The SacramenTo Bee

The Sacramento Bee
Dunne on Wine: Handley Cellars in Anderson Valley
Handley’s committed to its cool-climate whites
by Mike Dunne | March 4, 2015
Handley Cellars isn’t a sexy new winery; Milla Handley founded
it in 1982, seven years after she earned a degree in fermentation
science at UC Davis.
It isn’t in one of Northern California’s more accessible wine
regions, but Mendocino County’s remote Anderson Valley.
It isn’t recognized as much for that valley’s most glamorous
varietal wine, pinot noir, as it is for such unfashionable white
wines as gewürztraminer, pinot blanc and riesling.
It doesn’t make a whole lot of wine, only around 12,000 cases
a year.
And yet, Handley Cellars is a staple of the Sacramento wine
scene. Restaurateurs and grocers who look for reliability,
character and value almost invariably stock a couple of wines
from Handley Cellars. When I stopped by Taylor’s Market not long ago, ample shelf space in its compact wine department was devoted to
Handley’s gewürztraminer, pinot gris and riesling. Corti Brothers had all those, as well as the Handley chardonnay and the Handley pinot noir.
In short, Handley continues to do what it’s done for three decades: grow the kinds of grapes most fitting for the cool and damp Anderson Valley,
pluck that fruit when it’s just ripe enough to yield wines of unusual exuberance and deliver them to consumers unencumbered by beams of
oak, rigid tannins or scorching alcohol.
But the honors Handley wines have won on the competition circuit haven’t gone to the heads of the people running the place. They continually
if quietly take steps to better their wines.
Portions of the original estate vineyard where production has been declining are being replanted with new rootstock and new strains of
chardonnay and pinot noir “easier to ripen in our cool climate,” says Randy Schock, who for the past decade has shared winemaking
responsibilities with Milla Handley.
The two typically take a light-handed approach to styling their wines, but with recent vintages their touch has been even gentler. Grapes of the
2012 and 2013 vintages were so splendidly ripe and expressive, for one, that Handley and Schock entirely eliminated the use of animal-derived
products as they processed the fruit into wine, such as egg whites, isinglass, gelatin and casein.
“Our goal at Handley is to express the vineyard and vintage, so we decided to look for
less aggressive methods to finish our wines,” Schock says. It helped that more efficient
yeasts and new vegetable-derived products to help winemaking also had become
available. “A side benefit is that these wines can be considered vegan, but it is really
the expression of terroir that drove our decision-making,” Schock adds.
While that mountainous and woodsy terroir can get warm and hot during the summer,
it is one of California’s cooler settings for the growing of wine grapes. Thus, Anderson
Valley for decades has been most closely identified with such cool-climate grapes as
gewürztraminer, chardonnay and riesling, but its viticulture makeup is changing.
Milla Handley founded Handley Cellars in 1982.
The winery is in transition as she plans to turn
over more of the winery’s responsibilities to her
daughters, Megan and Lulu.
Pinot noir also responds well to relatively cool climates. That, coupled with the varietal’s
popularity over the past decade, has led to a redrawing of Anderson Valley’s viticulture
profile. A census of vineyards by the Anderson Valley Winegrowers Association for
2010 found that more than half of the valley’s 2,244 acres in wine grapes were planted
to pinot noir, a jump of 256 acres in just four years. During the same span, acreage
devoted to chardonnay fell 93 acres to 500 acres and vineyard land planted to gewürztraminer slipped from 122
acres to 85 acres.
Still, Handley Cellars, while not unmindful of the allure of pinot noir, remains stubbornly and largely committed to
cool-climate white wines.
At last summer’s Mendocino County Fair Wine Competition, five of the seven Handley wines to win doublegold or gold medals were whites. The other two were pinot noir, the classically structured, forthright and plush
2012 Anderson Valley Helluva Vineyard Pinot Noir ($42) and the pretty and snappy 2013 Anderson Valley Estate
Vineyard Pinot Noir Rose ($22).
But when I stopped by Handley Cellars the next day to taste through its lineup, the white wines generated the most
excitement, including gewürztraminer, riesling and muscat.
And Handley and Schock don’t take chardonnay for granted, either, to judge by the authority and elegance of
the 2012 Anderson Valley Estate Vineyard Chardonnay ($25). Schock takes a wary approach to malolactic
fermentation, the popular procedure that transforms tangy malic acid into softer lactic acid. He appreciates the
sharp malic acid that Anderson Valley’s cool summer nights retain in grapes, so he either eschews malolactic
fermentation altogether to retain fruit intensity and sharp acidity in his wines or employs it cautiously, as he did with
the chardonnay, producing an interpretation vivid with apple and tropical fruit, profoundly aromatic and enduring
in the finish. The chardonnay was one of the gold-medal wines at the fair competition the day before, as was the
leaner and spicier 2012 Mendocino County Chardonnay ($18).
Another was the 2013 Anderson Valley Gewürztraminer ($20), as complete and complex take on the varietal to
come out of California. While loaded with suggestions of honeysuckle, peaches, lychee and spice, it fairly zips
across the palate for its bracing acidity and steely build, leaving the palate lusting for more. Schock attributes the
wine’s layering to the three vineyards from which he gets grapes for the wine and the three types of containers in
which he ferments and ages the wine – stainless-steel tanks, oak puncheons and oak foudres.
Other favorite whites were the delicately sweet yet sinewy, edgy and slightly spritzy 2013 Anderson Valley Riesling
($22), whose expression of fruit was fresh and wide ranging, including peach and pineapple, and the astutely
balanced and surprisingly persistent 2013 Mendocino County Brightlighter White ($16), a fruity, mineraly and mildly sweet blend of half each
gewürztraminer and riesling. “Brightlighter” is local jargon for someone from outside the immediate area, in particular city folk who likely had
electricity before the locals.
Other reds that stood out were the solid and complex 2010 Anderson Valley Pinot Noir ($32), the gorgeous and silken 2011 Anderson Valley RSM
Vineyard Pinot Noir ($52) and the huskiest wine in the portfolio, the 2010 Redwood Valley Vittorio Vineyard Table Red ($25), a dark, rich and
robust blend of zinfandel, carignane and petite sirah that in its weight and assertiveness harkens to Mendocino County’s early winemaking days.
Handley Cellars is in transition, not only in the replanting of its vineyard but in its administration. Milla Handley, who has been closely identified
with the Mendocino County wine scene since she went to work for Jed Steele at Edmeades Winery nearly four decades ago, remains engaged
in the winery, but she is turning over more responsibilities to her daughters, Megan and Lulu. If she’s tutored them well, and with Randy Schock
still in vineyard and cellar, Handley’s standing for wines of clarity, balance and value should remain high.
Wine critic and competition judge Mike Dunne’s selections are based solely on open and blind tastings, judging at competitions, and visits to wine regions.
He can be reached at [email protected].
HANDLEY CELLARS
The tasting room at Handley Cellars, 3151 Highway 128, six
miles northwest of Philo, is as much art gallery as sample
counter, given over to an extensive collection of Latin
American, Balinese and African folk art. Daily, 10 a.m.- 5
p.m. during the winter, 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. in the summer.
The tasting center is pet friendly, with water and treats
provided for dogs, and includes a complimentary charging
station for electric vehicles.
For more information, including recipes for dishes meant to
accompany Handley wines, go to www.handleycellars.com.