Sentium, a white wine from Continuum

Seeking to establish a throughline from the groundbreaking Fumé Blanc of her grandfather to her current generation, Chiara Mondavi has introduced a Sauvignon Blanc-based wine called Sentium through her father's Continuum vehicle. The vision for this wine pictured a "vibrant, mineral-driven white wine inspired by the family's history as well as the great wines of the Loire."

Fruit for the wine were sourced from "small, family-owned and -farmed old vine vineyards" which shared Chiara's "affinity for nature and organic winegrowing." Such fruit and conditions were discovered in selected vineyards in Mendocino's Redwood Valley AVA.

Fruit source for Sentium

Redwood Valley is an upland valley where the climate is cooler than surrounding appellations due to a coastal ridge gap which allows cool Pacific air currents to penetrate inland. The area is also known for its characteristic red soils which impart character to the region's wines.

Grapes for the wine are hand picked and then gently pressed. The grapes are fermented in small lots in equal parts concrete, neutral French oak barrels, and small stainless steel vessels. The wine is aged on the lees for 9 months with regular, gentle stirring throughout fermentation and aging. The wine is racked off the lees prior to bottling.

The 2022 version of this wine is a blend of Sauvignon Blanc (93%) and Semillon. We will be tasting this vintage during our upcoming Continuum tasting.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Robert Mondavi: Introduction of his Fumé Blanc

Based on Clark Smith's interpretation of wine history, the "tools of 20th century winemaking" were stainless steel, inert gas, refrigeration, and sterile filtration (a product of nuclear energy) and this "modern winemaking revolution exploded out of Germany" in the form of Rieslings that were fresh, sterile-filtered, and completely without oxidative characters. According to Smith: "the idea of a light, sweet, fresh, fruity wine like Blue Nun was as world changing as color television." 

These tools and techniques were adopted by Peynaud and other scientists in France and, from there, migrated to the US. According to Smith, prior to the 1960s, 95% of California wines were either port or sherry styles. With the introduction of Blue Nunn, and the adoption of the associated technologies in Bordeaux, US winemakers followed suit such that, by 1970, the majority of California wine contained less than 14% alcohol.

It was in this environment that Robert Mondavi introduced the groundbreaking Fumé Blanc in 1966-67. I explore the lead-up to, and construct of, this rockstar-of-its-time US dry Sauvignon Blanc.

Sauvignon Blanc

Sauvignon Blanc has its origins in France (Nancy Sweet, Sauvignon Blanc: past and present, FPS Grape Program Newsletter, October 2010) but had made its way to the US by the second half of the 19th Century:

• It was imported to the Santa Clara Valley in the 1870s by J-B. J. Portal
• It was present in Napa (H. W. Crabb, Gustav Niebaum) and Sonoma (J. H. Drummond) collections in the 1870s and 1880s.

Sauternes was held in very high regard in California  and Charles Wetmore -- CEO to the Board of State Viticulture Commissioners -- felt that it was important that the constituent varieties -- Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc -- be available for distribution to winemakers. Towards that end, he travelled to Chateau d'Yquem in the early 1880s with a letter of introduction. On the basis of the letter, he was able to obtain cuttings -- old vines on their own rootstock --  of Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, and Muscadelle du Bordelais from the d'Yquem vineyard. 

The US consumer preference for Sauvignon Blanc prior to the 1960s was as a part of a sweet-wine blend. It was not well-regarded as a varietal wine because, according to wine.com, the resulting wines were too sweet, too grassy, too acidic, and poorly made. This was the reputational minefield that Robert Mondavi had to navigate if he was to successfully launch a Sauvignon Blanc varietal in the domestic market.

White Winemaking in California in this Period

The dry white wine of choice in California at this time was Chardonnay. Vines had been procured from Burgundy but there was very little contact with the Burgundian vignerons so the US winemakers had to figure it out on their own.

A major point of departure for California Chardonnay was signaled by the work of Hanzell. Hanzell began planting Chardonnay vines near Sonoma in 1953 and is credited with creating the world's first temperature-controlled stainless steel tank. As regards winemaking, Hanzell (Elaine Chukan Brown, The Story of Chardonnay, jancisrobinson.com):

• Picked for acid retention
• Passed the grapes through the crusher with sulfur and then went straight to the press
• Fermented the wine in stainless steel tanks.

Mondavi's Fumé Blanc

Mondavi loved French wines and knew that Sauvignon Blanc made glorious dry wines in the Loire Valley. He intended to make "a more distinctive, complex wine, using primarily the Sauvignon Blanc grape" but, in order for this wine to be accepted by the drinking public, drastic changes would have to be made. Mondavi implemented a number of initiatives on the technological and marketing fronts in order to advance his goal.

Technology Initiatives

Robert Mondavi launched his new winery in 1966 and, as such, was in a position where he could implement some of the technological initiatives that were seeing success in the Valley. 

By the 1960s, Hanzell had perfected the use of the stainless steel tank but the winery was still small. Mondavi took the technology and applied it on a larger commercial scale to the wines in his portfolio. The use of temperature controlled tanks allowed the winemaker to favor fruitier aromas and flavors (colder temperatures) or earthy and herbal notes (higher fermentation temperatures). The Sauvignon Blanc was one of the early beneficiaries of this technology transfer. 

In addition to fermenting in stainless steel, Mondavi aged the wines on the lees in new French oak barrels. The lees-aged wine is enriched by the compounds released during the constituent-degradation process.

The initial fermentation and aging strategies allowed Mondavi to mask the herbal notes of the variety while displaying rounder, more melon-like flavors. 

In subsequent iterations of the wine, Mondavi began fermenting and aging the fruit in used French oak barrels. In a study on barrel-fermentation of white wines (S. Herjavec, et al., The quality of white wines fermented in Croatian Oak, Food Chemistry, 100, 2007), the authors stated thusly:

Wines produced by fermentation and maturation in oak barrels have different flavor characteristics to those which have undergone barrel maturation only after fermentation in stainless steel. One reason for this is that actively growing yeasts are capable of transforming volatile flavor components, extracted from oak wood, into other volatile metabolites.

This metabolite transformation results in what Zac Brown, Winemaker at Alderlea Vineyards, describes as "better integration of the oak and softer mouthfeel when compared to a white that is finished and then transferred into oak barrels to age."

Marketing Initiatives

Mondavi felt that Sauvignon Blanc would not be a good name for his wine due to it (i) being difficult to pronounce and (ii) the negative historical associations. He called his wine Fumé Blanc instead. This was, first of all, a play on the name blanc Fumé in use in the Loire Valley and, secondly, an acknowledgment of some of the notes that accompanied barrel aging.

Mondavi did not trademark the name Fumé blanc, opting, instead, to leave it open for other winemakers to use and, thus, create a new class of wine based on the Sauvignon Blanc grape. Further, he petitioned the ATF to register Fumé Blanc as a synonym for Sauvignon Blanc.

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Where Sauvignon Blanc wines had not been well regarded by the drinking public, by 1968 there was "tremendous demand for this wine."

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Continuum: Vineyards and winemaking

In my most recent post I explored the pedigree and genesis of Continuum, the estate founded by Tim Mondavi and his sister and designed to extend the historicity of the Mondavi wine brand. In this post I discuss grape sources and winemaking associated with the enterprise.

The first vintage for Continuum was 2005 and a total of 1300 cases were made. In a good-faith gesture, Constellation had allowed Tim to use grapes from Marjorie's Vineyard -- a block in the famed To Kalon Vineyard -- and Wappo Hills Vineyard in Stags Leap District. The To Kalon Vineyard has been covered here while Wappo Hills has the following characteristics:

• 400 acres
• Gravelly clay loam soil
• Cliffs that reflect the afternoon sun
• Bay breezes maintain cool morning and evening temperatures.

Tim was negotiating to buy the source plots from Constellation (Linda Murphy, Decanter, 5/30/07) but was unsuccessful and began looking for vines on Pritchard Hill. He eventually bought two contiguous parcels on the Hill:

• Versant, founded by the former Architect Richard Martin
• Cloudview, founded by the former Marine Biologist Leighton Taylor.

Pritchard Hill

Pritchard Hill has an unsurpassed pedigree in the annals of Napa Valley winemaking. This highly regarded lieu-dit (55 miles long and 20 miles wide) is located in the Vaca Mountains between Lake Hennessey (northwest) and the Atlas Peak AVA (southeast) with the Oakville AVA on the valley floor to the west. Notable Pritchard Hill wineries include Chappellett, Ovid, Bryant Family, and Colgin.

The areas' vineyards sit at elevations that range between 800 and 2000 feet and, as a result, they are bathed in sunshine while the valley floor is still shrouded in fog. Moderating influences on the climate include a steady breeze blowing up from the valley as well as proximity to the lake. With most of its vineyards west-facing (Colgin is the exception), the region is able to direct every last bit of the sun's rays towards ripening grapes. There is less diurnal shift on the mountain which means that the berries continue sugar production well into the evening hours.

The soils are a red clay loam of volcanic origin which is shallow, thin, and boulder-strewn. In many cases the rocks have to be dynamited to provide material for soil. The thinness of the soil allows for good drainage while its lack of depth places great stress on the vines, yielding small, thick-skinned berries which are endowed with intense flavors.

Sage Mountain Vineyard

The parcels bought by Continuum amounted to 173 acres in size, 38 of which had been planted to vine in 1991 and 1996. Additional plantings post the sale has brought the vineyard size up to 62.85 acres. The vineyard -- now called Sage Mountain Vineyard -- possesses the characteristics shown in the chart below.

Viniculture

Grapes for the Continuum Red are hand-harvested, hand-sorted, and gravity-fed into oak or concrete vessels of varying sizes to include: conical-shaped oak vats; Sonoma Cast Stone tanks; Nomblot egg-shaped tanks; and oak barrels. The wines remain on the lees post-fermentation and prior to the first racking. The wine is aged for 20 - 22 months in 83% new French oak barrels after which it is bottled unfined and unfiltered. The combination of vineyard blocks and fermentation vessels provide myriad blending opportunities at the micro-level.

At the variety level, the first three vintages did not contain any Merlot (see chart below). Once Merlot was added to the mix (2008) we see a reduction in the Petit Verdot contribution but we also see a reduction in the Cabernet Franc contribution. The Cabernet Sauvignon surge persists until the 2014 vintage after which Cabernet Franc begin to make more meaningful contributions to the blend.

The first three Continuum vintages were constructed with fruit sourced from To Kalon and Wappo Hills. In 2008, 71% of the fruit was sourced from Sage Mountain Vineyard. By 2010 all of the fruit was sourced from Pritchard Hill but not exclusively from Sage Mountain Vineyard. In 2011, 98.5% of the fruit was sourced from Sage Mountain Vineyard and that number increased to 100% beginning with the 2012 vintage.

The Mondavi Family had made great wines at Charles Krug and Robert Mondavi Winery. Now Tim had put the pieces in place at Continuum to extend that legacy. We look forward to the tasting to arrive at our independent conclusions as to how he fared in this endeavor.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme