AT SCOMA’S WITH A WILLAMETTE VALLEY/BURGUNDIAN PRODUCER
A Media Dinner Short on Media
BY ALAN GOLDFARB
Aug. 6, 2024 
The other night I went to a dinner at Scoma’s restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco to taste some Willamette Valley wines with the winemaker. I’m not sure why I went.
As a wine journalist for more than 35 years, I never accepted an invitation such as this unless there was the possibility of writing about it. Afterall, a writer owes the invitee some kind of recognition if one accepts wine and/or a lunch or dinner. At Scoma’s I tasted Résonance’s wines, and I ate Scoma’s delicious steamed clams, picked crab and carmelized scallops that must’ve cost Résonance’s Burgundian company a bunch o’ Euros.
In the spirit of full transparency, I accepted the invite because I hadn’t been to Scoma’s in about 40 years and was curious to see if this iconic restaurant-cum-tourista trap, had fared after all these years. The place on the bay with the Wharf’s equally iconical boats seemingly from the last century, outside the windows, has fared very well indeed. While the tourists were in abundance, they acted like natives. And the food was excellent and up-to-date. Our server, bless her heart, was as honest as can be re: fresh or frozen crab? (“Order the crab out of the shell because it’s fresh; the crab in the shell is not, since this isn’t crab season.)” And she was marvelous about changing out our dump buckets and scrupulous about rinsing our glasses to get them ready for the next wines.
I also accepted the invitation because I wanted to see how other PR firms conduct an event such as this, which ostensibly was a media relations dinner. I went more for my own edification, fieldwork to see if how I do things, is in line with how others are doing them. On this night at Scoma’s, there was but one other media member, and she really was not a wine writer, but a travel writer, who writes occasionally about wine.
Two writers!? A poor turnout, I thought. After all, the client – Résonance/Louis Jadot (parent company) – has engaged a national PR agency to try to get them press. I’ve seen a few pieces recently about the brand as a result of what is a nationwide outreach. But to get only a duo of writers to its San Francisco media dinner, I felt sorry for winemaker Guillaume Large, who is the spokesperson for these Oregon/Burgundy media events.
Although, I must admit some schadenfreude. In my role also as a winery media relations consultant, I recently organized three media launch lunches for one of my clients – in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin, Tex. Cumulatively, I had a total of 20 media members attend; including seven at a San Francisco restaurant. In toto and as a result, there were approximately a dozen “media hits” i.e. follow-up articles, mentions, and podcasts. Not bad I must say, for a brand that had just introduced itself.
In this case, Jadot is one of the most recognizable French brands in the world, while Résonance, which has been around only since 2013, is relatively unknown, especially outside of Willamette Valley. Ergo, I thought it would be a good opportunity to taste the wines and to meet winemaker Large. It turned out to be a very nice and fruitful (pardon the pun) evening.
Guillaume is very personable, sweet and knowledgeable. I query him as to why Jadot thought it necessary to go into Oregon. The answer is pragmatic. Large tells me that Jadot wanted more vineyard land. But you’re apparently allowed – by EU decree – to plant but a soupçon of new vineyards in Europe; and to buy an already established vineyard in Burgundy, will run you more than a million for a half hectare!
So, Jadot decided on the Willamette, which is near the 45th parallel, while Burgundy has proximity to the 47th (as Oregon’s wine guru Ken Wright pointed out to me, despite the misconception that the two regions are on the same latitude). And at 30K an unplanted acre or 80k planted, Oregon seems to have been the right choice. In its 10th vintage in Oregon, Résonance makes 20,000 cases a year, with 78 percent being Pinot and the rest, Chardonnay.
I didn’t care for the 2022 Chard, with its near water color and its light, rather simplistic taste and finish. However, the ’21 Découverte Vineyard Pinot Noir from the Dundee Hills shows the most potential of all the wines I tasted. It’s almost opaque in color, with dark red fruit, and a bit of menthol; although the wine is lovely, soft and seductive with a long finish; and will age nicely over the ensuing 15 years.
I enjoyed the ’18 Résonance Vineyard Pinot Noir, because it is most Burgundian-like, chiefly due to its aromatic nose, and perhaps its age. Large tells me he tries to divorce himself from comparison to Burgundy. But after all, he is a born and bred Burgundian, so the aspiration is elusive.
“There’s a huge gap,” between Oregon and Burgundy Large says over his pan fried Petrale. “In Burgundy, it’s generations and generations of people. But in Oregon, I was surprised at the quality; the wines are alive.” It should be noted that Large and his family have been engaged in the Oregon project only for the last seven years.
Are his bosses back home happy with his wines and by extension, the foray into the Pacific Northwest?
“They don’t tell me they’re unhappy,” he quips, succinctly.
But he does say that it’s his “wish” to soon hold a comparative blind tasting between the two entities, which shares a continuum on the same global parallel, but not too much to this point as to the wines.