Mondavi Winery Cabs through the years.
Of course, it wasn’t smooth sailing from the introduction of the grape’s name on the bottle. Retail stores pushed back, and distributors weren’t that interested because they were focused more on spirits than wine. “It was really the restaurants that embraced the varietal labeling of California wines,” Michael says. A little of bit of international tension also bolstered the Mondavi case to move toward varietal naming. French regional control boards pressured the United States to stop using protected appellation names on wine, and, at first, the California Wine Institute fought the French to allow Americans to keep using Gallic regions to name their products. There are still some holdouts that were grandfathered in when international law helped to usher in sweeping change. That’s why Almaden still makes five-liter boxes of Mountain Chablis and Mountain Burgundy, both sourced from California, while Korbel continues to use the name Champagne for its Golden State sparkling wine.
But even the pioneering Mondavis had some doubts about their approach. “We were tasting the dry Sauvignon Blanc, which was what the Napa and Livermore wineries were calling it at that time, and my father was concerned that no one was interested in buying dry Sauvignon Blanc,” Michael says. So they sought out a name they thought they could market and consulted a book by wine writer Alexis Lichine, one of the few experts in the field at the time. “My father and I looked up the Loire Valley,” he explains. They both liked the idea of Pouilly-Fumé, but he points out, “We did not want to totally plagiarize the French, so we played with the wording.” They considered Blanc Sauvignon and Sauvignon-Fumé, but those names seemed a bit clumsy. But when they hit on Fumé Blanc, it stuck, and they slapped it on the label in large type with the words dry Sauvignon Blanc in smaller print just below.
Beyond just labeling, the Mondavi brand was trying to chart a new path for American wine with the juice inside, too. “In the late 1960s, Sauvignon Blanc in California was not as interesting as it is today,” says Robert Mondavi Winery’s current director of winemaking, Kurtis Ogasawara. “It was often sweet, flabby, and lacked personality.” Mondavi’s style of Sauvignon Blanc was a hit with the public, and the Fumé Blanc endures. While the winery is now owned by Constellation Brands, the label remains among its best-sellers today.
While nearly a century ago, Americans were aping the Europeans when it comes to naming, the tables have since turned. “Variety labeling has not only changed the way Americans buy and drink wine, it has changed the world,” Michael says. “France, Italy, and Spain have all modified their regulations to where they can now call their wines by the varietal name. For years in France, they could not use varietal names.” For example, until quite recently the words “Pinot Noir” and “Chardonnay” could not legally appear on wines from Burgundy, while today they are permitted on entry level bottles of Bourgogne Rouge and Blanc. Michael imagines that “90 percent of American wine consumers don’t even know that many years ago most California wines were labeled generically.” But Robert and other Napa pioneers pushed so that American wine would be seen as anything but generic.
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Publish date : 2024-09-15 10:01:00
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