Introduction

A couple of years ago I found the UC Berkeley Regional Oral History Wine Spectator California Wine Oral History Series at http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/projects/food_wine/wine.html and was fascinated. The interview with Richard Forman, founder of Sterling Vineyards by Carole Hicke was wonderfully interesting. http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt0p30013f/

Here's what Richard had to say about these wines. First the Pinot:

"Forman:

At Sterling in that same year, 1969, we made all these other goofy white wines, as I mentioned, and those were fermented in stainless, but the last to be for me. And then we made Cabernet, of course, and Merlot. We also had some Pinot Noir, which was growing at Three Palms, of all places, the absolute worst place in the world for Pinot Noir to be grown.

Hicke:

Where is it?

Forman:

Three Palms Vineyard is just on one of the last bends of the Silverado Trail as it comes around to Dunaweal Lane. It's just in back of Sterling. It's a unique swathe of ground, having been sort of criss-crossed over the eons with Selby Creek, and so it's very rocky. It's rocky in the same way that Rhone soils are rocky. It has all these round, river-run, hard rocks, and very gravelly, well-drained soil. It's a super place for grapes, but it's for grapes that require heat and exposure, not sensitive grapes like Pinot Noir. The Cabernet and Merlot and Franc and so forth do marvelously there, but the Pinot Noir was just a joke. I don't know why they ever planted it. That came before me.

So I tried to make Pinot Noir at Sterling. Actually, in 1971 we made quite a unique one. It was a California-style Pinot Noir. It's still very viable. It's unbelievable. It was tannic, dark, and uniquely spicy and flavorful. It worked. I wouldn't call it Burgundian Pinot Noir, but it worked."

There isn't anything specific about the 72 Merlot in the interview but here's a bit on their foray into Merlot in general:

"An Early Merlot Varietal

Forman: But he (Peter Newton) went further and said, "You know, I think Merlot would be good grape." I wanted to agree with him. I was enthusiastic about it, particularly since I had spent time in Pomerol on the first visit. So I was very much in agreement with him. We even, at his encouragement, tried to bottle one early on, 1969.

Hicke: A Merlot varietal?

Forman: Yes, a varietal. Louis Martini had done one in 67.

Hicke: I just read--I think it was in this morning's paper that you had the second one.

Forman: Yes, so I had had the second one. It was made in a different style. It was made in my traditional Bordelaise--as I was traditional Burgundian in Chardonnay, I was Bordelaise in my thinking as far as how Cabernet, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc were produced. We had Merlot and Cabernet. We later added Franc and even later, Petit Verdot, at my encouragement. But Merlot was the most innovative, of course, at the time because nobody was even thinking about Merlot; it was all Cabernet here.

Peter said, "They make wonderful wines in Pomerol and St. Emilion. Why don t we bottle some Merlot ourselves? People might be fascinated." I sort of resisted, and then I said, "No, I guess you re right. We will, and I’ll try to do something special with it." I did. The 69 was all right, but the 70 was really quite wonderful, and from then on, it turned into an incredibly good wine. It had uniqueness. People thought it could stand on its own. I made a very stylish wine from it."

Flight 1 (2 notes)

Closing

I ended up buying some of the early Sterling wines (a split of the 74 Cab Reserve was great). These two had been sitting around for a while, the SO was out of town and I decided to try them both. It was great fun. Neither of the wines were great but the fact that they held on and were moderately enjoyable was a treat.