My wife’s cousin Cecily and her husband Brian visited us this week from their home in Missouri. We shared with them many of Charleston’s most iconic sights including the Pineapple Fountain and Rainbow Row. We enjoyed a carriage ride through the Lower Battery and lunch at Summerville’s Accent on Wine. Accent on Wine is not actually iconic, but it very much part of our ‘Charleston Experience’.
We also enjoyed a wonderful dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Anson’s (appropriately located on Anson Street).
The wine list at Anson’s is well cultivated and we chose a bottle of 2015 Ramey Russian River Chardonnay to share with appetizers. We greatly enjoyed this 90-point rated wine that is clean and crisp, and which worked wonderfully with a variety of small plates. I determined that a personal refresher course on David Ramey and his wines would be excellent subject for a blog entry. Ironically, and fortuitously, upon our return home, the newest edition of The Wine Spectator was in the mailbox, and who should grace the cover…David Ramey.
My experience with Ramey Wines extends nearly 20 years. Steve Morrison the owner of Sterling Cellars in Mahopac, New York, for whom I was consulted, loved the lean and fruit dominant style that Ramey brought to Chardonnay, he carried many of Ramey options. I too came to appreciate the Burgundian styling and extraordinary quality of a Ramey Chard.
David Ramey is an interesting man. He earned an undergraduate degree in literature (because “he wanted to be educated and well-read in his culture”), and then have determined that his future was as a winemaker, he earned a master’s degree in Enology from the University of California Riverside. However, he credits experience in Bordeaux working with Christian Moueix of Petrus (twice in France, and at Dominus on this side of the Atlantic), to ‘learning how to make wine’. Then, after a stint in Australia, he replaced Merry Edwards at Matanzas Creek, and took positions at both Chalk Hill and Rudd (amongst others) while crafting the classic Chardonnays released by those wineries.
He has pioneered whole cluster pressing in California (modeling Burgundy), encouraged winemakers to work with “indigenous yeasts, and encouraging sur lies aging and malolactic fermentation”. Ultimately, there emerged a California style of Chardonnay that was “richer, and lush and silky”. The style follows the winemaking approach employed by Ramey who indicates that “he never describes wine in terms of flavor or aroma…it’s all about texture in the palate-smooth and silky”. This philosophy shines through all of his wines.
Ramey also ‘fines’ his wine, but he does not filter. Fining removes suspended particulates, but filtering runs the risk of “stripping out the flavors and texture”. He has significantly reduced the use of new oak in in his single-vineyard production to less than 25%. He believes that reliance on new oak may create a wine with both a structure and flavor profile that could overpower the elegance of the grape.
This winemaker also relies on malolactic fermentation. He argues that malolactic fermentation, also a hallmark of Chablis, can produce wines with excellent balance and the ability to age. He rejects the arguments of ABC ( Anything But Chardonnay) that argues malolactic fermentation is responsible for the fat and flabby Chardonnay that dominated the market in the late 90’s and through the first decade of this century. The problem, according to Ramey, is malolactic fermentation in combination with new oak aging.
Along the way David Ramey has earned the title of Professor of California Chardonnay. He lectures on the both grape and winemaking related to Chardonnay at industry symposiums. He has published numerous papers related to the chemistry of winemaking with titles such as the “Effects of Skin Contact Temperature on Chardonnay Must and Composition”, and “Low Input Winemaking-let nature do the work”. Interestingly, this last title does not suggest that Ramey believes that wine is entirely a product of the vineyard. He argues that great wine is a 50/50 proposition – 50% from the vineyard, 50% from the winemaker. He argues that terroir is critical as “vineyards should be selected for their ability to sustainably produce quality fruit”. And that “soil must be right for the climate and the varietal”. It is with this principle in mind that the Ramey family (two of his children have joined the enterprise), purchased Westside Farms in Sonoma.
Winemaking and marketing decisions made over the past 20+ years, have served David Ramey and his wife Carla, who is the business genius behind the winery, very well. They began with less than 300 cases of Hyde Chardonnay in 1996 and are ready to break ground on a Sonoma County winery on Westside Farms that will support a 60,000-case capacity. They have introduced a second label, Sidebar, allowing Ramey to work with Sauvignon Blanc, Old Vine Zinfandel, and Kerner (a German grape that is a “cross between Riesling and Trollinger that also produces fine, aromatic whites in the Alto Adige region of northeastern Italy”). These are grapes that Ramey says will never be included in the Ramey Wine portfolio and allows the winery to produce more ‘price-friendly’ wines. Look for them…I will.
The 2016 versions of Ramey Chardonnay have earned rave reviews. However, the 2015 we enjoyed at Anson is clear evidence that David Ramey makes Chardonnay that is well-balanced and offers excellent apple and pear in a crisp and fresh package…and will age.