Winter 2007 Newsletter
Foolishly, every years I anneouncpe that
we are going to have a newsletter out by
October 1st. Occasionally it happens
but more often than not it doesn't. The
reason is obvious. We are always in the
middle of harvest when October 1st
rolls around. This year was no different.
Harvest started for us on September
1st. I had started the newsletter and
had every intention of getting it done
in time but, well, it is still sitting in
an unfinished form somewhere in the
computer. Harvest was supposed to be
like a runaway train, starting early, going
fast with the end here in a heartbeat.
Instead it was like the little train that
could. After a quick start the weather
cooled and it just kept going and going.
We finally finished picking on November
8th. We will finish pressing the end of
November and all of the wine should be
in barrel by early December. As a result,
the newsletter I was writing will have to
wait until Spring to be finished. The spirit
is willing but the flesh is oh so tired!
While it is still way too early to know
exactly what the harvest of 2007 will
bring, I am about as (cautiously)
optimistic as I have ever been. Berry
and cluster sizes were both much smaller,
on average, than last year, which should
translate into deeper colors and richer
flavors than usual. This, combined with
the freakishly long growing season, lower
sugar levels (in most, but not all lots),
good acidity and the near total absence
of any rot or other problems, should
result in wines of elegance combined
with fully ripe character. Even the last
of our zinfandels, picked well after the
rains, were phenomenal. The sugar levels
were much lower than we are accustomed
to (a good thing) and there was a near
total absence of rot and raisins. The fruit
was some of the best I have ever seen.
As I said, I am cautiously optimistic. At
the very least it should be a very good
vintage and it could be memorable.
New Releases
Although it is a little late to tout these
wines as perfect Thanksgiving wines,
each in its own way is, which means that
each is very versatile and will work well
with a variety of dishes. As I like to say,
wines' first duty is to express a sense of
place and its second is to take its place
gracefully at the dinner table. These
wines fulfill their duties admirably.
2006 Gewürztraminer Saralee's ineyard
I can't ever remember a time when I didn't
love gewürztraminer. However, I do
remember having trouble finding ones I
wanted to drink. The problem lies in the
style of gewürz that became all too
popular - wines with a healthy dose of
residual sugar. While there is a valid
reason for leaving a little bit of residual
sugar - gewürztraminer and the muscat
varietals often have a bitter character and
sugar masks bitternessÑthey don't always
have to be sweet. What was a useful tool
became expected and it became
increasingly difficult to find dry versions.
Even Alsace, France, tended to move in
this direction. While there were always the
exquisite late harvest versions (vendange
tardive and SGN) even the normal table
wines began to be made with residual
sugar. It was because of this, when Saralee
Kunde offered me a small lot of
gewürztraminer grapes some years ago,
that I jumped at the chance. If I couldn't
buy it I would make it! Happily not only
are we still producing a dry
gewürztraminer, it has once again come
back into fashion and several of our
neighbor wineries are doing it as well (as
have a few Anderson Valley wineries that
have, to be fair, been in the forefront of
the dry German and Alsatian varietal
renaissance).
As always, this year's version was
fermented to dryness in stainless steel.
It was bottled unfined and unfiltered so
as to preserve all of its character. Leaner
and slightly less opulent than the slowto-
develop 2005, it is showing great
varietal character at this point. Very
perfumed (typical floral spice notes) it has
a distinct minerality and bright acidity
that allows it to work well with a variety
of dishes, from my version of comfort
food--turkey tacos, to rich autumn soups,
choucroute, curries and even simple
grilled vegetables. Unfortunately, we
produce very little and I have my name
on several cases, so we don't expect it
to be around long! 56 cases bottled.
2006 Naked Lady Rosé
I mentioned a while back, that, as a
result of an article in a national magazine
belittling rosé, I was going to make one
again. I actually made several but even
I know that the world doesn't need for
us to bottle several different rosés, so I
worked on a blend. Consisting primarily
of syrah from two vineyards, made using
two different methods (whole cluster
pressing like our white wines and saignée,
bleeding off of some juice from the red
wine fermenter), a small amount of
pinot noir and 4% gewürztraminer (to
lighten the color and add perfume), it
is a serious rosé. My original desire was
to make a strawberry and watermelon
wine, a simple summer quaffer. Syrah
does not make that kind of wine!
First, it is quite dark for a rosé, which is
very surprising since it had essentially no
skin contact. The aroma is of fresh red
cherries, berries, and perhaps a little bit
of red licorice. In the mouth it is both
light and rich at the same time, offering
up more of what the nose suggests. A
big enough rosé to work with lots of
foods, light and refreshing enough to
chill and quaff if that is your desire. Even
though I was a little disappointed that
it did not turn out to be the summer
time wine I originally envisioned,
it is actually a much better wine.
The name comes from the official town
flower of the village of Trenton, the
Naked Lady (Amaryllis belladonna), a
pink, summer blooming lily that takes
its name from the fact that the flower
stalk, topped with beautiful pink flowers,
appears long after the leaves have dried
and disappeared. It is a flower that has
become naturalized in many areas of
Sonoma County, especially where old
farm houses once were. It is especially
prevalent here in Trenton. 93 cases.
2006 Sauvignon Blanc, Saralee's Vineyard,
Cuvée Joanie
Almost every year I get a call from Saralee
Kunde during harvest. Actually, I get a
lot of calls from her since we work very
closely with her and her vineyards. But
there is one call that is almost inevitable.
During harvest she almost always seems
to find a small lot of grapes that she is
sure that I will want to turn into wine.
In 2006 she called to tell me that she had
a small lot of sauvignon musqué, a very
aromatic clone of sauvignon blanc. It had
a bit of botrytis and was a candidate for
late harvest. The prior year she had tannat;
a few years earlier it was gewŸrztraminer.
You get the idea. In any event, since I
had made wine from sauvignon musqué
several times before, both from a vineyard
on Sonoma Mountain and more recently
for a client in the Russian River Valley,
I was intrigued. I also happen to have
a soft spot in my heart for the luscious
sweet wines of Sauterne, and, even though
they tend to have more semillon than
sauvignon blanc, the chance to make
a similar wine was simply too good to
pass up. Our good friend Joan Patrick,
who was the viticulturist for Saralee at
the time, kept careful watch over the
grapes for us. The botrytis that affected
the grapes grew slowly while vineyards
all around became heavily infected, and,
in some cases other rots set in as well.
We waited and waited. The grapes began
to turn a beautiful golden sheen and as
the rot slowly spread, the berries began
to take on an almost purplish color. The
season progressed, the rains came, the
rot stopped growing. Finally, when we
decided that to wait any further would
mean having no fruit to harvest, we
decided to pull it in. Unfortunately the
sugar was only 28 brix, plenty high for
a typical dessert wine but not enough
to make a Sauterne style wine, which
usually has its sugar balanced by much
higher alcohol than the sweet wines of
Germany and Austria. The choice was to
stop the fermentation at a lower alcohol
level and make the kind of dessert wine
I am not very fond of, or do something
outside of the box. The decision was to
allow the wine to go dry and attempt
to make a wine like the dry version of
Sauterne. Chateau Y'quem's version is
Chateau Y; Chateau Rieussec's version
is Chateau R. We decided not to make
Chateau S, but Cuvée Joanie instead.
Completely fermented to dryness in
neutral French Oak barrels. The heady
aroma is of freshly baked apple custard.
The botrytis effect is obvious in its
impression of honeyed sweetness and in
the mouth it tastes and feels as if it has
residual sugar. The only drawback is a
bit of heat (the alcohol is high), but the
overall balance is such that it will pair
well with rich dishes (think foie gras,
the traditional match for Sauterne),
cream soups, and as a dessert wine
when a sweetie would be too much.
We didn't make much and it will likely
never be repeated. 38 cases bottled.
2005 Côtes du Rosa
Our 16th vintage! This wine is made
from grapes grown in a small block of
the Mancini Ranch, an early 1920's
vineyard located about a mile and a
half east of the winery. Ripening and
harvest is always after the zinfandel in
the rest of the vineyard. For winemaking
we utilize the French méthode a
l'ancienne, which means we take the
fruit directly from the vineyard, dump
it into an open top fermenter, and
then jump on it a lot (pigeage). After
pressing, aging is in neutral barrels.
This is a wine that is quite light on its
feet but never lacks for flavor or aromatic
interest. Aromas of ripe berries, red plum,
white pepper, ruby grapefruit and red
licorice are present. When pairing it,
think of its namesake wines from France,
the wines of the Côtes du Rhone (the
name comes from the fact that it is made
predominately from a grape authorized
to be grown in the southern Rhone,
the technique which is a time honored
tradition in the region, and the fact that
the vineyard is located on the Santa
Rosa plain between the city of Santa
Rosa and the Laguna de Santa Rosa).
Mediterranean style foods--peppers,
olives, tomatoes, rosemary, thyme, garlic,
lamb, small birds, grilled meats, anything
fresh with lots of flavor--work well with
it. Although it was never our intention,
past vintages have shown that it has at
least moderate aging potential. 116 cases.
2003 Syrah, Trenton Estate
Syrah is a wonderfully adaptive grape.
It grows well in a variety of climatic
regions, from Australia, where it is
known as Shiraz, to its ancestoral home,
the Northern Rhone region of France.
It was the wines from this latter region
that most intrigued me when I was first
introduced to them. From the wild,
sauvage nature of Cornas to the complex
often meaty aromas of Hermitage to the
wonderfully violet scented wines of Côte
Rotie, the wines of the Northern Rhone
have, until recently, been without peer.
While many new world regions have been
able to produce wines in the style made
popular by warmer Australia, we are now
seeing fine examples of cool climate syrah
that can rival the best of the Northern
Rhone. The Russian River Valley is in
the forefront of that, along with Sonoma
Coast and cooler parts of Mendocino
County. We first planted syrah here
about a dozen years ago. Although I
was not certain, I had a suspicion that
our vineyard would produce fruit that
was more similar to Côte Rotie than its
neighbors. For that reason we planted
six viognier vines (an aromatic white
grape grown in the Northern Rhone
Valley) at the end of each row of syrah.
We pick the fruit along with the syrah
and co-ferment it, as is traditonally done
in Côte Rotie. The reason we do this is
that the addition of a very small amount
of vigonier lifts the natural aromas of
violets that are sometimes present. We
do not do this with our other syrahs
because, with their more wild, roasting
meat, English saddle leather aromas, I
don't believe it would be appropriate.
As our Estate vines have matured, the
wines each year have taken on added
depth and complexity. In 2003, this,
combined with the warm finish to an
otherwise cool growing season, gave us
fruit of wonderful intensity that displayed
all of the hallmark characteristics of this
vineyard. It is rich, layered and oh so
perfumed! Aged entirely in older French
oak barrels, it is all about the fruit. It has
great length and enough acidity to allow
the fruit to sing. While it is a big wine, it
is quite elegant with low tannin and none
of the over-ripe, jammy character you
would expect in warmer climate syrahs.
Although we are over 5000 miles from
Côte Rotie, have very different soils and
climates, and also farm differently, the
similarities are still remarkable. 196 cases.
2005 Pinot Noir, Saralee's Vineyard
A note on the 2005 vintage, especially as
it relates to pinot noir: Although I drink a
lot of different wines and can appreciate a
host of different styles, what first attracted
me to pinot noir was Burgundy. The
wines of Burgundy, at their best, have
a style that we, in California, with our
abundance of sunshine and very long
growing seasons, are often incapable of
matching. Again, I appreciate a lot of
styles and the modern California style
is certainly valid and worthy of respect.
However, once in a while a vintage
comes along that, for me, is very exciting;
because it reminds me of those wines
of Burgundy, France, that I tasted three
decades ago, that caused me to fall in love
with this grape. The prior two vintages,
2003 and 2004, while very fine, were not
those type of vintages. As an analogy, our
recent string of vintages resemble people
you meet at a party. One is at the center
of attention. Attractive, possibly a little
boisterous, flirty, quick witted, and very
easy to like. Outside of the party, you
have very little in common So while it
was fun (and will be fun the next time
you party together), that is the extent
of it. Another is like the person that is
a little too loud, not very well dressed,
argumentative, and overly suggestive
to your date and generally more than a
little bad mannered. However, when you
run into this person later, with a little
less liquid fun inside, and a little bit of
time to become less of a social retard,
they turn out to be an OK person. The
rough edges are gone and they actually
are quite interesting if you don't mind
their rough and tumble nature. However,
there is that person at the party that is
well dressed in a reserved way. They are
very self-assured but are neither loud
nor pushy. When you engage them in
conversation they are able to talk at length
about almost any subject but are never
boring or condescending. As you spend
time with them you realize that there is
real depth there and you would really like
to get to know them over time. At each
meeting it becomes apparent that there
is always more to learn and appreciate.
This is how I view the differences in 2003,
2004, and 2005. While I appreciate all
of them, it is the pinot noirs of 2005 that
I want to spend the most time with.
I suspect that the 2005 Saralee's will be
the best yet from this vineyard. All of
the hallmark vineyard characteristics are
thereÑbright red fruit ranging from
wild strawberries, to red cherries and
red plum, along with that pretty floral
spice character that I so prize with this
fruit. Because it is a blend of seven
different clones of pinot noir (vinified
and aged separately before blending just
prior to bottling), it is quite complex.
In the mouth it shows medium density,
acidity that at the present is just a bit
elevated, and a long, clean finish. What
intrigues me the most however is the
impression of a lot beneath the surface.
I have found myself sitting and sniffing
the glass without taking a sip, just
trying to figure out what is waiting to
emerge. This is a wine that begs to be
paired with food. The usual range of
pinot noir dishes will work but fresh
salmon is always a great bet! 543 cases.
2004 Zinfandel, Trenton Station Vineyard, Lion Ridge
From a young planting on a very steep
west facing slope in Rich and Saralee
Kunde's Trenton Station Vineyard, about
a mile west of our property. It was named
after the Trenton train station that used
to reside on the property. Trenton was
the village that our property was the
center of. The block of vines that the
fruit comes from is called Lion Ridge.
This block was named after the cougar
that hung out here when they were
clearing the abandoned apple orchard
and brush prior to planting the vines.
Initially this was my least favorite
zinfandel of the vintage, but with time in
the bottle it has really blossomed. All of
the usual Russian River Valley zinfandel
components are there, including ripe
black berries, hints of cardamom and
white pepper, great acidity, and modest
tannin. In the mouth it displays an
uncommon elegance. Although I haven't
tasted it next to the other zins of the
vintage for quite a while, if it is still my
least favorite (very doubtful), then watch
out for the others! This is a zin that pinot
lovers can really appreciate. 105 cases.
Up-Coming Events
Not much to report. We will not be participating in Winter Wineland this year but will most likely pop a
few library wines for those of you who happen to stop by. The next newsletter will, I hope, be out by early
February, before Barrel Tasting. However, in case it becomes trapped in the computer again, Barrel Tasting
will once again be the first two weekends in March. We hope to see you before then!
Wine club memberships and wine are great gifts for the holidays! Give us a call and we will send a
personal note along with your wine gift and ship it before Christmas. All Christmas orders should be in by
December 17, 2007.
Have a very Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year.
Rod and Lynn Berglund, Karen Guenther, and Codie Sapieka
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