Wine Tasting, Vineyards, in France

L'Ange Vin (Jasnières, Loire)

New : Podcast on Wineterroirs : Listen to the fermentation in a cask...
Microson, the Audio branch of Wineterroirs, will occasionally offer living sounds to illustrate the stories. The soundtracks are hosted on Gcast, a subsidiary of the San Francisco-based-company Garageband.com Jean Pierre Robinot in front of his cellars

Chahaignes (Jasnières, Loire Valley).
We met Jean Pierre Robinot a year or so ago. Meeting him at tastings made us always energetic : Not only are his (natural) wines outstanding, but he shares his passion in the most unpretentious way. He makes non-filtered, long-elevage Chenin Blanc, Pineau d'Aunis and Gamay wines on Jasnières or Coteaux du Loir Appellation, or labelled as "Vin de Table" (when the agreement panel considers the wine as too atypical). His natural wines, made out of his 5,5-hectare vineyard or out of purchased grapes, are exported as far as in Japan.
Before beginning the winery in 2002, he had a wine bar in Paris : L'Ange vin ("Angel Wine" but writen in one word, Angevin also means "from Anjou" ) and was also the co-founder of Le rouge et le Blanc, the very independant wine (quarterly) magazine.
I remember that he told me about his first emotion at 17  when he found a bottle of Jasnières 1947 in the cellar of a friend's father. But the real revalation came when at the age of 23-24, in the 70's, he could buy in an auction several bottles of Pichon Longueville 1964. That was it, from then on, he wanted to learn everything about wine...

In the lab corner of the old house which he converted into a winery

Jean Pierre Robinot began to look for vineyards near the village of Chahaignes (his home town) in 1999-2000, in a terroir which is very close to the Jasnières Appellation and shares the same qualities while being much more affordable. In a matter of years he bought several plots, 10 hectares altogether, on unplanted land in the Coteaux du Loir Appellation and gradually planted young vines. He then rented an old house which he converted into a chai. His vineyard is organicly farmed, and the young vines need a little more years to reach maturity than non-organic ones would. When we entered the house, he put aside a bunch of wicker that he will use (with nettle) for a decoction. The first room, which was the main room in this old house, is quite messy. Jean Pierre Robinot grabs glasses and shows us several cellars, some in the hill on the back of the house, some in the other location (picture on top) 50 meters away.

This cellar has its own carved-into-the-hill fireplace...

I don't know how many cellars he walked us to, maybe 4, or 5 ? but each was a long, cold and humid tunnel with casks or bottles. The casks always look old because the high moisture has altered the colour of the wood, developping mould on their surface, but he says they are 3-4 years old on average. He says that thanks to the high humidity, the casks "consume" less wine : in a dry atmosphere, the wood absorbs much more wine. The cellars here often have their own fireplace, like on the picture above. He says it is a mystery how the people back then could dig the exhaust duct from the top of the hill with the right orientation and connect it...
Jean Pierre Robinot is a runner, a marathonian. He has always runned, and he says wine was always a good companion in sport. Speaking of endurance, he got some : when he received us at 6 or 7 pm, he was just back from a 2000 km trip to Lyons and elsewhere (for his wines) in a non air-conditioned car (France is hot these days) but he looked full of energy and stamina...

Rousseau Frères (Noble Joué, Loire)

Esvres. The church and its stone-roofed tower

Esvres, Noble Joué (Loire Valley)
Time for a glass of rosé wine...
While the Noble Joué Appellation is very recent (2001), this wine has a long history and was known to be a favorite of Louis XI (1423-1483), the only french king who made Tours (Plessis les Tours) his residence. There are also written documents dating from the 9th century about this rosé blend. This rosé wine was called then "Noble de Joué" : Noble because it was a blend of 3 Pinots, and Joué because the nearby village of Joué les Tours was its historical birthplace. Also very popular in the 19th century, it suffered from the Phylloxera (it was not replanted) and from the Tours suburban sprawl. This is the smallest french Appellation in terms of surface (about 35 hectares) after the Coulée de Serrant monopole (also in the Loire).
We discovered this dry-but-rich pink wine at the Loire Wines Fair in Angers, when we tasted it at the stand of the Rousseau Frères winery, and it seemed to us that it was an unfairly little-known wine, much more than a generic rosé. Few writers refer to it, but I found this article by writer Rita Erlich (Word).

Pinot Meunier vines. See the clay-silex soil underneath.

The father of Bernard and Michel Rousseau was the first to replant in the area with the help of oenologist Jacques Puisais in the mid 1970's. Now since 2001, the Appellation is officially recognized (not too late for such and old traceable wine...) and it sits on a very small number of wineries : 6 altogether. Of the 35 hectares of the total Appellation surface, the Rousseau Frères winery owns 15 hectares, plus 4 hectares on non-Appellation land.
What is exactly the Noble Joué wine ? it is a rosé (pink) wine, we should even say "vin gris", as it is made through direct pressing with more or less time to get the colour. The 3 varieties are harvested (Pinot Gris being the earliest) and vinified separately, then blended, with a typical repartition of 55% Pinot Meunier, 35% Pinot Gris and 10% Pinot Noir.
The vineyard here is worked with sustainable farming principles (lutte raisonnée), with priority for a non-chemical approach, keeping grass
between the rows and lots of work in the vineyard to get the appropriate yields and quality of grapes, like thinning of the leaves.
After the press comes the stage in fiberglass-vats for decantation, then the stainless-steel vats for fermentation. Indigenous yeasts only, that they prepare with a "pied de cuvée", meaning that they harvest 150 liter 10 days earlier to inoculate the first vat (the other vats follow suit by chain-reaction, the air in the vathouse being full of yeasts). This is a slow fermentation, because it is natural (indigenous yeasts), and only 20% of the wine gets its malolactic fermentation. Very little SO2 added because this is a reduction milieu with stirring of the lees. The only SO2 added is before the filtration and at bottling. Filtration is made through CBL3 and "pauvre en germe" (0,65 microns) filtration. So, very little SO2 on the whole, and no anti-fermentation product like Sorbat.

Krug (Champagne)

Frederic Ballario, sommelier at Krug

Reims, Champagne
Krug enjoys a unique position among the top Champagne houses. It is not only considered one of the 3 bests (with Salon and Bollinger), but it is known to be somehow unique in the way it makes its wine, with a mostly very traditional process, and a skillful blending of dozens of millesimes/vineyards for each wine.
Its name is less flashy than other well-known brands as it does not advertise, but with 90% of its production being exported, it holds a solid position and a cult status among the Champagne lovers of the world. The steady success and high prices of the top-tier Champagnes have some analysts think that elaborate and subtile marketing strategy are at work behind the scene, like in this article by Forbes, but at Krug, immutable quality and costly tradition seem to be the real drive behind its mythic status.
Krug is not open for visits, but thanks to Frederic Ballario, whom I met in a Loire wine gathering and who works at Krug, B. and I could live the rare experience (and share it) of visiting the winery and learning to know the wines.
Johan Joseph Krug, the founder, arrived alone in Reims from Germany somewhere between 1815 and 1820. He began to work as an accountant at Jacquesson Champagne in 1834 and in about 10 years, became the second in charge of the Champagne House, learning meanwhile everything about Champagne, the terroir, the tastings, and travelling a lot. Unsatisfied with the Champagne style of his boss, he finally creates his own Champagne house, with the help of Jacquesson in 1843, where he will materialize his search for the unique Champagne style.

The underground facility was requisitioned as a hospital in each of the french-german wars

The underground facility and cellars were built in 1870. From the beginning Johan Joseph Krug set the guidelines that made this Champagne different : First vinification in 205-liter casks, successive tastings to sort the dozens of vineyards/millesimes to find the best match for the Krug style, and bottles spending many years in the cellar (from 6 years for Krug Grande Cuvée and Krug Rosé, to 15 years for vintages) before being disgorged so as to have this long contact with the lees. The methods and rules of procedures were transmitted from generation to generation (now the 6th) among the Krugs (Johan-Joseph left many notebooks full of notes), and the first oenologist ever hired here was in 1985... Even though LVMH, the french luxury group, bought Krug in 1999, the Krug family remains at the wheel and keeps doing the utmost important tastings and blendings choices. Like all Champagne houses, Krug uses both the grapes from its own vineyards (now 20 hectares) and grapes from contracted vineyards in the region. Krug's production is 500 000 bottles a year.

The fermentation casks : 800 to 900 old casks

Frederic shows us the cooperage [picture left] where they repair the casks. At Krug, they only use old casks for the first fermentation, and they regularly have to repair them. The (empty now) casks are stored in a large room. they have a life expectancy of 35 years, and the oldest was made in 1966. The fermentation will take place for 5 to 10 days in these casks (no temperature control), and the wine will stay about 2 months in there.These old casks allow a natural micro-oxygenation which will bring a sort of vaccination against future oxygenations : the wine will be more robust and the slight oxygenation will bring some structure. This is an essential moment and Krug's wine is born at this stage. The tastings of the many wines/plots begin after the end of the fermentation, while the wine is still in the casks.

Wine News (5)

Lauren, from the Visitor Center at Penticton, B.C. holds the copy of John Schreiner' Okanagan Wine Tour Guide that I just bought. The book helps find and select wineries for the visits. It offers a very wide panorama, from the major wineries to the small family winery. Remember that with the wine distribution system in Canada, visiting the wineries is essential when you want a wider picture of the wines. For the canadians, it is also sometimes the only way to purchase wines that are not distributed in their local monopoly store.

In-flight wines : ups and downs with more downs most of the time. I'll not criticize British Airways here : One of my favorite airlines, courteous, efficient and professional. I guess they are cost-minded when they select the in-flight wines of the economy class. At least they serve some, and quite generously. I did not finish this Les Pilliers 2005, Chardonnay-Viognier,vin de pays du Gard (a sip was enough), but the Bordeaux I chose on the next leg of the trip was a little more drinkable, let's say that I drank it : This was a Bordeaux Prieur des Jacobins, "les Jalles" 2004 from the Maison Sichel. I spilled the glass on my pants while shooting a picture, which I chose to take as a good omen for the whole trip (could be also Bacchus' punishment for drinking that crap), but I had to spend long minutes in the toilets trying to remove the stain with water in the tiny sink...

A great way to reverberate the heat of the day into the ground during the night : I saw these stones aligned under the vines in the Alexander valley, on highway 128 beween Calistoga and La Franchi Creek. Alexander Valley is a warm area of Sonoma County. The region has high temperatures in the day time and quite cool nights. It is considered to have a climate very close to the Rhone region. It does remind me the big stones of the Chateauneuf du Pape. Here, it seems the stones were brought from somewhere else but I am not sure.

Wine Camp

This is an ode to the US State Park System as well as to the wines (both nice wines and more ordinary wines) which made their way to our campground table. In the real life, especially when you camp, you depend on the local store selection and on the (often restricted) budget you want to spend on a barbecue bottle. This is by no means a panorama of american wines, and whatever wines we had, we had a great time...

This was in the Champoeg State Park south of Salem, Oregon. Our neighbours, who were from Florida, had this huge Alfa motorhome with flags of all sizes everywhere.
We had bought some pork boneless top loin at Safeway and had the barbecue with a Navarro Pinot Noir "methode A l'ancienne" 2003 that we bought at Navarro, Anderson Valley (By the way the young lady clerk there was not very friendly and her tasting pours were the most ridiculously small we ever had_you can't taste anything with so little wine) and which is made with the Burgundy style of punching the cap.
A nice, fruity wine with notes of jam and currant on the nose.

<

Unchronological post. We arrived quite late in the Curt Gowdy State Park west  of Cheyenne, Wyoming, near hwy 210, but early enough to have the time to set the tents up and enjoy the sunset on the desert landscape and the lake. Rough beauty and nice smell of the desert vegetation in the cool of the evening.
This Bogle Vineyards Merlot 2004 was advertised at the store as having won a gold medal. It was way too much oaky, but we still had a good time with it and the camping food.
There was a wind storm that night and several tents were down in the morning...

Not a State Park, but an RV Park. This was near Wells, Nevada, and the Angel Lake State Park campground was way too high in the snow-topped mountains of the East Humbold range. So we stopped at the brand new Angel Lake RV Park near Interstate 80. Great place, managed by a former rancher named Steve Wright (he owned 1800 cattle in his ranch).
After eating at the nearby 4-Way Café, a local eatery (interesting ambiance) with big portions, which were welcome as we were hungry, we had a couple of glasses of this Sutter Home Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 while enjoying the light, the sky, the moment...

We had crossed the border in Buffalo, NY, earlier in the day. I expected this crossing to be ardous (the first since 9/11, and my passport states that I am born in Morocco...) but it went smoothly, after just a 40 minutes wait in the non-canadian-citizens bureau.
This same evening, we reached the Harrison Lake State Park, a neat (a little too neat, maybe), immaculate garden-like park located west of Toledo, Ohio, north of I 80.
We opened that evening a nice bottle : Vineland Estates Cabernet Franc 2004. This supple, spicy wine put warmth in our mouth and spirits for our first american picnic dinner.

Larch Hills (Okanagan)

Jack Manser in the vineyard

Salmon Arm, British Columbia.
This is the northernmost tip of the Okanagan wine region. I selected Larch Hills Winery as we were leaving the region for Alberta through that route, and after I read the short profile of the owners in John Schreiner's "Okanagan Wine Tour Guide".
Just imagine you are somewhere in Austria or Switzerland and you'll get the right picture of the landcapes, meadows and trees of this lush alpine valley. Now when in this scenic setting you meet Jack Manser and listen to him speaking about his vineyards and his wines, you really think you are in Switzerland, because he is swiss and has all the features of the hard-working swiss mountain man, including a frank handshake, a german accent, and the weathered face with blue eyes of a man used to work in the nature in mountain conditions...

The tasting romm

The winery was started by former owners Hans and Hazel Nevrkla in 1997. Hans Nevrkla, who is austrian, was then an award-winning amateur winemaker. He planted the varieties in the property and through successive tries, determined which varieties could fit best in this northern location : Mostly european varieties that thrive in cool climate regions, like Ortega, Siegerrebe, Madeleine Angevine and Agria (the only red grown on the estate's vineyards, they have 1 acre of it). The winery, which had already won several awards for its wines, was then sold in 2005 to Jack and Hazel Manser. Jack was a forester in Switzerland and came in Canada when he bought a small farm in Alberta. As he was looking for better deals, he found the Larch Hills winery and learned the winemaking skills with the Nevrklas (who still live nearby). The common german language was a plus for the expertise transmission. Jack's forester experience helps for the work in the vineyard. They keep the range of varieties grown on the property, and also make other wines with grapes from contracted vineyards from the southern Okanagan Valley, like Merlot and Pinot Noir.

When we arrived in the property and first stopped to look at the vineyard, we soon heard Jack as he was walking back to his quad from a tour of his plots. We chatted a few minutes, warding off the mosquitoes with our hands. He told us how he first came from Switzeland to Alberta in 1992. He says that the land is so much regulated in Switzerland and unaffordable. Here, he found something very close to his native country, except that back there in Europe, it would be filled with houses.

NK'MIP (Okanagan)

The NK'MIP winery and tasting room

Osoyoos, British Columbia (Okanagan valley).
The first time you visit the Okanagan region makes for a surprise. The region, with its striking landscapes of lakes, mountains, desert and vineyards, is booming, and wineries are just one part of the equation here, with resorts and leisure activities plentiful to accommodate the tastes of the visitors from Vancouver and Calgary for whom the area seems to be a summer vacation spot (winters are also nice here). There has been much construction going on, and the suburban sprawl, especially near Kelowna, gives the feel sometimes of a huge mall strip with all kind of commercial activity. For some odd reason, the investors and developers seem to have selected the "Santa Fe" architectural style in some of the new buildings, adding to the mix of Sun City and Las Vegas touch.

The NK'MIP winery (pronounce in-ka-meep) is 49% owned by Vincor, the largest canadian wine company. Vincor itself has recently been bought by even bigger US-based Constellation (which bought Mondavi last year).
NK'MIP has a plus : It is North America's first amerindian-owned winery (51%) working on amerindian-owned vineyards, and the fact plays a central role in NK'MIP marketing strategy, with amerindian-inspired artifacts and logos all over in the tasting room and on the property. The Indian Band, under the lead of energetic, business-minded Chief Clarence Louie, also built the "NK'MIP Desert Heritage Center", a museum centered on the aboriginal culture with a funding of 1,5 million dollars by the canadian government (Canadian Heritage).
The Osoyoos Indian Band owns some 32 000 acres of land in the area and there are about 400 members who share the benefits of the different investments on their land, which are very diverse and include the winery, a golf course, a hotel, a spa and maybe soon, a casino : The Band has also been lobbying for allowing the gaming industry to open branches in Osoyoos. A referendum was held locally last june 17th on the subject and the result was... Yes (Pdf), showing a large majority of the voters in favor of an all-out economic development.

Recently planted vineyard near the NK'MIP winery
After walking into the tasting room/boutique and on the terrace, both bathing in neo-aboriginal music, after looking on the beautiful vista on the Osoyoos Lake and the vineyards, we met Randy Picton, NK'MIP winemaker, who explained the origin of the estate and toured us in the facility. Randy Picton works here since 2002 and previously spent 6 years as associate winemaker at Cedar Creek, a major winery of the Okanagan region.
NK'MIP has about 10 acres of vineyards around the facility, plus vineyards elsewhere, for a total of 65 acres. Production this year has been 18 000 cases, the bulk will be in Chardonnay and Merlot (with an increasing share of Merlot in the future). They are quite happy with the Pinot Noir too, even with this southern-type climate they have here, because the terroir is fine. They need to wait for phenolic maturity and flavors, so they have like elsewhere picked up with high alcohol. Picking-up earlier would bring green flavors and green tannins which is not suitable. Harvest is stretched 2,5 weeks in the region as the long north-south valley has different maturities.

Bainbridge Island Winery (Washington)

Bainbridge Island, Washington.
It was raining lightly when we visited the winery on the Island facing Seattle on the other side of Puget Sound. Not unusual weather for Seattle, you might say... But Gerard Bentryn will point to statistics showing that the weather is actually very comparable to outstanding wine regions in France and Germany (and I can testify myself that I had great sunny weather on the several occasions I visited Seattle) and he keeps comparative maps ("it works in Europe, why not here?") and charts which nuance the rainy image of this pacific northwest region: june to september, actually, it rains less than in Bordeaux or Lyons. Only thing, heat is not so high here, but with the climate change, who knows ? First of all, the brunt of the rain falls on the Olympic mountains a few miles on the west, creating there the rain forests of the Olympic National Park with its spectacular mosses hanging from the branches.
The winery and vineyard sits in the middle of the Puget Sound AVA and Gerard Brentyn did a lot, first for the creation of the Puget Sound AVA in 1995, then to promote a philosophy of artisan wines that reflect the terroir.

View on the (snow-topped) Olympic mountains with the vineyards in the foreground (or could be a raspberry field)

The island has a strong japanese community since the early 20th century and they were the first in the US to be deported during WW2 under Executive Order 9066. Gerard Bentry, who previously had vineyards in the Winslow area, was obliged to leave because of the Seattle suburban sprawl eating on the island, and moved to this farmland area owned then by the Sumeyatsu family [Word], with which he kept close ties. His vineyard has a 8,5 acres surface (3,5 hectares), mostly whites and a little of Pinot Noir.He planted new things in front of the house : St Laurent (a red variety originally from Alsace but which then went to austria), Zweigelt, a red also from Austria, Agria, from Hungary, and Regent, an hybrid (Sylvaner & Müller-Thurgau) created in the Geisenheim research center in Germany. It does not need to be sprayed and ripens before Pinot Noir.

Gerard Bentryn in the vineyard

Gerard then speaks gravely about the possible disparition of winemaking in the future : He shows me all the catalogs sent to him by chemical companies. Leafing through the material, you are stunned by all the additives they propose for aromatic enhancing, to select the aromas through industrial yeasts, to get whatever type of tannin you want, to sculpt the middle palate at wish, to finetune the colour and even get the desired structure. I think this is worth a post by itself, but browse on this page, or the Gusmer's wine-products catalog [Pdf]...Winemakers who use these additives are very discreet on the matter but I think the customer should at least know when these enhancing (should we say doctoring?) products are used...Gerard says the worse of these products may be "Mega Purple" (I just saw Alder evoqued the subject on Vinography last january). Gerard says he suspects the products are used even for wines at 70 Dollars a bottle. He adds that part of the problem comes from the fact that in North America, wines are purchased for immediate consumption when a real wine needs to lay down some time. But I think this additive thing is also common among old world wineries.

Evesham Wood (Salem, Oregon)

Russ Raney looking at his Pinot Noir vines

Salem, Oregon (Willamette Valley).
The back label on Evesham Wood bottles sums up the approach of Russ and Mary Raney:
"Our hand-crafted wines are authentic expressions of their respective vineyard sources, and as such, portray the nuances of "terroir" unattainable in mass-produced wines. In order to achieve this distinctive character and authenticity, we use only sustainably grown grapes from non-irrigated vineyards, and employ natural methods in the cellar, e.g. no filtration or use of any must concentrating devices."
We are in northwestern Oregon, near Salem. This is a region with lots of farms with orchards and nurseries in addition to the vineyards. The region is known as the Willamette Valley, named from the river that you can see down the slope in the far (small patch in the pic on top, and picture on the left) 3 km away and 150 meter lower. The Pacific Ocean is only some 60 miles by road on the west and winter are mild.
Russ Raney receives us. I had emailed him about our visit but failed to call ahead. We were lucky he was around this morning.
He created the winery 20 years ago, in 1986. He first shows us the vineyard in front of the house and facility. There are many trees around, the former owner kept his property wooded for tax reasons (Oregon tax incentives). He kneels down to tear up weeds : he says they have problems here with "imported" foreign weeds which are quite invasive. The one here is False Plantain, a big-size type of weed. He remembers that when visiting french organic growers in France, they were surprised to hear about "bad weeds" problems, as in their mind there are no bad weeds. he uses mechanical ways only to get rid of them.
At Evesham Wood, 45% of the grapes used for the wine comes from the estate, the rest being purchased from other growers. The total production is 36-3700 cases/year. The vineyard surface is 5 hectares, including 3 in Pinot Noir and the rest in Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris, plus some austrian variety. He also just recently planted some Savignan, a Jura grape variety. 2/3 of his vines are non-grafted. The grafted ones ripe a little earlier, but with the new climate (warmer) trends, the non-grafted may have an advantage. The price difference is also on the side of non-grafted vines : 55 cents apiece compared with 3,5 Dollars for a grafted vine... He tells us about when he tasted wine in Cahors made from pre-phyloxera 100 years+ vines. He says that in this part of Oregon, when people realized there was Phyloxera, they stopped sharing the machines and tools, as they did before. Phyloxere came here with the big plantings of the 60's. Overall suface is now 4000 hectares in the state. Speaking of planting, we look at soon-to-be-planted young vines in pots, outside of the winery [picture on the right] : Pinot Blanc. This will make 2 rows.
Rain : When Alsace has about 24 inches/year of rain, here, it is 40 inches/year, but most of it falls between november and march. And they have a good ventilation on these slopes. For the dry season, they do not irrigate (drip) because it would mean spoiling the vines. No drip, and the roots go deep [rhymes well, by the way]. The dry season is really dry, like 2-3 inches in the july-september season. The grapes he buys come from vineyards at a higher elevation than here, the highest being 850 feet (harvest a bit later too).

Lazy Creek (Anderson Valley, CA)

Mary Beth Chandler in the vat house

Philo, Anderson valley (California).
Our friend Ken visited this winery a few years ago by pure chance : he was driving along this quiet Mendocino county road (highway 128) and noticed the simple sign on the side. He had never heard of the winery but presumed this might be a family winery, and decided to try his chance here.
Chance must always be an option, because it works... After you drive on a long stretch of winding dirt/gravel road in the thick shadow of oak groves [see picture on the right], wondering whether you'll find any vineyards out there, the landscapre opens up to the beautiful and serene quietness of this Anderson Valley's back country: a couple of old houses, a barn, a rusting pick-up truck... and vineyards.

You can see the small (white) winery in the far back of the pic, and the 1938 chevy truck (also pictured below) more on the right
The visit was not planned, and we were lucky to find someone that afternoon : After parking in front of an old fence and a garden overflowing with flowers, we walked to the single-story house and to the winery nearby.
Mary Beth Chandler soon arrived and we made the presentations. She gently opened us the chai to present their wines and tell more about the winery.
The farm was started in the early 20th century by an italian family named Pinoli (see this very informative page about the history of Anderson Valley], starting with traditional farming, orchards and vineyards too. Joe Pinoli is said to have founded with Lazy Creek the second oldest winery of Anderson Valley. Then, a swiss, Hans Kobler and his family came and really started anew the farm, the orchards, and planted vineyards, in 1969. The winery facility itself was built in 1973.
This rusting 1938 Chevy truck was there when they bought the estate

Josh and Mary Beth Chandler came here in 1999 to make wine. Josh had been a vineyard grower for years in Napa. He is a man of many resources, being also a trained chef (worked at the Auberge du Soleil in Napa) and a landscape architect. Before purchasing Lazy Creek, they had been looking for a winery for 2 years and the market was hot then. They had just made an offer somewhere else without any answer. Then they came around here, visited a place, then another one. In this second location (this was not Lazy Creek), someone came to them, thinking they were here for the Lazy Creek sale (they did not even know about the Lazy Creek winery being for sale in the first place), so thanks to this coincidence, they happened to be the first interested buyers on the spot, and they actually made the deal. Their offer was accepted, possibly because they wanted to keep the original name. There were 19 acres of planted vineyards then, 7 of them in Pinot Noir, about 4,5 acres of Gewurztraminer and 2 of Riesling. They've done 2 plantings since : the first one 6 years ago, with additional Pinot Noir and a little of Gewurz, then one year ago (in june), with a little more of P.N. and Riesling, plus some more Gewurz, with cuttings from existing ones. They now have 30 acres altogether.