To Blend or Not To Blend?

There are countless steps between the start of the process leading up to a finished wine and the bottling of that wine. Some of my most cherished bottles are field blends produced from vines planted in the late 1800s. In such instances those first steps may have been taken in a foreign land, by a youngster growing up in a vineyard thousands of miles away.

Those field blends were designed to solve any number of problems in the vineyard and to simplify the winemaking process. At Bucklin Old Hill Ranch in Sonoma, which I visited some years ago, Will Bucklin's 'Ancient Field Blend' red is still sourced from the original vines planted in the 1880's. The vineyard includes 30 different varieties, many harvested and fermented together. Here's a look at its remarkable history: www.buckzin.com/history/

In California in the late 1800s such field blends were quite popular. They required no fancy calculations about which block or clone or soil type or weather event pointed to the perfect moment to pick each vine. Just pick a day, take them all, toss them in the fermenter and voila! – a finished blend.

Make no mistake about it – I personally love these wines. But now such old vine sites are rare, and the art of blending has become more and more sophisticated.

In many places there are standard, almost formulaic blends, which include some or all of a list of specified grapes. Bordeaux style wines, G-S-Ms and other Rhone blends are good examples. In recent decades in places where such regulations were seen to smother experimentation, adventurous winemakers were willing to accept more generic labels in order to experiment with new styles. Italy's SuperTuscan blends are one successful result.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, as well as in Chile, Australia and California, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon have proven to be viable partners, especially when the grapes are grown in common ground, such as the Rocks District, Walla Walla and Red Mountain AVAs.

But most blending trials, which are often done around this time of year, go well beyond just mixing batches of two or three different varieties. When blending a single variety wine such as a Pinot Noir, it means separately picking, fermenting and possibly barreling many different lots based on parameters such as vineyard block, soil type, clone, rootstock or vine age; then working with as many of those samples as needed to find the perfect final blend.

Having done more than a few of these trials over the years, I can tell you they are a total thrill and also quite challenging. The addition or deletion of a very small percentage of any one component can dramatically impact the aroma and flavor. It also creates its own problems even when you find the right mix. What do you do with all the wine you don't use in the blend?

It may be that the proliferation of single block, single clone and soil-specific Pinot Noirs is in part a solution to that challenge. Many wineries release numerous such wines from a single vintage, along with a Reserve or Winemaker's Selection. In some respects this is simply following a Burgundian model; in others these unblended, tightly-focused Pinots (which might be thought of as component wines) follow a certain undeniable logic.

There is often a potential financial benefit to bottling components rather than blends. It's less labor intensive, and such wines often sell for higher bottle prices to collectors who want the whole set. Fair enough.

Some of the most subtle blending trials I've experienced with 'pure' varietal wines were done with James Frey at Trisaetum. Frey makes eight different Rieslings each vintage, in dry, off-dry and reserve cuvées from three estate vineyards. My recollection was that he fermented as many as 80 separate lots of Riesling in order to prepare for blending, which seemed a Herculean task in and of itself.

Not too surprisingly, he's streamlined his approach in recent years. "In the beginning," he writes in response to my query, "we did do 80 or so individual fermentations not really knowing which blend they may end up in. As time has passed, I have a better idea of which blocks and which picks are better suited to Dry versus Medium Dry Rieslings…so they are picked, pressed and fermented with a pretty specific intention as to which blend they’ll be a part of. The decision making is now done at harvest versus a blending process later. Not much blending happens now except for a barrel selection for the two Estates Reserve Rieslings."

In an interview earlier this week with James Rahn for Oregon Live Michael Alberty notes that the winery makes "site-specific, single varietal wines" and quotes Rahn as saying "I don't blend, and I want the grape variety and site to speak for itself." This is about as clear a non-blending argument as can be made, and it is certainly valid.

So maybe the pendulum is swinging back, at least part-way, to the notion that blends should happen, if at all, in the vineyard. Which leads me to wonder if there is any consensus regarding blended vs. what I'll call 'component' wines? Winemakers - your thoughts?