THE LANGUID DUCK

While there are some similarities between the southern Rhône Valley and Sonoma County, I feel there is much more of a kinship with the Languidoc-Roussillon region to the Rhône’s west. It is there that you find old and new ideas coming together with very exiting results. We have so much freedom to create new wine styles in California, yet we are so quick to play ‘follow the leader’ and limit ourselves to three or four models. I find it encouraging that a region like the Languidoc has produced wine for two thousand years and yet is home to some of the youngest and most creative winemakers in the world today.

I may have started with a Rhône-esque blend in mind, but that is not where I ended up. I began by co-fermenting equal parts Syrah and Grenache. The results were very good, but I could not stop myself from playing with the blend. I found that Carignane added some immediacy of fruit to the nose, while Abouriou brought a perfumed, almost sandalwood quality. Finally, it was a drop or two of Cabernet and Merlot that seemed to give it focus and nerve. I must confess one thing about blending. There is a lot of guesswork and luck involved. All the various components go through so many different phases while aging in barrel that you really are relying on your instincts as to how the wines will marry together over the years. Although it is also true that if you have very good wines to begin with, the odds of coming up with a tasty blend are with you.

A note about the name: During my last summer as a sommelier on Nantucket, I was working at ‘Le Languidoc’ restaurant. Known to locals as ‘The Duck’ it offers wonderful food, but virtually no pretense. In fact it was during a dinner at ‘The Duck’ that I asked my wife Victoria to come to California and make a life with me. The wine’s name is an acknowledgment of all I gained while there. Since I was already getting sentimental with the name, I decided to make a public display of my joy in the birth of our first child Benjamin. The poem at the top of the label is the ongoing story of his birth and childhood.

2001: ‘The Languid Duck’ California: Very exotic nose of spice and floral notes. It opens to show quite a bit of fatness on the palate, but with no sense of heaviness. It was very forward at bottling and continues to surprise me with more complexity as it ages. 215 cases bottled.

2002: ‘The Languid Duck’ Sonoma County: Riper and more fruit forward than ‘ 01. It has good acidity and a nice roundness to the mouth feel. Rather precocious now, it develops so much in the glass, that I’m inclined to say it will age well for four to six more years. 190 cases bottled.