We Will Always Have…Terroir

A few years ago, developer Rob Beecham was driving through Dahlonega and stumbled on the Georgia Wine Highway. A fan of fine wines, especially those from Italy, he was taken aback when he tasted some of the excellent wines an hour north of his hometown, Atlanta. It was this revelation that led Beecham, his brother, Brent, and his father, Harry, to conceive M Vineyards at Monteluce, 400-acres of vineyards, Italian-style homes and a 25,000-square-foot winery just west of Dahlonega.

Their mission is to make widely regarded, world-class wines focusing on Italian-style grapes within the next decade. And they have backed this belief with several million dollars, mostly of their own money.

World class wines and North Georgia do not appear often in the same sentence, but we should get used to the idea. More adventurous winemakers are discovering that making wine is not only possible, but the mountains of North Georgia provide all they require to produce unique, complex wines that can stand next to the world’s best.

“If you were talking about Burgundy or Bordeaux, the macroclimate of those regions would be the greater area of the region,” said Craig Kritzer, owner and winemaker of Frogtown Cellars. “For us, that’s the Dahlonega Plateau. That’s the beginning of what allows us to make unique and interesting wines.”

About 70 miles north of Atlanta, the southern foot of the Appalachian Mountains rise up to about 1,500 feet; this allows dramatic nighttime cooling. This phenomenon prolongs the growing season and creates well-ripened grapes with multifaceted flavors.

“We have bud break in late March or early April and can have harvest in mid October,” Kritzer said. “There is no viticultural area that has as long a growing season as North Georgia on the East Coast.

But North Georgia wine country is more that elevation and growing seasons.

“The soils [of the Dahlonega Plateau] are complex and mineral-rich, full of limestone veins that resemble Burgundy,” said Paul White, Monteluce’s general manager. “The soils are mostly a sandy loam with a good red clay base. The vineyards of Montaluce are laid out on gently sloping hillsides that provide good drainage and excellent exposure to the sun.”

But even with all the evidence at their feet and in the sunshine above their heads, North Georgia winemakers still face skeptical customers. But if she can’t get the customers up to the mountain to see it, Mary Ann Hardman, co-owner of Persimmon Creek Vineyards in Clayton, brings the mountains to her customers.

“I take my bags of dirt with me, grapes, too, if we are in season when I make sales calls,” Hardman said. She wants to help customers get past the stereotypes that have long proliferated in general public. Showing them the special qualities of where Georgia wines come from helps make her case.

“At one time, people were skeptical of Oregon, even Napa,” Hardman said. “[But] look at what beautiful vinous Nirvana is coming from those locales now.…We, as wine enthusiasts, need to open our minds to the fact that Merlot is not like Diet Coke—a homogenized taste. True wine is goût de terroir (taste of a place) and we are working in the vineyard to try to capture that.”

Hardman does get her point across and gets her wines on the lists of nationally known restaurants, such as Quince in San Francisco and The Little Nell in Aspen, Colo., but she cannot get appointments in many Atlanta restaurants. “It is a bit frustrating,” she said.

Gil Kulers sampled 40 Georgia wines in September. They were tasted in blind groupings of like varieties wherever possible. The following six wines were among the best and offer readers examples of the potential of North Georgia winemaking.

2005 Tiger Mountain Vineyards Malbec, Georgia

• $22

• Two Thumbs Up

• Pleasant aromas of smoky chocolate, dark cherry and nutmeg.

A full-bodied wine with flavors of bright, fresh blackberries, plumsand black cherry. Lots of character.

2006 Wolf Mountain Vineyards Instinct, Lumpkin County, Ga.

• $24

• Two Thumbs Way Up

• Always a favorite, this blend of cab, syrah, touriga and mourvedre is full of smoky aromas along with plums, minerals and black cherry. It has rather complex flavors of cherry, earth, black licorice and dark coffee.

2006 Persimmon Creek Vineyards, Seyval Blanc, Georgia

• $23

• Two Thumbs Way Up

• A wine that demands attention with its perfume-like aromas of pineapple, grapefruit, minerals and chalk. A ton of fresh citrus and tropical fruit flavors. Nicely acidic with lingering note of nectarine.

2005 Frogtown Cellars Inclination, Lumpkin County, Ga.

• $19

• Two Thumbs Up

• Musty and yeasty at first, but quite nice and complex two hours after opening with pleasant aromas of flowers, lemon zest and grapefruit. It had refreshing and intriguing flavors of flint, cinnamon, nutmeg, smoke and white pepper. It cries for food.

2007 Tiger Mountain Vineyards, Petite Manseng, Georgia

• $35

• Two Thumbs Up

• This eclectic grape produces exotic aromas of banana, cinnamon, papaya and fine vanilla. Full bodied, but with tart flavors of star fruit, passion fruit, lemon and various other citrus.

2004 Frogtown Cellars Touché, Lumpkin County, Ga.

• $22

• Two Thumbs Up

• Abundant aromas of smoke, spices and dark plums. Distinct flavors of milk chocolate, earth, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and tart cherry. A pleasure to quaff, but should also go great with grilled items.