The category was called “Other Whites.”

All wine competitions have these catch-all categories, which gather up various fringe wines into a big enough group to merit a tasting flight for a panel of judges. In this case, the judges were at work for Mendocino County’s 31st annual wine competition. As the glasses were placed in front of us, I started making a mental list in my head of the “Other Whites” we were likely to taste.

There would be no Chardonnays (we had a flight of those ahead) nor Pinot Gris (that flight was behind us), and of course there would be no Rieslings or Gewurztraminers or Sauvignon Blancs. Mendocino produces lots of these, and they would all have flights of their own.

So what was left for “Other Whites”? Some Viognier and Muscats, though not enough for their own flights. Then there would be ones or twos of Semillon and Roussanne, Arneis and Tokai Friuliano, Pinot Blanc and Chenin Blanc.

There were 18 wines in the flight, though, so there had to be something I hadn’t thought of. Fortunately, at that moment, APPELLATION AMERICA’s Editor-at-Large, Dan Berger, who was also on the panel, called to our panel captain. “Can you read out the varieties for each wine?” Dan asked. Moments later, we had the list of varieties in the order we would taste them. Nothing further was revealed to us, and our panel of six started into “Other Whites.”

The first half of the flight was good, not great. The second half began with a couple of admirable Pinot Blancs, and then, at wine 14, I stopped. Wine 14 was a French Colombard.

Colombard Once Ruled California

In the 1970s, Colombard became so popular that it was California’s most widely planted wine grape. America was a jug wine country back then, and California’s vast Central Valley was its wine factory. Wines such as Gallo’s “Chablis” and “Hearty Burgundy” weren’t what their names would imply today (Chardonnay and Pinot Noir). The jugs were actually full of French Colombard and Crenache, farmed at 12 to 14 tons per acre to keep production high and costs low.

French Colombard was finally eclipsed in California by Chardonnay in the early 1990s, and today it’s used mostly for low-end jugs and inexpensive, industrially-produced sparkling wine. But during its heyday, it found its way into coastal appellations, where it hung on for another few decades. Not as varietal wine, mind you, but as a blending component for wines that needed more aroma, sweetness, and body.

One such appellation is Redwood Valley, which, like the Central Valley, can get blazing hot in summer. Alvin Tollini farms a couple acres of gnarly old French Colombard vines there. Rich Parducci of McNab Ridge Winery had made a French Colombard from those vines in the 2005 vintage, and if he was still at it then the wine in my glass would have to be the 2006.

The Moment of Truth

I lifted the glass and sniffed. Oh, my. Without thinking I looked up at Dan, a couple of seats away. Had he gotten to wine 14 yet? Indeed he had. He was looking right back at me with a big smile on his face and said, simply, “Colombard.” He had already tasted the wine, but that pleasure was still before me. Once I had sipped and spit, I was a happy man.

A lot of the time in wine judging, you’re parsing the difference between good and very good, very good and excellent, and so on. Not here. This was an outstanding example of French Colombard: plush and crisp, sweet and dry, rich and refreshing. No wonder the grape was so popular for so long.

For me, it was simple. No matter what category wine 14 fell into, it deserved a gold medal. The problem was, the other judges were unlikely to have much experience with French Colombard. You never see it on store shelves, wine lists, or at parties. If you’re not a full-time wine writer or sommelier, you can easily go through adulthood without the variety ever passing your lips. One of the judges had actually said, when the varieties were read out, “Hmmm. Never had a French Colombard before.”

Now that lack of experience might prejudice the wine, or even deny it a medal. Dan must have been realizing the same thing, because he cleared his throat. “If anyone has any questions about typicity or varietal accuracy with wine 14,” he said affably, “I’d be happy to fill in any blanks.” He was not boasting, he was just offering to help, and everyone understood that.

They also understood that there was something special about wine 14, and they went back to their glasses. Surprisingly, there were no questions. We did not deliberate long when we came to the voting. Everyone wanted to give wine 14 a gold medal. Even people who had no frame of reference for it could tell it was great.

When all the judges on a panel vote to give a wine a gold medal, it’s called “double gold.” So we gave the Colombard double gold and moved on. We still had a lot of wine to cover before lunch, and this was not our only double gold of the morning. It was a satisfying moment, but then we got right back to work.

The Triumph of Wine 14

It was long after lunch when the subject of wine 14 came back up. Different wine competitions handle their “best in class” and “best in show” awards differently, but the common practice is to collect all the wines that got gold medals or double golds from individual panels during the day, and submit them to all the judges at the end of the competition for a final decision on top marks. Sometimes there are multiple rounds and complicated scoring, but in this regional competition, it would be simple. All double gold winners were automatically going into a voting round, tasted by all judges at the competition, to determine best in show for one red and one white.

In other words, our little French Colombard was now competing against Mendocino County’s top-voted Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer and Riesling. I figured it didn’t stand a chance, and got to work tasting the sweepstakes flight. All the wines were good, so it would not be easy to eliminate any.

After going through all the wines, I came back to the Colombard. It was so true to the grape, so delicious in the mouth, so authentic to its terroir. How could I not put it first?

So I did. Later I confided this to Dan, and he laughed. “So did I!” he said. “Well,” I responded, “at least it got two votes.” We laughed, shook hands, and went on our way. I missed the award dinner the next night, so I didn’t learn until a couple of days later that wine 14 had carried the day after all.

A Blast From the Past Blasts Off

Once I got the word, I got on the horn to Rich Parducci. He was still glowing. “I never expected anything like best of show,” he said. “We make the wine because people who remember French Colombard from the 1970s are thrilled to see it again. It’s not for competition, it’s for giving people a blast from the past.”

As we talked, the full story tumbled out. Rich had known for some time that Alvin Tollini had the grapes. Rich’s grandfather, John Parducci, had made French Colombard for a long time and knew all the local people who grew it, including Alvin’s grandfather. “My grandfather started making Colombard in 1945,” Rich told me, “so it was part of the family history. But fashion has changed so much, we just got away from it.”

The grapes in question come from head-trained, certified organic, mostly dry-farmed vines that are well into their fifth decade. (If they were Zinfandel, winemakers would be fighting over them.) Not only that, the vines naturally regulate themselves both as to fruit load and ripening schedule, so that each vine produces around 20 pounds of fruit and ripens it to 22 to 23 Brix by early October, before the rains come.

Evidently there was talk between Alvin and the Parduccis over several vintages about buying the grapes, but nothing ever came of it. Finally Alvin was ready to tear the old Colombard vines out and plant two or three times as many vines of some more popular variety in the same space. John’s wife Margarett wasn’t going to let that happen. She told Alvin that he should deliver the French Colombard grapes to McNab Ridge Winery, and that he “would get paid even if he had to dump the grapes on her front porch.” (Can you spot the diehard French Colombard fan in this picture?)

So Rich made 200 cases of the wine in 2005. “We fermented it not really knowing what we would do with it,” he recalls. “Probably we were going to blend it into something else. But when it came through fermentation and we tasted it, we were amazed.” Lo and behold, those 200 cases of French Colombard sold out with ease. In 2006 McNab Ridge made 400 cases, and for some reason decided to enter the wine into the Mendocino wine competition this year.

Was it luck that the wine came to a panel that included a couple of closet Colombard fans like me and Dan Berger? Definitely. But the wine spoke eloquently for itself, both on our panel of six judges and to a majority of the other judges at the competition. Probably most of them were tasting a true varietal French Colombard for the first time, or at least for the first time in a long time. Wonder of wonders, that didn’t matter at all.

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Get a taste of McNab Ridge wines. Read Thom’s review of McNab Ridge French Colombard