The Clever Root

Spring / Summer 2016

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A C alifornia V intner E xplores W hat M akes " B ourgogne " a W ine M ecca E x p lo r i n g B urgundy Y ou might imagine that if one were to have the good fortune of purchasing a vineyard in California, it would not typically spark interest in a place more than 5,000 miles away. But when our fam- ily purchased Sanford Winery and its vineyards in Santa Barbara County in 2002, France was on my mind. Not Paris, the Côte d'Azur or other exquisite locations one might im- mediately conjure; instead, my mind was focused on Burgundy. Why? Because when it comes to farming and producing Pinot Noir and Char- donnay, Burgundy is mecca. Here is why I felt the need to visit Burgundy. Sanford Winery is home to the oldest Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines in the Santa Barbara area, dating to 1972. It also possesses a magical and unique con- fluence of climate and soil conditions—remarkably like those of Burgundy. And once our family owned San- ford, I wanted to more deeply understand Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the two iconic varieties of Bourgogne. (The Bureau Interprofessionel des Vins de Bourgogne, or BIVB, has re- cently initiated an effort to replace the usage "Burgundy" with "Bourgogne" in all English-language references to the region. —Ed.) BY JOHN TERLATO / PHOTOS BY MICHEL JOLY John Terlato of Terlato Wines, author of this article, in one of Burgundy's famed cellars with a glass of the region's signature Pinot Noir. 5 6 | t h e c l e v e r r o o t

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