A mistake worth making
If the name Trinchero means nothing to you, Sutter Home might. And if Sutter Home draws a blank as well, I’d wager good money you know their most famous creation, White Zinfandel.
I can hear some of you sniffing already, so allow me a small defence.
Every wine lover starts somewhere, and while you may have marked your eighteenth birthday with a glass of Château d’Yquem, the rest of us began with something humbler, usually sweet and very often pink. There’s no shame in it, and quite a lot of us owe our careers to it.
The story of White Zinfandel is well known in the trade. It came about through a happy accident in the winery, and I’ll spare you the technical details, which are easy enough to find. What interests me is what the Trinchero family did next.
Like many Italian immigrant families who made the long journey from Italy to New York and then out to California, they had little capital and couldn’t afford to waste anything, least of all perfectly good juice. So they bottled the mistake, people loved it, and its success helped pay for the family’s move into premium Napa Valley wines. I can think of worse business lessons than that one.
Letting the vineyard do the talking
Joe Shirley, who joined Trinchero in 1998, explained how their Napa wines have changed over the years, and the short version is that the attention has moved from the winery to the vineyard.
You can see it most clearly in the oak, which Shirley says is only there to “put the fruit in context,” a phrase I wish I’d thought of first.
They now use extra fine-grained barrels that leave a lighter mark on the fruit. In the past, Napa wines were often made from very ripe grapes and aged in broader-grained oak, so a good deal of their character came from the cellar. Shirley would rather start with what the vineyards give him, both on the estate and from growers the family has worked with for years. \
“The terroir is so distinct,” he told us. “I simply guide the wine.”
It’s a modest way of describing a winemaker’s job, and in my experience the modest ones are usually the ones worth listening to.
The wines
The Napa Cellars Chardonnay is unmistakably Californian, with ripe tropical fruit and a full, round texture that you won’t find in many European Chardonnays. The long finish brings crème brûlée and coconut, kept lively by a streak of lemon. Trinchero suggested a coconut crab curry alongside it, and I can’t think of a single reason to argue.
I should declare an interest here, because Zinfandel isn’t usually my style. It tends to be high in alcohol, with a ripeness that can tip into sweetness, and I’d always assumed it simply wasn’t for me. Napa Zinfandel turns out to be more restrained than its cousins from Lodi, though it’s still a sizeable wine, and the Napa Cellars Zinfandel finally showed me where it belongs, which is next to food with plenty of flavour. Mexican dishes suit it very well, and I suspect grilled meats would too.
The Napa Cellars Pinot Noir makes zero attempt to hide where it comes from. It’s full-bodied and luscious, with fruit that doesn’t skip a beat, and anyone looking for a delicate, Burgundian whisper should look elsewhere.
The flagship Trinchero BRV Cabernet Sauvignon is the most serious of the four, powerful and long, with the velvety tannins Napa does so well.
The real test
I’ve always believed the true test of a wine is how it behaves at the dinner table, so I kept the bottles open for supper. We had cochinita pibil, citrus-marinated pork that had been slow-cooking all day, and the wines, the Zinfandel in particular, held their own with ease.
What stayed with me afterwards, though, was something Shirley said about the growers.
Trinchero has built long relationships with the families who supply its fruit, with the idea of keeping those vineyards working for generations. That’s good for sustainability and good for the wine, and it’s also rather good business, which brings me back to where I started.
For all the size and success, the Trincheros don’t seem to have forgotten that wine depends on good fruit, good vineyards and good company at the table, with a little room left over for dreaming.
Thanks to Trinchero Family Estates for the samples, and to California Wines UK and Lanchester Wines for arranging the tasting. All views are my own.
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