Across the board, '07 California reds rock

It's a question not only for, but of, the ages: Which is more important, the vintage or the producer? Should the wine shopper focus on the really good years or the really good winemakers?

I've always tended toward the producer side. I'll take a winery that knows what it's doing in a year when Mother Nature frowns upon it over a mediocre outfit working with an optimum growing season.

Vintages are important, but they're becoming less so as winemaking equipment and techniques improve. Laurent Drouhin, whose family-owned winery makes some of Burgundy's best wines, told a Twin Cities audience that if 2004's weather had occurred even a decade or two ago, "we would have poured the wine in the gutters. But now we can make good wine from a vintage like that."

California's weather isn't as volatile as Europe's, but all manner of occurrences -- from late rain to hail to the 2008 fires that infused some grapes with so much smoke that a few wineries have tossed that year's juice -- create challenges from year to year.

Rarely is there a "perfect" growing season. But it appears that, in California at least, 2007 was one of them, especially for red grapes. The cover of the current Wine Enthusiast magazine proclaims "2007 Pinot Noir: Vintage of the Decade." The '07 zinfandels have earned similar accolades. Syrah continues its dandy run, and merlot continues its comeback.

And virtually every 2007 cabernet sauvignon I have tasted at $15 or more, out of barrel or bottle, has been complex, often profound and just plain delicious.

Even $8 to $10 bottlings from Concannon, Firestone and Twisted have put the lie to the notion that California can't produce really tasty cabs at that price point. They might lack the depth and finish of higher-end wines, but they have what most of us value most: great bang for the buck. The same thing applies when moving up to $15 to $17 for the Hess Mendocino-Lake-Napa cab or "The Show" from Bieler-Gott-Scommes.

Even red blends that I've found wanting in the past (Robert Mondavi Private Selection Meritage and Blackstone's Rubric) are downright yummy in their '07 iterations.

In all of these categories, the more you spend, the more you get. But the good news is that this vintage and the current economy play well with each other.

And, in an odd sense, the 2007 vintage proves the argument that the brand name is more important than the year. If you come across a 2007 California red that's mediocre or worse, it's likely to be from a winery that's not even trying.