Why is it so hard to envision the natural wine movement taking root in Napa Valley? Maybe itโs the prohibitively expensive land already bought up by beverage biz conglomerates and billionaires with retirement hobbies. Or the expectation of Old California big boy Cabs and Chards that edge out an idiosyncratic hope of the small and funky to flower. Or the โ90s-style consumptive luxury that still attracts generic tourists who want their classic Valley experience. With Napa Valley being headquarters to commercial American winemaking and its corresponding iconography, itโs probably a combination of those things.
But thanks to Outland, a tasting room in Downtown Napa, the hope for a nouveau Napa experience isnโt so outlandish after all. Itโs the outpost for three local, small-production winemakers: Farella, Poe Wines, and Forlorn Hope Wines. With its white walls, Eames chairs, and wide windows, this breezy space looks a bit like a stylishly furnished spaceship. Itโs approachable, relaxed, and youthfulโa palate cleanser from the Italianate gaucheness that still has a stronghold on many of these neighboring storefronts and tasting rooms.
โWeโre a little step away from the dominant paradigm of producers here, and it affords our guests something thatโs pretty unique,โ says Natalie Dulaney, director of operations and disarmingly delightful tour guide through Outlandโs ombre of natural-ish wines from all over Northern California.
Outlandโs strength in avoiding those Napa clichรฉs while welcoming all manner of drinkers is to make small-production wines of varying gradients of obscurity unintimidating and fun to explore. You can stay safe, or you can go wild. Try the 2015 Poe Chardonnay, which saw no new oak and feels clean and fresh. Taste the Forlorn Hope 2016 Dragone Ramato, a translucent rubine that gives way to the scent of opening those continental breakfast packs of strawberry jam but brings you back to real fruit with an irresistible tannic pucker. Farellaโs 2013 Estate Merlot tastes timeless and full of contradictions, like a clean cloud of smoke or fruit flavor without the sugar, just the spirit of a berry.
โOur agenda is to provide excellent wine that tastes great, and just happens to have mindful attention to being responsible,โ says Dulaney. โOur winemakers arenโt throwing all sorts of unnecessary things into their wines or their land.โ Perhaps we shouldnโt call Outland a natural wine tasting room, but it is one of the best places to take a full spectrum of palates and please each with refined takes on unfined juices. Thereโs something here to make everybody happy, and thatโs shaping up to be the attraction of Downtown Napa these days. Itโs fresh but not oppositional, not anti-establishment. Sprudge spoke with Dulaney about Outlandโs collaborative model, the profiles of each of its producers, and why we should keep our eyes on Downtown Napa.
What sort of people walk in off of the street? Are they surprised? This is definitely a different style of winemaking than anywhere else you could just walk intoย in the area.
Iโd say our general daily demographic is split down the middle. About 50 percent of the guests come in because they know one of the three producers already, and none of those producers have had a place to go and try the winesย in the past. Someone will go to a restaurant in New York and try Forlorn Hope wine for the first time, get excited about it, go to the website, and see [that] this is where they can go to taste more. Thatโs very new before this past year; weโve only been open just over a year.
The other half, they donโt quite know what theyโre getting into, and itโs fun! We get some walk-by traffic; we are in a bit of a fishbowl. People look in, wave, see that we have the list of offerings up on the wall. Theyโll either have heard of one of the producers before or theyโll stop in because something on the list strikes them, and itโs fun to tell the story because all three producers are so small and itโs usually a chance to get them to try something new and off the beaten path. Theyโre definitely not for everyone; some of the wines more than others. Itโs exciting to see them get to try something so unique.
Could you triage the three of them, from the wildest to the most refined?
Absolutely. Farella is 100 percent estate. They purchased land in 1977 and everything comes from grapes on their property in Coombsville, three miles directly east [of Downtown Napa]. If youโre coming to Napa and youโre liking the wines from the Valley and thatโs what youโre used to, thatโs where Iโd lead you. They use those traditional grape varieties: the Cabernet Sauvignon, the Merlot, the more robust grapes people are used to. But all three producers definitely fall in that line of minimal intervention. They all three really try to not influence the wines with outside additives. Thatโs one of the reasons they came together. Tom Farella does not fine or filter any of this red wines. Youโll see a good amount of sediment. They may be quite different than the very streamlined Napa Cabernets or Merlots. For example, he doesnโt use any new oak whatsoever on his Merlot. Itโs definitely going to have more fruit-forward, rather than baking-spice aromas most people would be used to with Napa Valley Merlot. His Sauvignon Blanc: itโs stainless-steel aged, and 100 percent Sauvignon Blanc. Thereโs no additional weight added to the wine that I think has become common practice with the fumรฉ styles. He is still a little bit set apart from Napa producers, but would be where Iโd lead someone if they were like, โYeah, I love those Napa Cabs!โ
Second in line, Iโd take them to Poe. Owner Samantha [Sheehan] makes absolutely stunning representations of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Classic varieties, but what she does is unique. She seeks out the coolest climate vineyard sites she can find in Northern California: way out on the coast, higher-elevation vineyard sites are very fog-influenced. She was heavily influenced by the wines of Champagne and Burgundy, so I wouldnโt say sheโs trying to emulate that style, but she definitely pays homage to it. Her wines tend to be significantly lower in alcohol than the comparable wines from those vineyard sites or other Sonoma producers. She does not fine or filter her Pinot Noirs either, so youโll see a little more sediment, a little more haziness to them. She doesnโt want to strip out any of that beautiful flavor, but she harvests earlier. In her Chardonnays, itโs very apparentโthe antithesis of oaky, round, buttery. If someone uses those descriptors for the types of Chardonnays they like, I will explain to them [that] this will probably be a Chardonnay unlike any youโve had before, because they are much lighter. She has a very deft hand with the oak she uses. Itโs used more to soften the wine, not to impart any additional flavor. She doesnโt inoculate for malolactic fermentation. She wants that high-acid, that minerality, more of that bright citrus note. They are unique for the wines of this area but are still familiar varieties where people will still stay safe trying them.
And then you get to the Forlorn Hope wines, which are definitely the adventurous wines. Theyโre more fun, playful varieties youโve never heard of before. Because they want to find such unique grape varieties to work with and focus on those heritage, pre-Prohibition grapes that people brought over and are slowly starting to replant and cultivate, Forlorn Hopeย looks all over the place for grapes. They use winemaking techniques that many people are not familiar with. Theyโre more than likely not familiar or donโt realize the impact that new oak has on their wines, especially their red wines. Matthew [Rorick, the winemaker] doesnโt use any new oak whatsoever in his winemaking. Itโs maybe not as apparent in the whites because people have had a white wine without oak influence before, but very few people have had a red wine that sees no new oak, especially in the new world. Itโs like, โOh, these are tart! Iโm not used to a red wine thatโs tart. What the heck is Picpoul?โ The people who want to try his wines are really looking for something new and different. Or they come in here because theyโve had one of his wines before and really liked it.
Does Outland consider itself a natural wine purveyor, or does it just happen to be natural-focused?
More the latter. We just happen to have producers that really follow natural winemaking philosophies and techniques. I donโt think you could fully throw Poe or Farella in the natural hat. They still occasionally inoculate for fermentation; they will occasionally fine the wines; theyโre not as set very much in that natural winemaking practices as part of who they are. They utilize them very often, but I wouldnโt say thatโs the dogma. We are three different wineries, and two of them utilize a lot of similar techniques but thatโs not their defining characteristic. All three came together because they very much feel similarly about following many of those practices, but Forlorn Hope would be the leader on the natural wine side.
When youโre getting into natural wine, you start to realize itโs a lot harder to access. Itโs not like conventional wine because you canโt just go to this multimillion-dollar estate in California and try some stuff for 30 bucks. It seems to me like the Outland model is kind of an anomaly with natural-leaning styles of wine in Napa and Sonoma.
I would agree, and I wonโt claim to be an expert in the natural wine movement. I was a wine buyer for restaurants for many years before I moved to the winery sideโthatโs where I was introduced to it, and I found it to be a very polarizing topic. I saw a lot more examples of it from the Old World, especially those smaller lesser-known wine regions. It was more a novelty item, and this is going to sound disparaging but itโs not meant to be, but it was what the hipsters were drinking at the hipster wine bars, especially in New York.ย I started to get an understanding of it, but it is still the exception here in Napa and Sonoma. Itโs the small boutique producers who donโt have the facilities and the big estates. There are a lot more every year coming up, and a lot more young upstart winemakers who are producing that way, who are using hands-off minimal intervention techniques that follow a lot of natural principles. Itโs the exception. You have to seek them out or know that wine bar or retailer to go to who will then recommend where to go.
Downtown Napa is interesting to me because it feels like the place that probably has retail-wise maybe a smaller barrier for entry than St. Helena or Yountville.
Yes, I would agree. Downtown Napaโs really having a bit of a renaissance. Itโs really fun to watch it grow and see where itโs going. I see more and more of these restaurants or bars being started by young professionals, people in our age range, who have a lot of those very similar beliefs. Take the women at Cadet, who are doing something awesome and really carrying a breadth of wines you donโt see left and right in Napa Valley. Same can be said for the boys at Compline: offering those wines at the lower starting point from places youโve probably never heard of. How often do you try a Blaufrรคnkisch when youโre in Napa Valley? They have it by the glass! They have some of those natural producers as well. The same can be said about the Back Room Wine Shop. They donโt carry any large big box names. All their producers are on the smaller side. Theyโre more boutique, or maybe donโt have the big showplaces. I see a more global perspective here in the Downtown area than you might find in St. Helena or Yountville, and itโs exciting because itโs a good eye-opening experience for a lot of people and one of the reasons why the three owners chose to have the tasting room down here.
Do you get a sense that there is a burgeoning wave of people in the Valleys looking to make wine this way, using a cooperative model, or does it feel like you are the only ones out here doing it?
There is this whole awesome new wave of young winemakers that are using that cooperative movement, using aย small production model, and making wines the way they want to make them. People are realizing that you donโt have to be limited by not having the big estate, or having your own winemaking facility. There are no limitations now, where you can make wine, grow wine, source grapes from. If youโre passionate and you want to figure out a way to make it, thereโs a way to do it. I see more and more people starting their own labels and making their own wines, following that boutique Les Garagistes model that started in parts of Franceโthe little guys. The upstart wine movement is here, and youโre going to see a lot more over and over from small producers youโve probably never heard of that are coming out and making fun things that are unique and different and new, and using minimal intervention.
The natural movement saw a bit of a pendulum swing when it was first introduced to the world. It was way off to one side, and some of those wines were very polarizingโintroducing orange wine with a lot of funk. This is my personal opinion so donโt take it as gospel here, but it was very polarizing when it first came out. Now people are starting to understand it, and the winesโwhile still being naturalโare made in a way thatโs more accessible to a larger audience. You donโt have to be a sommelier or a wine professional to understand or enjoy them. Our demographic is eating foods with less sugar, with fewer additivesโclean eating. All of those things coincide with this natural wine movement. So people are looking for that sweeter profile; theyโre not looking for that big, high alcohol, oak influence as much. Our palates are changing a little bit. Itโs leaving room for more of these new styles.
Itโs cool to see it happen in Napa and Sonoma, because of course people are getting grapes from all over all the time, but itโs so expensive and already bought up that Iโm excited people can come and have different experiences with wineโversus what they think of as Old California.
The great thing now is that wine has become less of a commodity, and more of an everyday thing people want to enjoy. There are so many online retailers and wine clubs, and these master sommeliers that are starting mailing clubs and daily stores. Itโs following that European model, that itโs part of everyday life, especially for this newer generation of wine drinkers coming in. Itโs part of that daily purchase, so there is that opportunity for these smaller producers to come in and join a party because the demand is there. There is that market for people who want to know and see the hands-off minimal intervention producers, more than there ever was.
Photos courtesy of Outland Wines.