2012 Santa Lucia Highlands:
A Winemaker’s Vintage&nbsp;

After two challenging years in 2010 and 2011, producers in the Santa Lucia Highlands were
given a much more typical California growing season in 2012,&nbsp;with plenty of sunshine, no shock weather events to speak of, and a long, leisurely harvest. There has
been quite a bit of excitement building over the 2012s. How have the wines
turned out?

It’s a Question of Yields

Last year,
when I was tasting through the 2011s, producers told me over and over it was a
‘winemaker’s vintage.’ I am not so sure. In 2011, Mother Nature made a lot of
decisions. Spring frost was an issue in many places. Flowering
took place under difficult conditions, while the rest of the growing season was long
and cool. The worst of the rains and the rot that followed were reserved for
the North Coast, Napa Valley in particular, but growers in the Central Coast
had their hands full. Ripeness was achieved at lower sugar levels than most
winemakers had ever seen. Throughout the year, growers had to be highly
reactive.

Things were
totally different in 2012. Mother Nature made no decisions. Instead, producers
had to make all the choices, and that required a whole different skill set.
Think of it as playing defense versus offense. Vines set
a healthy crop and the weather was picture perfect. After highly challenging
seasons in 2010 and 2011, 2012 was a piece of cake. Growers could pick whenever
they wanted under pretty much ideal conditions. Sounds perfect, right?<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1405003328842-Landscape.jpg"> 

A landscape&nbsp;view from the southern edge of the Santa Lucia Highlands

Well, not
exactly. Yields were up massively in 2012, in some places double of what is
normal. After the very challenging, low-yielding 2011, my sense is that some
growers tried to compensate for that shortfall in 2012, a very dangerous and
tricky proposition. The culture of outsourced farming and a reliance on
purchased fruit works, but winemakers have to be in the vineyard all of the
time and have the ability to call the shots. Long-distance farming can also work,
but it won’t give consistently outstanding&nbsp;results every year, even in California.

Huge yields
created all sorts of logistical nightmares, as producers had to scramble to
pick all of that fruit at the optimal time, something that is next to
impossible. Then, with all of the fruit in the cellar, tank space became a
problem. Some winemakers simply did not have the room to process all of their fruit.
This is where we start to see the breakdown a bumper crop can create; fruit
that was not picked at the ideal moment and/or not processed as optimally as possible.
Guess what…all of that eventually manifests itself in the quality of the wines.

This is also a
vintage that leaves a very strong mental imprint on the qualitative potential
of different sites across the region. The whole idea of vineyard designate
wines is to highlight sites that have unique signatures, but in California,
where no formal hierarchy of vineyards exists, the temptation to label wines as
vineyard designates has resulted in a large number of wines from sites that
aren’t truly distinctive at all. The simple reality is that there are only a
small number of sites – in any region – that consistently produce fruit of high enough quality and distinctiveness to the point of being worthy of being singled out
on a label.<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1405003358054-SierraMar.jpg"> 

Sierra Mar Vineyard

Where
producers were not diligent, the wines are diluted and lacking in
concentration. In the Santa Lucia Highlands this is especially an issue for
Pinot Noir. One of the most fickle and sensitive varieties, Pinot must be
judiciously cropped. Overall, the 2012 Santa Lucia Highlands Pinots are uneven, with some bright spots, but more disappointing wines than standouts.
Chardonnay is more forgiving. Not surprisingly, average quality is marginally
higher. Syrah is the clear winner in 2012. Heat spikes in September were too
little too late for the Pinots, but Syrah, which ripens further into the fall,
benefited from a last blast of heat and sunshine that gave the grapes the extra
bit of concentration they needed.

In sum,&nbsp;growers had to make all the decisions, which is the reason why 2012 is truly a
winemaker’s vintage. The best 2012 are pretty, supple and radiant, but readers
must be highly selective.

Looking Forward to 2013

I also tasted
a handful of 2013 Pinots, wines from a more favorable vintage. Yields were
generous in 2013 as well, but skin-to-juice ratios are better and the wines
generally have more energy, tension and complexity. Today, it appears pretty
clear the 2013s will surpass the 2012s, perhaps by a wide margin.&nbsp;

Further Reading<a target="_blank" href="http://vinousmedia.com/articles/the-santa-lucia-highlands-2011s-chardonnay-reigns-supreme-jul-2013">The Santa Lucia Highlands 2011s:
Chardonnay Reigns Supreme</a><a target="_blank" href="http://vinousmedia.com/articles/california-s-central-coast-better-than-ever-aug-2012">California’s Central
Coast: Better than Ever</a><a target="_blank" href="http://vinousmedia.com/articles/exploring-california-s-central-coast-aug-2011">Exploring California’s
Central Coast</a>






















Cover: Soberanes Vineyard, courtesy of ROAR. Used with permission

-- Antonio
Galloni

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