I don’t write a lot of tasting notes. I much prefer drinking wine to writing about it, though like many I am hugely indebted to the prolific wine tasting notes and other thoughts that many of you post on this forum and others (CT in particular). But hey, once in a while…
There has been a fair amount written here about how magical some 30-50 year old CA Pinots can be. Until tonight, I’d never tried one. I started casually checking WineBid about a year ago for such bottles from classic producers like Joseph Swan, Hanzell, Williams Selyem, etc. These bottles can be pretty elusive, though occasionally they come up for auction. I came across a wine that looked interesting last June - a 1977 Spring Mountain Pinot—just a year younger than me. While not a producer I knew to be associated with great Pinot, I’d had a really good 1987 Cab from them several years ago (random purchase at a wine shop in Vail) and had read enough to view them as a solid producer. As I’m writing this, I went back to check the hammer price: $35! No wonder I took a flyer; that is way less expensive than I would have thought.
Anyway, the wine is just brilliant: impeccibly balanced and youthful with a color that belies any indication of its 43 years. There is no way I would ever be able to discern this as CA vs Burgundy blind. The nose is a great blend of floral and spice notes that I associate with high end Burgundy—frankly if you told me this was a 1990s Grand Cru or Premier Cru Burgundy from a solid producer like Jadot or the equivalent I’d say that was about right.
The best (and worst?) part is there is virtually no record of the history of this wine. There is one CellarTracker note—probably part of my motivation for the purchase as it is recent and notes the wine as “still chugging along”. There are no listings in CT of older bottles of this wine, and after the 1977 vintage it skips to 1981, 1984, and then 1998. Perhaps, like some other prominent CA wineries, Spring Mountain Vineyards only made Pinot once in a few random years? Maybe someone here will have a better answer as I can only speculate. By the way the label looks brand new—so much so that it made me wonder if this was a late release.
Love Spring Mountain! Their 2001 Estate Cab (not reserve Elivette) is still one of all time favorite finds in Napa. I’ve seen a ton of Spring Mountain wines on winebid over the last couple of years, including their pinots. I’ve never tried them, but will definitely try sourcing some. Thanks for sharing!
I remember that, timing sounds about right. I recall a lot of vintage Cab was released, but not Pinot (not to say it wasn’t also released, I just never heard of or saw any).
Mike Robbins bought in 1972 a small property just North of Beringer on Hwy 29 and started making wines, mostly Cab and Chard. He outgrew the wnry and it eventually became StClement Wnry.
To expand, he bought the old TuburicoParrot/Miravalle Estate up on Spring Mtn Rd and restored the mansion. That was eventually used to film the FalconCrest TV series. He continued to specialize in Cab and Chard, mostly from his Miravalle Estate. And once made a LateHrvst CabFranc.
His winemaker was ChuckOrtman, who was very good. Chuck eventually left and went to PasoRobles to establish Meredian Wnry (Beringer $$'s). Sometime in the early '80’s. Think it was in the old EstrellaRiverWnry. He & GaryEberle we’re close buds.
I recall a few SpringMtn Pinots. Mike did not grow PN at Miravalle. I’m pretty sure the Pinots, which I never had, were from Rene de la Rosa’s WineryLake vnyd in the Carneros. A great Pinot & Riesling vnyd. So that was probably your Pinot. Chuck was a great winemaker but wasted his talents a the high-volume Meredian.
As an aside, JimAllen made his first few vintages of SequoiaGrove at SpringMtn.
So that’s about all I can recall. If you’d like, I can make some stuff up. Maybe about TiburcioParrott’s visits to the brothel in StHelena in the late 1800’s!!! Maybe even have so videos!
Tom
This is awesome! I found a few of the high level things about the winery last night, but all this detail about the people involved and especially where the grapes were likely sourced is what I was really hoping to find (and couldn’t). Thanks Tom!
As an aside, I’ve tried to avoid one off bottles like this during COVID - if I have five of something and try one, I can always share another with friends later. I’d wanted to open this one for a long time but kept passing over it for that reason. Last night I couldn’t help myself.
A couple of other things I forgot to mention: The wine didn’t fade a bit over 2-3 hour period I consumed it. If I were to assign a score, it would probably be in the 93 point range. I appreciate all the helpful comments!
Mike Robbins was a retired Naval (Admiral?) Officer. I did a visit with him at Miravalle in the mid-'70’s. An absolutely charming man who walked me thru the mansion, pre-FalconCrest days. His restoration of it was a labor of love. The wnry was in the old barn/carriage house away from the house.
His first Cab/Chard vintage was the '72, a miserable rain-besotted vintage from his vnyd down just North of Beringer. The wines were actually quite good and they put SpringMtn on my radar.
Tom
It is so fun when our gambles pay off. I’ve had some good luck recently with 70s/80s cabs from the classic Cali producers (and yes I would put Spring Mtn in that category), but pinot is an entirely different matter!
Wish you could have joined us at Proof last weekend for gruner and cote rotie with octopus, salmon and ribeyes. Really awesome.
Off topic a bit, but the current issue of PrinceofPinot has a great historical retrospective on old pinot wineries and vineyards in California, sorted by region, with lots of good pix.
Ortman made some good wines at Meridian for a time, not the supermarket stuff, but with grapes from Edna Valley. It was the old Estrella Winery, but I thought it was more like 1991.
That Proof place looks awesome for the next Iowa offline! I’ll start thinking about theme ideas.
On the Spring Mountain topic, I saw an interesting Times article from the mid-80’s about the Winery Lake vineyard Rene di Rosa owned—it talked about how those grapes often went into Pinots from Acacia back then, perhaps until the vineyard was sold to Seagram (and folded into Sterling) in 1986. It also mentioned Carneros Pinot as coming close to “the true Burgundy style” (a comment I have no base to share an opinion on except for the single wine note). So thanks again to Tom for the history and lead on potential source of the grapes!
I remember this wine (as were many Napa Valley Pinot Noirs back in the day) being brutally tannic, with absolutely no promise. We used to joke a great deal about how California just couldn’t produce good Pinot Noir (outside of Chalone and Hanzell) and why were they even trying.
Great to see it actually evolved. Thanks for the note, love these older Cali notes -
I was in retail in the 70s and we sold a lot of spring mtn. Mike Robbins could be charming but he could also insult Jews, gays and Democrats quite frequently. He used to call Jerry Brown a gay term starting with f.
He also abused bankers. A friend worked at a bank that had loaned Mike money for capital improvements. Oops!!Where did our money go!!???
When there was plenty of finer cab and Chardonnay from other wineries to go around people got tired of Mike s act and moved on.
As I recallThey had a VA problem in a cab around 1978 so they blended in other vintages and called the wine Trois Cuvees …he shoved it down people’s throats and the wine didn’t sell
Someone served me a '70s era “Trois Cuvees” last year which they had obtained from the source. Their story to me was that it was a 3 vintage blend made in error. It was pretty good for 40 year old Cali Pinot.
The obit was quite interesting because he may have exaggerated his military record to me and others. He once told a group of us that he had fought in three wars. In 11 years or so in the military …WWII? Korean?? Where s the third?? Civil war in Spain??
As I recall, he made his fortune as the guy who leased out the Embarcadero Center.
