Wappo Loam: $18

A great deal of what is written on wine labels should not be taken with a grain of sand, let alone a grain of good French bread. It is a perfect case of “caveat emptor.”

I find most wine labels from Santa Cruz Mountain winemakers to be simple and honest. Everything you need to know about a wine is written on the front label. I usually avoid reading the back label until I’ve tasted the wine and formed my own judgment.

The word “varietal” refers to the name of the grape used in the wine. There are hundreds of varieties of grapes, but for the most part only a couple of dozen of the most popular show up on our shelves.  The law protects the innocent in the most important label claims.  If the label says “chardonnay” for instance, then at least 75 percent of the wine in the bottle has to come from chardonnay grapes. So we know that our La Honda is made from at least 75 percent chardonnay grapes.

If the label names a region, like “Lake County,” then 85 percent of the grapes used in the making of this wine must come from the Lake County appellation. An appellation is French for “name that thing” or “the name of” and is commonly used in wine parlance to designate regions. We live in the Santa Cruz Mountain appellation, and this column deals almost exclusively with wines produced by vintners in this appellation.  The grapes may come from elsewhere because this is a tiny grape-growing region, and although it is a tremendous “terroir” (another French term that means “total of all elements, soil, earth, weather, fog, wind, rain, sun) with excellent conditions, there are only a thousand acres, give or take a couple of hundred, under cultivation. Therefore, local vintners, in order to provide variety, must reach out and buy grapes from other areas.  But they cannot go to Fresno and buy a truckload of cheap table grapes and then say on the bottle “Lake County.”

Great wines build their reputation on the backs of vineyard names, or other pinpoint identifiers, so that the buyer knows exactly where this wine is coming from.  The most prestigious term on a label is “Estate Bottled.” This means that the entire product was grown, crushed, aged, and bottled on the estate of the winemaker. Estate Bottled is increasingly rare, as vintners must constantly be reaching farther afield to satisfy demand.

Be leery of terms like “Bottled by” or “Selected and Bottled by” as they mean very little. And you should completely ignore glorifications such as “rare old reserve” “proprietor’s favorite” “granddaddy’s delight,” etc. These are meaningless and designed to fool you.

The La Honda back label says: “This is a clean fruit-forward wine with layers of pear and vanilla. Subtle hints of toasty oak add to the complexity and smooth finish.” As your elected wine sleuth, I endorse this message. At $18 it is a tremendous value and a great example of grapes grown in good soil (Wappo Loam) in a blistering hot climate. La Honda is new to the market and geologist turned winemaker Ken Wornick will be at a Winemaker’s Dinner at Nonno’s Italian Café in Redwood Estates Sept. 10. For reservations call (408) 353-5633.

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