Do you tire of a single winemaker producing so many single vineyard wines one needs a guide to keep up with them all? I mean, if one is across county in a separate AVA, or if the soils are completely different, it may be one thing, but I see SV designations on wines where there is only a tractor path between the two "vineyards". Many times the TN's for one SV reads exaatly like the TN for the other SV.

What do you think? What is enough?

I forgot to add, I'm talking single varietal here.

Seven. Seven is enough. Six is too few. Eight is too many.

Seven.

Anything in particular set this one off, Sandy?

If wine enthusiasts are as interested in "terroir" (quotes are not because I dismiss the idea, but disdain for using an ambiguous French term) as they purport to be, I would think they would be clamoring for SVD's.

They're good for the growers, as someone who has built a program around an SVD in the marketplace will be willing to pay more for the fruit in the future.

I agree it can be difficult to keep up with in some cases (I can think of a few). However, "more wines to try" seems positive to me.

quote:

Originally posted by Gigond Ass:
Seven. Seven is enough. Six is too few

Hmmm... I was thinking two.

Seriously, I like following vineyard designates over multiple vintages but do find the sheer number produced by some wineries confusing.

Nickel and Nickel has way too many. They should just blend their best grapes, make one wine and soucre the rest.

quote:

Originally posted by Randy Sloan:

quote:

Originally posted by Gigond Ass:
Seven. Seven is enough. Six is too few

Hmmm... I was thinking two.

Seriously, I like following vineyard designates over multiple vintages but do find the sheer number produced by some wineries confusing.

Randy,

Have you ever thought of blending your two SVD wines and offering it up in an allocation?

I tend to favor wineries which make a couple of excellent wines year after year that you can count on (e.g. Sea Smoke, Dehlinger, Sanford, Talley), and I guess I get a little turned off by wineries that mail me an offering of 20+ different and expensive single vineyard wines.

I visited an Oregon producer earlier this year, and we stood there and tasted probably 25 or 30 different wines, many single vineyard wines from all over Oregon, Washington, California and even overseas, almost none of which were anything special or particularly interesting. I kept thinking to myself "I wish they'd devote themselves to making a couple of good wines instead of seeing how many different ones they could make."

But that's just a generalization. If you're delivering good quality and value, and if there is genuine interest and character to the different sites you're making single vineyard wines from, then I suppose it's perfectly fine.

I do think that some wineries should take a bit of a self-critical look at times, though, and see if that is really the case, or if maybe they could achieve better quality and consistency by paring down their offerings and/or making some better blends.

quote:

Originally posted by seanr7:

quote:

Originally posted by Randy Sloan:

quote:

Originally posted by Gigond Ass:
Seven. Seven is enough. Six is too few

Hmmm... I was thinking two.

Seriously, I like following vineyard designates over multiple vintages but do find the sheer number produced by some wineries confusing.

Randy,

Have you ever thought of blending your two SVD wines and offering it up in an allocation?

Sean, you could just as easily do that at home with a bucket.

quote:

Originally posted by P Monty:
I visited an Oregon producer earlier this year, and we stood there and tasted probably 25 or 30 different wines, many single vineyard wines from all over Oregon, Washington, California and even overseas

Sineann?

winerugger said:

More wines to taste seems positive to me.

Sounds like a winemaker to me. From a consumer point I would say "More distinctive wine seem....

I have stood in the vineyards of Burgundy winerugger, and understand terrior' quite well. But too often the SV's here in the US are undistinctive from one another and seem mostly to be a marketing scam, which I am finding boring.

quote:

Originally posted by Board-O:

quote:

Originally posted by P Monty:
I visited an Oregon producer earlier this year, and we stood there and tasted probably 25 or 30 different wines, many single vineyard wines from all over Oregon, Washington, California and even overseas

Sineann?

Sounds like Sineann. I liked every wine they poured me. Solid line up.

When the wines taste the same, then you've got too many. When there are discernible differences, then you're fine.

I like to see as many as possible. This way, I can celebrate diversity in wines and experience the unique terroir, or sense of place that is unique to each individual site. After all, isn't wine meaningless if it does not tell a story and express the site each time we drink it?

I can keep track of most wineries sv offerings, but when it comes to Rosenblum and Turley I can't seem to keep up with them all.

I agree with cdr and winetarelli posts above, so long as we can overlook cdr's irony.

Rather than trying to figure out how many SV wines "is enough," it's maybe easier to figure out when it's too much. If the winemaker is unable to produce good wines from each bottling because he/she can't attend to each due to time or location constraints, or if judicious blending of one or more bottlings would produce a wine superior to any of the individual ones, then I guess it's past the point of "enough."

As long as they're good as well as unique products, I say kudos to any winemaker who can provide variety.

quote:

Originally posted by Gigond Ass:
Seven. Seven is enough. Six is too few. Eight is too many.

Seven.

Not once, not twice, but thrice?

Et septem, Brute?

It's the number du jour, futronic. Everyone's using it, you know.

By tomorrow we'll just think of it as a fad.

quote:

Originally posted by Sandy Fitzgerald:
Sounds like a winemaker to me. From a consumer point I would say "More distinctive wine seem....

I have stood in the vineyards of Burgundy winerugger, and understand terrior' quite well. But too often the SV's here in the US are undistinctive from one another and seem mostly to be a marketing scam, which I am finding boring.

That would be 'terroir' and 'indistinct' by the way, but maybe only winemakers can tell the difference. So ... why are you tasting mediocre US SVD's, and too often at that? There are plenty of small wineries throughout the West Coast producing excellent SVD's. Twenty seems a bit overboard, and yes, there are winery owners who have jumped on the 'next big thing' but a savvy international taster like you would not fall prey to that. Especially since you know that Burgundy is not immune to having piles of marketing manure here and there.

quote:

. . . you know that Burgundy is not immune to having piles of marketing manure here and there.

Hmm. And here I thought they were all upright and we were on our way to terroir nirvana when every vine would have its grapes vinified independently.

Of course, then we'd need a special glass for each one.

Looking at the west coast, I don't think we've come close to finding the number of sites that can produce good or great wine. I've even had great wine from Michigan and Ohio, which I would never have believed possible a few years ago.

At any rate Sandy - Mary's right. I'd look for better SV products if you're finding too many undistinguished and similar wines.

Mary has a point but:

So much wine, so little time!

I confess getting buried in the ever enlarging circle of new wines, especially SV's. How many of the new SV's coming out of the Left coast can I taste this year, and still have liver enough for all the excellent new old vine CdP's being discussed on another current blog? Especially, when the winemaker sends me a list and says 200 case produced!

Now Mary can give me another English lesson.

quote:

Originally posted by sprnplr:

quote:

Originally posted by seanr7:
Have you ever thought of blending your two SVD wines and offering it up in an allocation?

Sean, you could just as easily do that at home with a bucket.

It has crossed my mind, but mainly as a possibility for a special barrel for Napa Premiere... that sort of thing. Otherwise, I have trouble seeing where the blend would fit in our business at this point. Someday maybe.

We've never done any formal blending experiments but I have mixed a glass before. That one experience was tasty.

quote:

Sounds like a winemaker to me. From a consumer point I would say "More distinctive wine seem....

Sandy – It was completely tongue-in-cheek, but I can’t blame you for my failure to convey that. Although I do enjoy tasting lots of wines from all over, as would, I imagine, anyone who hangs out on a wine forum.

Since you’ve stood in a vineyard, maybe you can enlighten me on “terroir”. It would seem the concept is that “wines from different places taste different”, with different consequences and due to many different factors. While logical and true IMHO, this hardly seems profound? Really, how could they not taste different?

Part of my job is deconstructing vineyards, wines and winemaking in an attempt to discover what effects many different inputs have on wine. These include separate soil types, swales, plant materials, soil moistures and soil textures inside a vineyard, harvest conditions and winemaking inputs. I rather enjoy it and have learned a lot, and it seems to me that many wine geeks are very interested in the same sorts of questions, are they not? So why wouldn’t they be interested in more focused wines from specific vineyards, blocks or even plants?

Here’s my list as to what should be considered prior to bottling an SVD:
1. Never go into a contract promising it. Always have it slated for a blend. If a competing winemaker wants to guarantee an SVD prior to working with a vineyard, they can have it.
2. Never bottle one, other than small test bottlings, until the vineyard has proven itself in your cellar for 3 vintages. By proving, I mean it should be a