Hawk Wakawaka Wine Reviews

Talking Chardonnay + winemaking with Maggie Harrison, Antica Terra

Oregon

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Aug 20, 2014

Antica Terra with Maggie Harrison

Maggie Harrison in the Antica Terra Winery, visit August 2012

Two weeks ago, Jamie Goode and I spent the evening visiting with Maggie Harrison, tasting her Antica Terra wines after walking the vineyard. Jamie writes up her Antikythera 2011 Pinot Noir here. A write-up on our time in the vineyard is here.

Two years ago, Maggie and I met and discussed her views of Chardonnay, among other things. An evolution in the Antica Terra Aurata Chardonnay has been developing since, including a site change on the fruit. In the recent tasting, I couldn’t get enough of the 2012. It carried expressive, plush fruit with defined edges, and great focus — such an example of the potentials of ripeness kept in balance by precise lines and steady margins. The image I kept getting was of wine with burnished edges, a polished liquid, as if the fruit itself had gold leaf.

Maggie speaks with a similar voice as her wines — plush passion, with precise lines and lots of focus. Following are a few insights from Maggie about wine, and winemaking, specifically focused on her Chardonnay, gathered from the time tasting with she and Jamie.

Maggie Harrison and Jamie Goode in Antica Terra Vineyard, visit July 2014

“I didn’t go to school [for winemaking]. All of it is just intuition, just deciding what the most beautiful thing that can be done is, and then going for it.” Jamie asks Maggie to comment on her previous work at Sine Qua Non. In responding, she further develops her point on intuition. “The thing that Manfred and Elaine [Krankl] gave me is, you look at what is in front of you, and you decide, what is the most lovely thing you can do?, and you go after it without compromise.”

She then further explains by describing her relation to the fermenters during and after harvest. “Having large tanks, for me, would create a level of remove that would mean I wouldn’t know how to make decisions any more. A temperature number? I don’t know what do do at that temperature by its number. The only rule here is that the fermenter can’t be taller than 50″ because I need to be able to walk around, and see everything, and, if I need to know the temperature, put my arm in it in seven different places.”

When Maggie and I met in the summer of 2012, the fruit was not yet in. It was unclear how the vintage would show in the cellar, let alone finish on the vine. At that time she spoke of Chardonnay in relation to the colder vintages of the years prior. She commented then, “The year we’re able to get too much from the fruit… well, I hope I’m here to see that. I welcome it.”

2012 would turn out to bring a sense of warmness not seen in the previous two years in Willamette Valley. The 2012 wines of Oregon are all about up-front fresh fruit. It’s a vintage character across the Valley that comes front and center to the glass such that right now the vintage shows first before site or the cellar. (I’m curious to see how this will shift in three to five years to reveal more of the underpinnings of the wines but for now its a vintage with fresh fruit and baby fat compared to the very cold years prior.)

Sitting down at the table this visit, we begin our tasting with the Chardonnay. Maggie describes her views to us. “I take a little bit of a different approach to Chardonnay. I feel Chardonnay is a total monster. It is so incredible, interesting, and monstrous even in the vineyard. It wants to give so much. When you grow it in a place with sun, it can get weird and tropical. I get it. But everyone is leaning against it. Maybe I am just whipped, or smug coming from California. But I feel we can do things differently to make it really beautiful here in Oregon. In 2010, and 2011 [when it was so cold in Oregon], it was easy to talk like this. 2012 was the year we could have totally eaten our words.”

We turn to discussing the Aurata specifically. “What I want in Chardonnay is that feeling of goldness, of being illuminated from within, without the wine itself in fact being golden. This wine is Shea Vineyard fruit. We had to change sites, and so spoke with Dick Shea. [The fruit] It goes to a place in our cellar where we see real intensity. I wanted to see what that felt like, to go there and see what that’s like in Oregon.”

The 2012 Aurata takes advantage of the vintage’s fresh fruit quality bringing Harrison’s sense of polish to it. After we discuss the vintage, and Aurata’s relationship to it, Harrison responds. “I might not go there every year, but it’s a wine that carries that vintage.”

***

Thank you to Maggie Harrison.

Thank you to Jamie Goode, and Michelle Kaufmann.

RIP Paolo Rapuzzi: (Repost) Lunch at Ronchi di Cialla, Meeting the man with whom it began

Hawk Wakawaka

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Aug 19, 2014

2

RIP Paolo Rapuzzi

My good friend Jeremy Parzen was kind enough to let me know this morning that Paolo Rapuzzi passed on. His blog post about Paolo is here. In April 2012, several of us spent lunch and part of an afternoon with Paolo, his wife Dina, and their two sons. Paolo showered us with stories of them beginning Ronchi di Cialla, one of my favorite wineries of Italy. Then we walked the vineyards with their son Ivan, who runs things now with his brother.

Paolo and Dina together rescued indigenous Friulian varieties, some of which had been thought extinct. Most particularly, they re-discovered Schioppettino from feral vines in the hillsides along the Slovenian border. The primary clone of Schioppettino, taken from their vineyard, is named Rapuzzi in their honor. Many of the local varieties at the time were going extinct through the region largely because of the ongoing impact of wars, and the governments exclusion of them for economic regions. I could go on and on about what meeting them, and their work means to me. (If you ask my friends, I occasionally do that with them in person.) Instead, I’m going to repost Paolo’s story told to us by him during our visit that April.

originally posted April 11, 2012

Lunch at Ronchi di Cialla: Meeting the Man with whom it Began

Paolo Rapuzzi, the founder and owner of Ronchi di Cialla

“The story of the winery is very simple. I am Friulian. So, when it came time to plant, we planted the grapes of the region. The ancient varieties.

“I had been working for a very big company. But we [he and his wife] spoke. We asked, should we die as typewriter sales people? Should we live in a system we don’t like? We didn’t like having someone bossing us around. The only person that can work without a boss is a farmer. So, on January 30, 1970 we started. They talked us into buying this land.

“I am not a farmer by history of profession, and we had no land. We began looking. They talked us into buying this land. It had been abandoned for 25 years, since the end of World War II. This is only 2 kilometers from the [Slovenian] border, so life in this area was very hard during the war. When it was over the family packed up and left. The house and vineyard had been abandoned for 25 years. Inside the house was grass waist deep and badgers were living in it. But we liked it a lot because there were olive trees here. Even it was abandoned we knew it was the right place to begin our new life.

“My two sons had been born already. Luckily they decided to follow my footsteps. They handle the estate now and studied farming at university and handle both the grape growing and wine making.

“When I started I had no experience. So, I had no preconceived notions in what I was doing. That is what most helped me do what I ended up doing [on the farm and with wine making]. I never studied wine making and have never had an oenologist. We wanted to make wine from here, from Cialla. Some do not agree, but the grape already has everything it needs to make wine. So, the less we try to force grapes, the more its product represents wine from the area. We are meticulously involved in the entire process from growing to wine but it is very much about what we do not do than what we do. Nature has everything it needs to make wine.

“We planted in 1970. From the beginning it has been indigenous grape varieties, native yeast, no chemical farming, low intervention wine making.”

Paolo and Dina’s son Ivan adds a comment: “We make truly long lived wines. All of our wines–the whites, the reds, the sweet wines–all of them age very well. That is an indication that it is from the zone. It is the land itself that makes these wines.”

Paolo continues: “When phylloxera came the farmers made a mistake. Not everyone agrees with me. They began planting foreign grape varieties. We lost over 150 indigenous grape varieties. It is an indication of how viticulture changes. Today we are getting it back. More people are dedicated to the indigenous varieties.”

Ivan comments: “Friuli is one of the places in Europe with the greatest bio-diversity. It is the intersection of the Alps, the Adriatic from the Mediterranean, and the Balkans. The Northern and Eastern Alps too come together here so you are at a real crux of the Mediterranean, with the Northern and Eastern Alps.”

Later Paolo tells a story: “In the beginning we were infested with red spiders. It was a problem. We went to a phyto-pathologist for advice. He told us, don’t do anything. If you leave the spiders another type of spider will come along and compete. So, we left the red spiders. It was a big risk. But yellow spiders came and killed the red spiders. When you use pesticides you do not just kill what you are targeting. You kill everything. But nature will balance itself if you do not do this.”

Outside Ivan walks us through the vineyards and tells us more about their low intervention views. “In Cialla, proximity to Forest is the most important. The same predators that attack vitis vinifera [grape vines] attack other species in the forest. But in the forest they have natural enemies. Nature keeps a balance. So, in being close to the forest we do not have to intervene because the same balance that is in the forest is maintained in the vineyard too.”

***

Thank you to Jeremy Parzan for translating Paolo’s story to us as he spoke.

***

Paolo Rapuzzi, thank you for all you have done. Rest in peace.

BREAKING NEWS: An In-Depth Look at the Proposed Sta Rita Hills AVA Expansion

California

Hawk Wakawaka

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Aug 6, 2014

13

TTB Notice to Open Comments on the Proposed Expansion of the Sta Rita Hills AVA

It was announced today (August 6, 2014) that the TTB will open comments tomorrow in approving a petition to expand the Sta Rita Hills AVA. The comment period will open for exactly two months allowing interested parties to submit information and perspective on the matter until October 6, 2014. Information on how to submit comment, as well as the full press release from the TTB are copied below.

The proposed expansion of the Sta Rita Hills AVA has proved a hugely controversial topic. The Sta Rita Hills Winegrowers Alliance has publicly declared its opposition to the proposed expansion. Alliance members include producers growing and/or sourcing fruit from throughout the appellation, as well as many of the individuals that worked on and submitted the original AVA proposal for the Sta Rita Hills.

The petition for expansion of the AVA was submitted March 2013 by Patrick Shabram on behalf of both John Sebastiano Vineyards, and Pence Ranch Vineyards. Shabram works as an academic geographer with a background in the study of viticultural areas. Notably, he helped define and submit the successful AVA proposals for Fort Ross-Seaview and Moon Mountain AVAs in Sonoma County.

In the discussion back and forth around the issue, Pence Ranch Vineyards has received the most direct criticism for the proposed expansion. However, John Sebastiano Vineyards would also be directly affected if the boundary change is approved as the vineyard currently is bifurcated by the Northeast appellation boundary. Visiting the site one can stand at the top of the hill and literally jump in and out of the Sta Rita Hills while still surrounded on all sides by Pinot Noir. The economic value of clusters from just inside the boundary far outpace those from those just outside of it (even with them growing mere feet apart) thanks to the high dollar value placed on Sta Rita Hills fruit.

Defining the Sta Rita Hills

Wes Hagen stands as the most vocal proponent of preserving the current definition of the American Viticulture Area (AVA), Sta Rita Hills. Hagen helped successfully define and submit the original proposal.

In considering the value of the appellation itself, Hagen names topography as the definitive element of Sta Rita Hills growing conditions. The Sta Rita Hills are defined by a unique East-West transverse mountain range that sits open-mouthed to the Pacific Ocean, effectively funneling maritime elements inland. It is this topography that generates unique temperature, wind, and fog throughout the growing region.

Hagen describes the shape of the Sta Rita Hills as essentially closely spaced hills that concentrate ocean influence. What is important in this account is the manner in which the landscape of the region intensifies the cooling–both in terms of temperature and air flow–and humidity of the growing region when compared to areas through the rest of the Santa Ynez Valley. As you drive over the crest of the hill on Highway 246 that delineates the Northeastern boundary of the AVA, the topography changes from the closely spaced hillside-to-valley proportion that holds in the ocean influence, to the much more open valley formation of the greater Santa Ynez Valley. For Hagen, this geographical change illustrates the features central to the growing style of the Sta Rita Hills versus the Santa Ynez Valley more broadly.

Studying the Expansion

Together John Sebastiano Vineyards and Pence Ranch Vineyards hired geographical consultant, Patrick Shabram to do a thorough going study of the Sta Rita Hills and the area just outside its Northeastern boundary, as well as portions of the Santa Ynez Valley more broadly. The purpose of the study was to determine whether or not it was reasonable to consider a possible expansion to the AVA.

Shabram drew on data from weather stations throughout the appellation in comparison to similar data from further east in the Valley, soil analysis from within the AVA and to the East of it, and on vegetation patterns (both vines and otherwise) from throughout the region as well in order to determine the best recommendation for articulating a coherent appellation boundary. An important difference from Shabram’s study versus the definition of the original AVA proposal rests simply in access to an increase in information today.

Since the original Sta Rita Hills appellation approval in 2001, there has been a significantly large increase in vineyard plantings through the region. One of the affects of such a change includes the increase in weather stations collecting climate data throughout the region. The volume of information available today about the area, then, proves to be significantly greater. According to Shabram, access to such data legitimates the currently proposed expansion of the AVA.

Climate Considerations

Sta Rita Hills Vineyard Map found: http://www.staritahills.com/appellation/

Temperature changes and wind patterns prove central to both sides of the Sta Rita Hills debate. Hagen points out that the Northeastern boundary delineates a climate change for the Santa Ynez Valley. In Hagen’s view, overall temperatures increase past the crest of the hill on Highway 246, and wind patterns dissipate lessening the concentration of maritime influence through the rest of the Valley. It is not that fog or wind disappears beyond the crest of the hill–spend any significant time in the region and it quickly becomes clear that a daily pattern of both stretches all the way to the warmest reaches of Happy Canyon–according to Hagen it is that they become measurably less concentrated. For example, according to Hagen, the temperatures to the West of the Northeastern boundary of the appellation is measurably less than those East of the boundary.

According to Shabram, the relevant temperature features are more subtle than that. The Sta Rita Hills appellation is essentially bifurcated into two unique subzones. On the Southern side, the Santa Rosa-to-Sweeney-Rd portion of the Sta Rita Hills is separated from the Highway 246 corridor on the Northern side by a central hill formation. Shabram points out that those central hills generate two unique wind patterns with one funneling in from the ocean on the Santa Ynez River on the Santa Rosa-to-Sweeney Rd portion, and the other funneling in over the Highway 246 corridor.

Within the existing appellation, Rio Vista Vineyards sits at the central-Eastern boundary of the appellation along the Santa Ynez River. According to temperature data studied by Shabram, temperatures just prior to Rio Vista Vineyards, within the current appellation boundaries, are actually noticeably warmer than those within the proposed expansion area.

Looking at the wind patterns through the region explains the temperature comparison. According to Shabram, Hagen is right that ocean winds dissipate towards the Eastern side of Sta Rita Hills. The warm zone prior to Rio Vista Vineyards reflects this reduced wind pattern. However, according to Shabram, right around Rio Vista Vineyards, the Santa Ynez wind pattern combines with the Highway corridor wind pattern effectively increasing the overall wind effect, and decreasing overall temperatures. The result is that within the proposed expansion area temperatures are lower, and wind is higher than the zone to the southeast within the current appellation boundary.

To the extent that the question of a proposed expansion rests in temperature and wind patterns, then, the area within the proposed expansion area, outside the current Northeastern boundary, would seem to be consistent with the current appellation conditions. However, the appellation expansion is not dependent only on wind or temperature. As Hagen explains, the appellation is more centrally about overall topography. Topography directly impacts temperature and wind patterns but does not reduce to these elements.

Questions of Soil Consistency and the Now Proposed Eastern Boundary

Soil series types within the Sta Rita Hills are notoriously varied. Extensive discussion of the value of the mixed loams, Diatomaceous Earth, and shale on the Santa Rosa-to-Sweeney Rd side, versus the more consistently sandy loam of the Highway side has occurred. The well known soil differences through the Sta Rita Hills illustrate the peripheral nature of soil in defining what is key to the Sta Rita Hills appellation. Both Hagen and Shabram agree that soil is not central to the definition of the appellation.

The area within the proposed expansion of the boundary carries soil series types consistent with those directly West within the current appellation. In doing the regional study, Shabram did analysis of the series types throughout Sta Rita Hills, in the proposed expansion, and within the areas East within Santa Ynez Valley more broadly. What he found was that the six soil types within the proposed expansion area show as generally consistent with those to the West within the appellation. Moving East into lower elevations towards Buellton, however, the soil series types begin to change with proportions of some types greatly reducing compared to within the appellation, and the appearance of others that do not appear at all with the Hills.

Shabram emphasizes that soil types analysis does not play a central role in the new expansion proposal, but the analysis is included in the proposal. One reason for including the analysis is that the change in soil types assisted in delineating the Eastern boundary of the proposed expansion. Shabram suggested the expanded boundary in relation to higher elevation areas that include consistent soil series types.

The Value of a Name

Central to the question of expanding the Sta Rita Hills AVA stands the concern for integrity of the name Sta Rita Hills. Such issue is not trivial convention. Behind the project of the American Viticultural Area branding program is the articulation of a signature quality of grape growing uniquely generated by the overall conditions of the named region. What characteristics prove most central to that signature depends on the dictates of the region itself. The list of elements relevant for consideration, however, remains generally consistent and include historical precedent and practice, climatic conditions (including wind, fog, light, temperature, etc), topographical formation, and soil type.

According to the Sta Rita Hills original proposal, topography as it operates to concentrate the maritime influence on the growing conditions of the region centrally defines that region. In suggesting an expansion of the Eastern boundary along the Highway 246 corridor, the new proposal focuses in on the details within the topography bringing questions of temperature, wind, and fog, that is overall climate, to the fore.

Members of the Sta Rita Hills Winegrowing Alliance are adamant that the expansion should not occur. Their arguments against the expansion rest largely in the continued integrity of the appellation itself. The question of integrity here assumes the original articulation of the growing region is the more clear, appropriate definition of what makes Sta Rita Hills fruit unique.

Hagen points out that his fight against the proposed expansion is in no way a matter of whether or not an estate like Pence Ranch Vineyards is growing quality fruit. Instead, it is a matter of whether or not it is growing fruit consistent with that of the Sta Rita Hills. His view is that it is not. For Hagen, the topographical change does not reduce to whether or not wind and fog conditions show within the proposed expansion area. He expects that they do. Instead, it is a matter of their concentration in relation to the overall topographical layout of the Sta Rita Hills. For Hagen, the question of topography stands at the top of a defense for the maintenance of the original appellation. Historical precedent, and the concentration of plantings through the region also support his view.

Shabram, on the other hand, believes the proposed expansion offers a more coherent account of what is uniquely the Sta Rita Hills. In his view, by capturing the climate details, and, peripherally, recognizing the soil consistency, a more thorough going understanding of the signature growing conditions for the region has been made. Shabram points out the intuitive strength of the original proposal. In his view, at a time when thorough going climate data was not available, the original AVA writers did a brilliant job of defining the growing region. For Shabram, the new expansion simply fine tunes that.

***

The TTB’s press release announcing movement forward on the proposed expansion follows. The expansion has not currently been approved. However, the TTB has taken a step closer towards finalizing this process. The key point is that the comment period on the matter is now open and will remain open until October 6, 2014.

The comment period allows interested parties the opportunity to weigh in on offering historical information, interpretive data, personal opinion, and social consensus that the reviewing committee might not otherwise be aware of, and can have a great impact on how the process moves forward.

Information on how to comment follows at the bottom of the original press release.

Updates on this issue including comments from other relevant parties will appear here.

***

TTB PRESS RELEASE:

Proposed Expansion of the Sta. Rita Hills Viticultural Area

Washington, D.C. — The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau will publish a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register on Thursday, August 7, 2014, proposing to expand the existing 33,380-acre “Sta. Rita Hills” American viticultural area in Santa Barbara County, California, by approximately 2,296 acres. The existing Sta. Rita Hills viticultural area and the proposed expansion are located entirely within the established Santa Ynez Valley and Central Coast viticultural areas. TTB is making this proposal in response to a petition filed on behalf of several local wine industry members. TTB designates viticultural areas to allow vintners to better describe the origin of their wines and to allow consumers to better identify wines they may purchase.

You may submit comments on this proposal and view copies of the proposed rule, selected supporting materials, and any comments TTB receives about this proposal at the “Regulations.gov” website (http://www.regulations.gov) within Docket No. TTB– 2014–0007. A link to that docket is posted on the TTB website at http://www.ttb.gov/wine/wine-rulemaking.shtml under Notice No. 145.

Alternatively, written comments may be submitted to one of these addresses:

• U.S. Mail: Director, Regulations and Rulings Division, Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, 1310 G Street NW., Box 12, Washington, DC 20005; or

• Hand delivery/courier in lieu of mail: Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, 1310 G Street, NW., Suite 200–E, Washington, DC 20005.

Comments on this proposal must be received on or before October 6, 2014.

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Getting to Know Antica Terra: in the vineyard w Maggie Harrison

Oregon

Hawk Wakawaka

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Aug 4, 2014

2

A Visit to Antica Terra w Maggie Harrison

with Jamie, Maggie, and Rachel at the top of Antica Terra, July 2014

It’s early evening at the end of a full day of wine tasting. Jamie Goode is driving, my daughter, Rachel in the back seat. I am trying to help navigate our way through country roads where street numbers do not show clearly. We’ve driven past our destination.

A half mile on, Jamie finds a driveway where we can turn around. As we turn, I’m scouting the horizon hoping to spot where we are headed in order to confirm the proper turn. Then, atop the hill high above us, I see it, and I can’t help but call out pointing. “Oh my god! Is that where we’re going? Look at that vineyard!” It’s Antica Terra high atop the hill. The vines clutch to steep slope side almost glowing in evening light. I make a phone call, and Maggie Harrison drives down the hill to meet us. We’re climbing the dirt road into Antica Terra.

Maggie Harrison and Jamie Goode near the top of Antica Terra, July 2014

In the late 1980s, near the top of a hill in Eola-Amity, two New Yorkers paired up and planted Antica Terra vineyard to Pinot Noir, the steep, rolling slopes a call to complexity and concentration in the cooler reaches of Southern Willamette Valley. In 2005, after a few years making wine themselves, the pair decided to sell the site to a trio of friends, that would then also bring in Maggie Harrison as partner and winemaker.

At the time, Harrison was happily installed at Sine Qua Non in Santa Barbara County, working as assistant winemaker to Manfred and Elaine Krankl, while also making her own celebrated Syrah, Lillian. The Antica Terra team offered Harrison the winemaking post but she had no interest in moving. Wanting to convince Harrison, the Antica Terra partners chose to act covertly, asking her to visit the site simply to advise on viticulture for the upcoming season, hoping a glimpse of the vineyard would change her mind.

She flew to Portland, and with one of the partners, drove the length to Amity along suburban then country roads. Not until, but immediately upon arrival to the vineyard hill she knew. Within minutes, she tells us, she stepped behind one of the giant oak trees on the property for privacy, and called her now-husband to tell him, “we’re moving to Oregon.”

We’re standing at the top of the vineyard as she recounts the story. “This place has something to say,” she tells us. We’re looking into vines impossibly small for their age, but the canopy across the original sections is consistent and healthy. Harrison is explaining her attachment to the place in her characteristic humility. “I don’t know that I’ll be the person to best capture this place in the long run, but I had to work with it given the chance. I wanted to be part of it.”

Maggie, Jamie, and Rachel walking the slopes of Antica Terra, July 2014

Harrison’s work with Antica Terra has helped deepen vine health too, thus bringing greater overall balance to the vineyard. While the original owners put in ample work establishing and cultivating the site, by 2006 there were still some sections they’d not been able to bring into total balance.

Standing near the top of Antica Terra, Harrison would look out over the top of the vines and see stress bands running the vineyard, waves of yellow leaves blowing through the canopy. The difficult sections did not seem to correlate with any particular element of planting — it wasn’t consistent to clonal type, vine age, or training method. No one knew for sure what was happening.

Harrison took an unconventional approach to treating the stressed portions of the vineyard initially. “It was like standing there with a sick kid. I needed to do something. So, I would walk the rows and put a teaspoon of molasses at the base of each vine.” Harrison explains. At Sine Qua Non, Harrison and Krankl collaborated for years with Austrian winemaker Alois Kracher. “Kracher told me molasses had the most available nutrients for the vines, so I tried it. I don’t know that it helped, but it was something I could do.”

The approach, while surprising, illustrates Harrison’s ideas of intention. Whether the molasses itself assisted the vines or not remains unclear, but the time walking and tending the vines one-by-one everyday gave Harrison insight into the site.

view from the top of the hill at Antica Terra, July 2014

As Harrison walked the vineyard she tracked the range of the stressed sections, and apparent soil changes. Eventually she placed flags in what turned out to be 38 spots where the team would later attempt to dig soil pits. Bringing in the backhoe gave insight. Topsoil proved less than 18″ in most spots, with vine roots clutched together in a ball above bedrock. Stress bands showed through those sections with shallow roots anytime temperatures rose too high. The roots had no way to find their water.

Though the decision was difficult — Harrison’s preference is to leave soils largely as found other than planting — they chose to rip ground down the middle of each row to a depth of 5 and a half feet. “It was horrible at first.” She admits. In ripping the ground to gain greater long term access for the roots, the roots that were in place were cut. “After a while though we started to recoup the vineyard.”

At the same time, the Antica Terra team chose to go organic. The initial change from conventional to organic farming is not easy. Vineyards tend to hyper-react initially to the change, over-growing weeds or fungus, taking a year or two to adjust depending on site.

Harrison’s view of going organic parallels the response to shallow soils in the vineyard, it’s a philosophy tempered with utility. “I believe in making a choice, saying, here is my intention. At the same time, I reserve the right to do whatever needs to happen to preserve the vineyard.” She explains. “So, in 2006, I said, we are going to go organic, unless I am going to lose the entire vineyard. Then, we’ll need to talk.” Though it was hard at first, the gamble worked. By 2007, the team was successfully farming organic.

Maggie Harrison showing a Pinot Noir cluster in Antica Terra, July 2014

The promise of concentration and complexity spotted by the original owners of the site, proved true. The vines from Antica Terra produce few clusters, all of them small, with lots of hens and chicks throughout. The clusters tend to predominately hold berries without seeds, evidence of the challenged conditions growing in bedrock. The 2014 vintage, Harrison explains, offers the highest fruit production she’s seen from the site since 2006, though walking the rows with her, it’s clear the cluster count is still low compared to lower elevation plantings.

The reduced seed count offers an advantage in the cellar for Antica Terra wines. Seed tannins tend to be harsher than skin tannins. With fewer seeds present per cluster (and these clusters that often hold thicker skins) Antica Terra Pinot can expect still ample tannin presence, but worry less about tannin bitterness.

in the cellar of Antica Terra, July 2014

Beginning in 2009, Harrison bottled some of the Antica Terra vineyard fruit on its own. Back in the cellar, we’re tasting from the 2011 Antikythera, Antica Terra’s Estate Vineyard Pinot noir. It shows the dark concentrated elements of the vineyard cupped with multi-colored fruit edges, and a light dust patina. Though the wine is not lacking in fruit, fruit doesn’t seem to be the point. Instead, it’s a wine of elegant strength, with a core of precision and a lifting, lifting long finish.

***

For Jamie Goode’s write-up on the Antikythera: http://www.wineanorak.com/wineblog/oregon/the-lovely-antikythera-pinot-noir-2011-antica-terra

***

I’ll be writing more about Antica Terra wines in a future post (I’m kind of crazy for the 2012 Aurata Chardonnay — and listening to Maggie’s views on Chardonnay proves interesting).

***

Thank you to Maggie Harrison.

Thank you to Jamie Goode.

Thank you to Michelle Kaufmann.

A Day in the Willamette Valley

Oregon

Hawk Wakawaka

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Jul 31, 2014

3

Touring the Willamette Valley with Jamie Goode + Jr

Jamie Goode and I were able to spend a day doing visits in the Willamette Valley. Jr accompanied us and did some filming along the way. Following our a few photos from our stops.

Jamie Goode in Adelsheim‘s Calkin’s Lane Vineyard David Paige, winemaker Adelsheim Adelsheim vineyard designate Pinot NoirClare Carver, Big Table Farm Jr feeding cattle at Big Table Farm Brian Marcy, Big Table Farm David Aubrey and Jamie Goode, Westrey Wines Oracle Vineyard Pinots, Westrey Winesbaby Lucy, Walter Scott Wines baby Lucy, Walter Scott Wines Walter Scott Pinot in barrel Dan Rinke, Johan Wines Dag Sundby, Johan Wines Johan Wines Maggie Harrison, Jamie Goode, Jr Maggie Harrison, Jamie Goode small Pinot Noir clusters, Antica Terra Vineyard view from the top, Antica Terra yum a selection of Antica Terra wines

The Aroma of Color w Jordi Ballester, an IPNC Seminar

Hawk Wakawaka

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Jul 28, 2014

0

Exploring Wine Perception with Jordi Ballester

image found: http://www.redcandy.co.uk/images/upload/productpics/artland-midnight-black-wine2.jpg

Jordi Ballester, professor at Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, led a special add-on seminar at International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC) that happened this weekend in Willamette Valley, Oregon. Ballester has devoted his career to studying the perception of wine, and the cognitive processes behind it. The session highlighted the intimate influence of visual cues on our experience of aroma and flavor.

To open the session, attendees were presented with the following task. We were to smell the liquids in each of three black wine glasses (thus removing any visual cues for the liquid themselves) and then vote on whether or not each of the three liquids was a white wine, a red wine, or a rosé using only the aroma of the liquids (no tasting).

The black glass tasting we participated in was purposefully designed to remove the advantages or influences of our other senses, and make us focus only on our sense of smell. In previous studies, Ballester explained, it was found that both wine experts and novices judgments of wine are influenced by the appearance of the wine they are tasting.

It has been shown in studies that adding scentless red food coloring to a white wine will radically change the descriptors used by a panel of wine tasters (“The Color of Odor” Morrot et al 2001). In 2001, a study was done with a panel of 54 enology students tasting wine that they then had to describe. The first flight gave them all the same white wine. The panel members’ descriptors tended to hover around notes like lime, pineapple, and pear. The exact same white wine, except with the odorless red color added, was then served to them for the second flight. In that case, the exact same panel described the wine with descriptors like strawberry, or blackberry. In other words, when the wine looked like a white wine, hallmark white wine descriptors were used. When the wine looked like a red wine, classic red wine descriptors were given.

With such a study in mind, Ballester asked us to identify the color-type of the three wines just based on aroma. In our group of 49 participants the wines were largely identified correctly. Wine 1: 6 voted white, 35 voted red, 8 voted rosé. The wine was a Crowley 2012 Pinot Noir. Wine 2: 28 voted white, 13 voted red, 8 voted rosé. It was a Wooing Tree 2012 Chardonnay. Wine 3: 15 voted white, 5 red, 32 rosé. It was a R. Stuart & Co 2013 Big Five Dry Rosé. In formal studies, it has been shown that wine experts tend to succeed at such a task, predominately guessing the correct wine color-type based on aroma alone.

Ballester used this exercise to explain two types of cognitive processing that relate to wine tasting — Top-Down Processing, and Bottom-Up Processing. In Top-Down Processing, previous knowledge leads our expectations. So, in the case of the Morrot “The Color of Odor” study, it is as if seeing what appeared to be a red wine in the glass activated the participants’ knowledge of red wines, thus bringing to attention the range of descriptors for a red wine category. The range of fruits they could use to identify the wine, for example, went from hallmark white wine fruits like pear and pineapple to classic red wine fruits like raspberry and blackberry. In Top-Down Processing already established knowledge guides our interpretation of an experience.

Top-Down Processing appears in other ways through wine tasting as well. Ballester also gave the example of a tasting of chardonnay. The first flight the panel members were asked to taste and describe a young pale chardonnay. In the second the exact same wine had scentless golden color added to it. In that case, the taster panel went from giving the descriptors of a young chardonnay — fresh fruits — to giving classic descriptors for an aged white wine — secondary and/or tertiary aromas.

The second cognitive process mentioned is Bottom-Up Processing. In that case, knowledge is lacking, and thus cannot get in the way of how one describes a wine. One simply has the experience to describe, without expectations being informed by already established knowledge. As Ballester explained, there is no pure Bottom-Up Processing because any of us are always informed by previous experience. Still, the black glasses tasting experience removed layers of sensory information to lessen the ways in which such information can activate and direct our expectations.

To push the experience even further, Ballester then had us score a flight of five red wines in a simple way. We were to smell and taste each one and vote on whether or not the wine was from Oregon. The experience proved interesting for me for a couple of reasons.

First of all, the group vote was predominately wrong for the first wine, split for the second, and then predominately correct for the final three wines. Wine 1: 31 voted as from Oregon. 19 not. It was actually an Akurua 2012 from New Zealand. Wine 2: 29 voted Oregon. 21 not. It was Adelsheim 2008 from Willamette (Oregon). Wine 3: 8 voted from Oregon. 42 not. It was a Domaine de l’Arlot Nuits St George 2007 Clos des Forrets St Georges (France). Wine 4: 16 voted Oregon. 34 not. It was Kosta Brown 2006 Amber Ridge Vineyard (California). Wine 5: 13 voted Oregon. 37 not. It was a Domaine Michel 2005 Laferge Volnay Les Mitans (France).

The fifth wine at first look stood out as strange while fascinating. Once the wines were revealed, however, and thus the fifth wine had a context behind it, it moved from merely strange and fascinating, to also pleasurable. The wine being given its appropriate context of information helped shift expectations for it to more pleasurable. Two of the wine experts sitting beside me described a similar sort of experience.

As Ballester explained, for this sort of tasting test, experts tend to identify wines correctly to broad location categories, where as novices are less likely to do so. This makes sense as experts have more experience to draw from in order to identify such wines.

***

Thank you to Jordi Ballester.

Thank you to Amy Wesselman, and all the people that make IPNC happen.

Growing the Western Facing Slope: Noel Family Vineyard, Chehalem Mountains

Hawk Wakawaka

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Jul 21, 2014

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A Visit to Noel Family Vineyard
Lisa and Michael Noel, Noel Family Vineyard, Chehalem Mountains, July 2014

We’re sitting together at the farm table looking at family photos. Michael and Lisa Noel’s oldest was married this Spring and I expressed interest in the event. They’ve kindly offered me a collection of snapshots to look through. In the album, I’m struck by the easy closeness of the now-married couple, and the sweetness of the Noel’s son. As I turn the pages I can’t help but comment on how kind he looks. In one photo he stands hugging his grandmother. It’s clear he loves her being there, and she feels comforted. When I look up, Michael is beaming. Lisa and I have gotten almost weepy, our eyes watering.

I’ve driven beyond the pavement of King’s Grade Road on the Western side of the Chehalem Mountains to visit a tiny Pinot Noir planting at the top of the hill, and meet the family behind it. The site is 3 acres, with 2 planted to 6 clones of Pinot Noir, creating what is effectively a field blend of the variety. Noel Family Vineyard relies entirely on the 2-acre site for its fruit. They source from no other growers.

looking West into Ribbon Ridge AVA from Noel Family Vineyard, July 2014

From the site, the Noel’s garner a perfect view. Facing south near the house, we look to the Dundee Hills, the first planted area of Willamette Valley. At the other side of the property, the vineyard itself slopes west. We stand firmly within the Chehalem Mountains AVA, but look towards the Ribbon Ridge AVA, and the coastal mountains that form the western boundary of the Willamette Valley. Standing in the view, a slight breeze picks up. By the time I leave, it is persistent.

Falling in Love with Wine

a page from Michael and Lisa’s 1996 photo album, trip to Valpolicella

It was 1996 when the door opened to wine for Lisa and Michael Noel. The couple met in college at Carnegie-Mellon, eventually moving to Alabama for work. Lisa’s family, however, originates in Italy, and some still live there in Verona. The local culture of the region relies on neighborhood wineries where table wine comes from refilling the growler at your favorite cellar door.

In the midst of a visit with family, Lisa and Michael accompanied their relatives on an errand to refill the growler with Valpolicella from a local winery. Soon after arrival, however, the winemaker offered an invitation.

“Dip your glass into the vat to get some wine, he told me,” Michael explains. Michael climbed to the top of a ladder, drawing wine from the cement fermenter with his cup. “Then he asked, do you want to come inside the house?” Michael adds. He’s giddy as he describes the experience now almost twenty years old, “We weren’t even wine people at the time but were so excited to go there. I was leading the way [to the house],” he tells me smiling.

The family spent hours together tableside with the winemaker and his family enjoying wine, food, sharing stories. The experience changed their perspective. “It wasn’t even about the wine,” Michael explains. “There we were sitting in his home with him.”

The experience in Italy was a sort of first step to wine. Upon return to the United States they began exploring American wine. In the meantime, work had brought them to Oregon.

“Michael wanted to drink local,” Lisa tells me. Lisa enjoyed wine too but at first wasn’t drawn to the lighter body of Pinot Noir. She’d gotten used to the 1990s style of California Cabernet. “I wasn’t excited about Pinot Noir at first but he was persistent. So we drove around together tasting, and learning about local wines.”

Eventually the passion for learning pushed a more hands-on interest. Michael began making wine in their garage while they also started looking for affordable property they could plant to Pinot Noir. “Michael doesn’t do anything half-heartedly,” Lisa tells me smiling. By the mid-2000s the couple had found their property in the Chehalem Mountains and together cleared the land, and planted vines.

At Home in the Chehalem Mountains

Michael unabashedly admits to liking pretty wines. In pairing with a winemaker, and vineyard manager both he sought to develop with them an expression of the beauty he sees in the place they now grow their wine. The result holds.

Noel Family Pinot are lovely wines both characteristically Chehalem while also their own — pretty, delicate with integrated, and distinctive spice elements, carrying nice tension and depth, all about red fruit, and a Northern forest aroma and flavor held in fine boned balance.

With the abundance of the 2012 vintage, Michael and winemaker Todd Hamina decided to satisfy Michael’s curiosity and work with new coopers. The result generated Noel Family’s classic Estate style Pinot Noir, alongside a special vintage bottling named, Night. Night carries a darker core, aroma and palate profile compared to the Estate, bringing in light blue and black fruit accents, with a bit more apparent tannin, and strength of presence. It’s a wine for wine lovers still finding their way into Pinot, and pairs well with stronger food flavors like truffle accents or funky cheeses.

To taste the wines, the three of us sit around the table of Michael and Lisa’s home enjoying food and family photos. They designed their table as a center piece to the home. It’s in homage, Michael explains, to their early experience in Italy. We’re surrounded on two sides by windows, some looking south to Dundee, the rest west to Ribbon Ridge. The windows were largely added to the home during renovation — the table, surrounded by windows, to be shared in appreciation for the advantages of growing local.

***

For more information on Noel Family Vineyard and Wines: http://noelfamilyvineyard.com/

***

Thank you to Michael and Lisa Noel.

Thank you to Jill Klein Matthiasson.

A Morning with Mike Officer, Carlisle Vineyards

Hawk Wakawaka

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Jul 15, 2014

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A Morning with Mike Officer, Carlisle Vineyards

From Seashells to Vines with Mike Officer

Mike Officer examining old vine Zinfandel from Carlisle Vineyard, June 2014

The beaches of the Southern Philippines, I discover, offer some of the finest seashell hunting in the world. Mike Officer is telling me about his early desire to be a Conchologist, that is a seashell collector with a scientific basis.

Soon after my Sunday morning arrival at Carlisle Vineyards in the Russian River Valley, a mutual friend of Mike and myself has mentioned I grew up a commercial salmon fisherman in Alaska. Discussion of what it means to do that sort of work launches our conversation. It winds into talk of childhood pursuits.

It turns out at the age of twelve, Officer was able to fulfill an early dream. He traveled to South Philippines and roamed those Southern beaches with a family friend, seeking unusual seashells. To make the trip Officer worked from the age of ten at odd jobs, saving all the money for his trip.

The Philippines, at the time, were under Martial law. Officer’s stories of the experience include at least one escaped car heist, and an account of a rogue sea captain taking the young but deceptively tall Officer under his wing.

The image I gain of Officer through these stories, however, proves not that of young adventurer but a man driven to collect and catalog in the midst of serious study. For a budding conchologist such study meant travel to the South Seas. At its root, Officer’s early love for seashells carries the same dedication now behind his work with old vine vineyards. For the vine lover, old vine preservation and study means life in the North Coast of California.

Launching Carlisle

Mike Officer standing in Carlisle Vineyard, June 2014 (I love this photo of Mike — you can see the genuine enthusiasm, and kind approachability he has here)

Officer’s love for wine showed early. He kept a wine cellar in his college dorm room.

In 1986, Officer started home winemaking. It would serve as a side project through his career as a software developer. Then, in his thirties, when Officer would suddenly realize his time was spent staring at a computer screen, it would also serve as the path away from his career and into life with vineyards.

By 1998, still working in the city full-time, Officer and his wife, Kendall Carlisle Officer, would launch their first commercial vintage of Carlisle Wines. All of Officer’s vacation, and weekends were channeled into the work it took to manage harvest and winemaking over the year.

By 2000, Carlisle Wines was producing a 1000 cases per year, the most they could manage with Officer’s day job.”We needed the money from my day job to afford the winery, but couldn’t make enough at that point to quit the day job.” Officer explains. Such an approach included five hours commute by bus between their house in Santa Rosa, and his work in the city.

In 2001, the Officers would bring in college friend Jay Maddox to help with winemaking and viticulture. The day job-winery combo otherwise proved too much. The addition of Maddox would allow Carlisle wines to slowly increase production until finally Officer was able to move full-time to wine.

Spending years on the commute, Officer describes what would be a sort of final epiphany with his day job. In the midst of a long bus ride, Officer came up with the design for what could be called, The Commuter’s Sleep, a kind of velcro head board for sleeping upright.

The idea was the commuter would wear a sort of board that extended above their back, a velcro strap would then wrap the forehead, thus holding the commuter’s head upright so he or she could sleep without suffering the problematic head-roll of sleep sitting up. The design humorously reveals the desperation that accompanies doing whatever it takes to follow life’s passion.

In 2004, soon after his design concept, however, instead of going ahead to make his own Commuter’s Sleep, Mike’s wife ran the numbers. Carlisle was finally making just enough wine for him to leave his day job.

Stepping into Old Vine Vineyards

Mike Officer next to old vine Zinfandel, Carlisle Vineyard, June 2014

In 1997, having started making home wine, but not yet stepping into commercial release, Officer was biking down a private lane in Russian River Valley. He had the sense he’d like to own a vineyard someday but recognized he didn’t yet have the experience tending vines.

In the midst of the bike ride he happened upon an over grown two-acre vineyard. The site had vines grown through with blackberries, poison oak, and big trees. Big trees were the best indication of how long it had laid in rest. The site barely resembled a vineyard.

Officer decided to take a leap. He tracked down the owners and offered to renovate the vineyard for free. It was his chance to gain experience. In the midst of that first meeting, Officer explains, “I asked, by the way, what kind of vines are they? They told me old vine Zinfandel. The next spring I realized, it’s not all Zinfandel.” By 1998, Officer would discover that Two Acres proves instead to be a mixed-black Mourvedre-based planting, something not quite common in the Russian River Valley.

In 1998, the site Officer now calls Two Acres would become the first plot he would map vine-by-vine through the region. Eventually it would lead to he and Morgan Twain-Peterson of Bedrock Vineyards mapping other old vine sites together as well. Today, vineyard mapping seems almost second nature for Officer. Walking a site with him he points out and names vine types as we go.

Using a simple graph paper, Officer would chart each vine by type and location. To begin, the work would depend on him researching scientific drawings of grape varieties there vineyard side. On unusual types he would send cuttings to UC Davis for identification. Officer’s work, then, would also turn out to support the work of UC Davis to build DNA-mapping for all surviving grape varieties around the globe. In this way, Officer’s early training in conchology would become his current work in ampelography, the identification and study of grapevines.

Officer’s work with Two Acres would eventually expand to work with old vine sites throughout the Piner-Olivet section of Russian River Valley. It would connect him too to others in the North Coast passionate for old vine sites.

The Historic Vineyard Society

Mike Officer demonstrating Peloursin (left) and Petite Sirah differences in Carlisle Vineyard, June 2014

In discussing the vineyards he works with, Officer describes the sense of peace he feels from it. “All vine work for me is like doing bonzai. It’s almost meditative, and stress relief,” he says.

With the success of Two Acres, Officer began connecting to other old vine sites through Russian River Valley. He would catalog vines, develop the viticulture, then produce single vineyard mixed-black bottlings, most sites predominately Zinfandel. Officer’s work with the sites, however, would include personal connection to the vines survival and health.

I ask him to describe the intricacies of working specifically with old vines. “Old vine vineyards are like geriatric wards. Every vine is a patient with a unique character, and its own needs.” He tells me. “You try to sort out what the vine needs, and respond to it.”

His early work with Two Acres meant revitalizing what would otherwise be a lost vineyard, an investment into not only making wine currently, but retaining an irreplaceable link to the history of a region through vines that lived it. (The wine itself, too, proves delicious — a sleek, long lined wine with perfumed aromatics, elegant tannins, and nice cardamom spiced, rose petal fruit.)

Attachment to old vines, however, in today’s wine society proves risky. The real estate of the famed Russian River carries high value for people that can pull out lower production older vines, to plant high dollar young Pinot Noir.

Officer began losing sites to developers. Immediately after losing one of his favorite sites, Carlisle finally was talking with Twain-Peterson. The two of them, as well as Tegan Passalacqua, winemaker and vineyard scout for Turley Wine Cellars, as well as his own newer label, Sandlands, kept seeing old vine sites being lost too easily. Few people knew they existed, and even fewer understood their value in relation to the history or recognition of terroir in California. Out of frustration, and a desire to change the problem, Historic Vineyard Society was born.

Along with David Gates of Ridge Vineyards, Bob Biale of Robert Biale Vineyards, Larry Piggins for vineyard photography, and Mike Dildine, who helps keep the Society functioning, the Historic Vineyard Society works to catalog and register old vine sites, as well as raise awareness of their value for the sake of preserving more of them. The group also works as a sort of support group and hunting party — always on the look out for undiscovered sites, and advising each other on the best care for peculiar vines.

Carlisle Wines

For many, of course, the ultimate point is the wine itself. For those passionate about vines, the wine simply describes an end point for a process that is the actual passion alongside the wine. Still, the love for vines means too a love for their varieties, and the wine each produces.

After tasting through a portion of Officer’s portfolio, I ask him to describe how he sees his development in wine. “I used to think let’s go for maximum flavor and aromatic presence,” he responds. “As I’ve gotten older, it’s all about texture, and how the wine feels on the palate.” We’ve tasted through a mixed-white, and a series of mixed-blacks including Two Acres’s beautiful Mourvedre.

Carlisle wines almost entirely focus on the fruit of Officer’s old vine sites, both mixed whites, and mixed blacks. It’s a discipline from vineyard to bottle that defines Carlisle. The wines offer seamless length, juicy movement with texture it makes my mouth water to write about, and ample while elegant flavor and aromatics. There is a purity to the wines that pleases.

We’re almost done with our visit. Then, in the midst of tasting, Officer mentions in passing what he calls his “one self-indulgence,” the only Gruner Veltliner planted in Sonoma County, and a small bit of younger vines he turns into wine.

The Gruner is planted at 1000-ft elevation on a site he convinced the vineyard owner to put into Gruner. They make only 100-cases, and most of it goes to Farmhouse, a restaurant in the Russian River Valley. Immediately, I am crawling out of my skin wanting to taste it. We have no bottle to try. Still, it’s another glimpse of the passion for cataloging, and work with the many varieties of grapevines that motivates Officer.

“I’m such a grape junky,” Mike tells me smiling, “I would make forty wines, if we could.” He wants to work with all of them.

***

For Carlisle Winery & Vineyards: http://www.carlislewinery.com/

For Historic Vineyard Society: http://www.historicvineyardsociety.org

Tim Fish on Carlisle Zinfandels: http://www.winespectator.com/blogs/show/id/48317

***

Thank you to Mike Officer.

Thank you to Marty LaPlante.

If anyone gets their hands on a bottle of Carlisle Gruner Veltliner, please write me and tell me how it was.

Carving Substance: In gratitude for the lives behind

Hawk Wakawaka

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Jul 13, 2014

7

Carving Substance: In gratitude for the lives behind

I believe that appreciation is a holy thing– that when we look for what’s best in a person we happen to be with at that moment, we’re doing what God does all the time. So in loving and appreciating our neighbor, we’re participating in something sacred. – Fred Rogers

The moon came up tonight like fire behind the trees, almost full, carving a silhouette behind Northern firs of Willamette Valley. Still, it’s not quite visible.

I’ve spent the last two years devoting my self to a life I can barely describe. It came as a response to the realization that for my health it was time to leave a different career I gave everything to. The change in direction? Social media has enabled almost all of it.

I’d studied then taught philosophy, the latter for a university in Arizona. Somehow I found my way to wine. More than wine, though, I found lovers of wine also giving themselves to what they love.

Alder Yarrow now finishes his book, The Essence of Wine, an early culmination of his already impressive work writing about wine via his blog Vinography. He’ll surely not make money from the book. Print media doesn’t have it these days. Yet he devoted his time to ensuring the hard cover version be beautiful, the electronic version clickable.

Fredric Koppel just celebrated his thirtieth anniversary writing about wine, first for newspapers, now his site, Bigger Than Your Head. Mary Orlin launched her background in television and interest in fashion into writing about scents in wine (alongside scents of perfume). Richard Jennings keeps a full-time job while managing to travel near-full time to write about wine internationally. Fred Swan opened his education with a love for Egyptian archaeology, now teaches courses in wine, purposefully keeping up with wines of California.

This last week the annual Wine Bloggers Conference took place. It’s an event it’s easy to be critical of. The agenda sometimes reads, from the outside, unclear. The awards we’re always sure could be awarded differently. Yet, it calls devotees from around North America (and beyond) earnest to discover the region that hosts it, eager to connect with bloggers otherwise met only online. In its origins, Tom Wark hoped to draw attention to, and point out the substance of people writing about wine online.

But people’s lives extend beyond the screen. In leaving academia, I threw myself into, what turned out to be (at least until the last few months), an impoverished prosperity — time spent making almost no income while eating and tasting with some of the finest chefs, and chef de cave, winemakers, and viticulturists in the world. There have been days I’m unsure I can afford the gas to the ten-course meal I’ve been asked to attend. More than the seeming indulgence of the meals or wine though, it’s been the people that have risen from the glass.

Jason Lett in Oregon carrying on the torch of his father, David’s instigation of an entire Willamette industry, while simultaneously accomplishing more than merely a family enterprise. Steve and Jill Matthiasson turning their love for vines and peaches into their business. Even Charles Banks, the investor people love to doubt over the speed of his acquisitions, transforming success in athlete management into an interest in building small wine labels. Throughout these visits or interviews in wine there have been glimmers of a person’s every day life.

I’ve been critiqued recently, and perhaps otherwise, for being obsequious, too willing to thank the people that meet with me. My role, if I am critic, would seem to be to remain distant. Eric Asimov, in his work, makes clear the absurdity of such a view. Ethical limits can be kept, yes, but to be an effective writer, and astute taste-lover of wine, openness is demanded.

Vinny Eng, in his work with both wine and food, and his teaching of wine, or Gwendolyn Alley‘s cacophony of writing, teaching, and wine, both give example of people loving as hard as they can in the midst of their work. Or, there are Jameson Fink, and Jamie Goode, both writers that house the critical acuity to focus on flaws and failings but choose to write about success.

In the online wine community, it is hearts like these lit afire, carving, through their love for what they do, a light around the substance of wine. It is in gratitude I find myself among them.

Mayacamas: A Look at the Remaking of an Icon

Hawk Wakawaka

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Jul 2, 2014

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Considering Changes at Mayacamas

Mayacamas Winery, June 2014

In 2013, Charles and Ali Banks, in partnership with Jay and Joey Schottenstein, purchased Mayacamas Vineyards and Winery from Bob Travers, the man who had shepherded the wines since the late 1960s. Though vine growing had been established on the Mt Veeder site in the late 1800s, Travers work there brought the label to iconic status, a representative of pioneering Napa Valley, and the rustic purity possible in a wine region that had become known for blousy red wines.

After the purchase of Mayacamas was announced, worry immediately whispered through the wine community. Would we lose Mayacamas? But any complete change in ownership ushers in a new era for a winery — new ownership, new Mayacamas. Now that the site has been sold and a year been given to the new team, the question is to what degree will it alter the icon?

Travers’s wines of the site, from 1968 to 2012, offer a signature of rustic elegance, with juiciness and sense of concentration that demands time in bottle. In Cabernet, for example, five years before release was standard, aging it three years in neutral wood, two in bottle.

The distance between vintage and release sheds light on the meaning of the recent change. We won’t see Travers’s last vintage, 2012, for another three years. Nor will we be offered the new winemaker, Andy Erickson’s first, 2013, until 2018. There is no way to know, then, what the change from Travers to the new team will taste like for at least four years. In reality, it will be more than a decade before a multi-vintage picture starts to form of the new Mayacamas.

There is already, however, a lot that can be known. Interviews with Banks, and Erickson, when compared to the actual updates already put into the winery, and vineyards shed light on where we can glimpse the new Mayacamas.

The Move from Travers to Banks, Erickson, and Favia

from the top of Mayacamas looking due South into Carneros and Hudson Vineyard below, June 2014

The change in ownership struck a painful note for many lovers of the site, who have been attached to the distinctively mountain expression of Mayacamas. As recently as four years ago, Travers’s sons and extended family involvement in the winery gave wine lovers confidence the style would carry forward with a sense of continuity. With the realization the site would not remain in family ownership, the break in continuity appeared.

The wine community has carried a persistent skepticism of the new team leading the site, and what it means for the long-term style of the wines. Banks earlier partnership in the cult Napa Cabernet, Screaming Eagle, is often raised as illustration of the concern. As Eric Asimov pointed out in his 2013 look at the change in ownership, Screaming Eagle is “the cult cabernet that seems in so many ways the antithesis of Mayacamas.“

Banks’s involvement in Screaming Eagle, however, might prove a red herring. His ownership there, after all, was comparatively early in his move into wine investments. Its easy to imagine a person new to the wine world assuming more expensive wines must be better, whether for their assumed quality or cachet. Banks himself describes it as a change in his knowledge as well as his palate. His investment practices prove consistent with the statement as what he’s partnered in since are labels known for a lighter, more affordable style — Sandhi, Wind Gap, and Qupe, as lead examples from California.

The Screaming Eagle worries though seem more justifiable in Banks’s choice for leadership in the new Mayacamas wine team. With Banks choosing Andy Erickson and Annie Favia as directors of the winery, and vineyard respectively, the skepticism grew stronger, thanks largely to the seeming disjunct in style between their winegrowing history and that of Travers.

Banks has repeatedly stated in interviews that he respects Travers’s work at Mayacamas, and intends to maintain its style. Erickson’s and Favia’s success, however, has come through production of wines known as both riper, and more interested in new oak than Mayacamas has ever been.

For a person interested in maintaining the Mayacamas style, selection of a management team known for wines that run counter to the mountain winery’s, then, seems a contradiction. Why not hire a winemaker known for mountain fruit? Looking at Banks’s history as an investor might give insight into the choice.

In a 2013 interview with Alder Yarrow, Banks highlights the importance of who he works with over simply choosing based on style. “[W]hat I’m doing now in the wine world is influenced by the people I want to be in business with and like working with.” Banks said. “I like these people, what they’re doing, and their vision.” From that perspective, Banks’s choice of a winemaker starts to find a context. Banks and Erickson have a long-standing history of working well together.

For many, though, the concern remains. As said, Erickson’s vision has always coincided with the execution of a different style than that known for Mayacamas. Asked about the issue, Banks defends against this worry. To Yarrow he said, “That’s what Andy’s done [before] but that’s not what he’s about. We are absolutely not going to change the style of the wines.”

Banks, and Erickson have both given numerous interviews discussing their intentions for the site. Interviews can give insight into intention, but don’t always show how ideas will be executed, whether because of the relevance of a larger context, or change in need. This week, Fred Swan and I were able to visit Mayacamas, tasting the 2013 Cabernet from barrel with Andy Erickson, and touring the site as it looks now with Estate Director, Jimmie Hayes. With that in mind, a look at the winery today, the teams views of Mayacamas wine, and the vineyards themselves can shed light on what is changing at Mayacamas.

A Look at the Winery

Andy Erickson checking the progress of 2011-2013 vintages of Mayacamas, June 2014

Without doubt Mayacamas is a special and moving site. The basic construction of the 1880s winery has remained, with fermentation occurring in open top cinder-block fermenters, and aging starting in large decades-old wood casks, before then moving into smaller older barrels. At the back of the winery a small cave was dug decades ago until it struck a stream. After rains, the winery floor now flows with water.

Erickson himself admits, its a winery style that pushes against what he’s used to. In 2013 when it came time to move wine into the 70-year old wooden casks, he says, he had to call Travers to get reassurance the wood would really hold. “Travers said, Andy, you just have to go for it.” Erickson laughs.

In 2013, Erickson tested aging some wine from the site in new wood, and discovered the practice simply didn’t work at Mayacamas. In interviews, Travers account of the role of new oak in his wines moved between 2% and 10%. It wasn’t an approach he relied on. New wood appeared as it was needed. In Erickson’s experiment, the fruit hated new barrels. The team cancelled their 2014 order for new barrels, and plan to bring them in only as replacements are needed.

Within the fermentation room, Travers had rigged a high-maintenance cooling system. During harvest, ice had to be brought daily to the winery, then held in a handmade tank at the side of the room. Tubes with water cooled by the ice then ran from the tank to each of the fermenters to act as temperature modifier. The practice was an economical choice for Travers, as well as one likely kept by habit. In an interview for the June 2014 issue of Wine & Spirits by David Darlington, Travers explained. “I didn’t even think about modernizing. It would have been very expensive, and I thought what we were doing was satisfactory.” Before the 2013 harvest Erickson had internal cooling installed in each of the fermenters. It’s an update that seems reasonable from the perspective of both work load and ease.

Bottling for Travers was another technological hold over. It occurred over several months. As Banks explains, bottling now will occur over hours. Such a change, again, seems reasonable. Bottle variation proves a real concern when bottling occurs over such an extended time. The wine going into glass at the start of the cycle simply isn’t the same as the wine at the end. Fine tuning bottling time, then, means getting a handle on a detail that can help capture quality at Mayacamas.

The Pillars of Mayacamas Style

touring Mayacamas with Jimmie Hayes, June 2014

The new team has spent extensive time discussing the hallmarks of Mayacamas style in an attempt to hone in on their role carrying it forward. “We’ve had a lot of big conversations about what it means to keep the style here, and what can change or not,” Hayes says.

As Hayes explains, these discussions led them to identifying pillars of Mayacamas style that prove so definitive as to not be changed. “We decided there are some pillars to the style you have to keep to keep from changing it.” He names some of them. “Short macerations for the reds is an example, and you don’t start picking later. The age-ability is another one.”

Honing in on these mainstays, the team can then also test through the details to see what can be adjusted for the sake of improving quality. As Erickson discovered, incorporating new wood was not a reasonable detail to change. But shortening bottling time is an easy way to eliminate bottle variation, for example. In reality, issues like early oxidation on whites, and a bit of funk on reds, show up on some vintages of Mayacamas. Hayes points out that is the sort of thing that can be improved upon. “That slight funk that shows up in some vintages we can tend to. We can clean it up by watching the details.” He says.

Looking at the tools present in the winery, it’s clear many of Travers’s choices came from simple pragmatism, rather than a pre-conceived romantic ideal of wine. If Travers needed fermentation space, he wasn’t going to be able to let the wines soak. At the same time, he also kept extensive notebooks, which he then gave to the new team. Picking around 23-24 brix proved consistent through the years.

Part of people’s worry in Erickson acting as winemaker rests in his consistent history of making riper wines rather than the ultra juicy, higher acid style of Mayacamas. Arriving at the site, Erickson admits he was skeptical of what he thought of as earlier picking numbers. He picked fruit from the Valley floor at higher brix levels. Through the extensive team conversations, however, as well as talks with Travers, Erickson realized he had to trust the notebooks, and pick according to site history. At Pebble Beach Food & Wine in April 2014, Erickson said the experience with Mt Veeder fruit has made him rethink some of his ideas on ripeness. He’s picking Mayacamas fruit consistent with Mayacamas history.

The Relationship of Vineyard to Winery

looking from the top of Golden Hill towards blocks Fletch and Coyote, which grow Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon

A view of Mayacamas Vineyards today brings the greatest shock of change. In interviews over the last year, Banks has repeated the point that they will replant slowly. In an article by Elin McCoy in July 2014 for Bloomberg, for example, Banks explained, “We’ll need to spend millions slowly replanting. It’s not a crazy redo.“

It’s also been clear all along such replanting would be necessary. In her tour of the vineyards, McCoy mentions the sight of dying vines around the property. The Mayacamas plantings averaged in age between 30 to 60 years old, a condition uncommon for Cabernet Sauvignon in particular. In addition, many of the blocks were planted on AXR rootstock, which proved vulnerable to phylloxera. The reduction of productivity found in older vines, then, was in many cases exacerbated by disease. As Hayes explained, the worst of the blocks on the site gave only 1/4-Ton per acre.

Travers himself admitted that the average volume on Mayacamas as a whole was less than 1-Ton per acre. At the same time, it was a reality he didn’t seem to have issue with. In a 2006 interview with Alan Goldfarb for AppellationAmerica.com, Travers described his affection for the reduced production. “There’s no question that the higher you get on the mountain, the rockier, the shallower, and the less fertile the soils become. We average less than a ton per acre. That’s why I’m up here. That’s why I picked this spot.“

As Travers continues, he emphasizes that the quality and condition of the vineyard is what gave Mayacamas its style of wine. “Producers realize that if they’ve got a good vineyard, the vineyard can do all the talking. If you don’t do too many winery techniques, you can let the grapes be the master. These [winery] techniques reduce the vineyard effect.” Travers’s reticence in updating the winery, then, begins to make sense. For Travers, the vineyards themselves appear to be a hallmark of Mayacamas style. He valued what he had in the vines.

It’s also simply expensive to invest in replanting when your focus is on a family operation of a winery where what you’re already doing seems to work. For a new owner, however, to purchase a site and maintain less than 1-Ton per acre seems unreasonable.

As Favia explained to Jon Bonné in an article looking at the change of hands last summer, the replants at Mayacamas were necessary but a long-term process. After vines are pulled, the ground is left to rest to allow phylloxera to die out. Once the replants are initiated, at such high elevation vines take closer to five years to establish. The team’s plan is to follow Travers’s previous example. They’ll use irrigation to establish vines in the first five years, then dry farm. (They’ve also moved entirely to organic farming.) After vines are established, it’s another decade before plants are more adjusted to their site. In the meantime, clusters offer something like the distinctively fruit focused character of young vines.

It’s shocking, then, to discover that the slow replant Banks promised actually amounts to all but two blocks of Mayacamas being pulled. Viewing the site Monday, the replanting project amounts to what looks like between 80% and 85% of the vines at Mayacamas removed. Do older vines not prove to be a pillar of style? One Merlot, and one Cabernet block at the far Western side of the property remain. (At the time of this posting, I do not yet have confirmation on the acreage of the two remaining blocks.) The empty blocks will rest this year. Replantings will begin in 2015, and continue into 2017. Sauvignon Blanc, and Pinot Noir will not be reestablished on the site.

Considering the level of disease, and age of the vines, perhaps it was necessary, or easier, to remove all of the vine issues together, rather than block by block. The situation still means it will be decades before Mayacamas returns to being predominately estate fruit.

Looking at the history of Mayacamas, Travers relied heavily on sourced fruit from the beginning, and throughout his tenure. The previous Mayacamas vineyards were about 50% Chardonnay, with the remainder split between Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc (for blending), Merlot, Pinot Noir, and Sauvignon Blanc. The site’s famous Cabernet Sauvignon, then, has always relied on a large portion of sourced fruit. Keeping with Travers’s seeming pragmatism, these sources varied. He did not always rely solely on Mt Veeder either. The new team has maintained Travers’s long-term Mt. Veeder fruit contracts, and added two more. In 2014, all of the fruit for Mayacamas will come from Mt Veeder.

***

Thank you to Jimmie Hayes, and Andy Erickson.

Thank you to Fred Swan.

***

To read more on Mayacamas (All articles in order by publication date):

* For a glimpse into Bob Travers, check out these older articles.

An interview with Alan Goldfarb, 2006: http://wine.appellationamerica.com/wine-review/272/Mayacamas-Vineyards-Interview.html

A visit from Evan Dawson: http://www.drvino.com/2010/01/27/visiting-mayacamas-vineyards-napa-valley/

Eric Asimov considering old school Napa Cabs: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/dining/20pour.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1404328112-sjc6VC03CfJ6P6TsMtsljQ

* For a look at the new ownership:

Alder Yarrow talks with Charles Banks: http://www.vinography.com/archives/2013/05/charles_banks_the_new_man_behi.html

Elin McCoy visits Mayacamas: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-15/private-equity-wake-up-kiss-for-mayacamas-elin-mccoy.html