|
|
|
Article from Buffalo Spree Magazine
Mark Criden
Back to Company Statistics Page
Bunch
for bunch, Pinot Noir is the world's most fickle grape,
and producing wine from it is usually a hazardous
endeavor - a high-wire act where a single misstep
can mean disaster.
Unlike
many of my brothers and sisters in the local chapter
of the food hack writer's union, it doesn't bother
me that much that Western New York isn't considered
a hotbed of fancy gastronomy. Oh, you've got your
Oliver's, your Rue Franklin, your Tsunami, your Siena-but
when folks in Oakland or Miami think of Buffalo cuisine,
visions of chicken wings dance in their heads. Which
may be why the thought of "World Class Pinot
Noir from the Niagara Escarpment" isn't causing
Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl's heart to beat much faster.
It is having that effect on Michael von Heckler, though,
who sees in his Warm Lake Estate on Lower Mountain
Road in Cambria what few others have in several hundred
years of Western New York's recorded agricultural
industry: soil and climate to produce wine grapes
that will stand shoulder to shoulder with the best
in the world.
Von Heckler is an unlikely pioneer. Recently retired
from Lockheed Martin, an electrical engineer by trade,
the intelligent, wine-savvy Von Heckler seems more
of professor than a farmer. The wine bug bit him back
in the mid-1970s when he was living with a gourmet
chef and found it difficult to contribute meaningfully
to what emerged from the kitchen; wine became his
route to partnership. After many years as an enthusiast
- Von Heckler and his wife, Diane, are fixtures on
the local vino and haute chow circuit- he began training
as a wine judge and studying for the prestigious Master
of Wine degree, which he hopes to =
finally earn this summer in San Francisco. He's nothing
if not determined: the MW chase has taken eight years.
All
of this tasting, all of this preparation, all of this
study -he pulls out geological and climatic studies,
sticks spectrographic analyses under your nose, cites
statistic after arcane statistic-convinced him and
his financial backers that the Niagara Escarpment
will one day produce fabulous pinot noir. To this
end, beginning in the late 1990s, Von Heckler sold
off a significant chunk of his cellar, raised a million
dollars, and cobbled together cornfields in Northern
Niagara County where he now has forty acres planted
with vines that he believes will yield wines easily
competing with the best from California's Russian
River Valley, Oregon's Willamette Valley, New Zealand's
Cloudy Bay and, dare I say it, the holy mount of Pinot
Noir, France's fabled Burgundy region. Having heard
all of this before meeting with Von Heckler, naturally
the first question, framed in my best objective-journalist
style, was, "Are you nuts?"
Well,
no, he didn't think so. Von Heckler told me that the
scientific studies have demonstrated that the limestone-based
soil "on the Niagara Escarpment and the weather-tempering
effect of Lake Ontario is especially suited to producing
four grape varieties: Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauvignon
Blanc, and Pinot Noir. The world's awash in Chardonnay,
so he ruled that out. Riesling, despite its passionate
defenders, remains a tough sell in a world where Blue
Nun is still regarded as its apotheosis. And Sauvignon
Blanc is hard to peddle at the price required to produce
a sufficient return on investment.
So
that left Pinot Noir. But, as they say in the wine
biz, bon chance. Not for nothing did California's
Josh Jensen call Pinot Noir "The Heartbreak Grape." Jensen knows a thing or two, having crafted dozens
of beautiful examples at his Calera Wine Company.
But he knows it's heartbreaking, both because its
thin skins are fragile and prone to disease and, more
prosaically, because Pinot Noir makes thin, pinched,
and dilute wines in too cool a climate, and fat, flabby,
boring ones where the weather's too hot. Bunch for
bunch, Pinot Noir is the world's most fickle grape,
and producing wine from it is usually .a hazardous
endeavor - a high-wire act where a single misstep
can mean disaster.
But
if done right, if grown in the right soil at the right
temperature, with the right amount of rainfall, pinot
noir produces the most elegant, sensuous, and hedonistic
wine experience of all. And Von Heckler is convinced
he and his dirt are up to the task. "This is
natural Pinot Noir country," he asserts. If I
had any doubts as to his ambition, he added, "We
can and will make wines as great as the Premier and
Grand Crus of Burgundy."
Well,
there's one of the more reckless claims I've heard
this year, I thought, as I got ready to sample the
Warm Lake 2002, the only wine available to taste.
And damn if the young wine didn't show class: cherry
and cocoa aromas, a lush palate, and a lingering finish
to a sumptuous wine. The wine showed definite breed,
the result of Warm Lake's careful and considered practices-chemicals
eschewed wherever possible, sophisticated vine-tending
and grape-ripening techniques, new French barrels
for aging along with state of the art equipment for
fermentation. . There was a slight acidic edge on
the finish, no doubt from all of the limestone in
the soil, but that should recede with future vintages
as the vines mature and more of the funky, earthy
elements of Pinot Noir appear.
So
Von Heckler answered the first question: can he do
it? The second as more problematic: will anyone care?
With the current world-wide wine glut, who's going
to be interested in some pretender, no matter how
good, from New York? In most parts of the country
- hell, in most parts of the state - wines from New
York can hardly get arrested.
Von
Heckler thinks he has the answer. Bottles of top red
Burgundies - Musignys, Chambertins, Richebourgs -
are rarely available for less than $100, often for
many that times. Even top pinots from California and
Oregon rarely appear for less than $50 and top labels
from cult favorites like Marcassin and Kistler are
wel1 into three-digit territory. If Von Heckler produces
quality at that level, and markets the hell out of
it, producing an "Icon" brand at a bargain
price, he'll have a hot wine. Think Chamberlin for
$40 and you've got the company's strategy.
In
the meantime, unfortunately, you'll be hard pressed
to try a bottle for yourself. The2002 and 2003 are
both sold out (optimists can buy Pinot Noir futures
for $24 a bottle). In the meantime, Warm Lake's tasting
bar is open almost every day, and normally features
sixty different New York State wines to taste and
purchase. To entice customers, Warm Lake often runs
special tastings and events. Check out the website
at: http://www.warmlakeestate.com/
Will Von Heckler's strategy work? Was the compelling
2002 a fluke or a harbinger? It's clearly too soon
to tell, but Von Heckler's got his game, and he's
studied long and hard. He and those who have staked
him believe he's going to beat the odds.
Warm
Lake Estates Winery 716.731.5900
Mark
Criden writes for Buffalo Spree Magazine and is the
former chair of the Buffalo Branch of the International
Wine & Food Society.
|
|
|
|
