SPRING 2008
In some respects you might look at our little winery and think nothing
has changed in the last 20 years. The general physical structure hasn't,
the quantity of wine produced hasn't, yet the wines made now are fundamentally
different. Over the last couple of decades we have pushed hard to
progress. The pursuit of craft is what I call our effort to make incrementally
better wines. Manufacturing is the memorization of repetitive tasks,
while craft is the melding of experiential knowledge with intuition
to achieve a greater success.
Although we are best known for syrah, in this spring newsletter I
also describe our recent work with chardonnay at Solomon Hills, a
state-of-the-art vineyard planted on the western edge of the Santa
Maria Valley appellation. We purchase the grapes by the acre, rather
than the ton-which allows us to reduce the crop to concentrate the
flavors. To avoid masking the personality of the vineyard we ferment
and age this wine in older French oak barrels. The vineyard is in
the coolest end of the appellation, so the fruit retains very high
natural acidity, making it food friendly. Tightly planted to the superior
Dijon clones of chardonnay and farmed meticulously for quality, we
have been able to make a wine that is altogether different than a
typical California chardonnay.
This wine is emblematic of
our intentions for all the wines we produce--which is to continue
pushing beyond the expected and attempt to craft something sublime.
.
Adam Tolmach