Nineteen-eighty was a great vintage, at least for American politics. I was fortunate enough to spend many months of that year in Washington, anticipating the election of President Reagan. The outgoing Jimmy Carter was a misery-gutted mediocrity: the man who put the mean into mean-spirited. I am prejudiced, in that I have never finished one chapter of a William Faulkner novel. Once — I think it was The Sound and the Fury — I was floundering and about to despair. Someone said: ‘The principal character is mentally defective.’ I replied: ‘Thank you. How does that differentiate him from all the others?’
Carter was Faulkner on a bad day. Most American presidents, however morally or politically inadequate — Clinton, Obama — will respond to the royal jelly of high office and try to look the part. Carter brought to the White House all the presence of a starvelling cur. He gave the impression that he was only at ease with his fellow Americans when they were sufficiently depressed to agree with him.
In the other corner, fortunately, was Ronald Reagan. Even in those early days, he was endowed with grace. This was a man who loved his country and its people, who had enjoyed life and good fortune, and who wanted to spread those joys. As long as one believed in the ultimate good sense of the American voters, the eventual result was never long in doubt.
That is, the electoral result. Even after many bottles in the incomparable Chez Maria, a Georgetown restaurant which was an haut-lieu of American conservatism circa 1980, I do not remember anyone predicting that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher might form a partnership which would transform the world, at least for a season. For once, encrusted Tory pessimism was confounded. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.
The many bottles were fun too. I was in Washington on adequate television expenses. The pound was at around $2.50. Moreover, most Americans were still ignorant about wine. So there were bargains at almost all levels. The swankier restaurants would make great play and price with their first growths. Dig down just a little and there was value. I stayed in a hotel which had Pontet-Canet ’76 at $12 a bottle. Back then, Pontet-Canet was still a shy, self-effacing little château. Its days as a super-fifth were well in the future. I drank it as a table wine. The inevitable disaster occurred. They ran out. I was looking for something else when the sommelier — he was to sommeliers what Carter was to presidents — said: ‘We have a few older bottles, but I don’t suppose you’d be interested.’ Trying to look uninterested, I replied, ‘What year?’ ‘1966.’ ‘Knock off a couple of bucks, and it’ll do.’
Then there was California. In those days, some Washington restaurants still had older bottles of Californian Cabernet Sauvignons at reasonable prices. They were huge wines, excessively ripe, but expressing something of the freshness and optimism of the new world. Yet even red wines with a few years’ age were crying out for more. There were also the Chardonnays. I was especially taken with Château Montelena, whose vigneron was Mike Grgich, not to be confused with Newt Gingrich, who even then was a name to conjure with. It is easy to overvalue Californian Chardonnay. If you ever think that it has reached greatness, it is too long since you drank a serious white Burgundy. At its best, it is like a barmaid with a splendid embonpoint, who has neglected to wear a bra.
Then everything went wrong. The Reaganites rode into town. It was announced that Montelena was the new President’s favourite wine. Suddenly, Californian was in vogue. When I returned to Washington 18 months later, the price of good Californians had doubled, all the properly aged bottles had been drunk, every wine list was inviting the customers to collaborate in infanticide, and the pound had fallen almost to parity with the dollar.
One sensible Englishman had drawn the right conclusions. Sir Peter Michael is a remarkable character. In the 1970s, despairing of Britain, he migrated to California and started to make real money in computer graphics. In the early Eighties, deciding that Margaret Thatcher would save the country, he returned to Britain, with the insights of Silicon Valley, just when they were becoming applicable here. So he was an entrepreneur, at ease in a laboratory. But he also had an almost mystical devotion to the soil. This was a man who wanted to plant for posterity: to create great wine.
He bought acres in California. In one respect, that is easy. California is a huge state. In another, it is difficult. There are millions of acres: very little water. But he found a cattle ranch in Sonoma County. His new terroir was on the slopes of Mount Saint Helena and marched with Montelena; the same name. No one had made wine there before. He saw the angel in the marble; the vines under the cowpats.
Within six years of planting vines, Peter was producing good wine. California creates problems for vignerons. There are spikes in climate: there is also the certainty of broiling sunshine at some stage while the grapes are maturing. As a result, the wines may be called Cabernet sauvignon but they are almost like a dry port. Not the Peter Michael wines; from the outset, he was determined to harness Californian strength to European subtlety, and it has been a triumphant success. His best wines are awesomely good. I tasted a range of Les Pavots, his flagship cabernet. Accessible at about five years, they will all last for at least 25. I declared that they could look a super-second in the eye and thought that I could detect a hint of disappointment in my host’s response. Peter is not interested in finishing second. His aim is to produce first growth quality. With the 2001, he may well have succeeded. It is a rearing stallion of a wine, but there is elegance and minerality as well as fruit. All the Michael grapes are harvested by hand and then individually vetted. The same techniques are used in his grand cru quality Chardonnay, La Belle Fille, which is big and buttery, without any barmaid blowsiness.
This is a man with limitless ambition who wants to be remembered as the greatest wine inspirer of his generation. It is a title within his grasp. There is only one unavoidable problem. The ’08, his latest Pavots on the market, was released at £137. The older wines will be dearer, if you can find them. They’re worth the search.
Comments