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One of the major trends in California wine over the past five years is the renaissance of Mission, a long-neglected grape variety with a quirky history.
It’s a great story. Mission vines were brought to the U.S., via Mexico, from Spain in the 1620s. That makes it, to our knowledge, the first wine grape (Vitis vinifera) planted in this country. Known in Spain as Listán Prieto, Mission earned its American name from its proliferation at the Franciscan Missions throughout California, where it was mainly used for sacramental wine.
For about a century, Mission was the only thing going here, viticulturally, but the importation of so-called “noble” European grape varieties — Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon — pushed Mission into obscurity. By the 20th century, pretty much everyone agreed: Mission just doesn’t make that great of a wine.
That notion has received some compelling rebuttals in recent years, as talented California winemakers like Ryan Stirm, Tegan Passalacqua, Chris Brockway, Pax Mahle and Bryan Harrington have invested in a Mission revival. It makes a dual-natured wine, extremely light in color yet extremely tannic. I recently tasted a gorgeous version from Santa Barbara County winery Rusack, which has an especially interesting backstory with the grape (read about it here!). Once maligned, Mission is now the height of fashion.
My latest Mission discovery comes from a new-to-me winemaker, Adam Sabelli-Frisch.
Sabelli-Frisch, who was born in Sweden and lives in Los Angeles, is a cinematographer who got into natural wine as a hobby. When he decided to make some of his own wine, he wanted to take “natural” to a whole new extreme: “I thought it didn’t really make sense to make natural wine here in America from grapes that are imported,” he says. By “imported,” he means native to Europe, or Vitis vinifera, which most likely describes every California wine you’ve ever had, from Pinot Noir to Vermentino to Viognier.
So Sabelli-Frisch looked into getting native American grape species or hybrids — varieties like Norton and Catawba, used to make wine in other parts of the U.S. — but didn’t like the resulting wines. “So I thought, what’s the closest you can get to a native grape here?” he says.
Mission may not be a native North American plant, but it’s been here long enough, he figured. He found some fruit for sale from the Somers Vineyard in Lodi (also the source of Harrington and Mahle’s wines). The goal was to emphasize Mission’s more serious, ageworthy qualities, Sabelli-Frisch says: “A lot of people do it in the glou-glou style, whereas I’m trying to make something you can cellar,” by giving it a longer maceration and barrel aging.
His quest to uncover strange historical artifacts didn’t stop with Mission. Sabelli-Frisch also makes Flame Tokay, which really intrigued me. Flame Tokay is a pink-skinned North African variety that was once the most widely planted grape in Lodi. Although it’s a member of the Vitis vinifera species, it was mostly used as a table grape, for eating. So ingrained is it in the identity of Lodi that one of the city’s high schools is called Tokay; the other high school’s mascot is the Flame.
Like Mission, Flame Tokay was eventually abandoned in favor of newer, shinier grapes — in its case, an easier-to-chew hybrid called Flame Seedless. Today, Jessie’s Grove Winery makes a dessert wine from some old Flame Tokay vines, but I’d never tasted a dry version.
Sabelli-Frisch found a tiny amount of Flame Tokay still standing in a few different Lodi vineyards — one of them has just 30 vines left, he says — enough to make only 120 cases. He fashions it as an orange wine. Does it produce the most compelling wine you’ve ever tasted? No. But it’s not bad, and it’s a rare taste of California history, which I think is pretty cool.
What I’m drinking
• Flame Tokay, made as an orange wine: Sabelli-Frisch “Lanterna” Flame Tokay Mokelumne River AVA 2018 ($30, 12.6%). The Chandler Vineyard’s 119-year-old Flame Tokay vines are the main source for this wine. Its copper color resembles that of a ramato-style (a.k.a. skin-contact) Pinot Grigio, another pinkish-skinned grape variety. The wine is intense, slightly volatile on the nose with suggestions of date and butterscotch, and more structured on the palate than you’d expect, thanks to a three-week maceration on its skins. The tannins have a bitter bite to them, recalling grapefruit pith.
• Mission, a light-colored but deceptively big red: Sabelli-Frisch “La Malinche” Mission Mokelumne River AVA 2018 ($30, 13.6%). With Mission, there’s usually a disconnect between the light appearance and the hefty weight, and that’s very true here. The wine is light to the point of translucence, with orange brick-colored highlights. It smells like red cherries, the inside of a cigar box and rose petals, and on the palate tastes rustic, tarry and thick, with a core of juicy strawberry and blueberry flavors.
• Alicante Bouschet, a full-throttle red: Sabelli-Frisch “Gordon W.” Alicante Bouschet Lodi 2018 ($30, 12.7%). Another grape variety with a long history in California, Alicante Bouschet is notable because its a teinturier — its flesh is red, not clear. Predictably, it’s dark and opaque and almost seems to stain the glass when you swirl it. It tastes like a full barbecue all at once, from the grilled meats to the charred herbs to the blueberry pie for dessert. Full-throttle, huge, just barely containing itself.
In other news
Like many of you, I tried to learn how to bake sourdough bread during quarantine. It didn’t go so well for me. So I wrote a breakup letter to sourdough.
Drinking with Esther is a weekly newsletter from The Chronicle’s wine critic. Follow along on Twitter: @Esther_Mobley and Instagram: @esthermob
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Forgotten chapters of California history, in two long-neglected wines - San Francisco Chronicle
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