The Santa Barbara County chapter of Rhone Rangers, a national nonprofit dedicated to promoting American Rhone grape varietals, showcased its local members with a trade and consumer tasting event April 5 in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone.
Since taking the chapter’s reins in April 2014, winemaker Larry Schaffer of Tercero Wines has increased winery membership and worked behind the scenes to organize a public tasting. The April event took place at the Wine Collective, at 131 Anacapa St. next door to Les Marchands.
Following the event, Schaffer said he was “pretty proud to have pulled off” a tasting dedicated to the local Rhone wine producers.
Members of the Santa Barbara County chapter are some of this region’s most storied wine producers, among them Craig Jaffurs of Jaffurs Wine Cellars, Tom and Steve Beckmen of Beckmen Vineyards, Doug Margerum of Margerum Wine Co. and Bob Lindquist of Qupe Cellars, one of the original Rhone Rangers.
On March 27, 2015, Lindquist received the organization’s third Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognized his “significant contributions” to the American Rhone grape movement. Prior recipients of the honor were Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyard and Robert Haas of Tablas Creek Vineyard, according to a January 2015 news release.
In addition to Tercero, members of the local chapter include Andrew Murray Vineyards, Beckmen Vineyards, Fess Parker Winery, Jaffurs Wine Cellars, Kita Wines, Larner Vineyard and Winery, Margerum Wine Co., Martian Ranch & Vineyard, Qupe, Stolpman Vineyard and Zaca Mesa Vineyard.
The Santa Barbara County chapter was founded in 2012 under the direction of Brook Williams, then president of Zaca Mesa, according to Schaffer.
“We actually held an event back in October 2012 at Zaca Mesa … and that was it until last night,” he wrote in an email after the April 5 event.
I emailed Jaffurs to ask how the local chapter will continue to educate wine consumers about Rhones despite the more recent “fame” given to local pinot noirs, and his answer reflected his years of experience:
“We try to educate folks about what makes the Santa Barbara growing regions unique and particularly suited to growing world-class grapes. Our cool growing regions are special and help us get perfectly ripe fruit with high acids and developed flavors. Great grapes lead directly to great wines,” he wrote. “Our style of syrah is powerful, yet elegant and balanced. The viognier is delicate and fruitful. You can tell people a lot of things, but the proof is in the wine’s quality. When people try these wines, they love them.”
Does Jaffurs believe that grenache will eventually eclipse syrah, the “warhorse” of Rhone varietals, in popularity?
“No, I don’t think grenache will eclipse syrah,” he wrote. “Grenache is riding a wave of popularity, but its identity is still being formed in the minds of consumers. Some still think it is pink wine. Some think it is just for blends or bulk wines. But vineyard-designated grenaches could be a cult thing. We know it to be tannic and fruitful, with plenty of aging potential. If I were to restart the winery, that might be where I’d go.”
What about red versus white Rhone grape varietals?
“Syrah is still riding a nice wave of popularity, but is still being outsold by pinot noir,” Jaffurs wrote. “I don’t get it. Syrah is on almost every level a better, more interesting wine, and always at a better price point. We have a lot of work to do here.
“The white wines — viognier and grenache blanc — are real bright spots. We’ve focused on making them lighter and brighter, while at the same time showing their varietal characters. These are great wines that not everyone knows about, but I guess enough people do because we can’t make enough of them.”
Jaffurs echoed Schaffer about the local organization: The local Rhone Rangers chapter is “just getting off the ground.”
“The recent Funk Zone tasting was a great success that should spur us on to do more,” Jaffurs noted. “Right now, I see us doing a yearly tasting in town (Santa Barbara), and maybe a super-fun event like a pig roast, in the (Santa Ynez) Valley.”
Schaffer and Jaffurs both pointed out that the local chapter has and will continue to participate in Rhone Ranger events in Los Angeles and San Francisco in order to reach more consumers.
Schaffer, well known for his dogged determination to promote the wines of Santa Barbara County, took over as president of the local Rhone Rangers chapter in April 2014 after Williams left Zaca Mesa. Since then, “I’ve struggled to get a ‘quorum’ of wineries together to do anything. I’ve pushed and pushed — and things aligned nicely this year,” he noted.
He attributes the new interest to “a resurgence of wineries who want to help publicize what Santa Barbara County has to offer with Rhone varieties, as well as a real desire to differentiate ourselves from other counties, especially those just north of us.”
While both Santa Barbara and San Luis counties are among those in the large Central Coast AVA — which includes Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties — Schaffer calls Santa Barbara County “truly distinctive” from the others “based on our offerings alone,” along with other factors.
Among those factors are Santa Barbara County’s temperate climate, proximity to the ocean and the unique east-west facing coastal range that funnels the marine layer inland from the cooler Sta. Rita Hills to the warmer Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara appellation.
“Rhone grape varietals got their foothold here in the (Santa Ynez) Valley in the mid-1970s with the planting of the Black Bear syrah block at Zaca Mesa,” Schaffer said, adding that the newer Ballard Canyon sub AVA is one that prioritizes the planting of syrah grapes.
The organization’s website, RhoneRangers.org, states: “American Rhone-style wines are made from the same grapes that have flourished for centuries in France’s Rhone River Valley, and their growing popularity in the United States speaks to their versatility with food, wide range of rich flavors, and to the skills of American winemakers.”
The Rhone Rangers, based in Albion, Calif., was formed in 1997 by a group of winemakers who sought a formal organization devoted to expanding the influence of Rhone-style wines across the United States. The group includes winery, grower, associate and consumer members. It has organized both trade and consumer tastings, seminars and dinners in locations such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, New York and Washington, D.C.
The Rhone Rangers recognizes five Rhone white grape varietal: Viognier, grenache blanc, roussanne, marsanne and picpoul blank (pronounced PEEK-pool blonk).
The reds recognized are syrah, petite sirah, grenache, carignane (pronounced “care-een-YAHN), mourvedre, cinsaut (“San-soh”) and counoise (“COON-wahz”).
California’s other Rhone Rangers chapters include ones in Paso Robles; El Dorado County; and the North Coast, which includes Mendocino, Sonoma, Napa, Marin and Lake counties.
My highlights from the April 5 tasting included Tercero’s “2014 Verbiage Blanc,” a blend of 64 percent roussanne, 24 percent viognier and 12 percent grenache blanc; the 2012 grenache from Larner Vineyard & Winery; Beckmen Vineyards’ 2014 grenache rosé; and a 2006 Qupe Roussanne poured by Bob Lindquist.
For more information about Santa Barbara’s Rhone Rangers, email president Schaffer at santabarbara@rhonerangers.org or larry@tercerowines.com.
— Laurie Jervis blogs about wine at www.centralcoastwinepress.com, tweets at @lauriejervis and can be reached via winecountrywriter@gmail.com. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are her own.