In as brief a way as possible, I explain this winemaking venture as what you’d be doing if you’d been making wine professionally for 27 years and after making millions of gallons of profitable but less distinctive wine, you wanted to create a situation where you could explore wines that had a higher intrinsic value to you as a winemaker, wines that could be made in an uncompromising and unfettered manner. My goal is to generate great wines that are provocative and stimulating to both wine professionals and wine connoisseurs. I want to create food wines that are relevant to those who keep a close eye on how they cook and pair wine, allowing them to be more spontaneous with the fresh ingredients they might find at the farmer’s market, the town's best fish monger or the local grocer.
Winemaker Eric Laumann:
Single-vineyard Riesling is “the only way Riesling should be made.”
The Monterey winemaker doesn’t stop there:
He’s flexing his creativity with Albarino, Tannat, Gewurztraminer and Dornfelder.
by Laurie Daniel
March 31, 2009
The shelves are linedwith single-vineyard Pinot Noirs, Cabernets and Chardonnays from California. But have you ever heard of single-vineyard California
Riesling? That’s where winemaker Eric Laumann comes in. He believes that Riesling is a transparent grape that reflects the nuances
of where it’s grown. “In my opinion,” Laumann says, single-vineyard Riesling is “the only way Riesling should be made.”
So Monterey
County - much of which is relatively cool and which used to have a good reputation for Riesling - was the logical place for him to
make his notion a reality. Besides, he says, “Riesling’s not that hard to get.”
Laumann worked at Bonny Doon Vineyard from 2000 to
2002, which is how he got interested in Riesling. He was making the winery’s Pacific Rim Riesling before that project was moved to
Washington. “Randall (Grahm) is a good educator,” Laumann says, adding that Grahm would bring in various German Rieslings for the
staff to taste. Among better German Rieslings, of course, vineyard designation is the norm. “The more you study it … the more complexities
you see,” Laumann says.
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