Vintner David Mirassou discovers Canada
By John Schreiner
May 1, 2008
At 38, David Mirassou, the sixth generation of California’s oldest wine-growing family, visited Canada for the first time last month to raise the profile of Mirassou Winery.
To be fair, fifth generation Mirassou family members became quite familiar with Canada in their day, both as a wine market and as a great place to catch salmon.
The current initiative to raise the profile follows the purchase of the Mirassou wine business five years ago by E. & J. Gallo, the world’s largest family-owned wine group and a marketing powerhouse. The title on David’s card now says national sales manager and Gallo obviously has him on the road, selling the wines with his family’s name on it.
It’s a good strategy. David is an engaging fellow with a fund of stories about the Mirassou history. One can imagine that his sales meetings with wine buyers go very well once he starts spinning tales – and even better if he brings along some special Pinot Noirs from his personal cellar, as he did recently for a small dinner with wine writers in Vancouver.
Currently, Mirassou is represented in the British Columbia market with just three entry-level wines, a Chardonnay, a Pinot Noir and a Merlot, priced between $16 and $18. My pick among the three would be the Chardonnay, which is fresh, fruit forward and minimally oaked.
“I spend a lot of time asking consumers what kind of Chardonnay they like,” David says. “They want it fresh and crisp but with good mouth feel. Those fat, buttery Chardonnays – there will always be a place for them – but as consumers learn more about wine, they don’t have to be hit the head so hard. I see them trending toward less oak.”
Hopefully, David’s visit will result in more Mirassou wines showing up in the market. The winery grows quite delicious Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs in the Santa Lucia Highlands vineyards in Monterrey County. Earlier generations of the Mirassou family helped pioneer this cool region in the 1960s in what wine writer Leon Adams once called “a multimillion-dollar gamble.”
One motive for that venture was their concern that urban and industrial sprawl might one day overtake their vineyards near the winery in San Jose. They were prescient since the area developed into Silicon Valley, with plenty of competing uses for the land. That’s one of the many stories that David can tell.
Perhaps the best story is about how it all started. His ancestor, Pierre Pellier, first came to California from France around 1850 to make a fortune in the gold rush. That venture was so unsuccessful that he had to get his fiancé to send him money. He returned to France and convinced her to come to California as well – not to dig for gold but to grow fruit trees and vines and supply produce to the booming economy. His brother had already established a nursery in San Jose and had asked for some vine cuttings.
When these plantings succeeded, Pierre returned to France in 1858 for more cuttings of vines and fruit trees. To keep them alive on the long sea journey back to California, Pierre dipped into the ship’s potable water until he was forbidden to do so. So he obtained potatoes and inserted the cuttings into the spuds. The moisture was enough to sustain the plants and Pierre began growing plums, apricots and grapes. According to Leon Adams’s The Wines of America, Pierre planted his first vineyard in 1859, subsequently building a wine cellar.
The winery’s own history says the family produced its first vintage in 1854. Perhaps Leon Adams, a prodigious writer, was out by a few years but, unfortunately, he is not around anymore to ask for a fact check.
The second generation in this family wine business was Pierre’s son-in-law, Pierre Mirassou, the origin of the Mirassou name.
Like most California wineries, Mirassou sold its wines in bulk until 1942, when the family began selling under their own name.
If Mirassou is noted for any variety, it is Pinot Noir. Among the cuttings that Pierre Pellier brought from France was a variety then called Black Burgundy. That might well have been the first Pinot Noir planted in California.
Hopefully, by David’s next Canadian visit, Mirassou’s pleasant entry-level Pinot Noir ($17) will be joined on the shelves by the winery’s Santa Lucia Pinot Noir 2005 ($30 to $35). This is a sophisticated red, silky on the palate, with flavours of spice and cherries. It is a big ripe wine with 15.6% alcohol but with so much fruit that the alcohol is nicely in balance. Snap it up if you see it – the winery makes only 1,000 cases.
goodgrog@shaw.ca
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