Our winemaker Kevin Holt has a specific goal – creating wines with a “wow factor,” something he describes as “engaging the drinker, and giving them something to think about – if they choose.”  His intention is to produce wine that creates emotional response, with complexities beyond the ordinary.  According to Kevin these attributes are created in the vineyard, and thanks to the many different lots from Wildcat Mountain Vineyard, his goal can be achieved year after year.

Kevin’s priority is to let the wine remain unique and specific to the vineyard without undue manipulation.  While so many wineries seem to be over-manipulating (especially in the realm of oak), we choose to showcase the delicate yet beautifully concentrated Sonoma Coast fruit. 

Wildcat Mountain doesn’t create overly fruity Pinot Noir by nature, but by blending specific site expressions from multiple clonal blocks, balanced and structured wine can be created.  We typically blend three different types of Pinot Noir for our Wildcat Mountain bottling: a dark Pinot Noir with tannic structure for backbone, a brighter fruity lot to strengthen the mid-palate, and finally a lighter bodied wine with nice complex aromatics to complete the blend.

In general, we leave our wines in barrel for shorter periods of time compared to others, allowing the French oak to influence the wine, without taking it over.  This integration expresses our style, wines that are unique, delicate, bold, and we hope, the kind of wine that makes you say “wow!”

Our first bottling of the 2010 vintage occurred last week – The Carneros Pinot Noir Rose’ from the low-yielding Beau Terror Vineyard, a small block on the Napa side of Carneros.  It’s a dry, crisp, full-bodied rose of unusual depth, both of flavor and color, packed with delicious strawberry and watermelon flavors.  Stay tuned for its release at the end of May. 

Our next bottling is the 2010 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay in late May – so check back for details.

Well, 2010 definitely kept us on our toes and gave us plenty to talk about and we certainly enjoyed it.  We have a positive outlook and see a bright future for the 2010 harvest and remain particularly excited about our Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir. 

The young Sonoma Coast appellation boasts a maritime climate of cool, foggy mornings and pleasant sunny afternoons; the San Pablo Bay, Russian River and Petaluma Gap are significant conductors of the fog and cool air.  The sparsely populated appellation begins at the Sonoma County coastline, at the Mendocino County border, down to the Russian River, and to the southern cool valleys of Los Carneros along the San Pablo Bay.  Its terrain offers great range and many hillsides with extreme diversity in soil composition, influenced by the San Andreas Fault.  The specific Sonoma Coast micro-climates greatly influence the growing season, and our Wildcat Mountain Vineyard is known for ideal growing conditions. Vines at Wildcat struggle in shallow volcanic soil and dense morning fog with cooler than average temperatures well into October (night time temperatures typically in the 40’s with daytime highs in the low 80’s), producing a perfect overall climate for the delicate pinot noir grape.   

2010 presented a long-cool growing season and grapes without the extreme sugar levels we have seen in years past; 2010 will produce elegant wines with lower alcohol, elegant wines – reminiscent of traditional “old world” pinot noir, with an emphasis on delicate body.  I know you’re immediately thinking, “What about the heat spikes and premature rain in October?”   Yes, heat and subtle rain contributed to harvest outcome, but they were not as significant as the extended hang time.  The pinot noir growing season in 2010 was longer and cooler than most years, both attributes that contribute to high quality.  In fact, we had an extra three weeks of hang time, allowing flavors and aromas to develop without excessive sugar levels.  In all, pinot noir was ready to be hand harvested before the anticipated rains and arrived at the winery in perfect condition.  In a recent barrel tasting, the seven lots of 2010 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir show lovely ripe cherry fruit and undertones of black raspberry.  The softer evident tannins should provide gentle texture and enough structure to support the juicy fruit.  As our pinot noir is put to sleep in our cellars, we are extremely excited to see its evolution.

We are proud to introduce our new harvest interns, Matt Maggio and Rachel Arther, both from afar and excited about learning how wine is made.  After an unseasonably cool summer with a few sporadic heat spikes, the grapes are finally getting closer to the sorting tables.  With at least a two-week delay from last year, Harvest 2010 will begin late September.  In preparation, our new cellar interns are in the process of sanitizing everything in sight and learning their way around the winery. 

Rachel is moving from Boulder, Colorado, upon the completion of a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing.  She has traded her social life in the academic epicenter of Colorado University, for the much quieter town of Sonoma and an impromptu education in wine production.  She has always been interested in wine and found this post-graduation time to be a perfect transitional period.  Rachel was searching for a winery that was willing to teach all aspects of production and MacRostie Winery wouldn’t have it any other way – a perfect fit.

Mr. Matt Maggio is joining us from the faraway land of Florida.  Spending many years immersed in corporate commonplace, he finally had enough.  In August he packed up his “lady-friend” and beautiful pup to drive across the country and immerse himself in California wine culture.  His interest in wine started at a bar stool or dinners with friends (much like many of us) and turned into a curiosity that couldn’t be avoided.  He found appeal in MacRostie Winery due to its family ownership and deep roots in Sonoma.  We are happy to have him on board!

Allow them to introduce themselves:  click to meet Matt and Rachel.

      As days are getting longer and temperatures increase, bud break is approaching.  Similar to last year, it looks like our Wildcat Mountain vines will leave dormancy the last week of March.  The dry, rocky soils of our vineyard have trouble retaining moisture so the abundance of rain this season is an enjoyable delight for the vines.  With rain totals already five inches above last year, our reservoir is off to a good start and the extra rain will push our minimal irrigation further into the growing season.  We are also excited about the results of an agriculture experiment we are participating in with a prestigious local university.  A new alternative cover crop has taken on the grounds of two separate, half acre, Pinot Noir lots on Wildcat Mountain.  The planting of Phacelia (a delicate purple flower) and Daucus (wild carat), will provide year round floral resources and promote beneficial pest management insects.  This progress will be monitored jointly by the University Agriculture department and our winemaking team.

            In the winery, our production crew is busy with the first bottling of 2009.  Our 2009 Pinot Noir Rose is rich in color and complexity, it’s ripe and fruit forward characteristics are more pronounced than previous years, perfect for summer time sipping.  With the sun shinning more everyday, its April release won’t come quick enough.  In the coming weeks we will also begin the assembly of our Pinot and Chardonnay, so we will be busy blending the MacRostie wines, you have grown to love.  We are excited about a great start to the assembly of the 2009 vintage and the initial budding of 2010 and of course, we hope all is well to our loyal supporters. 

Interns Emilee Coomes, Bret Jenkins, and David DeLuca are all transplants from The Big Apple. Why drop everything in New York City and move to Sonoma County to work at MacRostie? After talking with them, the real question seems to be, “Why not?” Their main duties thus far have been cleaning the tanks and crush equipment- but next week’s deluge of grapes will be something quite different.

From left to right: Emilee, Bret, and David.

Day after day in a Manhattan office at a Public Relations firm, Emilee found herself daydreaming about the wine business. She secured her intern position at MacRostie, and promptly headed west with her sister and started her work in the winery. In Emilee’s case, promptly means that she arrived at midnight on a Sunday, and started work at 7 a.m. the next day.

Bret Jenkins gives at least some of the credit for his interest in wine to his girlfriend, Heather, who writes the Wine & Dine section of The Boulevard, a Long Island publication. Bret worked in NYC as a Chiropractor before tackling the 2009 harvest at MacRostie.

And last but certainly not least, David DeLuca comes to MacRostie on the heels of earning an M.A. in Media & Arts Management. David’s interest in wine was piqued at Blanc & Rouge, a wine outpost in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood.

In preparation for the descent of a virtual mountain of grapes into the winery, the interns were taken through a tasting of MacRostie wines by winemaker Kevin Holt, including the limited production Pinot Noir Rose and the Cabernet Sauvignon. Cellar master Esteban Fuentes is surely happy to have a few extra hands on deck. The interns are ready to toss everything they thought they knew about wine into the spittoon, and get the hands-on experience only a harvest can provide. We’ll check back with them later this week, once they’ve set aside the sanitizer and gotten their hands dirty.

As we approach harvest and the rocky stretch above San Francisco starts to hum with anticipation, time seems to speed up dramatically.  The last week of August is that crucial time when these slow degrees of perfection come into play.  The grapes at this stage are starting to reflect the season’s nature, nurture and overall surroundings.  Of all the widely varying topography Sonoma County provides, Wildcat Mountain is on the demanding side of the spectrum at 700 feet in elevation.  Positioned on the border of the Sonoma Coast and Carneros regions, Wildcat spends many lengthy mornings nestling the grapes in a blanket of fog.

Emma, our assistant winemaker, came back from Wildcat Mountain last week with an armload of unevenly ripened fruit, a reflection of the bloom (flowering) and set (fertilization).  Looking back over the growing season, mid-May provided a memorable heat spike of 2+ days of 95 degree weather, prompting early bloom.  Parts of the clusters had calyptras (flower caps) that fell off early, succumbing to the warm weather.   

 We’ve green-thinned twice. The first round was a few weeks after fruit set to prevent crowding, provide even sun exposure, and trim each shoot’s contribution to two clusters. The second green-thin took place at about 90% veraison (color change in the berries) to remove any additional clusters that were lagging behind in color development. 

After our May heat spike, temperatures crept back down to the low 70’s, and our berries spent a while bathing in the cool coastal fog.  After a relatively cool August, we’re hitting temperatures in the 90’s, which will push things along, but we’re looking at a 1-2 week delay in harvest compared to last year.

While the grapes are busy getting sun, the winemakers shift their focus toward the lab.  Kevin and Emma have spent the last few days honing in on the colors of the juices.  The Chardonnays are still in a bright green state, while the Pinot Noirs are a pale-pink grapefruit color.  Of the blocks that are to be harvested first, some brown seeds are showing—great evidence of the beginning of seed maturation.  We’re interested to see what happens with the current heat spike, and if the last couple of years are any indication, we’re headed for another major one in September. 

Winemaking is part art and part science, and in both of those fields, maybe you’re not moving toward perfection.  On Wildcat Mountain and here in the winery, we’re working on absolute precision and a whole lot of heart.  And the occasional favor from Mother Nature doesn’t hurt, either.

Not a creature was stirring in the MacRostie cellar over the holidays, but that’s all changed now.  Esteban and Bernie are busily stirring all of our hundreds of barrels of chardonnay as I write this.  For anyone unfamiliar with “sur lies” ageing, chardonnay, as with most white wines that are barrel-fermented and barrel-aged, is kept on its fermentation lees until it goes to bottle.  This means that at the bottom of every 60-gallon barrel of clear white wine there’s about 2 gallons worth of yellow-brown glop, which is mostly the remains of spent yeasts.

While it may sound a bit unappealing, this is actually magical stuff.  It does so many wonderful things for the wine it’s hard to know where to begin.  It scavenges oxygen, thereby keeping the wine bright and fresh.  It also adds depth and dimension to the wine, enriching the flavor and “mouthfeel.”  By stirring it up periodically, we can enhance this effect, as well as promote the absorption of any excessive buttery flavors that may be left over from the post-fermentation conversion of malic acid into lactic acid.

It’s an arduous task, but essential to the production of great chardonnay in the classic MacRostie style.  Post-stirring, the barrels are topped up and left to settle.  They’ll be clear again in a few weeks, at which point we’ll probably go around and do it again.  I like to get 3 or 4 stirs in within the first few months after ML is complete, and then we usually leave the wines alone and start working on the blends.  Our first blind tastings of all the 2008 lots as a pre-cursor to blending begin later this week, and I’ll report on those after they’re done.

MacRostie Harvest 2008—The Roller Coaster

Some harvests are remembered for heat, some for cold, and some for rain, but this year we got all three—in rapid succession.  It’s been a wild ride, but I think we’ve come to the end of it with some pretty thrilling wines.  We started, as usual, with Pinot Noir, which is the first variety to mature, and the first to show stress in hot weather—and that’s how September began—hot.  By the 6th sugars had risen to the point where we could no longer wait in a few vineyards, including some of the Wildcat blocks, and so the picking began.  Flavors and color looked really good in these early lots, so we were prepared to keep going…but then it cooled off.

While we waited for the rest of the Pinot, we got into the Chardonnay.  In a highly unusual twist, we began with some of the older blocks at Sangiacomo—traditionally one of the last vineyards to come in.  Here the culprit was lower than average crop levels, which hastens maturity, and usually is a hallmark of high quality as well.  By the time we got back to Wildcat for the rest of the Pinot, the flavors were exceptional, and it was almost time to start on the Chardonnay there, which we began picking on the 15th.

Toward the end of September, after all the Pinot was in, the heat came back, pushing our remaining Chardonnay blocks to full maturity.  We were picking and pressing at close to full speed when the weather report, which I check at least three times a day, began to hint at the prospect of an early rain.  Once it became clear that there was at least a decent prospect for real rain on October 3, I decided to not only finish out the remaining Chardonnay, but to bring in the Merlot, Cabernet, and Syrah as well.  Again this choice was simplified by lower than normal yields on these varieties, allowing them to be fully ripe despite the early date on the calendar.

So as I listened to the rain come down last Friday night, it felt good to know that all our grapes were safely inside the winery.  As I write this, all the Pinots are in barrel, the other reds are bubbling away in tank, and the Chardonnays are at various stages, some fermenting and some complete.  Quality so far looks very good, especially on theWildcat Pinots, which are as dark and rich as always.  Too soon to tell on the other varieties, but I am more than optimistic—I think we’ve got another winner on our hands.

      -Kevin W. Holt, Winemaker

Our bulldogs don’t bite.  They don’t even bark.  What they do is allow us to get wine cleanly out of barrels with out exposing it to oxygen.  In this picture, Bernie is using one of our four “pups” to transfer the barrels I designated for the 2007 Carneros Pinot Noir into tank.  This process is quite a bit slower than using a conventional pump, but it’s much more gentle on the wine.  Compressed nitrogen flows into the top of the barrel via the smaller hose and pushes the wine out through the bottom of the metal “wand” that’s inserted into the bunghole, and from there it flows all the way to the tank.

It took Esteban and Bernie (with Emma washing the barrels after they were emptied) all day on Monday to complete this movement, and the wine ended up in two of our large tanks, because we don’t have a single tank big enough to hold the entire lot.  The next day—yesterday as I write this—while the guys repeated this process for the 2007 Wildcat Pinot Noir and 2007 Wildcat Syrah, Emma and I did a “measure move” involving the two original tanks and a third tank to make the Carneros blend totally uniform.  The Wildcat wines didn’t require this, as they’re not so large and can easily fit in a single tank.

Bottling begins on Friday with the Wildcat Chardonnay.  Next week we’ll bottle the two Wildcat reds, and then move on to finish out the week with the Carneros Pinot Noir.  As soon as bottling is complete, Emma will be out (during the week of August 11) to collect our first set of maturity samples for the upcoming harvest.  While I don’t think we’ll have grapes anywhere near ready by then, it’s always good to have baseline numbers so that we can watch things progress.  She should thereafter be getting new numbers every week, so I’ll keep you posted.

      -Kevin Holt

Veraison is the word of the day.  I stopped by the Beau Terroir vineyard on my way to the winery this morning, and saw, finally, some berries starting to turn pink.  This Pinot Noir block is usually our first to ripen, so I expect to see color here before Wildcat (which was still all green as of Saturday).  Here in California we tend to pronounce this French word as if it were spelled “verasion,” but however you say it, it means that red grapes are changing color, and white grapes are beginning to soften.  As a general rule,harvest follows about six weeks after veraison is complete.

We’re a week or two behind normal (whatever that means these days), even though our heat accumulation numbers for the summer are ahead of normal.  The likely culprit is smoke.  The sky has been clear recently, thanks to cool breezes off the Pacific and the valiant efforts of our firefighters, but for several weeks when the fires were at their worst we had a pervasive smoke pall over the entire area.  This diffused the otherwise strong sunlight and apparently slowed the vines’ photosynthetic activity down quite a bit.  If they can’t make sugar, they can’t put it in the grapes.

I continue to make preparations for harvest as I wait for the vines to get back up to speed.  At the beginning of next week we will be getting the 2007 Carneros Pinot Noir, the 2007 Wildcat Pinot Noir, and the 2007 Wildcat Syrah out of barrel to prepare them for bottling the following week.  We will also bottle the 2007 Wildcat Chardonnay, which is already up in tank.  As soon as we’re done bottling, our brave 2008 crush interns will start work, and soon after that we’ll have grapes knocking at the door—or so I hope!

      -Kevin Holt