Marcien Chronicles

Restraint and Discipline... The first time I peered into that ground glass viewfinder, I was hooked. It was a twin lens reflex camera - I think a Yashica or a Rollieflex - but everything looked sharper and more organized when I viewed the world through that two and a quarter inch square…perhaps because I didn’t yet know I needed glasses! My little high school on the central California coast came equipped with a neglected darkroom and a few old cameras in a closet-like corner of the Home Ec. classroom. Once I showed interest, I had free reign and I owned that closet for the next four years. Yes, I was that geek, omnipresent at every event, camera dangling from my pencil neck, taking pictures for the school newspaper and yearbook. That camera was power. With it, I could excuse myself from class to cover anything I deemed newsworthy and insert myself into any activity or meet any person. I loved it. I quickly embraced the concept of the decisive moment and I would lie in wait for the peak in action and emotion to reveal itself in my little square so I could press that shutter as if I were squeezing off a round. With only 12 exposures to a roll of film and a clumsy reloading method, every shot had to count. I needed restraint and discipline and had to see everything in the frame, not just the subject, and know when something would ruin an otherwise perfect shot. I learned when not to shoot and I learned that what I left out of the frame was as important as what was left in, a lesson that continues to pay off to this day. With approximately 200 acres of vines, editing is important. We could just throw everything together but that would be like a messy snapshot of a wine. Instead, each cuvée is a precise composition that is edited in a series of tastings until each wine tells a story of time and place. Of the blended reds, Libration is the most open and gregarious, POV is lush and ready for the table, Marcien is studied and serious - a classic wine that evolves over time. Marcien is probably the toughest wine to edit. It requires restraint. Each lot of wine is analyzed by taste and character. Only the most structured and the most likely to evolve selections make it into Marcien. Oh, there’s always the temptation to make more, but that might ruin the shot. Like squeezing off a frame with an old camera, we only have one chance to get it right and Marcien is the best shot of the vintage.

We now have a reason to be hopeful and a real reason to celebrate. Raise a glass with me to the opportunities of the future and a better world for our children.

What I love about Abraxas is that it can be dressed up and dressed down. The combination of Riesling, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and Gewürztraminer is perfect for anything from foie gras to hot dogs, heirloom pork roast with apples to carnitas and even Turkey to yams with marshmallows. Abraxas is the Swiss army knife of wine and it will turn any frown upside down.

*Photo Caption: Harvest is brought to a stop as an almost unheard of dry lightning storm runs through the Capa Vineyard on August 14, 2020, triggering fires throughout the region. The very challenging 2020 vintage saw extreme drought with many triple digit days in Napa and a world record of 130 degrees F in Death Valley in what turned out to be the hottest summer in California’s recorded history. The heat, drought and lightning created the perfect storm for a disaster. RSV only harvested the Pinot Noir on the Capa Vineyard for Vin Gris. No other wine was made in 2020.

Food and wine is better than therapy. It slows us down, gives us pleasure, sustains and relaxes us, but, most importantly, it brings us together so we can solve our problems and achieve our goals together.

The New Abnormal... Keep on Farming in the New World! We are suffering from a new syndrome - Environmental Anxiety. I thought being farmers would condition us to accept the uncontrollable nature of the weather. However, when you continue to see records fall - and not for the right reasons - it adds a new kind of stress. This past February was the driest on record in California with no detectable rain for the entire month. What should have been a wet, chilly February was instead summer-like, with temperatures hitting the 80’s. We even saw bud break in some Carneros vineyards and the fruit trees filled with blossoms. Weird! Over the past few years we have witnessed some of the warmest years on record and fire has become a season. We used to worry about rain during the fall harvest season. Now we worry about fire and smoke. I am getting used to weird. The unexpected is expected and the new norm is abnormal. What is really weird is that science predicted these extreme weather events decades ago and we, as a population, paid little heed. I grew up in a small, central-coast town during the tail end of the hippie era when young people descended on the California coast to “get back to nature” and learn how to farm and become self-sufficient. The oft quoted slogan was “think globally, act locally” - this ethos has stuck with me to this day. RSV is concerned with what is happening beyond our geographic area but we can only control our own actions, farming and business practices. Thirty years ago, Winemaker Jeff Virnig adopted farming systems to sequester carbon and increase organic material in our soil long before we had ever heard of “Regenerative Farming Practices.” We embraced these techniques because we thought it was the right thing to do. Not only could we reduce our impact on the planet, we felt we could make better wine using these advanced methods of Organic and Biodynamic practices. We also believed if there were healthy microbe populations in the soil we could create a more resilient vine that could access the nutrients it needed, when it needed them instead of relying on human inputs of chemicals and fertilizers. But it goes beyond the farm…. the winery generates a majority of its energy through solar power and recycles production water to use in the culinary gardens. We do as much as we can to reduce our impact, but we are not perfect and we can’t have a global impact on our own. I am guardedly optimistic as more and more vineyards and wineries adopt regenerative methods, but we need as many farmers as possible to accept these methods as normal practice. Wouldn’t it be nice if our government would back and support regenerative practices with incentives that would allow regenerative agricultural food production to be competitive with commercial chemical farming in order to encourage conversion to practices that can lead to higher quality food, an improved environment and potentially reduce the impacts of climate change? Because fine wine… and food, shouldn’t hurt your palate or the planet.

In the last episode… our hero - Commander Zinskey was preparing to travel back in time, start a new political party and run against the evil orange overlord. As you recall, the Commander believed the world needed a hero to directly stop the orange demagogue before he could irreparably damage democracy, destroy the environment, anoint himself a god and turn the planet into an orange wasteland. The Commander, while preparing for his time leap, decided to pay a visit to the eccentric, inventor-billionaire, Elliot Tusk. The commander heard rumors that the crazy billionaire had developed an Alternate Reality Society Engine - A.R.S.E.! The mind bending device allows a preview of an individual's actions before they commit to them… allowing one to see how different scenarios or actions alters the future. As Mr. Tusk placed the A.R.S.E. helmet on Commander Zinskey, he whispered in his ear - “Your life will never be the same!” The Commander, somewhat confused, closed his eyes and went for the ride. The first “if-this, then-that” scenario the A.R.S.E. played for the Commander was - If he went back in time, could he save the world from the evil orange overloard? As the scenario played out, he saw that he could prevail but quickly realized his own militaristic background wasn’t the best fit for the civilian government of the 21st century. Much to his chagrin, and a blow to his ego, he saw that he would be replacing one demagogue with another (himself) and he would alienate a large part of the population and the country would devolve into chaos. He realized a true hero, who loves his country, must decide between ego and the people he serves - his presidency would end in resignation. He then decided to let the A.R.S.E. show him the future as it would naturally play out. To his surprise, he saw people come together in protest. He saw young and old - male, female, trans - straight, gay and pan - black, white, yellow, brown and even a few migrant alien green people, stand up to have their voices heard. He saw a young girl address climate change to a large, adoring audience. He saw the people protest for equal rights for all. He watched as the people demanded - and got - change. It was then that the Commander remembered the vow he took which ends with “…liberty and justice for all” and realized the people don’t need a hero - THE PEOPLE ARE THE HEROES! Knowing the world was back on the right track, he turned to Mr. Tusk and asked if he could take his new Starship for a test drive. To be continued…

We did not need to say it. We all knew why we enjoyed gathering together every year … it was about respect! Respect for food, respect for the sanctity of the table and respect for each other. Oh yeah, the oysters and the Bob Blanc.

Shelter with Taste finding balance in a brave new world! There is a fantasy that winegrowing and winemaking is glamorous - that it is all just hobnobbing with mayor Pete in a wine cave. I hate to burst your bubble, but we’re just farmers that make a fancy, delicious beverage from our crops. There are a lot of things to worry about as farmers. We are always watching the weather for frost, hail, rain, humidity, wind and heat spikes. Any of these at the wrong time could spell disaster. Then there is mildew, pestilence and bird damage. But that’s not all… labor, bureaucracy, taxes, recession and even mechanical issues with our tractors and equipment can lead to financial ruin. Of course, we have always lived in the shadow of a looming earthquake, but we’ve now added wildfires and power grid shutdowns to the list of potential trip wires. I never thought a pandemic would trump everything that came before. Wine, by its very nature is social and the pandemic has changed - maybe permanently - the way we socialize. Instead of going to restaurants and bars, we are now cooking at home or ordering takeout and, if we socialize at all during the shelter at home order, we do it with our immediate family, housemates or with friends via video chat. If there’s a positive take, it’s that families are connecting again over a fresh cooked meal and the kitchen is once again the center of our gated castle. We have relearned the joys of lifting a glass with our family and discussing our fears and our dreams. In some ways, we will look back on this time as an opportunity to reconnect. Nature throws a lot at farmers because nature abhors a monoculture. If something is too successful, it creates an environment where disease and pestilence can mutate or propagate, unchecked by natural processes. The way to combat disease pressure naturally is to emulate the rhythms of nature and overcompensate for the destructive aspects of farming by encouraging biodiversity and to resist the temptation of overproduction by finding balance. RSV finds balance by farming the soil with cover crops, practicing low or no-tillage to encourage soil tilth and resist the use of herbicides, synthetic fertilizers or pesticides - the things that break the deal with natural processes. Then we encourage diversity by allowing groves of trees to co-exist with vineyards, hedgerows between properties and beneficial insectaries. We encourage life by allowing sheep to graze the vineyards where they not only control the growth of the cover crop, but leave behind waste that encourages healthy populations of microbes that break down nutrients to a form that vines can access easily. In some ways, humans have become a monoculture. Maybe we need to strike a deal with nature and overcompensate for the damage that humans do by healing an ailing earth.

Desert Island Wine... Pink Sunshine! “If you were stranded on a desert island and only had time to grab one case of wine before your ship sank, what would it be?” Though an unlikely scenario, I ask this question of almost every potential employee of RSV. As bizarre as it may seem, it reveals much about an individual’s food and wine knowledge and if their philosophy is simpatico with RSV. Some might choose what many wine writers have deemed the greatest wine of all time - the 1947 Cheval Blanc. Choosing to be stuck on an island with your only beverage being this powerful (and well aged) Right Bank Bordeaux might score some points for wine trivia knowledge; it reveals this candidate needs work on their food and wine philosophy. Let’s have a reality check. As great as this wine may be, it isn’t going to go well with your foraged fruits and roots… and the protein you might be lucky to find on land, or spear or net from the ocean, isn’t going to be the most enjoyable… a true first-world problem! And its auction value of many thousands of dollars won’t help on an uninhabited island. I guess one could use the bottles to write SOS on the beach and hope a well heeled yachtster sniffs it out. At one time, I probably would have said Pinot Noir was my preferred desert island wine as it can go with the birds you might be lucky enough to dispatch, yet it can also work with fish and roots one might have to survive on. But it is still not ideal. Then, when we started to make Abraxas, that became my choice as the aromatic white blend would work with just about everything. But what about the Vin Gris of Pinot Noir? It has enough oomph to work with the heartier fare one might find running on or flying around an island, yet it has the aromatic qualities that can go with the roots and some of the fruits - and it’s definitely delicious with the fish, molluscs, crustaceans, cephalopods and even the seaweed that can be found in the sea. Most people think of rosé as a summer wine. I could not disagree more. It is an anytime wine. Of course I love it at summer picnics at the beach, but it is also delicious apres-ski with raclette or, more simply, a good soup and a grilled cheese sandwich after a hard day on the back forty. It is a refreshing contrast for just about any food and it can bring a little sunshine to the grayest of days. The Vin Gris of Pinot Noir is the perfect desert island wine no matter what season finds you stranded on your own private island.

I know we are growing it in the right place and I hope it is in the right hands - that is not for us to judge. I do know that RSV’s Pinot Blanc delivers pleasure... and that is the essence of wine - to joyfully enhance a meal. The pretense of wine can interfere with our ability to enjoy. We work hard to analyze it, we forgive hard tannin, high alcohol or too much oak, saying a certain wine will be great if given enough air or time. Sometimes I think we feel the need to work for it to alleviate our guilt for taking pleasure in indulgence. Why can’t we just enjoy with guilt-free, hedonistic abandon? Because a lot of times, guilt comes from feeling naughty that we are doing the wrong thing. RSV believes that a fine wine should not hurt your palate or the planet and we do our best to farm in a conscientious manner that furthers our mission to heal an ailing earth. But none of this matters if the wine does not taste good. RSV’s Pinot Blanc is just plain delicious. We give you two opportunities to indulge: a little half-bottle for those intimate evenings with your significant other (or a date with yourself), and a big magnum for when you have a group of friends over and you’re ready to party. Blanc on!

I Love You, I Hate You… The Muscat Dilemma! Muscat is the most delicious wine in the world. Muscat is the most insipid, disgusting, mass produced wine in the world. If both of these statements are true, Muscat has an image problem. It is a grape that has suffered from its success - maligned by incredibly popular, cheap, sweet Moscato. It is afflicted with “White Zin” syndrome - a syndrome whereas most people assume the wine to be sweet. As we now know, not all pink wine is sweet, but it took decades for the public to warm up to and embrace a good, dry Rosé. Now it is arguably the most popular category of wine. I wonder if history will repeat itself and Muscat will become the next “it” wine. I doubt it, but it would be nice. A classically made, dry Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains can be sublime. Free of cloying sugar, it becomes an aromatic wonder with an explosive flavor profile that works well with comforting foods. As I write this on a hot summer day in July, just post Fourth celebrations, I am thinking of all the traditional BBQ foods that are most at home with beer. Replace that koozie with a goblet of RSV’s Muscat and imagine how delicious it would be with hot dogs, ribs, burgers, grilled vegetables, chips and dip or even some fresh grilled fruits adorned with a shaving of Manchego cheese. What makes Muscat so enjoyable is that it is about pleasure over pretense and it is hard to be taken seriously when spun up with Master Sommelier lingo. It doesn’t need it. Yummy is a good enough adjective…. 

Napa has never been Pinot Country. It wasn’t even Cab Country when RSV’s vineyards were planted in 1982. Napa was much more diverse in those days. If a king of reds existed in the ’70’s and 80’s, it was more likely Zinfandel than any other grape. Back in the ’80’s, Cab was planted next to Chenin Blanc, Riesling next to Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc next to Gamay Rouge, Muscat Canelli adjacent to Barbera, Muscat Rouge, Sangiovese, Grignolino… There even was a lawsuit between two wineries with similar names that was settled when one selected Petite Sirah as their signature red and the other selected Cabernet Sauvignon. We now know who was more prescient. Even with all the diversity, the small plantings of Pinot Noir, in all reaches of the Valley, held special intrigue. Though it is arguable who brought the first selections of Pinot Noir to the Napa/Sonoma corridor in the 1880’s, many credit - Colonel Agoston Haraszthy de Mokesa, founder of Buena Vista Winery in the Carneros, as one of three potential pioneers of Pinot Noir. The selections brought in by the colorful Colonel would propagate vineyards throughout the region with some legendary results… the most remarkable was the 1946 Beaulieu Pinot Noir, a benchmark wine for Pinot Noir from California crafted by Andre Tchelistcheff, who told me before he died that it was the greatest wine he ever made. It is by no mistake that Pinot Noir vineyards have consolidated in the cooler southern part of Napa where the marine influence moderates the climate… not-too-hot and not-too-cold for an expressive wine. Sure there were/are interesting wines made in the hills, with names like School House, Mayacamas and El Molino… old plantings that helped keep heirloom selections of Pinot Noir in production. At one time, almost every winery in Napa Valley had some form of Pinot Noir in bottle, but one by one, they ripped out vines and planted to the more lucrative and adaptive Cabernet Sauvignon. If it weren’t for the pioneers… even if some of the original plantings were not as successful as others, we would not have the genetic material that makes up a good percentage of RSV Pinot Noir. Don’t get me wrong, some French clones brought in from nurseries can be an interesting addition. However, it is the heirlooms in our little part of Pinot Country in the Carneros region of Napa that makes RSV Pinot Noir distinct. The historic heirlooms seem better adapted to the local climate, ripening later than many of the French clones while maintaining better acidity, freshness and complexity… and it is nice to imagine a thread running from the 1800’s to today in the latest release of RSV’s Los Carneros Pinot Noir.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T! Can we respect the past while charting a course into the future? I sure hope so. Years ago, I sat next to a well-known, lifelong Napa vintner who said the average person working in the wine industry had a seven year frame of reference and it was our responsibility to keep reminding people what came before or risk losing that history. The concern is not only with preserving the verbal history, but the stylistic history of wine from all the different wine regions of the world. How does one know what a classic wine is if they have only tasted what is currently trendy? One of my friends, restauranteur and master sommelier, Bobby Stuckey, was recently accused of being an elitist for writing that many young sommeliers do not have enough experience with classic wines to have a frame of reference and instead focus on wines with a good story regardless of whether the wine is sound or has a decent price-value relationship. Anyone who knows Bobby will know that he is not an elitist - however, he is demanding. He expects people who work for or with him to take the time to learn their craft and respect the trade for the benefit of their customer. A classic wine is elegant, balanced, free of major flaws, enhances the food it is served with, and will age gracefully so that some day it will provide pleasure at the table. Now I prefer and respect well-farmed, minimally-manipulated, pure wines, but I would rather drink a beer or a cocktail than drink a flawed/funky wine with a good story. After all, the purpose of a wine is to bring pleasure. My first question when tasting a wine: Does it put a smile on my face? Then, usually the second question is: What will I serve with it? Some day, I hope we will have a “wine bank”, where aspiring wine professionals can go to learn the history of wine. A place where they can understand the historical trends in wine and a place where they can learn that a great wine might be able to happen by accident in certain vintages - but a consistently great wine usually comes from a vigneron with discipline, diligence, restraint and a respect for craft. Knowledge is a great way to future-proof and learn from tradition.

Slow Down... for Great Wine! What makes a great wine? Is it based on flavor profile? Perceived quality? Scarcity? How about score? Does that matter anymore? What about how the grapes were farmed and the wine was crafted… does anyone care? It’s always baffled me how a wine that can be considered a luxury product can be grown using farming methods designed to bring in grapes at the lowest cost… especially when those methods are toxic to the environment and to people in contact with it. Almost thirty years ago, we observed that the use of glyphosate (a common ingredient in commercial herbicides) was destroying the rhythm of nature by disrupting microorganisms, worms, mycorrhizal fungi and the overall tilth of the soil. But more, we suspected it had the potential to be a carcinogen and we wanted no part of it. We did not want to fear our food and we did not want to foist a potentially toxic product on consumers under the guise of a luxury wine. When we decided to farm organically in 1990, it wasn’t enough to just grow organic grapes; we wanted to learn how to make a better wine organically. That was when RSV winemaker Jeff Virnig introduced me to the teachings of Rudolph Steiner and the concepts of Biodynamic farming. The thing that stood out to me was the idea that it was the farmers responsibility to “heal an ailing earth” by mimicking the forces of nature to compensate for the damage inflicted by forcing our will on the land. The idea was to create an environment where the vine could thrive and access the nutrients from the soil that it needed, when it needed it, and not be dependent on human input for its survival. And if you grew a superior grape, you could craft an elegant, complete wine with less intervention in the cellar. It seems that the time has come for conscientiously farmed wines to have their spotlight moment. We have seen the “Natural Wine” movement have an impact on restaurant wine lists, but just because a wine is farmed and produced conscientiously, it does not necessarily mean that it is going to be great… or even enjoyable. Now there is a guide that attempts to give a shout out to not only “Great Wines” but conscientiously grown and produced wines. It is called the Slow Wine Guide. At one time it only considered Italian wines but has now expanded to California and Oregon with a clearly defined mission: "… With its publication, the editors-in-chief Giancarlo Gariglio and Fabio Giavedoni not only abandoned the score-based formula that had dominated the field for more than 20 years but they also adopted a wholly new and innovative set of criteria. For the first time, the pioneering Italian wine critics looked not just to the quality of the wines: They also took into consideration the wineries’ sustainable farming practices and the winemakers’ “Slowphilosophy,” as Gariglio has put it, “which continues to be increasingly important to consumers in wine and food globally." We are proud that RSV has been recognized as a Slow Winery and Abraxas has been singled out as a “Great Wine” for the 2019 guide… it only took 35 years to become an overnight sensation in the Slow Wine world.

My father hated waste and I think his disdain rubbed off on me. He would not open a full bottle of wine unless there were guests to share it with because even though he had access to unlimited amounts of RSV wine, he just could not stand wasting un-drunk wine. As he got older, he would ask us to make a few cases of every wine in half bottles - and we would accommodate him. We would take the full size labels and stick them on the little bottles. They would look silly but it made him happy. I loved seeing he and his wife enjoying a half bottle at most dinners when it was just the two of them. Now that I am getting older, I get it. I just wanna little bit - but that little bit’s got to be good.

A Rosé Tale… I remember when “Rosé” was a dirty word. It doesn’t seem that long ago…. but maybe it was - and I’m just getting old. In those days, the most popular wines were White Zinfandel or other “Blush” wines and Bartles & Jaymes commercials were the only vinous ads on prime time. Almost every sommelier assumed that anything pink was sweet and refused to buy all rosé wines even though they were slinging buckets of Chardonnay with residual sugar. I love a good, classic, Euro-styled rosé and I wanted RSV to make one to prove that a California producer could make a great one, but I did not know what to call it. Since the only grape variety in our vineyards appropriate to craft a “Rosé” from was Pinot Noir, we chose to call it Vin Gris of Pinot Noir. I couldn’t have been more naive. Though the wine was great from the beginning, I could not give it away. It seemed people would drink it in secret for fear that someone might accuse them of drinking sweet pink wine and virtually no one knew what Vin Gris meant. One by one, the confident restauranteurs, chefs and sommeliers began pairing great rosé with their food and the public memory began to fade. People began to see the flexibility of a delicate, whole cluster pressed Vin Gris of Pinot Noir along with other well balanced rosés and how they enhanced their cuisine… and experience. …and thank you for your support!