With the passing of Robert Mondavi in 2008, only one of stalwarts of the California wine industry is still with us, 90-year-old Miljenko "Mike" Grgich, who even at that advanced age is still involved in his winery's daily operations.
The term genius is often misused to describe people, but in the case of Grgich, it is well placed.
Grgich was the guiding spirit behind the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay's monumental victory over all of the French wines entered at the 1976 Paris wine tasting. It was this victory that catapulted California wines into world prominence. The entire story was captured in the movie "Bottle Shock," but unfortunately, Grgich's contributions to the victory were ignored. While it may have been ignored in the film, it will never be forgotten by winemakers and wine lovers the world over.
Grgich was born in Croatia, where he learned winemaking at his family vineyard before emigrating to the United States. When he arrived in America, he headed for California, where he worked as a winemaker before opening his own vineyard and winery which he called Grgich Hills Estate.
Needless to say, his wines and his winemaking techniques are legendary and have been adopted by many of the more successful winemakers.
Grgich Hills Estate 2009 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($60)It is not too often that you bring a $60 bottle of wine home to serve for evening dinner. You do, however, reserve a bottle of wine like that for those times when only the best will do. And the best it is.
This wine is made in a manner similar to the techniques of days gone by. Fermentation was induced by the wild yeast that naturally forms on all fruit. After fermentation, the wine was allowed to rest on the skins for several weeks for extra color and depth and then placed in oak barrels to age. Putting the wine in oak after it has been fermented gives the winemaker the opportunity to tightly monitor and control the amount of oak that will be married to the wine.
The Grgich Hills Estate 2009 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is a wine with a feel of silk about it. It has a kaleidoscope of fruit flavors, a background of soft oak and an earthy component that introduces new flavors and depth with each sip. The finish is elegant and lingers long after the wine has been swallowed.
This wine can truly be considered among the finest of its type produced anywhere in the world.
Grgich Hills Estate 2010 Napa Valley Chardonnay ($42)After the grapes were crushed, they were fermented in oak barrels in the classical manner. When fermentation ended, the wine was transferred to French oak barrels for the quiet period that turns a rough new wine into a masterpiece.
After 10 months of aging in these barrels, the wine was sampled and blended with other wines from the same vintage. Any wine that does not live up to the very stringent standards of Mike Grgich is discarded.
The result of all this hard work is a wine of imperial proportions. This wine was made without any malolactic fermentation, which is a system often used to reduce the naturally forming malic acid to the more gentile lactic acid.
The Grgich Hills Estate 2010 Napa Valley Chardonnay has a rare balance of fruit and oak. The delicate fruit flavors that separate a great chardonnay from the rest of the pack are found in this wine. White peaches and tropical fruit are the most obvious aromas and flavors, with a haunting mineral element in the finish.
These flavors, which are often masked in other wines, are the same flavors that make the Grgich Hills wines great. As with all great chardonnays, this wine is capable of being cellared for a decade or more to gain the mellowness and grace that a wine attains with age.
Nixa resident Bennet Bodenstein is a wine columnist and helps manage ArticlesOnWine.com with his wife, Sheila. He can be reached at frojhe1@att.net.
