he fifth release of Coro Mendocino finds the program getting into a very good groove. That’s an appropriate musical metaphor, because “Coro” takes its name from the Spanish and Italian words for “chorus.” The wine is a blend of red grapes grown in Mendocino county, and any vintner in the county can join the choir – as long as they sing from the Coro songbook.

I’ve tasted every bottling of Coro since the program began, and retasted a number of them in the years after release. The class of 2005, with 11 wines, gets high marks for consistent quality as well as for appealing texture and tannin management. Most impressively, the 2005 Coros showcase their vintage and appellation more convincingly than any of their forebears.

“Ideally, a regional program like Coro Mendocino should show how the vintage played out in our geography,” says Greg Graziano of Graziano Family Wines. “In the 2005 vintage, Mendocino red wines were generally darker than usual and the acidity was a little lower, and that’s what comes through in the bottle.”

Indeed it does. The 2005 Coros are, as a group, almost inky in color. The average pH (a measure of alkalinity in which higher values indicate lower acidity) is 3.65, higher than any previous Coro release. That’s not to say these wines are soft. Based on Zinfandel, Syrah and Petite Sirah, Coro Mendocino has always been a blend with an attitude. In the fifth release of the program, that attitude comes across with welcome polish.

How to explain that success of the 2005s? In a word, experience. The 11 wineries releasing in 2005 include all but one of the founding eight labels: Brutocao Cellars, Eaglepoint Ranch, Fetzer Vineyards, Golden Vineyards, Graziano Family Wines, Pacific Star Winery, and Parducci Wine Estate. Among the other 2005 producers are Dunnewood Vineyards and McDowell Valley Vineyards, both in the program since 2002, and McNab Ridge Winery, in since 2003. The lone newcomer is McFadden Farm, an organic outfit that has been growing wine in Potter Valley since the early 1970s.

These producers all agree to abide by the Coro Mendocino production code, which sets acceptable ranges for grape varieties by percentage as well as for alcohol, pH, barrel aging, and bottle aging. While this sounds radical – and it is, for an American wine appellation – similar sets of rules have operated for generations in some of Europe’s best-known wine regions. In fact, those rules have been a major factor in the fame of Chianti Classico, Rioja, Chateauneuf-du-Pape and other appellations with well-defined flavor profiles.

Coro goes even further, with three significant innovations. First, all Coro wines are reviewed by Coro winemakers at key points during vinification; a wine can hit all the right marks in terms of chemistry and still not achieve sufficient quality on a subjective level. Second, all wineries agree to use the same label on the bottle, with variations permitted only for the winery’s name, a block of explanatory text and a list of the grape varieties used. Third, all Coros are sold for the same price upon release.

Coro winemakers agree that five years’ experience with the rigorous protocol has improved what goes into the bottle. Yet they are quick to point to two additional factors. “We’re not just selecting good barrels in the winery anymore, we’re growing fruit especially for this program,” says Bill Crawford of McDowell. “In the early years, [making Coro] was like a jigsaw puzzle where you didn’t have a picture to guide you. Now we know what we’re shooting for, and we start in the vineyard.”

The other key factor? Teamwork. “This is very much a collective project,” declares Casey Hartlip of Eaglepoint Ranch. “We created the protocol together,” he explains, “we judge the wines together, and we help each other out in whatever way comes up.”

He’s got a point. In 2007, I got to sit in with the winemakers as they evaluated the 2005 Coros before they went into the bottle for the prescribed minimum of one year. The tasting was blind and there was plenty of frank commentary. When the wrappers finally came off, more than one winemaker groaned at discovering that his or her wine still needed work. While the overall quality was promising, a number of the wines were reduced and a few had obvious holes.

“Nothing we can’t fix,” said Parducci’s Bob Swain calmly, and everyone took notes as he, Graziano and Dennis Patton (who makes Coro for Fetzer and Golden) led a discussion of how to improve almost every wine on the table. No one blanched at receiving criticism or advice, and no one pulled any punches either.

“That’s what separates Coro from everything else out there,” Hartlip avers. “Sure, all wineries send their wine out to a testing lab or call in their consulting winemaker to bless the final product, but that’s nothing compared to how we sweat and labor over these wines. We want Coro to stand for all of Mendocino, not just our own label.”

After conducting my own post-release blind tasting, I looked for patterns in the wines that might explain their quality. As you might expect from black-fruited wines with relatively low acidity, the alcohol was higher than in any previous Coro vintage: 14.8 percent on average. This is partly explained by the warm vintage, and also by the prevalence of Zinfandel and Syrah in the 2005s. Both are eminently capable of carrying serious alcohol without losing their balance. The two grapes together accounted for nearly three-quarters of the blends on average, and, for the first time, there was a Coro made only from those two varieties.

Petite Sirah is known for delivering zesty wines with dark color, low acid and spicy berry flavors, and eight of the 11 wines included it in the blend. In five of the eight, Zin, Syrah and Pets made up 95 to 100 percent of the blend. In other words, 2005 was a strong proof of one of Coro’s original tenets: the wine should emphasize the three “heritage” grape varieties that perform best in Mendocino County.

And the winner is…

It’s tough to pick individual winners out of a winning team, but a few wines stood out in my notes from both the 2007 sneak preview and the 2008 post-release tasting. Among the more classic Coros (those using only the three main grape varieties), I liked the newcomer, McFadden Farm; it’s a chewy, fully stuffed wine with all the black berries and cherries you could want, and it balances its softness on the palate with intensely focused flavors. For a more unusual blend, I found a lot to like in the Brutocao, which matches Zinfandel and Syrah with Sangiovese and Barbera – a combination you’re unlikely to find anywhere outside Mendocino. The plush, well-shaped wine has higher alcohol than its most of its brothers, but also higher acidity.

Graziano, as usual, took the blend to the limit, using six different varieties. The Italian-inflected wine enters beautifully with a kaleidoscope of flavors that hold their harmony across the palate and well into the finish. For immediate drinking, the Dunnewood, Eaglepoint Ranch and McDowell Coros offer the best current balance of sweetness and acidity. For cellaring, the Pacific Star is a highly concentrated, seriously structured offering. Along with the rest of the Coro 2005 wines, those recommended here offer sensuous textures and polished tannins to go along with the ripe, fresh fruit.

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Read Thom Elkjer’s reports on the previous Coro releases:
Coro Mendocino 2004
Coro 2003 - Third Time’s A Charm
Coro 2002 - The Melody Emerges
Coro 2001 - Mendocino Raises its Voice

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Photos by Thom Elkjer