February 2010 Newsletter
Once again a release time has come
and gone and I haven't managed to
get a newsletter out. This time I have
a valid excuse... Harvest was extraordinarily long. We brought our
first grapes, pinot noir from Great Oak
Vineyard, in on September 3, and our
last fruit, just over 300 pounds of cabernet sauvignon from our Estate, on
lucky Friday 13th (of November!). 79
days from first pick to last.
We didn't finish pressing and barreling down this year's wine until
after Thanksgiving. However, I can't
complain about the harvest. Despite a
couple of minor hiccups in the form
of a heavy early season rain, it looks
to be a wonderful vintage. I am not
usually one to sing the praises (or
condemn) particular vintages as they
almost always surprise us in some
unexpected way, but it has been a
long time since we had a near perfect
growing year. The best years are the
ones when you are hard pressed to say
much about them. Spring weather,
from bloom to set, was uneventful.
Summer was mild and consistent. Harvest began uneventfully with the fruit
coming in at a steady and even pace.
In fact, we had brought in everything
except tannat, zinfandel, and cabernet sauvignon before the rains came.
The rains could not have come at a
worse time for most of the growers
who had not picked prior to the rains.
I had accepted the fact that we probably wouldn't make any zinfandel.
Since the fruit was nowhere near ripe
when the rains came, I was in no real
rush to assess the damage. After a few
days, I finally decided it was time to
walk the vineyards and hopefully find
a little fruit that would be salvageable
when things dried out. What I found
astonished me. Instead of swollen,
bursting berries and lots of rot, I found
clean, sound, wonderful looking fruit.
While it still had a way to go until it
was mature enough to pick, at least
there was hope. As the days passed
I kept returning, tasting the fruit and
watching for the devastating effects
of rot that I had seen in so many other
neighboring vineyards. I began to see
a little rot in a few vines at Zeigler,
but it was pretty much confined to a
very small section of the vineyard.
What really astonished me however
was Mancini Ranch. Mancini, across
the road from Zeigler, is always one of
the last Sonoma County Vineyards to
be harvested. Our crew did a great job
of thinning and pulling leaves to open
the canopy to light and air, earlier in
the season. This really helps in case of
wet weather, allowing air movement
and light to dry the grapes out. But the
vineyard has very shallow soil with
a nearly impervious hardpan. This
means if there is any rain, the resultant
ground water will pool in the root zone
and can mean swollen, burst berries,
which provide the perfect environment for lots of destructive fungi. In
a normal year I expect to see some
mildew and various rots. We always
pick very carefully and leave any
fruit that shows any sign of rot on the
ground. But this year I saw virtually
none. I kept a close eye on the fruit
and we finally picked when we had
achieved full flavor ripeness. Although
we dropped some fruit on the ground,
it was almost always due to random
clusters not being fully mature and the
vines not having enough oomph left to
ripen them. And the resultant wines?
Well, I am pretty excited! Mother Nature has once again smiled upon us!
A Sad Personal Note
On January 15th of this year, Lynn's
mother, June Swan, passed away.
Although she had retired from active
involvement in the winery she co-founded back in 1969, she was still
very much involved on an emotional
level and was quite proud of what
Lynn and I have done over the years.
Her car license was even personalized,
SWANPNO. For those of you who
knew her or those interested in her
personal story,
Read the Press Democrat notice or the Marin IJ obituary. You
can also add some personal memories
of June if you like.
Fortieth Anniversary Tastings a Success!
In case you missed it, 2009 was the
40th anniversary of Joseph Swan Vineyards. It was also the 30th anniversary
of my first year of making wine, the
last 21 of which have been here. To
celebrate, we designated some weekends as library weekends. The last
one was on November 7-8. We were
surprised, overwhelmed by, and very
thankful for the response. I had to
race off to the cellar several times to
troll for more old wines. It was great
fun for us to be able to taste our history with all of you. Sadly, we have
very little of many of the wines so we
couldn't open multiple bottles of most
of them. As one bottle was finished we
opened something else. I would have
loved for everyone to have been able
to taste everything, because, in most
cases, they weren't just old wines but
very fine old wines. The most surprising were some of the wines that Joe
made in his first years, in "mediocre"
vintages. They were a testament to
Joe's dedication and artistry and the
quality of fruit that he used.
New Releases
2008 Chardonnay
Saralee's Vineyard
From Rich and Saralee Kunde's home
ranch. They have a lot of acreage of
chardonnay in this vineyard planted to
several different clones. As this was
the result of a last minute decision
(Saralee knew that we had lost all of
our chardonnay crop due to frost), I
didn't have the opportunity to scout
the vineyard in advance and follow
the fruit from set to harvest. However, their usual impeccable farming
meant that the grapes we received
were as good as we could want. They
were whole cluster pressed to French
oak barrels averaging 1 year of age.
Fermentation was spontaneous with
indigenous yeast. After the completion of the primary and malo-lactic
fermentations, the wine was allowed
to remain sur lies for its entire time in
barrel with the lees stirred on a regular
basis. A total of 106 cases were bottled
unfined and unfiltered in early September of 2009.
The wine: Light straw color. Fresh,
bright aromas of citrus and minerals with a faint hint of ginger. In the
mouth there is the recurring theme of
fresh citrus drying on a hot stone, or,
er, lemon zest on a cold stone? Well,
lots of citrus, lots of mineral, and
a hint of nectarine. It is very bright
with medium body, great acidity and
wonderful length. What it lacks in
complexity at this stage it makes up
for in brightness and shear drinkability. I, as have a lot of other people
I know, become somewhat numb to
the vast majority of chardonnays on
the market. They seem to pander to
the lowest common denominator and
feature too much oak, too much sweetness and too little interest. However,
here in the Russian River Valley there
has been a style emerging that is anything but that. I am quite pleased that
this wine tastes and feels to me like a
classic Russian River Valley chardonnay. It is a wine that I will drink often.
The bottle I opened to sample paired
brilliantly with lobster ravioli with a
porcini cream sauce. We don't usually
eat food that rich and I found myself
searching in vain for a crisp sauvignon
blanc to pair with it. I am glad I didn't
find one! 106 cases bottled.
2007 Pinot Noir
Great Oak Vineyard
We have been a
little slow in releasing our 2007 pinot
noirs as I personally feel that most of
the hype surrounding the vintage for
pinot noir is really about their potential. With that being said, I feel that the
Great Oak is already showing some of
its considerable potential.
Great Oak is a story of a vineyard that
really shouldn't have been planted. At
least not by sane people that do not
have bottomless pockets. It is planted
on a piece of ground a couple of miles
from the winery, east of us on the
north side of the river. It is a painfully
beautiful place but with very poor
soil. Make that almost no soil. The
underlying geology is the Franciscan
formation, a mélange of rocks that accumulated in a deep oceanic trench
and were transported northeasterly on
the Pacific tectonic plate. When they
encountered the North American plate
(the one we are sitting on) they sort
of stuck like rocky road ice cream.
The soft parts got mushed, the hard
ones were like a bunch of nuts stuck
together. The resultant soil, if you can
call it that, is really a bunch of small
pieces of rock with a little bit of decomposed organic matter and other
debris holding it together. What little
soil there is has very little water holding capability. The result is a mature
vineyard with less growth than brand
new vines planted in the river bottom
below. Fortunately for us, Jim Jordan
and Sandra Poysa, two otherwise very
intelligent and talented people, chose
to work with us to plant and grow
these vines. Although we have yet to
achieve yields beyond one ton per acre
(from the pinot noir and the syrah),
our hope is to one day get the vines to
produce enough fruit to pay their own
way! If there is anyone out there who
still thinks that the wine business is
the way to fame and fortune, I present
the case of Great Oak. Fame perhaps;
fortune, sadly, no, at least for the time
being.
The wine: My impression of the Great
Oak pinot noirs in the first years was
that they were almost syrah like. They
weren't overblown but they were so
structured, so dark and so tannic that
they did not resemble other pinot noirs
in the Russian River Valley. However,
with a little bottle age, the rusticity begins to fade and a wonderful elegance
begins to emerge. They still have that
same haunting black fruit character.
In fact, everything seems to be dark,
but there is never a heaviness that you
so often see in pinot noirs whose first
descriptor is about dark fruits. The
2007 is no exception and in fact may
be, at this stage, the most drinkable
yet. There are loads of dark red to
black fruits, including a black apple of
my foggy memory (Black Arkansas?),
plums, and raspberries, along with
subtle spice and a slight hint of licorice/clove. In the mouth it is medium
bodied and fairly light on its feet. The
tannins, while noticeable, are kept
in check by the wonderful fruit and
ample acidity. The finish is long with
a slight, almost sweet impression. My
instinct is to lay this one down for a
few years, but it is drinking mighty
fine right now. (As a side note there
will be no 2008 Great Oak Pinot Noir
for release next year. All of it was
needed to make the Cuvée de Trois the
best that it could be.) 119 cases bottled.
2007 Pinot Noir Trenton Estate Vineyard
Our Estate Vineyard which includes
some of the oldest pinot noir vines in
the Russian River Valley and probably
the first planted by someone with the
goal of making wine from them (at
least in the modern era), is also consistently one of the lowest production
vineyards (tons per acre) which is not
always a measure of quality but in this
case probably accounts for at least part
of its character. It is also planted largely to what is known in the industry as
the Swan "clone" (although it should
be referred to as the Swan "selection.") In addition to the old blocks of
Swan, part of the newer block (planted
in 1996) is planted to 6 different Dijon
clones. Harvest typically occurs over
about a two week period as the various
areas of the vineyard ripen. Each lot is
fermented and then barrel aged separately before a blend is composed. The
wines are allowed to remain in their
individual barrels until just before bottling, when the barrels are blended. In
2007 we had a larger than usual crop
(although still quite small by most
other vineyards' standards). In this
regard it reminds me of 1997 when we
had the largest crop on record, nearly
2.5 tons per acre! (Again low by most
standards.) That wine is still drinking
beautifully and is one of my favorite
vintages of the 90's.
The wine: Typical deep, complex red
fruit aromas with lots of spice and a
hint of earth. In the mouth it is quite
tight although also quite rich. The
flavors echo the aromas. There is a bit
of youthful, rounded tannin and nice
acidity framing the rich fruit. The oak,
while a bit noticeable to me at the moment is nicely integrated and should
recede further into the background
over the next year or so. While very
enjoyable now, it is still painfully
young. I would advise holding it for
a few years to allow it to soften and
show its full potential. I would be
shocked if this wine does not have a
long and vibrant life ahead of it. 434
cases and 10 cases magnums bottled.
in amazing concentration (and pretty
high alcohol). It shows lots of pure
berry with a hint of white pepper.
The aromas are full and focused ripe
cherry cola/boysenberry. It has a great
middle palate and finish. There is less
apparent acidity than the Zeigler but is
still bright. Despite the high alcohol,
it is not jammy, raisiny or over-ripe
and lacks the heat one might expect.
The vineyard seems to have saved its
best fruit for its last vintage. 198 cases
bottled.
2005 Zinfandel Zeigler Vineyard
I am always amazed how different this
wine is from the one made from Mancini Ranch which is located directly
across the road from Zeigler. Both are
early 1920 plantings, both are farmed,
harvested, and the wines made by us.
Separated by a county road. Zeigler
ripens about 2 weeks earlier on average. Zeigler usually has more spice,
Mancini more acidity. This year however the Mancini has the lower alcohol, Zeigler the higher acidity. Always
different, always intriguing. Brothers
from different mothers.
The wine: Signature black pepper,
black raspberry/blackberry/pomegranate aromas with a slight tart edge. In
the mouth it shows bright fruit, good
weight, and a long, clean finish. It
reminds me very much of the Swan
zins from the early 70's which aged as
much on their fruit and acidity as their
tannins. Many are still drinking well
when stored in a good cellar. Hopefully this one will do as well. 190
cases bottled.
2005 Zinfandel
Lone Redwood Ranch
Sadly, this is the last vintage of Lone
Redwood. The vines had been in de clining health for years and the production had dropped to the point that
it was not paying its way. In 2005 the
crop was barely 1 ton per acre. In the
past I mildly criticized the vineyard
for producing my least favorite zin
of the vintage. What I meant to say
was that it was the least complex in
its youth, probably due to the fact that
it was 100% zinfandel and the others
included a small percentage of other
vines. The fruit from these other vines
is like seasoning in cooking--they added complexity. However, given time in
the bottle, the Lone Redwoods catch
up pretty quickly. The 2005 is just beginning to hit its stride.
The wine: Definitely a big boy. As
I mentioned, the vines produced a
scant 1 ton per acre which resulted in amazing concentration (and pretty
high alcohol). It shows lots of pure
berry with a hint of white pepper.
The aromas are full and focused ripe
cherry cola/boysenberry. It has a great
middle palate and finish. There is less
apparent acidity than the Zeigler but is
still bright. Despite the high alcohol,
it is not jammy, raisiny or over-ripe
and lacks the heat one might expect.
The vineyard seems to have saved its
best fruit for its last vintage. 198 cases
bottled.
2005 Syrah Trenton Station Vineyard
What is a release without at least 1
syrah? The Trenton Station Vineyard
is located about 1 mile to the west of
us. In additon to being the vineyard
our pinot gris comes from, and a great
place to ride our horses, it is also a
great site for syrah. The soils here are
Goldridge, however the block the fruit
for this wine came from is characterized by a lens of fairly good sized
cobble that runs through it. According
to resident geologist Terry Wright,
the size of the stones means that they
were deposited by a fairly substantial
river flow. Since this area was a shallow sea, it would take a great deal
of force to carry rocks this size this
far out. In contrast, if you find a tiny
pebble in our vineyard it was probably
dropped there by someone. I have no
idea what effect the difference in soil
has but I am sure that it is part of the
reason that the wine is what it is.
The Wine:The most interesting thing
about this wine, to me, is that it is just
about mid-way between our Trenton
Estate Vineyard and Great Oak and
the wine seems to be a marriage of the
two. It has a lot of the Estate's pretty,
violet and lavender floral perfume and
pretty blue fruit but also hints of Great
Oak's wild, English saddle leather
aromas. In the mouth it has a little of
Great Oak's intensity but less tannin.
It is a very suave, easy drinking, yet
fairly serious old world styled syrah.
43 cases bottled.
Joe's Drinking Buddies Update
The wine club is teetering at capacity. We are still accepting applications but we may eventually move to a wait list. This
is your opportunity to join! The benefits of becoming a Buddy are several: 1.
You receive 10% off all wines including
library wines (15% off if you join both clubs.) 2. You get access to small lot, limited release wines and special wines
exclusive to wine club members. 3. You can substitute any wines you like on any wine club shipment. 3.You can buy
futures and unreleased wines when others can't. 4. You get to attend special events and enjoy occasional steep discounts.
If you are interested, send in an application or sign up on line. The next shipment is in March for the 3 bottle club and
April for the 6 bottle club.
SHIPPING NEWS: California, Arizona and Nevada residents are going to see some great reductions in their shipping
rates, thanks to a new carrier. Rates, as always, are subjet to change.
Upcoming Events!
New Release Pouring
We will be pouring the new releases throughout February.
Barrel Tasting!
March 6th & 7th and 13th & 14th, 2010
It is almost time for the granddaddy of all wine events, the annual Wine Road Barrel Tasting weekend(s). Some wineries will be pouring Friday as well. Not all wineries are pouring the second weekend. For the full schedule of who is pouring, go to
http://www.wineroad.com.
We will be pouring both weekends, including Friday. As always, we will be offering futures. If you cannot attend and
wish to purchase futures, we will be posting an offering on our website toward the end of February and taking orders only
through March.
The next newsletter is scheduled for June. I will really try to get it out on time! Please Join us on FACE BOOK!
Rod Berglund, Lynn Berglund, Karen Gunther, Cody Sapieka
Back to Newsletters
|
