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WINEMAKING Winemaker Interview ROSS COBB Sonoma Coast Pinot specialist details his approach By Laurie Daniel W hile winemaker Ross Cobb was studying biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in the late 1980s, his father, David, was establishing Coastlands Vineyard in the Freestone/Occidental area of California's Sonoma Coast. As he helped his dad on weekends and during the summer, he fell in love with viticulture and decided to switch to the environmental studies department, where he studied agroecology and sustainable agriculture. After graduating in 1993, Cobb worked at Ferrari-Carano, Bonny Doon Vineyard and Williams Selyem, which was buying fruit from Coastlands Vineyard. Cobb had remained involved in the family vineyard and had made some noncommercial wines from the site, but working at Williams Selyem gave him an additional opportunity to work with Coastlands fruit. In 2000, Cobb joined Flowers Vineyard; in 2001, while still at Flowers, Cobb and his father started Cobb Wines, with Ross as the winemaker. Cobb Wines now works with four vineyards, including Coastlands, and produces 1,200-1,500 cases of Pinot Noir per year. Wines & Vines: Why did you decide to pursue a more elegant, lower alcohol style for your Pinot Noirs? Ross Cobb: I was introduced to Pinot Noir through people like Burt Williams at Williams Selyem, Ted Lemon at Littorai, Steve Doerner at Cristom in Oregon, Jeffrey Patterson at Mt. Eden, Josh Jensen at Calera, Tom Dehlinger, Steve Kistler and Tom Rochioli. In my early days, I didn't have a lot of experience with Burgundy, but I found I had a preference for the wines made by everyone I just mentioned. I especially appreciated the more elegant style and subtle expression of ripeness in the wines that Ted Lemon and Burt Williams were making. In making Pinot Noir from my early 20s to early 30s, I started to appreciate wines that were in the alcohol range of 12.5% to 14%. Often, I found wines above 14% (alcohol) a bit clumsy for my palate and not as ageable. At 30, I took my first trip as an adult to Burgundy and spent two weeks tasting incredible Pinots ranging across the style spectrum. This included everything from the sort of riper, more extracted wines that were also going in and out of vogue in California to wines that were modern and not too rustic. But I also tasted a lot of elegant wines that showed less winemaking influence. Over the next decade, I took nine or 10 more trips Burgundy. I also tasted a lot of Oregon, Sonoma and Central Coast Pinots. I found that the beautiful expressions of Pinot at lower ripeness were almost always the ones from great vineyards and vintages, and that these were wines capable of aging for 10 to 15 years. In contrast, the wines that were more extracted and showy in the short term were not as long-lived in the bottle. W&V: Why are your vineyard sites in the Freestone/Occidental area well suited for this type of Pinot? Cobb: Everyone talks about cool-climate Pinot Noir, but the truth is there is a huge difference in the temperatures throughout the various regions. For Pinot, the relevant weather for the growing season is basically March through October. In Freestone/Occidental, we have relatively mild weather in the 60s from March through May. Because of our elevation, we don't have many frost issues, and because of our proximity to the ocean, we don't have issues with extreme heat on the ridge tops. During what are typically the warm- Ross Cobb embraces low alcohol for his Sonoma County Pinot Noirs. est months (June, July and August) for many areas, the coastline of Sonoma is inundated in a summer fog. So in Freestone/Occidental, we can get temperatures in the 50s in June, July and August. On the flipside, we have less fog in September, October and November. The vineyards in Freestone/Occidental are mostly between 400 and 1,200 feet in elevation. As a result, most of the vineyards I work with (Emmaline Ann, Jack Hill, Rice-Spivak and our own Coastlands Vineyard) are above the heavy fog, but not completely above it. Freestone/Occidental has a little lower elevation than other coastal areas like Fort Ross/Seaview, which are closer to 1,400 to 1,800 feet, and tend to be above the cooling summer fog. We typically pick two to three weeks later than Fort Ross/Seaview. We usually pick in early October; they pick early to mid-September. W IN ES & V I N ES O CTO B E R 2 0 1 3 55