The state of the Big Ol’ Cali Red

This has nothing to do with the article but I just wanted to make it clear that Sonoma also does salads really well. Like, *really* well. This one is from Valley Bar + Bottle.

As much as I love California, I almost always reach a point when drinking the kinds of wines that have made the state famous gets a little exhausting. I drove around Cali wine country for two weeks last summer, and though I sampled a lot of incredible, distinctive wines in a dizzying range of styles, I also found myself tasting a lot of red wines that—while not offensive, exactly—tended to blur together. After those tasting sessions, I found myself wanting a beer toward the end.

I’m obviously not the first person to make this point. The wine press is awash with op-eds about what’s wrong with…let’s call them Big Ol’ Cali Reds. Overripeness, overextraction, and overoaking have become endemic to California, and not just with Napa Cabs. The style has crept into every price point, grape variety, and subregion. The result is a uniformity that can’t be ignored. I can’t think of a better blanket descriptor for this style than Patrick Comiskey’s in the LA Times back in 2007:

The wine was a youthful reddish purple, with aromas of cassis and red raspberry, a plush mid-palate and a rich finish of dark chocolaty oak. It was, in its way, delicious—and it made absolutely no impression. There were no rough edges, no distinguishing terroir flavors, little food-friendly acid and no Cabernet “grip” from tannin. It was about as challenging as a kitten or a chocolate-covered cherry.

This specific toilet will actually set you back less than a bottle of Screaming Eagle. Image credit: Litfad.com

That said, the Big Ol’ Cali Red is a spectrum. On one end is a style of wine that’s ripe, oaky, and deeply colored, but maintains a strong backbone of acid and tannin, and demonstrates a level of complexity that goes beyond pleasant fruitiness. It’s not generic or cookie-cutter. It contains a bit of where it’s from and who made it. And it’s made to pair with food, not to dominate it. Even if it’s not your personal favorite, you can see why people love it. Let’s call this the Classic Cali Red.

On the other end is a style of wine designed for drinkers who think more of a good thing is always better, like your uncle with the giant obnoxious fountain. Like deeply colored wines? Pump it full of Mega Purple until it glows in the dark. Love ripe fruit and high alcohol? Ripen the grapes until they’re nearly shriveled on the vine. Can’t get enough oak? How about a wine that tastes of nothing but oak? Essentially, it’s the difference between having a few gold accents in your bathroom and installing a solid gold toilet. Let’s call this style Gold Toilet Red.

How did it get this way?

Many critics point to the ultra-ripe, unusually large 1997 vintage as the genesis of this style. A long, sunny growing season produced wines that were opulent and fruit-forward, with softer tannins and riper flavors. Crucially, reviewers gave these wines unprecedented scores.

Unfortunately, this seems to have led to an arms race. Desperate for high critic scores in a cutthroat market, winemakers increasingly amped up the extraction, leaned into oak, and ripened their grapes past the point of sanity. And American wine drinkers increasingly began to associate big oak, ripeness, and deep color with quality.

That’s understandable given that nearly half of American wine consumers have no point of reference outside of the United States. The linked survey shows that 95% of wine drinkers in the U.S. had purchased an American wine in the last year, with the percentage of Americans who had sampled wines from the next most popular wine-producing countries, Italy and France, coming in at only 50% and 44%.

Given that the vast majority of wines in America come from California, the implications are clear. If the majority of the quality wines you’ve sampled were Big Ol’ Cali Reds, you’d naturally associate quality with the hallmarks of this style in the same way that Staten Islanders associate wealth with leather couches and gigantic mirrors. (Staten Islanders, please don’t come to Queens and kill me. The traffic on the Belt Parkway is terrible.)

Unfortunately, the extremes of this wine style may continue to prove lucrative for winemakers given that the only segments of the population whose wine consumption shows any sign of growth are people over 60. There’s a reason the term “boomer cabs” exists. Someone’s buying these overpriced monstrosities, and it’s probably not one of the generations that can barely afford groceries.

What’s a drinker to do?

Fear not. There is hope beyond the Gold Toilet Red. If you’re tired of stale winemaking and predictable flavors but you’re still craving bold reds, I’ve covered a few options for you below.

Option one: If you’re committed to the Big Ol’ Cali Red

If you absolutely can’t abandon California, here are a couple of reasonably priced Big Cali Reds in more of a classic style. These wines balance plush fruit, generous oak, and concentrated flavors with sharp acidity, firm tannins, and complex flavors.

Charles Krug 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon: This deeply colored, full-bodied wine shows an astonishing amount of character for its $35-ish retail price—concentrated fruit and big alcohol, yes, but also firm, smooth tannins, medium acidity, and a reserved, savory quality that escapes many other, pricier wines, with notes of chocolate, smoky meat, vanilla, and pencil shavings. The oak never dominates and the grapes haven’t ripened so much or so quickly that they’re robbed of their subtler characteristics.

Ridge 2018 Estate Cabernet: I have to admit that I love looking at this wine, which sports an inky, impossibly dark purple color. Oak notes like spice, caramel, and vanilla predominate on the nose, with a pleasant hint of wet stone. Its moderately high acidity and smooth, grippy tannins more than balance its rich black fruit. It finishes with savory-spicy notes of chocolate, cedar, pepper, and sage. The wine’s complexity and concentration are well worth its $60 price point.

Option two: If you love the style, but want to branch out from Cali

Okay, maybe you’re in love with American wine, but the United States is only part of the Americas. Argentina makes plenty of rich, showy wines capable of satisfying American palates. Here’s a recent favorite.

Trivento 2019 “Eolo”: Trivento’s flagship wine doesn’t shy away from big oak flavors. Judging by my hard-to-read notes, I apparently couldn’t think of any way to describe this wine’s nose than “coconut sunscreen.” (Trust me, I meant it in a good way. Also, tasting wine I plan to review over a tipsy dinner is a bad idea.) Once your nose absorbs the oak, you’ll also get plush, brambly black fruit and a certain herbaceousness that my notes called a “funk.” (Again, in a good way.) On the palate, its tannins are ripe, silky smooth, and perfectly balanced with its moderate acidity. From the remaining notes I could make out: “More international style, but…something Argentina about it. Still bites you a little. Still very un-Cali. Balance reigns supreme.” I’m not going to try to parse any of that out, but at about $100, it’s a good gift for someone you like.

Option three: If you’re ready for reds that are big in a different way

Finally, you’ve resolved to redefine “big red.” You’re ready to let “big” mean “big acid” or “big, grippy tannins” or maybe just “big, complex flavors that nonetheless allow for subtlety, moderation, and balance.” Let Barolo guide you to that definition of “big.”

Perla Terra 2018 Barolo: This one wins for the price tag alone. At about $40 retail, it’s the rare wine that delivers the full Barolo experience without breaking a fifty. The color is an eye-catching light ruby; on the nose, it’s herbaceous, with red cherry and spice. The palate is savory, with meat and leather notes, chewy tannins, and subtle mineral and baking spice notes. I brought it to dinner with friends to a local Italian restaurant; its mouthwatering acidity and bright, meat-friendly fruitiness went well with the pollo alla Bolognese.

Agostino Bosco 2016 Barolo: This light ruby wine leads with an earthy, mineral nose, with dried cranberry and ripe strawberry. On the palate, it’s spicy and lively, with a delicate body, concentrated red fruit flavors, piercing acidity, firm-yet-fine tannins, and a long, herbal finish. I almost regret not letting it age a few years more, but it’s delightful relatively young. At the relative bargain of $55, I can always buy another bottle.