FALL 2008

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Current focus.

In the spectrum of California wine styles, I like to think ours have always emphasized balance. The few over-the-top monsters we have made turned into big commercial successes, but they didn't represent our aim. The idea has always been to capture the exuberance of fully ripe California fruit and express it with a European sensibility (i.e. making wine that is delicious with food). I don't pretend to have fully achieved that objective, because I see winemaking as a craft, a quest that doesn't end. Complete satisfaction with the job would be tantamount to giving up the struggle.

When I started making wine 25 years ago we picked our grapes a little less ripe; however, we found the flavors of the wines to be a bit too green and vegetal. So we opted for more ripeness and thought the wines were better for it. The down side was they were a tad deficient in acidity and a bit high in alcohol-they seemed clunky. And although these wines have aged well, and with time in the bottle have come into better balance, I felt there was still room for improvement.

Since then great strides in California viticulture have changed the character of the fruit we work with. First, the introduction of drip irrigation allowed more accurate control of vine growth. And second, vertical trellising of the vines allowed for even sun exposure to the clusters. That coupled with our penchant for thinning the crop for lower yields has produced more evenly ripe fruit. So now we are picking a little less ripe again and are really excited with the results. The wines are more fragrant, alive and fresh-and so intriguing they beckon you to take another sip. Other winemakers, in pursuit of what they call phenolic ripeness, are picking not grapes but raisins-and making wines that may have a concentrated texture, yet I find tiring to drink.

My interest in viticulture has not slackened since all these improvements have been made. Now the Holy Grail is organic and biodynamic farming (a self-sufficient, spiritual farming method), whose success requires the grower to pay even more attention to the vineyard. With chemical farming you can more easily ignore the condition of the vine and when disaster is about to strike, simply nuke the problem away. When farming naturally you must better anticipate problems and carefully encourage the vine towards success. And of course, we should avoid using neurotoxins on the things we eat and drink. They're not good for us, and not good for the people who apply them.

In wine we talk about the subtle differences that distinguish the ordinary from the extraordinary, and I believe organic farming is the best way to bring out the intriguing nuances of a vineyard. So, we are pushing our growers toward organic farming. We have begun buying biodynamically grown fruit from Presidio Vineyard, and are working with two of our other growers to get them to go completely organic. Our other vineyard sources are sustainably grown, which means only the safest conventional methods and sprays are used- and with California's benign climate this is not difficult. . .

Adam Tolmach

2007 SAUVIGNON BLANC MCGINLEY (FORMERLY WESTERLY)
Santa Ynez Valley

OK, here's the story: The folks who owned Westerly Vineyard and Winery sold the vineyard to the McGinley's, but they kept the winery and the name, so now the vineyard has a new name. We still buy our same two little sections and it is still custom farmed by Jeff Newton's terrific Coastal Vineyard Care.

The 2007 worked out great, and I see it as a bit more precise and correct compared to the 2006. It has the same herbal nerviness and zippy acidity that previous vintages possess, it just comes across as more elegant. There were no major changes in the growing--we are farming to keep the crop in our areas to about half that of the rest of the vineyard. This gives us a wine that is more minerally and more intensly flavored. We continue to be the first to pick this vineyard each fall, as we prefer to harvest when the grapes' acidity is still high, and the fruit still filled with personality.

In the winery the sauvignon blanc is whole cluster pressed, fermented and aged in older French oak barrels, and we actively block the malo-lactic fermentation to preserve the wine's natural acidity. In a departure from our usual hands off approach, we chose to rack (decant) the sauvignon blanc once after fermentation was complete. We think this gave the wine greater aromatic clarity, without compromising its richness.

2006 CHARDONNAY CLOS PEPE
Santa Rita Hills

For us 2006 was a stellar harvest. There was some variable ripeness because of a slow flowering but that issue was easily solved by careful thinning. Obviously every taster looks for something different, but for us the grapes came in with bright acidity as they did in 2005, and yet they expressed more personality, so we like the wines even better.

This chardonnay always turns out great, and with only half the fruit on the vines compared to 2005, it is one tightly strung and intensely flavored wine. Delicious right now with fish or shellfish, it has the potential to age into a real beauty if you give it eight years or so. All of our Clos Pepe chardonnays are still drinking well, even back to the first one made in 1999, but this year's seems to be our most ageworthy chardonnay to date.

Winemaking wise we continue to barrel ferment and age the wines as in the past; however we are using fewer new barrels in the process--to better show off the distictive Clos Pepe personality. This wine went through the secondary malo-lactic fermentation and remained on its fermentation lees until bottling. It was bottled without filtration.

2006 PINOT NOIR SOLOMON HILLS
Santa Maria Valley

When I taste pinots from other areas, I often criticise them for their blandness and timidity. And more often than not, they are just too heavy to drink more than one sip. This Solomon Hills pinot noir is different. It's a wine full of personality, literally filled with berries and cherries and fascinating citrus notes. Because we're picking the grapes a little earlier than in the past, this wine is alive and racy, making it especially food friendly.

Planted the furthest west of any vineyard in the Santa Maria Valley appellation, Solomon Hills is a cool spot. The soil is pure sand, so the vines grow with a decided lack of vigor, and the production per acre rarely gets to two tons, which is considered very low. In 2006 we got 3.3 tons from two acres. We destem the fruit, go for a cold soak of five days, ferment it hot, and press it into French oak barrels (a third of which are new) for aging. No SO2 is used during barrel aging, and it is never racked.. For convienence many people bottle their pinots shortly before the next harvest, however, we bottled this wine in January of 2008. The additional barrel time brings greater complexity to pinot, and with this wine we were particularly happy with the progress it made in those extra few months. You can drink this Solomon Hills pinot noir today and enjoy its savory brashness, but it will certainly continue to evolve for the next several years.

2006 PINOT NOIR CLOS PEPE
Santa Rita Hills

My! This drinks well now. So poised and down right regal, yet utterly delicious in a young fresh way. Of all the pinots we make, this is the one that many people don't quite get because it possesses a subtlety and finess that is easily overlooked. In its delicate way this wine is alive and bursting with berries and flowers, but without being light or insignificant. It is much like the 2005 that I am so fond of, yet a bit more intensely flavored and higher in acidity.

I like that its inherent quality sneaks up on you, rather than hitting you on the head. In my book this is a real success-and it points out where we, as a winery, are going. By picking a little earlier we are capturing the more savory aspects of pinot-its zippy acidity and quenching tannins-along with the more floral aromatic aspects that are lost with greater ripeness.

2006 GRENACHE
Santa Barbara County

A blend of 80% grenache from Thompson Vineyard and 20% syrah from Bien Nacido. In 2006 we had conditions that gave us ultra-ripe grenache fruit that was spectacular, yet a bit difuse. Blending in well balanced syrah from Bien Nacido was just the trick to making this wine complete. In the bottle this wine has really come together, offering up raspberry aromatics and the delicous textural quality that only grenache can deliver.

2005 SYRAH MELVILLE
Santa Rita Hills

Although it may not seem like it, winemaking can be arduous. We spend most of the year working with our growers to get them to do everything just right, then at harvest there is only a moment in time to capture the grapes at their peak. For the winemaker, the real work begins as the grapes come in from the field--worrying over every one of the thousand decisions that ultimately determine how the wine works out. Being so intimately involved with a wine for so long I'm ready to take a break from it after bottling, and sometimes avoid tasting it for a while to gain a little perspective.

This is one of those wines that I hadn't tasted for close to a year, so I was taken by surprise with its dramatic aroma! It's all coffee and exotic spices presented in a forward, sexy way. It's so alluring! The flavors are just as compelling, balancing richness and concentration with vintage 2005's best attributes: freshness and liveliness. Sure, it could use more time in the bottle, but it is a pleasure to drink today.

2005 SYRAH PRESIDIO
Santa Barbara County

This is our first wine from Doug Braun's lovingly farmed Presidio Vineyard. Doug has been making wine for years, and recently found this property west of the Santa Rita Hills appellation and planted it with organic and biodynamic growing in mind from the start. His first crop was in 2004.

I find his vineyard compelling for a few reasons. First and formost is the cool climate. The lack of heat preserves the distinct character of the grapes--their struggle to ripen at this windy site is essential for their unique personality. The vineyard is situated in a great spot on a gentle southerly slope, and the vines are planted close together in very poor sandy soil. Doug's commitment to organic and biodynamic farming has been great for grape quality because succussfully farming without the usual chemicals requires a special attentiveness to the needs of the vine, which has a direct bearing on what sort of quality the vines will produce. Although it's difficult to quantify all the differences between conventionally grown and biodynamically farmed fruit, perceptive growers I talk with think there are clear advantages to the natural approach.

The wine we made was immediately a standout in the cellar. It bears the mark of being grown in a particularly cool spot by its spectacular aroma of bright berry fruits and peppery herbal earthiness. There is a density and sexy, musky vineyard personality that is hidden by its freshness, but it will become apparent with age. Immediately after bottling in March of 2007 the wine closed down and hid most of its promise. However, now, a year and a half later it is beginning to show its stuff. With a good decanting it is perfect with savory dishes, though it still has years to go before it peaks.

2007 VIOGNIER
California

Our first dry viognier since the spectacular 2004, this one is a blend of two-thirds Roll Ranch and one-third from Presidio. So it blends the richness and unctuousness of warm climate viognier with the exotic floral aspects of a very cool climate. This gave us a wine that has unusual freshness for the varietal, which is to say it works well with food. Delicious today!

2007 VIOGNER ICE WINE ROLL RANCH
Ojai Valley, California. 375 ml

This is the dessert wine we make every year. We take ripe viognier grapes from Roll Ranch to a commercial freezer in Oxnard, and when they are solidly frozen they are transported back to the winery and pressed immediately. The first juice that is pressed out before the grapes have a chance to thaw is extremely sweet. We take this syrupy stuff and ferment it in older barrels, stopping the fermentation before the alcohol level gets very high. The resulting wine is golden in color, has a great flowery aroma, and is sweet and unctuous. This particular vintage has a nice white chocolate aftertaste, and despite all its sweetness is quite easy to drink.

2004 SYRAH WHITE HAWK MAGNUM
Santa Barbara County. 1.5l

This is the note written when the wine was released in the Spring of 2007:

Aromatically and texturally this wine, by no design of my own, comes closest to that "international style" that I love to take pot shots at. This wine truly is a monolithic monster that is spicy and mineral-y in aroma as well as dense and mouth-coating. It's a style that many people love to drink young, and, although it is drinkable now, I think that's ultimately unfair to this wine. I wouldn't even think of opening it for at least five years because I have found that, with time, many of our wines similar to this one shed their baby fat and become balanced, compelling and interesting wines with age. This one has all the elements to mature gracefully for years.

2006 SYRAH
Santa Barbara County

This is a really powerful and intensely flavored wine that is also lively enough to be engaging and delicious right now. The wine is made from a blend of all of our syrah vineyards, and the farming is strict-we aim for very low yields. For the last several vintages we have blended quite a bit of grenache and mourvedre in the blend, which gives the wine greater complexity and aromatic interest.

OJAI WHITE & OJAI RED
Non Vintage, California

Don't let yourself be distracted by the affordable price. These two wines are terrific, always full of charater and easy to enjoy. They are made with the barrels that did not make the selection for the single vineyard bottlings and they received the same care and dedication as any of our more recognized wines. The result is a winery blend that seem to follow it's own mind and achieve quiet elegance.