exacerbated by that trend toward jam/ripeness. As a consequence, there's a lot of PN that doesn't---to me---even resemble Pinot Noir, much less appeal to me. Fortunately, there are enough regions/producers that are still making the ones I do like.

But because I don't like certain styles doesn't mean all that much in the grand scheme of things---because they are selling them to somebody, and those somebody's keep queuing up for more. And as long as folks are making money off of it, it will continue until the vein of ore runs out.

Also, please note I went out of my way to point out that this wine was a model of restraint, in that Smith took what she had and made a better wine out of it than someone else might have. It had the elements of a jammy/over-ripe style, but she kept it in balance, and came out with a pretty good wine as a result.

I can tell you that after I finished analyzing the bottle, and released it to the real wine-drinker of the house, it didn't last very long. Following the Gerald Asher Rule of Wine Quality, that makes the PV a winner.

[Jenise]

I totally get your description of wine that pushes all those buttons and yet remains just within bounds. I do see a lot of that style up here, and one learns to be grateful when you recognize that excess was averted.

Sure don't see many Idaho wines, though.

They're not widely available, and that's a shame, because there is a high standard of quality and a remarkable diversity of terroir/soils, styles and grape varieties, with enough room to allow vital risk'taking.

i sense they are relying on in-state sales, especially tourism/tasting rooms and wine clubs--although there's always the rub of Idaho not being very progressive in terms of alcoholic beverages even though they are becoming a significant producer in both wine and spirits.

One of the problems is---and I don't fully buy into this---that such farming and winemaking requires a high threshold price point...and often for wines that really don't deserve it. Also, vanity pricing---which, much as the locals are super-proud of what they're doing and have every right to be, Idaho does not have the prestige for. There's a definite "my wine has to start at at least $30 just to be respected!" attitude. (The aforementioned PV is, I believe, $25---which to me is reasonable.

One interesting tidbit, Jenise: Idaho wines were much more available in Washington, and even Oregon for that matter, 25 years ago. Mostly Ste. Chapelle, and mostly the 'rooty tooty fresh and fruity' under-$5 fast-shelf-movers, true, but they at least were on the shelves in the PNW. But nowhere else.

You could easily plop some of the finer Idaho/Snake River Valley wines right in the middle of a chi-chi shop in Napanoma, San Francisco, Portland or Seattle and they would hold their own (until someone saw the Idaho label and said "What the hell?" And, really, the chains aren't invested in promoting Idaho wines--they're not perceived as proven sellers. And the indy shops can make more volume and more money with less effort with the 'magic words' on the bottle, so they have little incentive to go out of their way to champion Idaho wines.

Maybe they need to rename the Snake River Valley AVA.

Isn't there a town right around there called Nampa?

Just sayin'.

Maybe they need to rename the Snake River Valley AVA.

Isn't there a town right around there called Nampa?

Just sayin'.

Or offer a free snake with every bottle?

As Samuel L. Jackson says...