Our Story - Part 3
A New Era of Winemaking
Looking to the Future
Our current winemaker Gideon Beinstock first arrived at Renaissance in the 1970s and helped to plant the vineyard. During the 1980s he roamed the vineyards of France, exploring their wines and wineries. He built friendships with a number of winemakers in Burgundy and the Rhone Valley, and was particularly influenced by such wine experts as Steven Spurrier (Academie du Vin, Paris, 1980/81) and Maggie McNie, MW (Masters of Wine Program, London 1989). With his half-French heritage, Gideon's first love was definitely French wines. He began to write articles about wines and conduct classes. He returned to Renaissance in the early 1990s where he gained hands-on experience as assistant winemaker under Diana Werner.
When he became winemaker in January 1994, Gideon brought a radical change to our winemaking art: he "finished" the 1991 Cabernet Sauvignon, blending Renaissance's traditionally pure varietal Cabernet Sauvignon with 4 percent Merlot and 1.5% Sauvignon Blanc. The result was a gold medal at the 1995 VINEXPO and a great deal of critical praise. Wine author and columnist, Matt Kramer, proclaimed this 1991 Renaissance Cabernet Sauvignon as "one of its best--intense, filled with a blackcurrant scent and superbly balanced" and further described it as "stunning and long-lived." It was this wine that prompted him to call Renaissance "California's best-kept Cabernet secret."
Originally, the Renaissance winemaking style was highly extracted, thick, very tannic, designed for long aging in the bottle. Gideon's "hands off" style of winemaking is based on minimal manipulation: gentle extraction, no inoculations, no fining or filtration doing everything in our power to highlight the expression of the terroir in the wine.
Since 1994 Gideon has conducted a series of experiments with additional grape varieties in our vineyards, searching for the best microclimate, soil, and varietal combination. This program has opened new horizons for our use of blends as a winemaking tool (for example, Cabernet Sauvignon with Cabernet Franc and Merlot), and lead to the creation of a whole range of exciting new wines, such as Syrah, Grenache,Viognier and Roussanne.
Compared to the single varietal approach, which German winemaking exemplifies, blending a few varietals to maximize the expression of the soil and "sense of place" is a key element in the French winemaking tradition. Gideon, who trained as an artist, describes his winemaking art: "Just as a painter mixes different colors to capture the essence of light, I work with a palette of different grapes to achieve compositions that capture the essence of our vineyard".
But Gideon is quick to point out that truly understanding the terroir is a slow process. "To really learn, it will take generations. In time, people will gradually decipher the mysteries and true potential of every fold of land in our vineyard and know what grape or blend does best where".
What unites all the Renaissance wines from the early years under the founding winemaker to the present is the unique terroir, the taste of the spare, red soil and the multiplicity of microclimates that emerge in every vintages. Many of the wines that have been produced from this new era of winemaking, however, have yet to be released to the public. Although Renaissance Vineyard and Winery has fulfilled this land's destiny, the winemaking possibilities are endless. Each new wine is, in itself, a sleeping beauty waiting to awaken in your glass.