Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/688647
It has now been two decades since Joel Gott and his wife Sarah started up Joel Gott Wines. It is one thing to be enormously successful, it's another to maintain the cour - age, creativity and commitment to stick to what has gotten you there in the first place. Joel Gott epitomizes this standard. For the Gotts, the objective has never changed: to produce quality, clean, well- made, balanced wines and offer them for unbelievable prices. Call it over- achievement for someone raised in the craft—making wine people feel like they stole. Especially specialty retailers and persnickety restaurant sommeliers, whose never-ending battle is finding distinctively fashioned wines at "action" price points, just as good or better than wines twice the price. No one does it better than the Gotts. Case in point: the Joel Gott 2014 Santa Barbara Pinot Noir, retailing for $18 to $21 across the country. This wine has everything you want in a $40 or $50 Pinot Noir : floral perfumes with touches of leafy rose petal and spring-fresh cherries, in a silky, gentle, crisply balanced package. When asked how he does it, Gott fur - nished a winemaker's explanation: "We can offer this because we take advantage of all the diverse micro-climates that you find in Santa Barbara—the cooler, coastal regions with marine influence that give you texture, structure and color, and slightly warmer inland regions that give intense, concen - trated cherry and spice flavors." INTEGRITY IN THE BLOOD But here is the real dirt on why wines like Joel Gott Santa Barbara Pinot Noir are the way they are: It's in Gott's blood—that is, that consistent nose for quality and feel for sensory integrity that end up in all his wines. When asked to elaborate, he tells us, "I'm a fifth-generation wine guy who grew up in the wine business, and just never knew any different. My dad [Cary Gott] was the winemaker and founder of Monteviña [now spelled Montevina] Winery in the 1970s, and my grandfather [James Gott] was VP of Winemaking at Inglenook Vineyards in the 1960s." The first Joel Gott wine was an Amador County Zinfandel, released in 1996. Gott tells us, "During that time I owned a small grocery market, which educated me on the wine retail business. It's that experi - ence that gave me the idea that if you can produce a really great wine for under $20, you can do very well in the business. After our Zinfandel got some good reviews from Robert Parker and Wine Spectator, the suc - cess encouraged us to produce a Sauvignon Blanc, and then a Cabernet Sauvignon, and so forth. We now produce over a dozen labels—sourced not just in California but also from Oregon and Washington. And so yeah, this willingness to go wherever you find great grapes has gotten a little crazy, but it works." TAKING "CRAZY" ONE STEP FURTHER WITH TRINCHERO FAMILY ESTATES In 2003, Gott banded together with two partners—Roger Scommegna and Charles Bieler—to start up the Three Thieves brand; conceived as a crazy-good idea of buying up Zinfandel for prices that were a "steal," and packaging them in one-liter jugs harking back to bottlings of the 1940s and 1950s. The partnership has evolved into a relationship that has been going strong for over a decade with the birth of other brand names such as, The Show, Bandit Wines and Newman's Own. Gott says, "After the suc - cess of working with Trinchero on Three Thieves, we thought it would be a great opportunity to do the same with Joel Gott Wines. We partnered in 2009 and it has been great ever since. It has given us the ability to focus on our winemaking while Trinchero executes the distribution side." The Trinchero partnership has allowed the Gotts to grow their own brand organically. "Our basic approach has never wavered—source the best fruit possible, and create styles of wines we love. It's really a group effort involving myself, Sarah and our winemakers, Alisa Jacobson and Nicole Scommegna. The more feedback the bet - ter, with lots of tasting. "The ladies even tasted through 50 lots in one day to find PHOTO: MEG SMITH Wines You Thought You Stole by Randy Caparoso "OUR BASIC APPROACH HAS NEVER WAVERED—SOURCE THE BEST FRUIT POSSIBLE, AND CREATE STYLES OF WINES WE LOVE. IT'S REALLY A GROUP EFFORT." 54 { THE SOMM JOURNAL } JUNE/JULY 2016