2008 Pandora Alban Estate

"Extended barrel aging is hugely beneficial to the texture of a wine as long as the fruit is up to it," John Alban told me in September. "The problem is that some people have watched what others have done, especially Guigal, and tried to copy it, but their wines just weren't built to handle it. You've got to be careful." Alban said that he's very pleased with how grenache has turned out on his estate, noting that the wines tend to be very oxygen-resistant, "which is the opposite of the grape's reputation." He also said that as his vines have matured, he is starting to notice consistent traits in the wines the Alban vineyard produces--"notable chalkiness, which gives a big wine welcome energy." Alban likes the 2011 and 2010 vintages for white wines because they both made wines that have intensity but also freshness and finesse. "The 2010 roussanne is probably the most delicate one we've ever made."

This is a fabulous set of wines from John and Lorraine Alban. Quite simply, I was blown away by what I tasted. As I noted last year, the whites are increasingly made in a more energetic style, not a bad thing as the fruit is already so expressive from the start. Over the years, a similar evolution has taken place with the reds. The inky, black color of the Syrahs is now gone. Today, Alban favors lengthy barrel aging for his top reds, a technique he compares to “braising” in cooking, which requires softer and gentler fermentations at the outset. Beginning around 2006, Alban started doing fewer pump overs and in general encourages longer, slower fermentations. The wines used to go into barrel with some sugar still left to ferment, while today they go in drier than in the past. Over the years, new oak levels have also come down. Most of the current releases are 2008s, a vintage Alban describes as characterized by a spring frost, drought and cloudy days with less heat and sunlight than is typically the case. Readers may want to check out my video interview with John Alban for more on current and upcoming vintages.

My visit with John and Lorraine Alban and winemaker Glenn Skrabanik was a highlight of the ten days I spent in the Central Coast. I tasted all of the 2008s and 2009 reds from barrel, plus the 2007s from bottle. Those lucky enough to visit the winery won't see barrels ordered by conventional numbers, rather each series of barrels carries the names of thematic categories such as Kentucky Derby winners, Academy Award winners, etc. It is fair to say no one has done more for the Rh?ne Ranger movement in this country than John Alban. First and foremost, the Alban wines have led the way in terms of quality for many years. A founder of the hugely successful Hospice du Rh?ne, Alban has also planted and developed a number of clones that bear his name and that are used widely throughout California. For most of his early years Alban was forced to sell fruit from his property and rent out portions of his winery as a custom crush facility to make ends meet. Amazingly, after all these years 2011 is the first vintage in which Alban is not selling fruit and is vinifying only his own wines. Readers will find no shortage of compelling wines in vintages The 2007s are big, powerful wines that show the opulence and weight of the year. Vintage 2007 was the first of three drought years that followed the generous 2005 and 2006 harvests. Alban gave his three top Syrahs a whopping 44 months in 100% new oak barrels. The 2008s are the product of a season marked by a spring frost. A blast of heat followed over Memorial Day, but the rest of the summer was relatively cool, with little sunlight because of the forest fires that year. As great as the 2007s are, I found myself equally drawn to the 2008s for their greater delineation and complex, multi-dimensional personalities. The 2009s are warm, radiant wines with silky, forward fruit and highly expressive aromatics. The 2008s and 2009s are still in barrel, though, so there is plenty of time to follow their evolution. The 2010 Viognier shows one of the newer directions Alban is moving towards. In 2010 Alban did one irrigation in July to keep the canopy more robust and less deleafing than in the past, plus no batonnage on this wine.