MARIANI’S
Virtual
Gourmet
MAY 19,
2024
NEWSLETTER
ARCHIVE
Mickey's Dining Car, St. Paul, Minnesota
THIS WEEK
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
SAN MARZANO TOMATOES
FIGHT THE FAKES
By John Mariani
NEW YORK CORNER
ACADIA
By John Mariani
THE MAGDALENE LAUNDRIES
CHAPTER TWENTY
By John Mariani
NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
THREE STICKS WINES SONOMA
By John Mariani
SAN MARZANO TOMATOES FIGHT THE FAKES
By John Mariani
It
would not seem easy to make the tomato into a
prized ingredient, but, after decades of
promotion in the food media, the tomatoes of
San Marzano in southern Italy have taken on a
gastronomic status as having no equal anywhere
when it comes to intensity of flavor, natural
sweetness and a balance of acid.
Ironically,
for
a foreign food like the tomato (botanically
classified as a fruit) that was only
transplanted from the Americas in the 16th
century, first to Naples where it grew well in
the hot humid climate, it became the iconic
symbol of Italian cookery—even though no recipe
for a tomato sauce appeared in Italy until 1705
and the first mention of spaghetti with tomato
sauce was in 1839 as typical of Naples. Back
then, most Italians north of Rome never used
tomatoes in their cooking.
Canning made all the difference by the
end of the 19th century, so that tomatoes could
be preserved and shipped anywhere and used when
convenient. When the tomato made its way back to
America with the Italian immigrants, it became
an Italian-America staple.
It was only inevitable that the tomatoes
from certain regions would outshine those of
others, and in the last thirty years San
Marzano’s have been judged to be the gold
standard. That inevitably led American food
importers and producers to appropriate the words
“San Marzano” on their labels in the same way
they used “Champagne,” “Chianti,” “caviar” and
“Cheddar” for foods not from their native
countries. 
A
recent case filed by a California
woman named Andrea Valiente against Simpson
Imports, a Pennsylvania tomato seller,
maintained that Simpson’s label had used “highly
misleading tomato packaging to trick consumers
into believing that they are purchasing genuine
San Marzano tomatoes, at San Marzano prices.”
The company used “San Marzano” on its label
years before but switched to calling its
contents “San Merican” tomatoes, “a proprietary
blend,” on a very similar label.
Whatever happens with the case, American
companies
use whatever names they like for canned
tomatoes, including “San Marzano,” with an
estimated 10,000 tons of mis-labeled tomatoes
sold around the U.S. This goes against the
European Union’s “designation of protected
origins” (D.O.P.), overseen by the Consorzio di
Tutela del Pomodoro San Marzano,” whose mission
is to defend the San Marzano tomato from
“attempts at commercial counterfeiting . . .
checking its authenticity through Quality
Boards.” Only the designated San Marzano 2,
KIROS variety can receive the D.O.P., which sets
the requirements for everything from its shape,
length, axis ratio, color and Ph.
The consortium also grants appellations
only to the provinces of Salerno, Avellino and
Napoli and recognizes only nine processing
companies as allowed to put the real thing into
cans.
Yet there are some tomato connoisseurs
who insist those appellations allow for a far
greater area of production than it should,
citing the fact that the commune and town of San
Marzano sul Sarno is only two square miles in
area, and that the real and authentic San
Marzano tomatoes only come from there.
Whether or not the consortium bureaucrats
agree with that statement, I had one experience
in the region south of Mount Vesuvius that made
me think the contention that the region around
San Marzano sul Sarno does make the very best
tomatoes. I had booked a reservation to visit a
30-acre hillside winery, founded in 1949, named
Cantina del Vesuvio (above), where Maurizio Russo Esther
Grosso (above) and his family produce
excellent wines and run a little trattoria
serving some of the best, simple, local food
in the area.
Maurizio
was in the vineyards digging, planting,
trellising, and pruning, but stopped to show us
to a small patio and dining area where chef
Ester places bottles
of Lacryma Christi bianco, rosato, and rosso
wines, pitchers of 
water
and a lavish antipasto platter of provolone
and salami with bruschetta country bread with
a full bowl of deep red sauce made with the
local heirloom Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP
tomatoes. I dipped the bruschetta into the
sauce and reeled back: it was a magnificent
burst of flavor. Then came a
platter of spaghetti tossed with a deep red
tomato sauce of such intensity that, unless
you have dined elsewhere in Campania, you will
never have tasted anything like it.
(A guided tour of the vineyards with a
tasting of five wines and three-course lunch is
45 euros; four courses for 55 euros.)
Having had thousands of tomato sauce
dishes in my lifetime, I experienced a true
epiphany at Cantina del Vesuvio of a kind I’ve
only had at the dinner table three times
before: once, it was my first meal in Paris at
the train station where I’d just arrived and was
astounded at how delicious the blanquette
de veau was; second, eating the seafood of
Harry’s Bar in Venice; and third, crouching down
with Basque cowboys chowing down pancakes and
lamb chops at daybreak next to a hanging lake in
Colorado.
If I never
have another moment of such riveting, sensual
education as these, I’ll consider myself blessed
and want the world to know that the best of the
best really does exist, and when it comes to
tomatoes, they are coming out of the rich
volcanic soil south of Vesuvius.
❖❖❖
Remembering
Jasper
White, Godfather of New England
Cuisine
By John Mariani
Jasper
White, who was among those who pioneered
“New New England Cuisine” in the 1980s,
died May 11 after suffering a brain
aneurysm. He was 69 years old.
Along with a slew of young colleagues
who included Lydia Shire (below),
Gordon Hamersley, Barbara Lynch, Jim Haller,
Jody Adams, Roger Berkowitz and Stan
Frankenthaler, White used the lessons of
France’s la
nouvelle cuisine that stressed
freshness, creativity and local product to
create a cuisine based on the seasonal
provender and seafood of New England, from
springtime fiddlehead ferns and shad roe to
maple syrup and cornmeal. 
His menus teemed with both tradition
and novelty in dishes like lobster sausage
with cabbage; squab with oysters; raw Cape
Cod scallops with lemon, onion and capers;
Indian summer chowder with smoked chicken;
brown bread waffles; and maple walnut ice
cream.
White was good friends with French
chef Madeleine Kamman and Julia Child (below),
when she lived in Cambridge, and won the
James Beard Award as Best Chef in the
Northeast in 1991.
Born in New Jersey on May 28, 1954,
he learned early on to hunt and fish, and
his earliest food memories were gleaned from
his Italian great grandfather, who had been
a chef in Rome (his mother’s side was
Irish), and his first job in a kitchen was
butchering and washing dishes in his
father’s inn in Pennsylvania. Of then he
said, “What I learned was the connection
between the land and the food and how one
adapts to a new environment. I also learned
an uncompromising attitude that disdains
anything but the very best.”
Already an accomplished cook, White
attended the Culinary Institute of America
and after graduation in 1976 cooked his way
around America in traditional
kitchens—“country club jobs,” he called
them. He then settled in Boston, where he
and Lydia Shire worked together at the
Biltmore Plaza in Providence and various
Boston hotel restaurants, including the
Copley Plaza, the Parker House Hotel and the
Bostonian Hotel, where he and Shire focused
on New England ingredients.
As expected, White wanted to have his
own restaurant: “I had to go to the bank and
borrow all this money so I could make a
roast chicken.
Food is love and giving, and I
remembered chicken dinners my Italian
grandmother would make in New Jersey that no
head of food-and- beverage [in the hotels]
would ever let me make.”
He proudly called his new place
Restaurant Jasper in 1983, and while it was
a fine dining experience, White wanted it to
be more casual, less stodgy and to shy away
from Boston’s provincial reputation.
Sadly, White shuttered his restaurant
in 1995 because the never-ending
construction of Boston’s “Big Ditch” made
downtown business impossible.
He then was a
consultant for Roger Berkowitz’s Legal
Seafood chain and wrote his first (of four)
cookbooks, Jasper
White’s Cooking from New England
(1989) before returning to the stoves in
2000 to launch a delightfully casual Jasper
White’s Summer Shack seafood eatery in
Cambridge, where he cooked up lobster rolls
and cod cakes. He sold that concept to the
Lyons Group in 2017.
There were some health
scares along the way after White gained a
good deal of weight, but he worked hard to
get back into shape, and in his fifties was
trim again.
His
Boston friend and chef Michael Schlow posted
in Facebook upon hearing the news of White’s
death that he was “Devastated. Jasper
was an icon, a
‘chefs chef’ and an inspiration to an
entire generation. More importantly, he was
good, decent, trustworthy friend.. It didn't
matter how long in between visits, Jasper
always made you feel special. No one could
cut through the BS like Jasper. He was
modest, humble, and honest.”
I first met Jasper when he was the
chef at the Bostonian Hotel at Boston’s
historic Faneuil Hall, across from the very
traditional Durgin Park Café, which had
opened in 1827. Jasper’s menus were highly
innovative and his pan-roasted lobster
became one of the iconic dishes of the
developing New American Cuisine. I recall
vividly how the same flavors and simple
dishes one could have across the street at
Durgin Park, served by surly waitresses,
were transformed by White into sumptuous,
impeccably updated versions served in a
refined dining room on the hotel’s top
floor.
White was a gentle giant of a man,
excited by so many possibilities tied to the
seasons: to cull the bay scallops from
Nantucket, the mussels from Little Compton,
Rhode Island, and the baby lamb from
Martha’s Vineyard.
Back in 1987 I was hosting a PBS TV
series on American regional food and
restaurants, and I called Jasper to do a
spot for the Boston segment. Instead of
inviting me to his restaurant and kitchen to
cook, he said, “Can you meet me in Little
Compton? We do clam bakes on the beach on
Sundays.”
It was one of my most memorable food
experiences, not only because White’s deft
cooking of cherrystone and little neck
clams, ears of freshly picked corn,
potatoes, mussels, crabs and 24 lobsters
steamed for hours in a pit layered with
seaweed was deeply delicious, but also
suffused with the long history of similar
seaside dinners that the Massachusetts
Indians and European settlers had made over
centuries.
It was a cool autumn day, everyone in
sweaters, children digging up clams in the
wet gray sand and the white-capped waves
rolling in and out with a gentle lapping.
Sitting on blankets with our plates with the
food dumped onto newspaper, we drank cold
Connecticut wines and Sam Adams beer.
Serving up the bounty, Jasper
White was wholly in his element, one he had
absorbed from generations of New England
cooks and played out on a cloudy, windswept
beach.
I’ve rarely seen anyone quite so
happy as Jasper White on that cold Sunday
afternoon.
NEW YORK CORNER
101
West 57th Street
212-377-7170
By John Mariani
The arrival of the spacious Acadia at
the corner of Sixth Avenue and West 57th Street,
once home to Wolf’s Deli, has been greeted with
the kind of popularity a place gets when it has
legitimate buzz. In Acadia’s case, its size and
tall ceilings lend the space a nicely lighted
conviviality, and its décor, with an open
kitchen hung with greenery, lively bar up front,
wooden walls and ceilings, semi-abstract
landscapes, roomy leather booths and
well-separated wooden tables set with green
glassware, hit the right note of serious food
with casual ease.
All
its hard surfaces can create a very high-decibel
sound level, added to by unidentifiable music, but
the less loud tables seem to be close to the open
kitchen.
This is the fifteenth restaurant to be
opened by Simon Oren’s Chef Driven Hospitality,
whose holdings include Barbounia, Monterey,
Marseille, Nice Matin and Dagon. His partner in
Acadia is chef Ari Bokovza, who is part Israeli
and
Tunisian.
I applaud the wine and spirits
list, compiled by
Aviram Turgeman, featuring wines that
you don’t expect in a restaurant of this kind,
with ample selections from Europe and the New
World as well as wines from the Dalmatian coast,
Israel and Lebanon.
Acadia takes
its name from the ancient Mesopotamia empire
dating back to the 24th century BC, now known by
the general term Levant, so the menu ranges over
the region from Israel to Arabia.
There is a selection of mezze that includes
hummus, spicy feta, labneh and eggplant confit
(three for $29, six for $49), as well as more
substantial appetizers like “Agu’s Tunisian Cigar”
($17), which does look like a cigar and contains
very good salted cod, tahini and amba
mango pickle. The charred eggplant ($23) was
not particularly pliant and the bottarga a bit
strong against the tuna and bresaola. 
The must-have starter is kubaneh ($16), a
big, buttery-slathered pull-apart bread from
Jewish-Yemeni food culture served with za’atar and
tangy feta. Some say it was the inspiration for
French croissants.
Yellow tuna crudo ($25) was dressed with
lime-arak vinaigrette, cucumber, avocado and
coriander, while beets came with a horseradish
yogurt and herbs ($12). Cauliflower with arugula
and pine-nut aioli are scented with turmeric ($12)
while asparagus are roasted and served with a
delicious frothy parmesan and polenta sauce tinged
with sumac ($12). All of these would make
vegetarians quite happy.
Entrée portions
are generous indeed, as with the lamb kofta in a terra
cotta casserole with spicy tomato sauce, tahini
and Levantine vegetables, covered with a dome of
bread to seal in the juices and aromas ( $37).
Marinated black cod ($35) was glazed with citrus
and turnips, colorful turmeric vinaigrette, while
a rotisserie chicken ($35) was exceptionally
juicy, but with a crisp skin, served with equally
crisp za’atar potatoes, arugula salad and
hot harissa barbecue. The best main course I tried
was a perfectly chewy, well-charred hanger steak
($36) with koji rice and the spicy Yemeni green
sauce called schug.
Among
desserts ($14) I loved a dish called silan,
a menage of date honey, caramel rice crisps,
pistachios, almonds, tahini mousse, atop vanilla
sponge cake with vanilla ice cream and silan date
honey. Also worth trying are the Meyer lemon semifreddo
with tarragon shortbread, orange caramel sauce and
huckleberry granita, and a rich, dark chocolate
hazelnut mousse cake like Nutella, with an
espresso whipped ganache and coffee gelato.
Prices at
Acadia are reasonably moderate for their largess
and you’ll want to share plates. If you’re going
to Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center or the theater,
it’s an easy place to get in and out of with a
fine, quick meal. It’s a good idea to go with
friends and to become part of the liveliness of
this big, welcoming new restaurant.
Open for dinner
nightly; for breakfast and lunch Mon.-Fri.
THE MAGDALENE LAUNDRIES
By John Mariani
Inspector Max Finger arranged to
meet David at the Garda’s Kevin Street
police station, identified by a bright blue
lamp inside the high walls and iron gates.
Once the official residence of Dublin’s
archbishops, it had been a 12th century
palace, taken over by the Garda in the late
eighteenth century. Though an historical
landmark, the place looked even more
decrepit than the New York precinct houses
David had served in. Its stone walls had
been covered over with pebbledash concrete,
large patches of which had fallen off over
decades.
David entered the front office, noting
the ceilings had been covered with
plasterboard and the floors with linoleum,
neither replaced in a long while.
“Can I help you, sir?” asked a
policeman behind a front desk.
“Yes, please. My
name is David Greco and I have an appointment
with Inspector Max Finger.”
David smiled and nodded, and before a minute had elapsed a plainclothesman arrived, his hand outstretched.
“David, Max Finger,” he said, with a light Irish brogue. Somehow David thought there might be a Jewish-New York sound to his voice but it was pure Dublin Irish. “You’ve come on a very busy day, what with the newest murder of a nun, but I know that’s why you’re here.”
Finger was fairly short and stocky, dark-eyed, in his mid-forties, going bald and with an unkempt beard. He wore dark trousers, tan shirt and a plain black tie. To David he didn’t look particularly Jewish but not very Irish either.
David said he was helping Katie on her story about the Magdalene Laundries but that the murders had added a grisly new dimension.
“I’m sure you believe the two are tied together,” said Finger, “but come into my office and we’ll sit and talk. You can expect we’ll be interrupted. A case like this hasn’t occurred in Dublin for as long as I’ve been on the force. We’re not rich in serial killers.”
Finger led David through hallways that showed much of the wear and tear of a building never intended to be police offices, with jumbles of cardboard cartons and files lining the corridor and water-stained walls and ceilings.
“Don’t mind the mess,” said Finger. “A woman comes in once a decade to do some cleanin’.”
Finger shared a modest-sized room with two other police officers, whom he introduced to David.
“This is Sergeant Tom Scanlon, and that’s Sergeant Michael Horan.”
Both were busy on the phone and merely waved their hands at the American, barely looking up. Finger grabbed a chair and said, “Sit down, sit down. Tea, coffee?”
David declined, seeing two used teacups with spent teabags on a side table that also held a Mr. Coffee maker whose Pyrex pot was visibly stained.
“So, my New York friend Jack Keaton says you’re one of the best cops he’s ever worked with,” said Finger. “And he himself is a damn fine one. Says you were busy cleanin’ up the Eye-talian mobs while he was dealin’ with the Westies.”
“We had some crossover,” said David.
Finger slapped his palms on his desk. “So, here we are, goin’ after some serial murderer with a gory revenge streak. I think we can probably ignore the mob havin' anythin’ to do with it, unless the nuns stopped payin’ protection money.”
David wasn’t sure if Finger were serious or not.
“I don’t mean that literally,” said the Irish cop, “but the Sisters of bloody Charity have been well protected for centuries by all kinds of groups—the Church, the parish priests and the politicians in this city. We’ve had to deal with some abuse cases lodged against the good sisters and priests, but those are almost never prosecuted.”
“Same in New York,” said David. “Accusations are made, a city attorney turns it over to the police, some questions are asked around town, but even if strong evidence shows up, nothing ever happens. As I’m sure you know, the Irish are very strong in New York in the Church, the police department and City Hall.”
"So here we are then, David, an Italian and a Jew lookin’ into the dirty Irish laundry of the Sisters of bloody Charity. The Irish like to say, ‘May you never forget what is worth rememberin’ or remember what is best forgotten.’ The Jews say, ‘What you don’t see with your eyes, don’t invent with your mouth.’ What do the Eye-talians say, David?”
“Basically, ‘It’s none of your fuckin’ business.’”
“Pretty universal sentiment.”
David wanted very much to learn why a Jew had joined the Dublin police but thought he’d save the question for lunch, if there was to be one.
Finger said, “Obviously, David, I’m trustin’ you as an ex-cop to keep what I tell you in confidence. But, to tell the truth, I wouldn’t mind gettin’ your input on this. Serial murders are not my specialty.”
“Most of the ones I’ve investigated were when one mob family went to war with another.”
“We get that here, too. More in the past than now, but as I’m sure you can guess, this latest may or may not be the last, and my job is to catch the bastard before there’s another one.”
Finger then explained that, since the first murder, the Garda had spoken with a wide range of people who might have had a deep-seated grudge against the Sisters of Charity, especially former inmates of the Magdalene Laundries.
“The records on these women are far from complete,” he said, “and you can imagine, as with all abuse cases, most of the time the people who suffered in their youth don’t want to speak about it. Only in the last few years, especially after they found the graves at Drumcondra—you know about that, I suppose—a few women have come forth, and there are some good people tryin’ to ferret them out and make a bigger case out of what went on at the Laundries. Now, with three murders in one week, we have to dig in deep and we have to assume it’s a local. All three of the nuns, all of them quite old, are, or were, livin’ in Dublin. A lot of scabs will be comin’ off, and those poor women in the graveyard may get some justice yet.”
“You think it’s possible, Max, the murderer could be a nun herself, killing off her colleagues out of remorse for her own, well, her own sins?”
I expect we’ll be hearin’ from her soon enough. The guilt will drive her to us. Killin’ people is what you Catholics call a ‛mortal sin’ that’ll put you up the devil’s ass forever, right? The thing is, these nuns are all elderly. I don’t think a renegade nun of their group would have the strength to strangle one, jam a pointer through another’s heart and beat the bloody life out of a third.”
“What about a man? Or an accomplice?
Maybe did it to avenge what happened to his
wife.”“Or daughter. That’s a strong possibility ‘cause of the sheer meanness of the way they were killed. Would’a been much easier just to shoot them or maybe poison their porridge or whatever nuns eat. We could trace the bullets or the poison, but how do you trace rosary beads and classroom pointers? Right now we have no good suspects. The motive seems clear, but the fact that this is now a serial killer makes it all the more extraordinary.”
d that from what he knew of serial killers in the U.S., they were clearly insane but some were also very smart, their capture often taking years, even decades, and then it was often by accident. Cops joked about praying to find a burned-out tail light, referring to incidents where the murderers were picked up on a routine traffic violation.
Max Finger grabbed his coat and said, “You up for visitin’
the crime scenes?”David enthusiastically assented, and the two detectives got in a squad car—a white, blue-and-yellow-striped Toyota Corolla with police lights.
“Not much of a police car, is it?” said Finger. “They just take off-the-line family cars and do nothin’ to the engines. Not great when you’re tryin’ to chase the bad guys. No power at all. What did you drive in New York?”
David didn’t want to rub it in about how NYPD always had powerful cars with plenty of improvements. “A lotta different ones over the years,” he said. “In the ‘90s we drove Chevy Caprices. Three-speed automatic, 350 cubic inch V. Pretty fast car, though I didn’t do much chasing the bad guys on highways. The Caprice was also big enough and solid enough to block off streets, which came in handy.”
“Well, I doubt we’ll have much need of that chasin’ nun killers.”
© John Mariani, 2018
❖❖❖
The
winery
Three Sticks does not owe its name to vines stuck
in the soil of Sonoma but to its founder, Bill
Price III, whose surfer buddies called him “Three
Sticks.”
Born
in Los Angeles, he got his love of wine via his
French father. After achieving success as a lawyer,
he joined GE Capital
to work for CEO Jack Welch, as well as co-founding
Texas Pacific Group, a private equity firm, which
in 1995 purchased Beringer Vineyards and invested
in Chateau St. Jean, whose Durrell Vineyards Price
bought in 1998 and launched Three Sticks in 2002.
“I
realized I’d made all the money I needed to make in
my career,” Bill says, “and I longed to return to
something that brought me back in touch with the
natural world on a more regular basis. Now we own
six beautiful Sonoma Coast vineyards.”
Today, with his daughter Natalie (below),
second generation vintner who is in charge of
marketing, .jpeg)
his Price Family Vineyards
& Estates includes ownership of Durell,
Gap’s Crown, Walala, Alana, One Sky, and William
James Vineyard. And ownership of Three
Sticks, Kistler Vineyards, Gary Farrell Winery, and
Head High.
Three Sticks makes only Chardonnay and Pinot
Noir wines (plus a small number of Rhȏne varietals),
now overseen by Prema Kerollis as co-founder and
general manager, who had worked with Price at TPG.
In 2012, she oversaw the preservation and design of
the Vallejo Casteńada Adobe, now home to the Three
Sticks tasting salon in downtown Sonoma.
an Prichard joined the winemaking team at Three
Sticks in 2015 and in 2023 was promoted to the
position of Director of Winemaking. I recently had a
chance to interview them while they were on a trip
to New York.
There’s a saying
that if you want to make a small fortune in the
California wine business you have to start with a
large fortune. It seems that Bill Price III and
you, Prema (right), had more than
ample funds to buy land and invest in wineries.
Was that at a time when vineyard land was soaring
in price?
Prema: Bill has been in the
vineyard business for 30 years. He purchased Durell
Vineyard from Ed Durell in 1996 and 
Gap’s Crown in 2012.
Bill has been very careful and discerning about his
decisions, which have everything to do with the
unique aspects of the vineyards for quality fruit
and increased value over time. Certainly, over the
course of 30 years California land prices have
soared.
But you also say
that now the prices have gone down. What has
caused that?
Prema: Prices are leveling
but not dropping, yet.
Is there cheap land
available in Sonoma right now and do you plan
further investments?
Prema: Currently we have no
plans for further investments. We have six beautiful
estate vineyards in Sonoma County, which supply
Three Sticks Wines with amazing fruit and all that
we need at our size.
Ryan, you put a lot
of effort into specific terroirs and
micro-climates in Sonoma. What do you look
for?
Ryan (below): With our
focus on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, we are looking
for sites that are cooler, or have weather
characteristics that tend to slow the grapevines'
growth. We can get this via proximity to the
Pacific Ocean or areas that have more direct access
to it. Areas such as the Petaluma Gap,
Sebastopol Hills and Russian River all fit into this
rubric. We can also get this via sites with
higher elevations. Next, we are looking for
sites that have good air movement to keep disease
pressure at bay. Finally, and crucially, is
the soil. We are looking for soils that are
well drained and not too heavy or have the
traditional firepower that other agricultural crops
thrive in. The grapevine struggle is what
makes it great.
Three
Sticks makes only two varietals—Chardonnay and
Pinot Noir— plus Rhȏne varietals for your
Casteńada Red and Rosé, this, at a time when so
many California wineries are making six, seven or
more varietals. Why not branch out?
Ryan: One of the
great things about California, and more specifically
Sonoma County, is our wide variety of climates
within very short distances. There are
world-class Pinot Noirs being made only a handful of
miles from world-class Cabernets. Some
wineries have chosen to showcase these numerous
varieties and terroirs by making many different
varieties from one or many sites. What Three
Sticks has consciously decided to do is to hyper
focus on Burgundian varieties, specifically Pinot
Noir and Chardonnay, and showcase how our six estate
vineyards and their differing sites impact the
expression of these varieties. We have come a
long way in understanding these varieties in our
section of the world, but we have centuries of more
work ahead of us!
So, there are
terroirs that do not lend themselves to growing,
say, Zinfandel, Barbera or Merlot?
Ryan: There are
fantastic terroirs in Sonoma County that lend
themselves to varieties such as Zinfandel, Barbera
and Merlot. And there are producers out there
who are diving in and showcasing those wines
beautifully. As our goal is to showcase Pinot
Noir and Chardonnay, we have selected sites that are
better suited for these cooler climate varieties.
What are the
differences between your Pinot Noir and
Chardonnay’s vineyards—Monopole, Gap’s Crown and
Walala—which are not all close to one
another?
Ryan: Three Sticks has six
estate vineyards: Durell, Gap’s Crown, Walala,
Alana, William James and One Sky. Three of
these, Durell, Gap’s Crown and Walala, we call our
“Heritage” vineyards since we purchased these
vineyards already planted and with great track
records of wines being made from them prior to our
purchase. We make wines from these vineyards
and continue to sell grapes to other wineries from
these properties.
The other three vineyards, Alana, William
James and One Sky, we call our “Monopole”
vineyards. These are vineyards that we
purchased bare land, planted, and developed the
vineyards ourselves, and all the grapes that are
produced on these sites are made into wine by Three
Sticks.
These vineyards have many differences as they
are spread out across Sonoma County. Our
farthest distance between vineyards are over 90
miles away from each other (Durell and Walala), so
we can see vast differences in the wines that are
produced from these sites. Our vineyards all
share a commonality as well; they sit in areas that
have weather characteristics that slow ripening via
cooler temperatures, wind, and elevation.
Here is a quick summary of each vineyard:
Durell Vineyard—Sits at the confluence of
many different forces. It lies in three
different AVA’s—Sonoma Coast, 
Carneros
and Sonoma Valley—and gets cooling influence from
the San Francisco Bay as well as the Pacific Ocean
via the Petaluma Gap. It is a slightly warmer
site and sees impacts from strong afternoon winds to
help slow ripening. Finally, the site has
extreme diversification of soil, with some areas
having ancient riverbeds and their large, rounded
stones, while other areas have volcanic loamy soils
and finally others that have lighter, sandier soil
profiles. These different soils display
different characteristics in each of the grapes
planted, and allow for the wines from this site to
be extremely complex and layered. Chardonnays
are intensely flavored with a tight, precise
core. Pinot Noirs develop into wines that
showcase dark fruit and spice notes with
well-integrated and fine texture.
Gap’s Crown Vineyard—This site is influenced
mostly from the near constant winds coming in
through the break in the coastal mountains, the
Petaluma Gap. This gap allows cold wind and
fog to pour through from the Pacific Ocean and acts
as a main corridor for cool air to flow into Sonoma
County. The Chardonnay at Gap’s Crown is all
Dijon clone, which is better suited to the cool
climate. Wines from these clones showcase
great citrus and minerality notes. The varied
Pinot Noir clones planted are also mostly Dijon
clones and are extremely consistent from year to
year, showcasing dense and firm tannins with chewy
blueberry and mint notes.
Walala Vineyard—Lies at the far
northwestern edge of Sonoma County, just a couple
miles from the Pacific Ocean. It is in the
newly formed AVA of West Sonoma Coast. This
vineyard is surrounded by redwoods and sits at the
top of one of the coastal mountains. Being so
close to the ocean, it is exposed to the wildly
varying weather patterns that comes with the
territory. One minute it can be 55 degrees,
blustery and shrouded in fog and the next the
weather can break, and you are in full
sunshine. This is farming at the
extreme. Only planted to Pinot Noir, this
site’s wines showcase the extremes of the vintage
and have a signature of dark spice and peppercorn
notes.
William James
Vineyard—Located in Sebastopol in
the Green Valley of the Russian River AVA, this
vineyard is in the heart of an area that was
historically apple orchards. Located in the
rolling hills of “West County,” it sees cooling from
the vast hills and valleys that funnel cool air from
the Pacific Ocean. Strong afternoon cool winds
keep this site one of the coolest of all our
properties. This site also has the famous
Goldridge soils, a fine, almost moon-dust soil that
drains exceptionally well and adds a fine texture to
the wines. Only planted to Pinot Noir, the
site’s wines have a red brambly note laced with a
dried herb quality.
Alana Vineyard—In the redwood, pine, and
fog-covered hillsides outside of the town of
Occidental, the Alana vineyard is a wonderful blend
of aspects of the cool Sonoma Coast and the Russian
River Valley. On a steep hillside, this
vineyard produces smaller vines with small
clusters. This vineyard is also on the fine
Goldridge soils, so that imparts a great texture the
wines. The Chardonnay from Alana has a cool
purity of fruit and acid tension while the Pinot
Noirs tend to have a dark juiciness with nice,
rounded edges.
One Sky Vineyard—High atop Sonoma Mountain
sits the One Sky Vineyard. At 1,400 feet, this
is the highest vineyard in the Sonoma Mountain AVA,
which is defined by elevation above the Sonoma
Valley floor. This vineyard is our steepest
slope of any of our vineyards and the dark red,
volcanic, iron-rich soils provide the grapevines
just enough horsepower to ripen in this challenging
terrain. The Chardonnays from this site tend
to have great density and expression, while the
Pinot Noirs have a mountain profile of tannins along
with dusty dark red fruit profile.
Many of California’s
finest wines are made from grapes not grown on
their estate’s property but instead purchased from
others. Why have you been so adamant that 100% of
your grapes come from your own vineyards?
Prema: The thought behind
100% estate fruit is that we can, and we absolutely
should, since we have the ability to control our
farming decisions, crucial timing decisions, and
fruit from start to finish each vintage. Quality is
our obsession and mantra. Studying our vineyards and
having control over every single grape that enters
the winery gives us many advantages. Being 100%
estate is extremely rare in our world, which we know
because we sell grapes to a broad selection of 
esteemed
producers.
We also get to pick what we believe to be the best
vineyard blocks for our wines. There are risks to
this model as well. When yields are down, we cannot
turn to our neighbors to help supplement production.
That is a risk we are willing to take to make the
very best wines we can, year after year.
Ryan: By farming 100% of
our vineyards, we can ensure that every aspect of
growing our grapes and making the wines are in our
direct control. No vine is pruned, no leaf is
pulled, or grape is picked unless we have decided
that it would be best for the wines that we want to
make. This gives us a level of control that is
difficult to achieve when sharing vineyards and
outsourcing farming done by someone other than
ourselves.
How do you see
global warming affecting Sonoma in the next ten
years?
Ryan: Climate change is
affecting us in many different ways in Sonoma
County. We are having more extreme weather
events—be that fires, floods, extreme heat,
unseasonable rains, etc. If any of these
things happen at the wrong time of the year, it can
be catastrophic for the development of our grapes,
and ultimately, the wine. If we were looking
to the future and thinking about new vineyard
locations, we would find ourselves looking at cooler
and cooler sites, some of which would have been
unthinkable to plant grapes in just 20 years ago. In
some areas, temperatures are increasing to the point
that people are moving to grape varieties that can
handle warmer seasons. It is something that is
happening gradually, but not stopping.
How do you price
your wines? How much is sold at your estate and
through mail order?
Prema: Several factors go
into pricing our wine, including costs such as
meticulous farming, our extensive barrel program,
amazing production team, our competitive set, the
cost of sales and of course scarcity. Seventy-five
percent 75% of our wine is sold direct to consumers,
including 22% sold through our Adobe Tasting Room
just off the Sonoma town square, where we welcome
guests by appointment for tastings and seasonal food
pairings.
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Are your wines
allocated to restaurants?
Prema: Yes, we have a small
but robust wholesale business that is based on
fabulous relationships. We look for great wine shops
and restaurant partners that can tell our story. We
have successfully built great relationships in
California, Texas, Florida, New York, Georgia,
Hawaii among other great states. We export a tiny
amount of our wines overseas to avid Three Sticks
collectors abroad.
What do you foresee
for Three Sticks in the next five years, including
the price of land?
Prema: We are focused on
delivering great wine, growing our following and
customer retention. Our collection of Sonoma estate
vineyards have allowed us to grow with the demand
for our wines and that is what we plan to continue
doing--to grow with our customers.
Do the immigrant
problems at the border affect your ability to hire
workers, especially at harvest?
Prema: Our VP of Vineyards
has been farming our estate vineyards for more than
15 years. We have a full-time crew of farmers
dedicated to our Monopole vineyards and work with
farm labor contractors when we need additional
labor, which is typical throughout California wine
regions. All of our Sonoma estate vineyards are
hand-farmed and picked and we appreciate these
terrific skilled workers. We couldn’t do what we do
without them.
❖❖❖
THINGS THAT KEEP US UP AT NIGHT
“One
question
I often find myself mulling over while dining out
is: When did the water glasses get so tiny? That
gives way to other thoughts. Am I just
uncontrollably, and perhaps worryingly, thirsty? Is
the guidance that I drink eight glasses a day indeed
bogus? Am I not supposed to drink this much water
with a meal?” By
Bettina Makalintal, “Why Are Restaurant
Water Glasses So Small?,” Eater.com
(4/4/2024)
❖❖❖
Any of John Mariani's books below may be ordered from amazon.com.
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