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The Napa Register profiles Somerston Wine Co
Judging by the agricultural, enological and commercial investment made in the Napa Valley, Somerston Wine Company is intent on becoming a serious player in the local wine game.
Supporting three distinct, relatively new wine brands are 200 acres of vines on two large spreads in eastern Napa County and an upscale tasting room and soon-to-open market on Yountville’s main street.
While Somerston hasn’t had much public presence until this summer, a number of its employees have been preparing the brands’ launch for several years.
The project actually started when international land developer Allan Chapman purchased the 692-acre Priest Ranch in Soda Valley in 2004, so named for a natural soda spring that continues to bubble up on the property. Two years later, the acquisition of grower Dan Lynch’s Lynch Valley Vineyards in Elder Valley brought Chapman’s holdings up to 1,628 acres.
Named for settler Joshua James Priest, who came to California in 1847 to seek his fortune in the gold mines, the initial purchase had been in Priest family hands for more than a century. Vines were first planted there in 1970.
Located off Highway 128 northeast of Lake Hennessey, the Somerston ranch is not only home to 200 acres of vines, 1,500 head of Dorper sheep and a Peruvian sheepherder, it features a state-of-the-art “green” winery built out of a renovated 12,000 square-foot barn, a professional kitchen, an insectarium and 10 acres dedicated to gardens where fruit and olive trees, vegetables and herbs are grown as part of the company’s retail marketing effort yet to come.
Strewn in remote pockets of the ranch are pieces of blue glass, remnants of an earlier time when the natural soda springs that well up in secluded vales were tapped, bottle and sold as healing waters in town. Plans are underway to bottle the proprietary mineral waters once again, and have them available for purchase at both the winery and the Yountville tasting room.
The remarkable springs and new winery are but two of the stops one makes on a tour of the sprawling ranch, part of which once belonged to California pioneer Joseph B. Chiles, namesake of the neighboring Chiles Valley grapegrowing appellation.
Somerston general manager/winemaker Craig Becker took a group of journalists on a tour of the ranch a few weeks ago, showing off the magnificent expanse of vines grown, for the most part, on rolling hillsides that stretch up to more than 2,400 feet, the highest elevation for zinfandel vines grown in Napa County, Becker maintains. Vines share the stunning vistas with wildlife that includes mountain lions, bears and coyotes, he adds.
While there are major plantings of sauvignon blanc, cabernet sauvignon, zinfandel and petite sirah, the Somerston ranch vineyards also include merlot, cabernet franc, petit verdot, malbec, syrah, grenache, tempranillo, primitivo, viognier, grenache blanc, semillon, barbera, black Hamburg (Frankenthaler) for dessert wine and five Portuguese varieties for a port-style wine.
The tour included a walk through the winery that was being readied to accept its first crush this fall. Designed to be functional and energy efficient, Becker said the goal is to make it carbon-neutral within a few years. Sustainable operations include solar power, carbon-dioxide heat pumps, non-glycol-based refrigerants and a program for recycling water for use in the vineyard. It features a 1,000 square-foot tasting room with an outdoor patio four times that size, where, like its counterpart in Yountville, food and wine pairings will be offered to visitors. All of it is made from farm products grown on the property. It has a kitchen as well for the preparation of food for both tastings and the Yountville market.
The winery’s 40 fermentation tanks are more than adequate to accommodate the current production estimate of 15,000 cases for all three brands. “We could do up to 25,000 cases here,” Becker said, “and we’ll be able to do custom crush here, too.”
Becker said the firm’s philosophy of sustainable winegrowing follows through in the cellar, where “non-intervention” is the byword in guiding the unfiltered wines through fermentation, aging and bottling to the consumer.
Not all of the grapes grown by Somerston are used in Somerston brand wines. Some of the respected local winemakers purchasing Somerston fruit include Heidi Barrett, Dave Phinney and David Ramey, with cellars like Biale, Caymus, Duckhorn, Pahlmeyer and Viader also making good use of its hillside harvest.
‘Window on the world’
“We wanted to offer visitors a window on the world of Somerston by having a place they could easily visit and have an opportunity to not only taste our wines but learn what we’re all about,” sales and marketing director David Zurowski says of the company’s decision to open an impressive tasting room at 6490 Washington St. in Yountville.
“It’s an alternative to the usual winery tasting room, yet not too far removed from the property (located eight miles east of Rutherford),” he continues in explaining the decision to have a high profile within spitting distance of the valley’s main highway.
Although consumers can taste Somerston wines in an urban setting, Zurowski and the tasting room staff encourages visitors to get a first-hand look at the two ranches split by Sage Canyon Road. To that end, Somerston is offering a half-day guided tour and tasting at the Soda/Elder Valley property that includes a ridgeline vineyard tour. Those interested in the tour have to make a reservation at least 24 hours in advance. Tours accommodate groups up to 15, with five visitors riding in each of the ranch’s all-terrain-vehicles. The tour and tasting cost $50 per person.
The Yountville facility offers food pairings along with tastings of Somerston wines in a private room off the main tasting bar. Constructed with black walnut and redwood, the attractive space includes an art gallery rotating the works of local contemporary artists.
Scheduled to open later this year, a gourmet grocery will showcase organic produce, eggs, honey, olive oil and produce from the ranch, as well as other foods prepared in the ranch kitchen. Only one of three in the valley, a rooftop patio above the grocery is open for seating and private gatherings, along with a barbecue patio to the rear of the facility.
Education is an important part of the tasting experience, Zurowski said. “We want to broaden the perspective of everyone who drops by. We’ll have everything from a boot camp to an epicurean tasting that features six courses paired with wine. We have an educational program at 11 every day that, in addition to tasting, addresses viticulture and winemaking.”
Tastings at Somerston Wine Company can be guided by a visitor’s interest as well. In addition to learning something, visitors can taste three wines for $10, five or six wines for $20.
Every Thursday night, Somerston features live music on the back patio and something from the grill, such as lamb sliders, featuring lamb from the ranch. The musical evenings are open to the public; there is no cover charge.
For information on all Somerston offerings and events, call 944-8200.
Sep 2, 2010 at 6:38 AM
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Be the first to comment on this postLight Whites and Rose Arise
I have seen it with my very eyes people, wine drinkers asking for light dry white wine and crisp rose with vigor and confidence. The cultural cross over we are in the midst of is a natural progression. The wine drinkers of America have moved from only special occasion wine drinking to daily pleasure sipping, and as a result there has been a move away from larger bodied flabby wines towards single vineyard refinement and acidity. We are awash in butter recovery treatments on a day to day basis, and the currently recommended cure is to administer six to twelve ounces of crisp clean well balanced wine orally twice a day and maybe a crumble of good goat cheese and some roasted shelled pistachios. Tell me that ain’t the cure for the summer wine blues. Want to know why your big reds and rich whites don’t taste as good in the summer as they do in the cooler months. Your brain and palate are trying to tell you something, “I am dehydrated and thirsty and want refreshment”. Alcohol will dehydrate you. Get your guests a light social beverage with lively apps, and the night will be a hit, serve full throttle high extraction all night and you get the chair throwing Springer episode. As my wife and I have entertained over the years, we have turned cooking hour before dinner into a light crisp white and rose drinking hour. It has encouraged people to arrive early and help cook, arrive late and you might miss out on the Billecart Brut Salmon Rose and Tsar Nicolai California Select Osetra Caviar, or the Priest Ranch 2009 Estate Sauvignon Blanc and Tomales Bay Miyagi Oysters. Think light whites and roses for the best palate cleansing, all encompassing appetizer complementing, heat from the chili poppers begging to be quenched beverage. Everybody on the planet where, A it gets wicked hot, and B grapes grow nearby, produces a light crisp white and rose to beat the heat. It is almost universal.
One of my favorite phrases in the wine world is the technique described as saignee, a French phrase meaning to bleed. As we strive for higher extraction, read higher sugar less water, we achieve an imbalance in the fermenting grape must which will achieve an undesirable level of alcohol in the finished wine. If you open the valves at the bottom of the fermentation tanks about twelve hours after being loaded with fresh grapes, and take the resulting pink and rose colored liquid into another vessel and allow to ferment dry, you then replace the equal volume of water to pink run off and you have effectively reduced the alcohol level by dilution without sacrificing quality. Some jokingly refer to this as, “Post harvest irrigation”, or “The Jesus share”, as you have just turned water into wine. You have improved the quality of two wines at the same time, lowering the alcohol to a more pleasant level in one, and created a light crisp rose in the other, the mythical win-win. More and more wineries have began to create purposeful rose instead of a byproduct concept, which has in turn elevated the quality, which in turn brings more people into enjoying them, which in turn encourages more wineries to produce them. There is an old tale that suggests rose was the invention of Spanish men. They created it so as to claim to still be drinking a manly red wine in the heat of summer, rather than a girly white. So as we say here in the valley, “Sometimes you have to be man enough to drink pink.”
You, the wine drinker, are an integral part in the availability of better and better quality wine. If you refuse to drink bad wine, they will no longer produce them in vast quantities. And people if you are producing roses with over 14 percent alcohol shame on you that is not what rose is meant for. I would like to drink a whole bottle to my head without the face down in the pool effect. For years California Sauvignon Blanc was thought of as a light white wine, but as the years have gone by it has emerged as a medium bodied wine, but always showed crisper by comparison to the butter bombs of the past, and the price has increased with the body of the wine. A call to arms for rose and light white drinkers, we don’t need ripe wine at 14+ percent alcohol in our spring summer whites, give us flavor with 12 ½ to 13 percent and refresh me. I am more likely to drink two to three bottles of crisp clean wine and sip on one richer bigger wine. Okay that last one was total vapor. I am just as likely to open multiple bottles of whatever I have on hand as my thirst dictates. But as the summer rages on there are some great values to be had in the light crisp white and rose realm that are ready to please.
Calistoga Pottery
I was reading a while back that the Walton family of Walmart fame split the family fortune into four or five pieces making them five out of the top ten wealthiest people in America. On the one hand, bravo for your success, that is after all what America is all about, the freedom to succeed. I challenge anyone to shop there after viewing the documentary, Walmart, The High Price of Low Cost. I think I caught it on the Independent Film Channel. Success for a better product and approach is one thing, but the systematic disassembly of small community based business that offer similar products is an atrocious practice. Where has the morality in profitability gone, or was it ever there? Has our information age started to shine the light into some dark business practices? I suppose it depends on who owns the news in your community. I am all for saving a buck. But, is the dollar you might save at the register worth the cost to our collective consciousness as a neighborhood? What got me thinking about all of this was a chance meeting with two of the most charming people I have had the pleasure to spend a bit of time with in quite some time. As we open the new tasting room for Somerston Wine Co. here in Yountville, we have come across the need for certain items to complete a guest experience driven by the desire to provide a community based experience. We could have saved more than a few bucks by getting cheap, non-descript, overseas, factory-made garbage that has more of its life spent in landfills than as a useful esthetically pleasing service piece. But hey at that price it is easier to buy another, and another, rather than discover and invest in a better product. You know reading back over that it rings of one word, personality. Maybe I should focus less on price and more on personality. There is a connectivity between the forces that created the clay deposit that provided the raw material, and a couples’ journey into artistry and craftsmanship. The oldest artifacts we find today from civilizations first wobbly steps are invariably pottery chards. It was the first material we shaped to suit our needs for transporting food and water. To continue its art form is to continue its parallel evolution along side of our own. Jeff and Sally Manfredi, are the creators and guides through your discovery of Calistoga Pottery. At Somerston we have partnered with their talents to provide service pieces contributing to your relaxation while you taste and connection to your environment through local cheese and charcuterie served atop Manfredi creations. There is a moment of pleasure every time I pick up my hand made, handsomely glazed coffee cup from Jeff and Sally, and a smile knowing that there is truly no other cup just like this one. Sure there might some similar, but each with a slight variation in color, shape, height, and width. I feel the connection to them while looking at the grip lines of the small vases or the thumb marks on the handle from where it was smoothed onto the cup, or the brush strokes of glaze and paint inspired by the shapes. Their studio is small yet over flowing with the results of their freedom with a shapeless muse. No two items truly alike, and bravo to that achievement. Uniformity is the main spring of industrial efficiency and it is judged on the ability to eliminate variation. I say be brave and say no to uniformity, say yes to the non linear, non similar, and slightly misshaped. If we start to realize the power of our dollars at the register, we start to reconnect with the community, and start to invest in that which makes each of our neighborhoods a unique collection of individuals and small businesses. Explore and shop locally as much as your life allows, and make time to meet Jeff and Sally Manfredi at their studio in Calistoga, where their souls have left footprints in the sand of our community for over thirty years.
Affordable Pleasure
You know I was thinking about it the other day, and I could not come up with a great way to explain the fascination with wine to a non-wine drinker. The Italians used to describe it as a bottle of captured sunshine. The French consider it the encapsulation of all historical echoes from a given plot of land, or terroir. The Germans take stoic pride in achieving technical excellence in the most unlikely and harshest of conditions. The Americans revere it as the second highest cash crop as a return on your agricultural investment. In some countries wine is the only way of purifying the water enough for daily consumption. As more and more of the world discovers the pleasures of drinking wine, the more the greatness of finite locations for perfection become sought after at higher and higher prices for entry. And yet as each viticultural nation strives for greatness, it is the simplicity of the daily drinkable wines that dominate the voluminous requirements of a thirsty population. It is that quality of versatility that creates the very foundation of wines universal appeal. There is literally a style and price for every wine drinker on the planet. The joy of becoming, or continuing to be, a wine drinker is finding the style and price that fits your personality. Then once you discover it, the aspect of conviviality by sharing your discoveries with fellow thirst-ophiles is a life-long arena of pleasure and debate. If my generation can claim any effect on the thousands year old industry of viticulture, it is the de-snobifying of wine drinking. We have shook the foundations of a historical strangle hold that the world’s great wines were produced in only a few elite locations allowing them to charge what the market would bare. We have strived to find new locals for excellence providing competitive pricing, and the result has been a veritable flood of great wines at more affordable levels. Does that mean the great wines of the world are even better by comparison, or has their greatness been diminished by the achievements of the new comers? Have all of the locations capable of greatness been discovered, cultivated, harvested, fermented, aged, and consumed, or is there yet excellence waiting for discovery? The fascination with the beverage can be approached historically, it is always present around the tables of diplomacy, scientifically, the chemistry of fermentation and viticulture still possesses unpredictability, passionately, many a talented poet has tried to explain the effects of a good glass of wine, socially, open a good bottle of wine and see how fast you can make friends, gastronomically, does the food improve the wine or does the wine improve the food. The only way to truly answer any of these queries is to get out there and keep planting, experimenting, and tasting. Drink well and stay fascinated my friends.
Global Thirst
Are Diversity and Individuality dirty words to the modern wine drinker ? In a rush to sell more and more wine to a global thirst are we trading our inherent estate qualities for a more homogenous beverage that hits certain oak to alcohol to extraction methods so that Pinot Noir at 15+% alcohol is no longer an anomaly but a standard for success? The greater the success of our new generation of appellation specific clones and root stock tweaks partnered with high extraction quests, have left exhausted vineyards and exhausted palates and exhausted pocket books. But that can be a result of our own progress as a wine drinking population. As more and more fun lovers enter the higher tiers of wine drinking their thirst for consistency off the shelf can drive a winery to strive for annual blending to erase any vintage personality in favor of crowd pleasing uniformity. Don’t get me wrong, as I have often said these are merely observations from a wine drinker, who has often been quoted loudly as saying as long as you are drinking wine period at any level you will contribute to a higher quality product being available to a higher number of people. The wine business is historical in its ability to satisfy the more the merrier enthusiasm. What I am referencing is the desire for good ratings as a marketing strategy, rather than a result of a vineyards voice being brave enough to declare individuality. We, as an industry, have harvested grapes at higher and higher sugars and lower acidities in favor of instant drinkability rather than the well cellared harmonious expression of patience and perfumed beauty. The concern started to occur to me as a result of Europe and the Californication of some classic wines and wine regions. It is fine if the New World wineries have the ripeness category sewn up providing a diverse choice in wine drinking. What got to me was that historical wine regions began altering their classic age worthy styles in favor of ripeness, extraction, and instant gratification. In years past an aged wine was decanted to separate the clear wine from the sediments, now we decant wines in their youth to infuse a breath of oxygen and accelerate the process to reach a balanced wine. Aerators have become the newest in gadgets of impatience. The encouraging aspect of this trend is that as more people enjoy wine they are taking an active role in their enjoyment. Rather than listen to a snob tell them what to buy, how long to cellar it, and when and how it should be consumed, they are decanting and aerating till the wines youthful hard edges soften and the aromas awaken, hours instead of years. I am very much in favor of people getting involved in their own pleasure, what I am not a fan of is wineries removing facets of the wine for early pleasure robbing me of the option for cellaring. It has been encouraging of late to see more and more wineries releasing a series of wines that are single vineyard expressions of unique attributes along side of a cellar blend for earlier enjoyment. Now I get to have my cake and eat it too. I do not want my Tempranillo from Spain to taste like Brunello from Tuscany or Cabernet from California, and I do not want the tannins removed from my wine for me, let me decide to age or decant. We are always going to be driven by a give the people what they want approach, in the wine industry, yes let us not forget it is a global industry, but we should still be dynamic and confident enough to allow the voice of diversity and individuality to emerge. Thus endith the rant. Drink well my friends.
Mustard grass
One of the great joys of living in wine country is the perfection of temperate weather almost year round. But as my father used to say “Into each life some rain must fall”. And yet in the midst of the down pours, a little brightness blooms to ease our winter dormancy. The yellow tipped weeds that grow in abundance between the grape vines have a nutrient aspect as well as a historical aspect to their arrival every spring. The Franciscan Friars starting in the seventeenth century were directed to establish missions in California up the coast of Spain’s new colony. The first was established on the Baja peninsula and back then the only mode of transportation was horseback, so each mission was established a full days ride by horse apart from each other, that way you could traverse the length of California and at the end of each day you came to another mission to rest and then proceed the next day on your way. The Friar’s brought with them several viable crops they hoped to establish around each mission to help fund their expansion. Mission Olive trees were planted and remain some of the oldest still in production in California. They were used primarily for oil production as well as edible table olives. Mission figs, which still give us an early summer harvest as well as a Fall harvest from the same trees. The Mission grape, which made non descript light quaffable reds, but also made a decent brandy to fortify the wine with, thus preserving it like port, thus it transported to other churches well, thus they made income as well as established a wine culture in California. Most of California’s great viticulture appellations are juxtaposed near the original Spanish missions. They also brought a yellow tipped weed that they would spread along the trails, so every spring there would be a distinctive yellow path to follow north or south to the next mission, the infamous El Camino Real. Later on as we developed soil sciences and a better understanding of the grapevines needs for success, we learned of the mustard grasses nitrogen contribution back into the soil. Most believe that contribution to be of such minor impact that mustard grass is mostly planted for erosion control and to absorb excessive ground water. There is an old farm reference about mustard grass still in use today. The image of death, wielding the large sickle to reap the dead, is also a reference to the last job you are given as you age into retirement on the farm. Since everyone works on a farm, in retirement you were handed the sickle and told to maintain the weeds around the house and barn. So when you saw the sickle coming, you knew death was coming as well. One was allowed to officially retire on the farm the year you could no longer “Cut the Mustard”, that is where the phrase originates. Today it is celebrated as a visual relief from the dull grey wet cold season that closes out our grape harvest and ends as the frost dissipates into the welcome warm weather of May.
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