It’s become a cliché for California winemakers to say they make “Burgundian” wines. Since many wine lovers believe that Burgundy, the wine region in France, produces the greatest Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the world, it’s no wonder that a winemaker in California would invoke the region in their marketing copy. The word has become so overused, in fact, that it’s currently approaching meaninglessness. Saying that a winemaker makes Burgundian Chardonnay is kind of like saying that a director makes Orson Wellesian films — it’s just a specific way of saying “good.”
Last weekend, however, I tasted the rare California Chardonnay that earns the descriptor “Burgundian.” It was the 2019 Bassi Vineyard Chardonnay from Scar of the Sea, a small producer in the Central Coast. (I wrote last year about the winery’s founders parting ways.) One quality in the Bassi Chardonnay in particular justified the Burgundian comparison: an aroma that smells like a matchstick that’s just been struck and lit.
That struck-matchstick smell, which wine scientists refer to as “reduction,” is commonly found in many Burgundy Chardonnays. California winemakers frequently try to emulate that character, which can be achieved by limiting a wine’s oxygen exposure among other methods, but few bottles I’ve tasted from these shores pull it off as successfully as this wine does.
Reduction is a complicated subject — one that’s far too technical for this column — but the important thing to know is that too much of it can be a very bad thing. Excessive reduction will make a wine smell like rotten eggs or past-its-prime cabbage. If you’ve ever been near a pungent-smelling sulfur spring, that’s a good point of reference.
In smaller concentrations, however, reduction can present as that intriguing struck-matchbook aroma, and it’s considered highly desirable. As with cheese, the line between stinky and enchanting can be a fine one. Several wineries in Burgundy, like Coche Dury and Roulot, famously cultivate reduction in their white wines, and they’re highly sought after. How sought after? Well, Coche Dury’s 2013 Corton-Charlemagne Chardonnay could set you back more than $3,000.
Scar of the Sea’s Bassi Chardonnay is in that Goldilocks-esque place with its reduction where it adds an amazing amount of complexity without overpowering the wine. There’s a lightly smoky, flinty, steely profile when you first smell it, but the core of the wine is still accessible, the more familiar Chardonnay smells of lemon peel, sea salt and toasted almond. The wine is creamy and rich, suggesting butterscotch, but it’s equally tight and lean, driven by bright acidity.
While many winemakers intentionally try to encourage reduction in their wines, Scar of the Sea winemaker Mikey Giugni says that in this case the reduction is actually a part of the terroir. The Bassi Vineyard, located about a mile from the ocean in San Luis Obispo County’s Avila Beach, has sandstone-rich soils that are low in nitrogen. (The vineyard is owned by Sinor-Lavallee winery, and a number of winemakers, including Giugni, buy its fruit.) During a wine’s fermentation, the yeast wants to eat nitrogen; if there isn’t much nitrogen for it to eat, the yeast struggles and produces volatile sulfur compounds that can contribute to the wine’s reduction.
As proof, Giugni makes his other Chardonnays in the same way as the Bassi Chardonnay — fermenting the wine in large barrels at warmer temperatures, not filtering it — and yet the others don’t come out with the same sense of reduction. The variable isn’t the winemaking, he says; the variable is the terroir, all that low-nitrogen sandstone.
The wine is available from the Scar of the Sea website or at Kitchen Istanbul in San Francisco.
Scar of the Sea Chardonnay Bassi Vineyard San Luis Obispo County 2019 (12.5%, $42)
Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicle’s wine critic. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley
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