VINTAGES
'Great' wine the creation of great winemakers

By Randal Caparoso

What makes for a great wine? Not just good or decent drinking wine, but a truly "great" wine: one with layers of flavors, a feel of luxury, and multitudes of aromas that regale, fascinate and even shock us with every tasting, like each new time listening to a musical masterpiece.

For many years in France, the answer was simple: It is the climat, the French word referring to the combination of soil and climate that makes up each individual vineyard. After that, the area where the influence of man plays a part becomes fuzzy. Many wine lovers, and many vintners, also consider the traditions associated with each vineyard to be part of the climat — how the soil is tilled and fertilized, how the vines are trained, when and how the grapes are picked, and the countless human decisions required by the process of fermentation, aging and finishing of each wine in the winery.

Then there is the word terroir, which technically refers to the geographic factors associated with each vineyard, but, as with the term climat, is also intrinsically tied to the traditions associated with each vineyard. This is why both words, terroir and climat, are often used interchangeably when talking about the character of wines from vineyards in France, from the greatest down to the most ordinary.

Be that as it may, it is the human decisions that go into winemaking that cause many people to consider this as much an art as science. It is a science because great winemakers also have a technical grasp of how vines respond to growing conditions, and how wines respond to vinification and aging regimes. But it is an art because of those thousands of decisions, or "moments of truth" as writer Roy Andries de Groot once put it, that growers and vintners face everyday, that end up making a difference between a plain, drinkable wine and a wine of great power and perfection.

Great wine can indeed move a wine lover like a symphony, but perhaps a more appropriate analogy might be the culinary arts. Zillions of people can turn out a good-tasting dish, but we know that it takes rare intuition, imagination, mastery of technique and a bold, even brash personality to turn out a dish that excites us, and even changes the way we think about food.

Not surprisingly, in the United States, where concepts like terroir and climat are less firmly established than in Europe,the personality and talent of the individual winemaker has become a stronger factor than even Mother Nature in the quality of wine. Year after year, a great American winemaker may rely on an individual vineyard to produce a signature wine. But in years when Nature refuses to smile, producing, instead, a meager crop of thin or unbalanced wine, a great winemaker can still blend wines from other vineyards and make something significant using all the technical and aesthetic skills at his disposal.

Who are the great winemakers of today? In France great winemakers have become as celebrated as the country's chefs. In Bordeaux, for instance, the greatest personalities such as Christian Moueix and Michel Rolland inspire and direct small armies of other extraordinarily talented winemakers. In smaller regions such as Burgundy, winemakers such as Dominique Lafon and Francois Jobard work in more concentrated hands-on settings.

Ultimately, though, in France it is the vineyards, not winemakers, that remain the overriding factor. Even the genius of men like Moueix and Lafon will never eclipse the fame and significance of a Chateau Petrus in Bordeaux, or a Montrachet in Burgundy. Elsewhere in the world, winemakers can, and often have, exerted more influence on the quality and character of wine than even the vineyards they work with. (Although every great winemaker will say it's impossible to work without great grapes from great vineyards.) It is no coincidence that great grapes, vineyard sites and winemakers go hand in hand, since recognizing great material — especially when few others see the same — is part of what makes for a great winemaker.

Here are a few of the vintners I follow and admire. When you buy the wines crafted by these powerful personalities, you are almost guaranteed to get a wine of distinctive character. They are listed with the names of their estates or wineries and their particular regions, in parenthesis:

• Spain: Alejandro Fernandez (Tinto Pesquera, Condado de Haza, and Dehesa la Granja in Ribera del Duero).
• Italy: Riccardo Cotarella (Falesco in Umbria); Roberto Anselmi (Anselmi in Veneto); Romano Dal Forno (Romano Dal Forno in Veneto); Elio Altare (Elio Altare in Piemonte).
• Germany: Joachim Heger (Weingut Heger in Baden); Wilhelm Weil (Weingut Robert Weil in Rheingau); Gunter Kunstler (Weingut Franz Kunstler in Rheingau); Bernhard Breuer (Weingut Georg Breuer in Rheingau)
• Austria: Franz Hirtzberger (Franz Hirtzberger in Wachau); F.X. Pichler (F.X. Pichler in Wachau).
• Oregon: Ken Wright (Ken Wright Cellars); Lynn Penner-Ash (Rex Hill Vineyards and Penner-Ash Wine Cellars); Harry Peterson-Nedry and Cheryl Francis (Chehalem Vineyards).
• Sonoma in California: Patrick Campbell (Laurel Glen Vineyard); Richard Arrowood (Arrowood Vineyards); Forrest Tancer (Iron Horse Ranch); George Bursick (Ferrari-Carano).
• Napa Valley in California: Tony Soter (Etude Wines); Miljenko "Mike"" Grgich (Grgich Hills Cellar); David Ramey (Ramey Wine Cellars); Elias Fernandez and Doug Shafer (Shafer Vineyards).
• Central Coast of California: Jim Clendenen (Au Bon Climat in Santa Barbara); Bryan Babcock (Babcock Vineyards in Santa Barbara); Bob Lindquist (Qupe in Santa Barbara) Vineyards in Paso Robles).
• Australia: Sparky & Sarah Marquis (Henry's Drive and Parson's Flat); Chester Osborn (d'Arenberg Wines); Philip Shaw (Rosemount Estate); Tim Adams (Tim Adams).

Randal Caparoso, formerly of O'ahu, now operates his own wine negociant company, Caparoso Wines, in California, and recently wrote a book on his years as a sommelier.