Viticulturally, however, there is increasing similarity between the two. France has long had distinctive regional wines. Each is a unique, highly evolved expression of a given area’s soil, climate, grape variety, cultivation practices and winemaking – and, ultimately, the local culture.

The most advanced New World wine regions, particularly in California and Australia, are moving in that direction. I was thinking of that last week while tasting a number of Mendocino County chardonnays. Each, in its way, spoke eloquently of a local sensibility

The conglomeration of mountain ranges known to geologists as the Mendocino Plateau has a lot to do with Mendocino County’s reputation for being beyond the pale of mainstream civilization. There aren’t a lot of places in that rugged embranglement of volcanic deposits and upraised marine sediment for the kind of sprawling suburbs that are choking Sonoma and Napa – but it’s great for wine grapes.

In short, it’s especially suited to site-expressive grapes that make the kind of distinctive (and expensive) wines that are increasingly in demand these days. The most notable Mendocino wines remain the zinfandels and petite sirahs from very old vineyards (some planted more than a century ago). But the most detailed sensory map of the county’s viticultural enclaves is provided by its chardonnays.

Unlike France, which embraces scores of grape varieties (for historical and cultural as well as viticultural reasons), California has a few grape varieties planted pretty much everywhere. Chardonnay and cabernet, in particular, are planted across the board, for better and worse. One positive angle is that those varieties have become California’s foremost "terroir-testing" grapes.

The fractured, multifaceted landscape of the Mendocino Plateau provides combinations of soil, exposure and local climate that yield geographically specific wines.

Through the 1970s, Mendocino County grapes were a secret ingredient in wines with Sonoma and Napa appellations on their labels. While a few large producers such as Parducci and Fetzer and a handful of smaller wineries waved the Mendocino flag (in relative obscurity), most growers’ fruit was sold under other appellations.

When wine popularity surged in the early ‘80s, wineries proliferated in the county. New vineyards were planted, old ones revived. The county’s once-tiny wine community has grown to some 300 vineyards and 37 wineries.

Mendocino wines reflect local culture too. Possibly as a result of the county’s notable confluence of erstwhile hippies, back-to-the-landers and environmentalists, its grape growers were in the vanguard of sustainable and organic viticulture from the early 1970s. Many practice integrated pest management, using a balanced ecology rather than chemicals to control pests. Now, Biodynamic® viticulture (a more extreme version of organic) is taking off.

The Frey family has led the organic growing movement for years and now farms its estate vineyards in Redwood Valley (where the county’s first vineyards were planted) biodynamically. The 1998 Frey Redwood Valley Chardonnay is a luscious, creamy wine with a hit of clean stone. The ’99 Lolonis Chardonnay, also from organically grown Redwood Valley vines, shows a similar lush creaminess – a variation on the Redwood Valley theme…. Other wines in my random selection of Mendocino County chardonnays give different expressions of the complex North Coast terrain…