Influential wine organization In Pursuit of Balance to cease operations

Jasmine Hirsch, left, at an afterparty for an In Pursuit of Balance tasting in 2015. Jasmine Hirsch, left, at an afterparty for an In Pursuit of Balance tasting in 2015. Photo: Courtesy Photo Photo: Courtesy Photo Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Influential wine organization In Pursuit of Balance to cease operations 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

In Pursuit of Balance (IPOB), a nonprofit organization of California wineries who champion a restrained style of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, has announced that it will cease operations at the end of 2016.

“There’s so much energy and excitement around IPOB,” said Jasmine Hirsch, who co-founded the organization with Rajat Parr. “On the one hand, it maybe seems strange to close it now, but we also really feel like the conversation in California has changed. We’ve really reached the apex of what we feel IPOB can contribute.”

That, and both Hirsch and Parr want to dedicate more time to their own individual (for-profit) winery ventures. The demands of running a nonprofit, Hirsch said, were becoming unrealistic.

Hirsch, who runs her family’s Hirsch Vineyards on the Sonoma Coast, and Parr, the longtime wine director for Michael Mina’s restaurants and owner of the Santa Barbara wineries Sandhi and Domaine de la Cote, established IPOB in 2011. The idea was simple: to hold tastings, both for trade and for consumers, featuring a group of like-minded California wineries who produce wines that embody a principle of “balance.” The tastings, held in several different cities each year, would aim to generate a larger conversation.

“Balance,” of course, is vague. In the context of IPOB, the term was often interpreted to mean wines that are lower in alcohol and higher in acid — a much-needed departure, the group believed, from the boozier, flabbier style of wine that had dominated California for decades prior.

Today, the equation of alcohol and acid can feel like the only conversation within the wine industry. But “in 2011, not as many people were talking about it,” Hirsch said. “We felt we were responding to a need that had to be addressed.” Now that the conversation has proliferated — perhaps excessively — does IPOB still need to exist?

“We think we’ve achieved that, and it’s time to move on,” Hirsch said.

The visibility and influence that IPOB managed to achieve is perhaps unprecedented for a roaming tasting event. Certainly, its promotion of restrained-styled wines coincided with other thought leaders, like writers and sommeliers, celebrating lower alcohol levels. Critics of the group accused it of attacking other styles of wines; of co-opting the principle of “balance,” which, many asserted, is much more complicated than alcohol and acid; of becoming a cool-kids club who only scratched the backs of their friends. The wine critic Robert Parker once famously referred to their like as the “anti-flavor wine elite.”

Hirsch acknowledged these criticisms and defended her group’s mission. “I think that IPOB has been misunderstood,” she said. “Some of that was our fault — we weren’t very good at the beginning about communicating about what our mission was.” There has never been a maximum-alcohol requirement, she insists; the wines have always been chosen by blind tasting.

But to the extent that IPOB has become a stand-in term for wines of restraint, Hirsch is not bothered: “We are champions of that movement.”

The IPOB wineries are expected to reunite one last time for a tasting in San Francisco in November, though the plans have not been finalized. “San Francisco is where we got started, and where we feel is the right place to end,” Hirsch said.

Stay tuned for more news about that tasting, and further thoughts on IPOB’s legacy.

Current winery members of IPOB:

Au Bon Climat Winery

Big Basin Vineyards

Calera Wine Company

Ceritas

Chanin Wine Company

Cobb Wines

Copain Wines

Domaine de la Côte

Drew Family Cellars

Failla

Hanzell Vineyards

Hirsch Vineyards

Knez Winery

Kutch Wines

LaRue Wines

LIOCO

Liquid Farm

Littorai Wines

LUTUM Wines

Matthiasson Family Vineyards

Mignanelli Winery

Mindego Ridge

Mount Eden Vineyards

Native9 Wines

Ojai Vineyard

Poe Wines

Presqu’ile Winery

Red Car

Sandhi Wines

Small Vines Wines

Thomas Fogarty Winery

Twomey Cellars

Tyler Winery

Varner

Wenzlau Vineyard