American Wines

This is a small, deliberately chosen range rather than a broad survey, and it concentrates on producers with genuine standing rather than volume brands.

Ridge Vineyards is the centrepiece. Based in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Ridge works with old vine zinfandel from Sonoma and cabernet from its Monte Bello estate, and it has a long standing commitment to minimal intervention and to listing ingredients on its labels, which almost no other winery does. Lytton Springs and Geyserville are the famous Sonoma field blends, and Pagani Ranch sits alongside them.

Shafer Vineyards works in the Stags Leap District of Napa, one of the most highly regarded sites for cabernet sauvignon in California.

Oregon is represented by Sokol Blosser in the Dundee Hills, one of the state's founding wineries and a specialist in pinot noir, which is Oregon's calling card rather than California's.

Santa Barbara contributes cooler climate pinot noir and chardonnay through Nielson, and Sonoma provides everyday drinking through Cannonball.

History

California had a wine industry in the nineteenth century, built substantially by Italian and Croatian immigrants, and Prohibition destroyed it. Between 1920 and 1933 almost every commercial winery closed, and the recovery took another forty years.

The turning point came in 1976 at a blind tasting in Paris, where a panel of French judges rated Californian wines above their Bordeaux and Burgundy equivalents. Stag's Leap Wine Cellars and Chateau Montelena took the top places, and Ridge Monte Bello was among the wines in the red flight. When the tasting was repeated thirty years later with the same 1971 vintages, Ridge Monte Bello finished first. The result changed how the world understood New World wine.

Zinfandel has an interesting history of its own. For a long time it was assumed to be a uniquely American grape. DNA analysis in the late 1990s and early 2000s established that it is the same variety as Croatian Tribidrag and Italian Primitivo, brought to America in the nineteenth century.

Oregon's story is separate and later. David Lett planted pinot noir in the Willamette Valley in 1965 on the argument that the latitude and climate resembled Burgundy, and Sokol Blosser followed in 1971.

How to drink it

Napa and Sonoma reds are generally high in alcohol and ripe in fruit, and they suffer more than most wines from being served warm. Sixteen to eighteen degrees is the target, which in an Australian summer means time in the fridge before opening. Cabernet from Shafer benefits from decanting for an hour.

Zinfandel is worth understanding on its own terms. It ripens unevenly, which is why the wines carry both jammy fruit and a peppery, brambly edge at the same time, and it is usually high in alcohol. Serve it slightly cooler than cabernet, around sixteen degrees, and it becomes much more refreshing.

Oregon and Santa Barbara pinot noir should be cooler again, fourteen to sixteen, in a large bowled glass.

Californian chardonnay covers a wide range, from heavily oaked to lean and unoaked. Serve at ten to twelve degrees, warmer than a sauvignon blanc, so the texture shows.

For food, zinfandel is one of the few wines that copes with American barbecue, ribs and anything smoky. Cabernet wants steak. Pinot noir suits duck and mushrooms.

Compare with Australian and French equivalents.