Axis Mundi is the center of the world, and in mythology, the connection between Heaven and Earth.
While until today I wasn’t sure of the Axis Mundi definition, I am familiar with this particular wine — although it’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed it.
If anyone would name a label Axis Mundi, it would be Wes Hagen, the erudite viticulturist and winemaker behind Clos Pepe Estates. Axis is his second label.
This bright Rhone blend is 67 percent grenache and 33 percent syrah from Windmill Vineyards on Ballard Canyon Road in the brand new Ballard Canyon Road American Viticultural Area, a sub-appellation of the greater Santa Ynez Valley AVA.
Hagen keeps this blend a vivid expression of the typical grenache — full of just-ripe strawberry with the slightest hint of cherry smoked tobacco and spice.
This wine is light in color, but full of flavor. I sipped it just last night with a spicy tortilla soup and it proudly held its own. It’s definitely a food-friendly wine.
Starting Sept. 20, with the inaugural harvest at their estate vineyard, Frankie and Jake Lindley have been deep in grapes — but short on sleep.
For example, Monday: The two had another pinot noir pick, beginning at dawn. About 11 a.m., Jake Lindley left for an all-day industry event in San Diego; he napped in the backseat on the way home.
At 2 a.m. Tuesday he arrived back home — and went straight back to Lindley Vineyard for an overnight pick, scheduled under the cover of darkness because of the warm days and evenings this week.
About 10 a.m., Lindley reached the winery to de-stem that pinot, and at 2 p.m., he left for an eight-hour shift at Pali Wines, where he’s picked up some extra cellar work.
Welcome to 24 hours in the life of a winemaker during harvest.
Tuesday evening, when I phoned Frankie Lindley to arrange Wednesday’s interview, she vowed with a laugh that, starting this weekend, she would be “sleeping in until October.”
(In fact, mid-morning Wednesday she confided that the exhausted couple had overslept by one hour and were late to the vineyard).
With their estate pinot noir all picked by Tuesday morning, the Lindleys Wednesday morning turned their focus to the vineyard source for Lindley Wines’ prior two vintages of pinot noir: La Lomita Vineyard. This private, one-acre site is near Ampelos Vineyard on the eastern edge of the Sta. Rita Hills AVA. Since 2011, the Lindleys have shared that pinot noir with the owner.
Three half-ton picking bins of three tons picked from La Lomita Vineyard Wednesday
When I caught up with him mid-morning at the winery, Jake Lindley was unloading what weighed in as a record three tons of La Lomita pinot noir. “I’ve NEVER gotten more from this site!” he exclaimed.
The final Lindley Vineyard estate pick early Wednesday was the half-acre of chardonnay, and pick just under one ton (1,191 pounds) — about one-quarter ton over than Lindley’s initial estimate.
A few of the 17 bins of pinot noir soaking pre-fermentation at Lindley Wines
He’d borrowed three fermenter bins from his winemaking neighbor, Norm Yost of Flying Goat Cellars, and by Wednesday noon, all of Lindley Wines’ pinot noir was soaking away in 17 bins topped with pink and red sheets.
“When I get a spare minute, I’ll start inoculating the pinot, three bins at a time,” Lindley said. But first, there was that ton of chardonnay to press.
Coming in about two weeks: I’ll revisit fermentation, barreling and aging at both Dragonette Cellars and Lindley Wines, where the respective winemakers’ 2013 sauvignon blanc, grenache-mourvedre rosé, pinot noir and chardonnay will be under wraps.
Grenache vines produce large grape clusters like this one — which will eventually be part of Dragonette Cellars’ 2013 Happy Canyon rosé
Today: East, back to Buellton with Dragonette Cellars
Early Monday morning, Sept. 23, the remainder of Dragonette Cellars’ Vogelzang Vineyard grapes — grenache and mourvedre — were harvested and trucked to the winery.
Roughly two tons of grenache grapes were already dripping juice via a “free run” — no pressure — from the press into the tray below when I caught up winemakers Brandon Sparks-Gillis and John Dragonette about 8:30 a.m. at the Buellton facility.
“This is it from Vogelzang” for the 2013 harvest, Dragonette said. The winemakers source some of their sauvignon blanc and the grenache and mourvedre for their Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara rosé from Vogelzang Vineyard.
The two planned to press off everything — 2.5 grenache tons and 2 tons of mourvedre — that morning. The pressed juice would be drained into a tank for one night and then pumped into various neutral barrels Tuesday, Dragonette said.
Next in the series: Frankie and Jake Lindley survive a week of minimal sleep and maximum grapes as they finish their estate harvest (pinot noir and chardonnay) and get more pinot noir from two more of their other vineyard sources.
Copyright Laurie Jervis and centralcoastwinepress.com
About East to West: With this series of stories, I’ll share the 2013 harvest with two very hands-on owner/winemaker teams as they pick, ferment and begin to age several grapes picked for the 2013 vintage. With “East to West,” I want to convey how the vast Santa Ynez Valley appellation encompasses two smaller appellations: Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara to the east, and the Sta. Rita Hills to the west. The players: Dragonette Cellars, based in Buellton, and Lindley Wines of Lompoc.
Today: West, with Lindley Wines
“We need more fermenters!”
The sheer weight of the current harvest has taken many by surprise, and Jake Lindley is no exception. The pinot noir clusters are plentiful. More fruit needs more equipment.
Friday morning, Lindley, owner with his wife, Francesca “Frankie” Lindley of the vineyard and wine label that bears their name, arrived at the site just as half-ton picking pins were being filled with the first pinot noir grapes off the vines.
The couple had estimated that their first pinot noir harvest from the vineyard planted in May 2011 would yield about eight tons.
Jake and Frankie Lindley know they’ll need more fermenting bins to handle all the pinot noir
Instead, the weight from the two pinot noir blocks picked Friday morning was slightly more than four tons, almost double the Lindley’s predictions. Hence, the need for more fermenting bins.
“Everyone’s coming in heavy, but this is kind of ridiculous,” Jake Lindley told me later that morning, unloading picking bins into a crusher/destemmer at his Lompoc facility.
About 7:30 a.m., a crew from Coastal Vineyard Care Associates and seven of the Lindley’s friends were nearly finished picking the first four rows of those two blocks, or almost one ton of grapes. They’d started about 6:30 a.m. under a thick fog and light drizzle.
Lindley Vineyard, the westernmost in the Sta. Rita Hills American Viticultural Area, is 6.5 acres of vines on a 10-acre parcel, Frankie Lindley said. Most of that is planted to pinot noir, with clones 115, 667 and Pommard 91. The site’s remaining half acre contains chardonnay, Wente clone 2.
The Lindleys estimate they’ll harvest 1.23 tons of chardonnay from the half acre, Frankie Lindley said.
For their prior three vintages, the couple has sourced chardonnay from Sierra Madre Vineyard in the Santa Maria Valley and some pinot noir from the one-acre La Lomita, located near Ampelos Vineyard at the east end of the Sta. Rita Hills.
Dark and healthy pinot noir picked Sept. 20 at Lindley
Then came Friday: The inaugural pick at Lindley Vineyard, and the always-vivacious Frankie Lindley, a native of Worcestershire, England, was nearly beside herself with excitement. She busied herself showing friends visiting from L.A. how to clip clusters and helped sort the fruit being dumped into picking bins loaded on a trailer.
“I’m completely filthy but I’ve never been happier!”
She’d arrived well before sunrise and walked the rows, admiring the grapes, planning the details of picking Block B and C, which are planted to clones 115 and Pommard. The time was ripe, so to speak, with the pinot noir “just what we want — low alcohol, and high acid.” The brix was 24.5 and the pH 3.28 — “perfect.”
Lindley knelt to pick clusters hanging below the vines’ fruiting wire, which, on Newton’s recommendation, was trained just 18 inches above the ground. Being closer to the ground affords the vines both protection from the brisk winds that rake the hillside vineyard and a dose of heat that naturally radiates from the ground.
Lindley relayed that Coastal Vineyard Care’s Jeff Newton told her that the the vineyard’s pinot noir “was some of the best he’s ever seen — and he sees a lot of pinot noir!!”
Jake Lindley pops some good bubbles to celebrate Lindley Vineyard’s inaugural pick
When the first two tons of pinot noir were in bins on trucks ready for the winery, Jake Lindley popped a bottle of Champagne to celebrate the vineyard, the grapes and friends.
Two days and lots of crushing later, the couple shared some of the factors they consider before deciding when to pick.
“Our goal is the finished wine — we want it to have low alcohol and high acidity, but be ripe enough to exhibit good phenolics (a grape’s natural compounds). It’s a delicate balance … picking too early might sacrifice complexity,” Frankie Lindley told me.
“Then, it also comes down to ‘how does it taste? How does it look’? The process is all very hands on .. we stay on top of the fruit and tasted it two times a week.”
Next in the series: Dragonette Cellars harvests the rest of its grenache and mourvedre from Vogelzang Vineyard in Happy Canyon.
I met Ryan Roark about three years ago at a party hosted by mutual friends. We struck up a conversation about wine, and I learned that Roark, despite his youthful appearance, already had several vintages under his belt, both locally and in New Zealand.
He is a winemaker who has learned from the ground up: Having worked for other small producers, Roark has jumped head first into every step required of good winemaking, including time and experience in vineyards and the hard work of cellars.
After we met, a couple of years passed, but early this year at the Solvang Garagiste event I found Roark pouring three of his latest vintages: Chenin blanc, cabernet franc and a grenache syrah blend. Friends and I compared notes after the event, and all of us agreed that Roark’s wines were stand outs in the crowd.
Fast forward to this week, when two friends and I grabbed salads at the Los Olivos Cafe and Wine Merchant. We ordered a bottle of Roark’s 2012 Chenin Blanc, which paired perfectly with our various salads.
The wine, released in March of this year, is young but not overly so, with a firm finish and lots of honeysuckle and mouth-puckering fresh citrus along the palate.
Tonight I paired it with mahi mahi steamed with lemon, which heightened the crisp backbone of the wine and drew out its tartness. Try it by itself or with hard cheeses, or a moderately spiced grilled fish or sushi.
Contact Ryan at ryanellisroark@gmail.com for by-appointment tastings.
Website: www.roarkwineco.com and Twitter @roarkwineco. Phone: (805) 736.8000.
Case production (Chenin Blanc and Ryan’s two current red wines) is approximately 1,000. The release date for the 2012 Chenin Blanc was March 2013. Retail: $18 (at Los Olivos Cafe and Wine Merchant).
About East to West: With a series of stories, I’ll share harvest with members of two very hands-on owner/winemaker teams as they pick, ferment and begin to age several grapes picked for the 2013 vintage. With “East to West,” I want to convey how the vast Santa Ynez Valley appellation encompasses two smaller AVAs: Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara to the east, and the Sta. Rita Hills to the west. At the east end, various Bordeaux grapes thrive in the heat; on the west end, it’s all about pinot noir and chardonnay, which flourish in the fog. The players: Dragonette Cellars, based in Buellton, and featuring Lindley Wines of Lompoc. East to West. And so it begins …
At 6:45 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 6, I parked my car alongside Happy Canyon Road, the southern border of Vogelzang Vineyard, to track down the Dragonette brothers and a harvest crew.
John Dragonette has told me the brothers’ plan for today is to have picking crews from Coastal Vineyard Care Associates, the management team at Vogelzang and many of the county’s other top sites, clip several tons from the remaining vine rows of sauvignon blanc that Dragonette Cellars sources from Vogelzang.
Brandon Sparks-Gillis, the third winemaker/owner in the trio of men who, with their wives, own Dragonette, is in New York on a marketing trip. Otherwise, he’d been out here, as well, as the three couples behind Team Dragonette take turns to help pick, sort and transport grapes, run the press, work in the cellar throughout the season, bottle wine, staff the Los Olivos tasting room and market the wine across the country.
John Dragonette says that the Vogelzang sauv blanc grapes have been sitting at 22-plus brix for about a week and partner Ben Merz of Coastal Vineyard Care has labor available. It’s a beautiful late-summer morning, and the temperatures are expected to rise into the mid-90s by mid-morning.
At Vogelzang, 26 of the 77 acres are planted to sauvignon blanc, Merz said. Most neighboring vineyards in this tiny AVA also grow the Bordeaux grape. “Sauvignon blanc has been hitting home runs in Happy Canyon since day one,” Merz added.
Freshly picked sauvignon blanc from Vogelzang Vineyard
I find Steve and John Dragonette balanced on the edge of a trailer loaded with three half-ton picking bins as a tractor pulling it crawls down rows. Crews dump buckets of grapes into the bins, and the brothers hand sort clusters as they answer my questions. The sauvignon blanc clones are 1 and Musque, and the fruit is clean and ripe.
John Dragonette is very happy with the quality: “The pH and brix are all in line this year.”
Since Dragonette buys all of its sauv blanc by the acre, and “cluster weights are up this year,” we’re seeing a little extra weight (volume) this year … it’s higher than the expected yield,” he said.
Eno, a member of the Sparks-Gillis family, behind a glass of just-pressed sauvignon blanc
Naturally, this is good news — as long as enough bins, tanks and barrels are also available to hold the additional weight. Since everything picked this morning ideally should be pressed today, the brothers know by 9 a.m. that a very long day awaits them back at the winery in Buellton.
Dragonette also sources the grenache and mourvedre for one of its rosés from Vogelzang. In terms of ripening, “the grenache is moving along nicely — it’s probably anywhere from 10 days to two weeks” from being ready, John Dragonette noted. Mourvedre is always one of the last grapes to be harvested; it needs extra weeks of sustained warmth.
This year, Mother Nature cranked up the thermostat early, and rainfall was extra scarce. Spring came early and July packed a heat spell. Then there was the annual Labor Day weekend heat spike, and the days since have remained warmer than average.
During a typical year, the mood come harvest is “hurry up and wait.” One day, it’s hot, and then it’s not. Days stretch into weeks, and still, most fruit needs more “hang time” on vines.
But this year, “hurry up and wait” morphed into “hurry up and hurry — HURRY!,” as right on the heels of sauvignon blanc (typically the most early to ripen) came the chardonnay and pinot noir grown in the Santa Maria Valley. Vineyard managers fretted they’d run short of enough hands to pick, as various single clones and multiple grape varietals seemed to be ripening at once.
“There’s just been no let-up in the heat this year,” Dragonette said. “It’s just been hot, hot, hot.”
Merz, who by late August spends most of his waking hours in the various vineyards he oversees for Coastal Vineyard Care Associates, agrees. This year will have “a very compressed” harvest, with the majority of Santa Barbara County’s grapes ripening about three weeks sooner than did last year’s, he said.
Coming soon in East to West: Jake and Francesca Lindley of Lindley Wines make the inaugural pick at their Sweeney Canyon Road vineyard on the western edge of the Sta. Rita Hills, where they grow chardonnay and pinot noir.
Copyright Laurie Jervis and Central Coast Wine Press
I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a fan of chardonnay. I know it’s known as America’s Sweetheart Grape, but it’s never been my favorite. That said: There are a handful of chardonnays I will drink, and this beauty from Kessler-Haak in the Sta. Rita Hills is one of them.
This chardonnay meets my standards of no- or very-minimal oak with lots of the essence of Meyer lemon and a startlingly long finish for a chardonnay.
In 2005, Dan Kessler and Ellen Kessler-Haak planted seven pinot noir clones on 27 acres of rolling hillsides, but reserved a 2.5-acre east-facing hillside for three chardonnay clones, which were planted on low-vigor rootstock so the per-acre tonnage would remain on the lower side.
Besides being two of the nicest, most hospitable people in this industry, Dan and Ellen produce quality wines, among them several clonal selections of pinot noir, syrah and a dry riesling. By day, Dan is assistant winemaker at Lafond Winery & Vineyards, across the river.
This wine is produced from clones 95 and 76. Aged in 35 percent new French oak. Production: 150 cases. Retail: $29. No tasting room; www.kesslerhaakwine.com
Alta Maria Vineyards’ 2010 Pinot Noir, Santa Maria Valley
This rich, ruby-colored pinot noir is full of dark cherry and has perfect balance and a long finish. I enjoyed it alone but this beauty would pair with variety of meats ranging from steak to grilled salmon and anything in between.
The pinot is a blend of clones 777, 2A, Pommard, 115 and Martini sourced from premium vineyards in the Santa Maria Valley. It was aged in 33 percent new French oak for 17 months.
This wine has earned several top scores since its release, including being named one of the Top 50 Pinot Noirs in “America’s Best Restaurants,” in the April 2013 Wine & Spirits Magazine.
Winemakers James Ontiveros and Paul Wilkins, friends since their days at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, team to produce Alta Maria, and their separate labels are Native 9 and Autonom, respectively. All three are available for tasting and purchase at the tasting room, open daily in Los Olivos.
Back in the day when I still worked in daily print media (newspapers: Remember those?), the term we editors used to “advance” stories we had in the works for, say, a Sunday edition was “teaser.”
As in: “Let’s write a ‘teaser’ to tell readers about the coming series on blah blah blah … ”
Consider this my “teaser” to tell ya’ll, my gentle readers, about my upcoming series on this, my blog.
It’s tentatively entitled “East to West: A Tale of Two Harvests in the Santa Ynez Valley.”
I’ve chosen two winemakers/wineries to follow through the current harvest; one’s at the far west end of the greater Santa Ynez Valley, in the Sta. Rita Hills, and the other is in Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara, at the valley’s east end.
I’ll be posting text, photographs and (fingers crossed!) video of both producers’ efforts at harvesting, pressing, fermenting and putting to tank and barrel five grape varietals: pinot noir and chardonnay, and sauvignon blanc, mourvedre and grenache.
Because harvest is underway in the warmer end of the valley, I’ve already started hanging with the “eastern” folks as they pick their estate sauvignon blanc. The “west-end” folks are several weeks’ out, still.
