WineDay:Goldfield Revealed

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by Fred McMillin
for May 6, 1998

Goldfield Revealed

Prologue

1979—La Crema Vinera ("cream of the vintner") winery is established in a Petaluma warehouse, dedicated to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. (It moved in 1983.)

1990—Dan Goldfield, with degrees in chemistry, philosophy and wine science, becomes the winemaker, after working at Schramsberg and Robert Mondavi for a number of vintages.

1993—Jess Jackson ( Kendall-Jackson)buys the winery and purchases all new tanks, presses and barrels. Dan is ecstatic, since it "enables me to pursue my craft in a way that was never before possible."

The Rest of the Story

How does Dan use his state-of-the-art equipment? Let's look at the Pinot Noir.

Fermentation—Dan doesn't dump the crushed grapes into a vat and hope for the best. Instead, the crushed grapes spend nearly a week at a temperature too low for fermentation to occur. At a Pinot seminar I attended, Dan said this cold soak "extracts many of the most attractive characteristics from the fruit...typically raspberry and blackberry flavors." The fermentors are kept covered and gassed with carbon dioxide to prevent unwanted oxidation. After fermentation is finished, what about oak aging?

Oak—"Pinot Noir is a wine which shows oak characteristics very easily. For that reason judiciously using oak is imperative." Hence, Dan employs plenty of one-year-old French barrels. That is, they were first used to age Chardonnay for a year. Then, with the Pinot, the oak flavors are "softer and more subtle, and don't dominate the fruit."

If you have any doubt about the effectiveness of all this, try Dan's '95 Reserve Pinot Noir. My panel (and I) give it a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

The Wine

1995 Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast Reserve
La Crema Winery, Forestville, CA.
Oak—40% was one-year-old
Tasting Notes—Superb berry flavors
Composition—100% Pinot Noir
Contact—Marcia Jayne Brinker, (707) 544-4000
Price—$26 range

Postscript

To learn about the Goldfield La Crema Chardonnays, see the Aug. 6,1997 WineDay titled "Dan's Dandies."

About the Writer

Fred McMillin, a veteran wine writer, has taught wine history for 30 years on three continents. He currently teaches wine courses at San Francisco State and San Francisco City College and is Northern California Editor for American Wine on the Web. In 1995, the Academy of Wine Communications honored Fred with one of only 22 Certificates of Commendation awarded to American wine writers.

Goldfield Revealed

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