Healdsburg, California
Ceritas is a Sonoma winery that is around since 2005, it is managed by John Raytek and his wife Phoebe Bass, both make wine in their facility in Healdsburg from contracted grapes, all in carefully selected terroirs and from growers who farm organic and without irrigation.
Started small scale, the winery now makes 48 000 bottles and with its uncompromising no-intervention winemaking from dryfarmed organic parcels won a prominent place among the most sought-after new generation wines in the best restaurants of the country (at least the ones with the most demanding wine list).
John came from the sommelier scene and walked the line to the winemaking world, becoming at one point assistant winemaker at Copain and consultant from many wineries while Phoebe his wife comes from the farming side of the trade, her training is very interesting, like China Tresemer of Hiyu Wine Farm, she spent her youth in a biodynamic farm near Guerneville, 18 miles by road west of Healdsburg with woods all around, at Porter-Bass to be precise. Her parents who were from the East Coast had purchased this farm with a century-old vineyard in the early 1980s' and revived it with their organic, then biodynamic farming, growing three grape varieties including what is considered one of the best Chardonnays in California in this cool climate area between Healdsburg and the ocean. Phoebe and John are also close friends with the same-minded people at Arnot-Roberts, doing outdoors with their families.
I love this area, Healdsburg has long retained a cool, laidback atmosphere even though in the last few years, with many people choosing to settle there the city has gone through lots of new contruction and the downtown area and leafy square became more chic and trendy. Guerneville, a few miles on the west along the road heading to the ocean where Phoebe lived in a farm, is still a small place, the area is quite hilly with lots of trees and redwoods, I love the winding road along the Russian river. We camped there a few years ago, there’s a long-established campground not far named Schoolhouse Canyon Campground with redwoods so tall you hardly see the sunlight even in the middle of the day, you can go swim in the Russian river just on the other side of the road. But the camping fees have been up along the years in this part of California, it’s like around 50 $ for a site (and this particulat campground is actually noisy with the highway beneath, which it certainly wasn’t in the 1940s’ in the early years of the camp). As we’d stay 3 nights in the area I chose the nuclear option as an alternative : through methodic research before this trip using Internet intelligence and satellite imaging, I found a BLM (Bureau of Land Management ) remote area north of Healdsburg where camping was free in a deep valley along a creek, the spot was hard to find at the end of a dirt road, were alone there, but from now on this will be my base whenever I’ll stay in the area (No need to say this location is classified information).
John and Phoebe first met in 2003, John had been working then as a winemaker for a couple years for Rhys Vineyards in the Santa Cruz mountains and he decided to move back to Sonoma County which is where he began his winemaking journey back in 2001, he told Phoebe of his project to start a winery there. Phoebe wanted initially to follow another path than their parents (like it's often the case) and went to school but falling in love with a winemaker brought her back to the wine trade (bad luck for her, john says with a laugh)... In 2005 they began to make wine from the greapes of Phoebe's parents (Porter-Bass), 6 barrels or 150 cases, their idea being to never have any partners and start their winery from scratch without investors and no debt at the bank. Thus during 11 years (until 2016) both of them kept full-time jobs which allowed them to quietly raise their production to 48 000 bottles. That reminds me how Thierry Allemand in the Rhone made his path to excellence, never depending of the bank and working on the side for years (the banks often impose quick returns that push for intervention and correction in the wines). Today they work from 29 acres or 12 hectares, and they direct the farming to the growers in 85 % of them, which basically means these parcels are farmed like if they owned them. There would have been no way for a small winery like theirs to own all these parcels, to purchase them, and this lease or métayage system allows them to get around the ownership issue and still get the right farming. Philippe Pacalet did the same thing in Burgundy : he or his family didn't own anytrhing there and while eschewing the real estate investment he still could pick the best terroirs and become the most sought-after outsider for his Burgundy wines,
With these farming leases they develop a long relationship with the growers/owners, sometimes including giving training for example to the sons or daughters of the growers who want to be in line with their goals and switch to another farming philosophy. In terms of yields, with an average age of 44 years today (youngest 21, oldest 80), John says that they do not have to reduce yields (they only did a green harvest once since they started in 14 years), otherwise the drops they do is to even out the crop when flowering problems occured. At the same time they like having some differences between the grapes contrary to what you see in Napa Valley where the fruit is all even. Speaking of irrigation [which is mainstream in California] John and Phoebe don't irrigate any of the parcels, it's all dry farmed. It is very rare in California. John says it's necessary when you do a planting for a couple of years to help the vines jumpstart, but the problem is, the irrigation system being in place, growers keep using it forever. Typically here he says, it rains a considerable amount of water in the winter and old vines find what they need through their deep roots. Phoebe says that people are farming for different reasons, some, while looking for quality grapes still want volume and so they choose to irrigate, but the growers they selected are the ones who are ready to make all the way to authenticity and quality even if that means lower yields, and some growers also put a lot of pride to have their grapes turned into high quality wines, this can count more than just the financial returns.
They don't have employees at Ceritas beyond the harvest teams, they do all by themselves and there's little work to do in the cellar, they hired an assistant winemaker who works 3 or 4 days a month because they only top up the barrels once a month, check the chemistry of the wine once a month, the rest of the time the wine remains by itself, and beyond the winemaking/fermentation there's nothing to do with the wines, he doesn't use any additive, nutrients, acid, enzymes or tannin. Some young people want to be trainees here to learn the secret [Ceritas is known for its unique wines and some fans want to emulate John & Phoebe] but they're disappointed when they spend sometime here in the cellar because there's nothing to do basically other than leave the wine alone and wait. What they understand when they leave is that the most important thing for making great wines is the terroir, it's not us, they often teach them that it's more important to know what not to do, than what to do... And for young people it's a hard thing to accept, because and that's a human thing, you're raised to believe that your action is decisive, you have to get involved and make something on the wine. John says that throughout his consulting career he worked with 120 vineyards, so he developped a wide range of understanding of what to do depending of the areas and terroirs and he faced a lot of challenges. They are mostly very focused on Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Carignan and a few other varieties and they stay focused on taking what's from the vineyard and getting out of the way, which they do even though there are a few important key decisions.
They work with 11 parcels which are 3,5 hours apart which is quite far, John visits them every three weeks, typically if there's something to adjust there (pruning, debudding or whatever) he'll work with the grower's workers for 2 or 3 hours, he doesn't need to be there on their back, and sometimes he could almost never go, like for Peter Martin Ray Vineyards were the farming is perfect; he still goes there because he wants to see by himself how the season is experiencing, it may give him the idea to change a little bit of something to adapt to a changing condition. Apart from the 11 vineyards they already work with, they get calls all the time because people want them to make wine from their grapes, like from Santa Barbara, or Santa Rita Hills, and he has often to say no because it's too far.
Asked if they could grow their contracted surface a bit, John says they like where they are, he says there's a philosophy here in the United states where everything has to go up, to expand more and more, and he and Phoebe would rather go down instead, shrink a little bit their surface. John says that their idea was, they got to this place because they knew that if they followed a plan they could run a profitable winery, which they did. They were initially counseled by Ted Lemon of Littorai Wines who has been buying grapes at Phoebe's parents winery since 1993 (John wanted to emulate him) and they later developped their project with further goals and reach, the next stage being to find parcels of their own, aiming at 80 % ownership for the grapes they need in the long run. These would be young plantations of course but they would train them in a way that will make them able to replace gradually the ones they work with currently. In a matter of 20 years this could be accomplished and if their two baby daughters decide by then to follow this winemaking path they could have a good starting point. That's about how they work, they never had to make a decision because of somebody else, they don't have a marketing team, no sales team either, they just follow their idea [and when the wines are really relevant, they sell, I'd say].
Speaking of sales, John was in the restaurant world for a long time (and he grew up in a hotel-restaurant family) and they sell 75 % of their wine direct to customers, the remaining 25 % being distributed throughout the U.S. (9 states) and abroad (7 countries) to restaurants, they don't sell anything in retail, that's in their contract, if you find some in wine shops that's coming from direct customers who sold them at some point. For the direct sales it's a mix of people coming here, like during the open house in june (the only opportunity for the buyers to eschew the shipping costs), and shipping orders.The wine is basically all allocated for the distributors' part, so once a year they look at the restaurants that get the wine, they look at the new up-and-coming restaurant and what they need to have for them, like 240 bottles of this and 120 bottles of that and so on. Things move fast and they want their wines go to the right places or sommeliers, so choosing allocations is strategic. They have for example this Pinot Noir from a vineyard (Occidental Vineyard) with which they have a long-term métayage agreement, the vineyard was initially planted by pioneer Steve Kiestler, no one had ever reviewed their wine and it was immediately sold out because buyers guess what both Ceritas and this historic Pinot-Noir terroir can yield. John had some 50 trainees spending time at Ceritas, some eventually will start something of their own, and one of the things he tells them that he never wanted to just make money. Of course we need money to live, but the idea was to make wines that could change people's mind, that it was possible to make terroir wines here that were just as good as other such wines in the world, and he knew the best path for that was through the restaurants because you have passionate people there who serve the wines and help people know.
I learned another thing that puts Ceritas apart from other "commercial" wineries, John says that in this country people want everything fast, and they want to make money quickly, while for Phoebe and himself what counts first is take the time with the family, the children, doing outdoors activity, enjoying life. I think that I saw a very similar philosophy among the French natural-wine people running a winery : While they eventually make money because their wines stand out, they first want to enjoy a nice job without compromission, enjoy their friends and the country life. Joe Dressner himself who wasn't making natural wine but was importing them liked to say something like he'd have made tons more of money by importing cheap tequila and bland wine [but life isn't only about accounting balance]. Plus for 11 years they didn't pay themselves but reinvested in the venture. In the beginning they kept few bottles on the side for the library but now they can keep 6000 bottles a year for the library, for a very long keep that will allow them to look at the results of a long cellaring. This will help also as an self-provided insurance if for example one year they make almost no wine because of bad conditions. And for example there's a very famous farm-to-table restaurant in Healdsburg, Single Thread, they asked for Ceritas wines and also want to have older bottles, so they'll make them available for them thanks to the library.
This facility which looks brand new from the outside was originally a warehouse built in 1953, part of the building was a welding shop for many years, then used for storage and they converted it into a winery in 2015, moving some walls and insulating the ceilings. They have in here 7 3-ton fermenters and 8 one-ton fermenters in the back. He designed and thought about this place and tools over a very long time because he worked elsewhere as a winemaker and had time and experiences that helped him figure out his needs precisely. Here in the United States wineries use electricity for glycol (thermo-regulated fermenters), but here he doesn't use any cooling system although you may spot these systems on the outside of these tanks on the pictures above : that's because in case he needs to sell one or several of them (you never know what can happen) you better have the cooling system, that's what people ask. They actually used the cooling system 3 times in 14 years but virtually it's like if they didn't have any. Same for the computer, they don't use it even if there's one here.
They don't use sorting tables in the winery, the grapes are all sorted on the vineyard, in fact in the days before the harvest they (John, Phoebe and the intern) walk along the rows in these parcels that make individually between 0,_ and 1,2 hectare and drop the fruit that could make problems, and in certain cases it takes many, many passes like when there's oidium. We may touch here one of the secrets of Ceritas wines, such a care in the health of picked grapes yields results.The idea is, when you come for the picking, it's just perfect and the hanging fruit can be all picked as is. The challenge with a sorting table in the bacility is, you have a spoiled cluster with botrytis, during the 30 minutes drive in a bouncing truck the problem can leak to other, clean grapes and this is the beginning of trouble.
They pick all of their grapes by hand at night and haul them to the facility with a refrigerated truck (at 35 F - 2 C temperature). When the fruit arrives here they only work with it when they're ready, so the truck may sit near the door until everything is ready in the winery.
For the Chardonnay, if the grapes are healthy they break or crush the whole-clustered grapes at the top pf the fermenter using the tool at the upper end of the elevator at the very time it enters the press, the goal being to expose the juice to the skins to pour tannin out, the juice flowing over the skins and the stems as well. Of course fermentation on indigenous yeast. John says that here in the U.S. people speak a lot of whole cluster pressing but he considers it's more applicable to grapes with high maturity levels, while for lower maturity levels crushing is very beneficial, because you break the skins where the flavors are, and you have only (for whites) a couple hours for that flavor to get in the juice. Then the Chardonnay goes through pressing, with no protection from oxygen, ever, they don't care about it, and they usually let the container beneath fill as much as possible so that there's lots of oxygen in the juice indeed, the juice turns very brown for a white, almost like coffee, he says. They loose 200 ml of wine per month, that's why they top the barrels only once a month.
Some of the barrels in the cellar (pic on top) are empty and during that time they fill them with a storage solution made of tartaric water and sulfur dioxide, and he'll have these barrels topped up once a month with the solution, just like the ones filled with wine. It helps keep the barrels hydrated and prevents microbial problems to occur. Otherwise, when they have to clean the barrels they just use steam, never pressured water because it anches the wood, it's too intense and cracks the fabric of the wood. They only rinse the barrels with cold water, and then steam, cold water again and the storage solution with 2.8 pH and 1OO ppm SO2. He says that with this process when you fill the barrels you have no smells, no vinegar or other worrying issue. Some of the barrels are stainless steel, like you can see on this picture. For the Chardonnay they want to use oak barrels because oxygen is good for the yeast, but depending of the vintage sometimes they transfer the wine after malolactic into such stainless-steel barrels with medium lees for a duration from 4 to 7 months. 8 years ago they did trials with aging the wines in wood, stainless-steel barrels and (5-gallon kegs and did blind tastings where they found differences, then they bottled these wines separately, tasted them again 5 years later and found no difference.
__ Chardonnay 2016, Trout Gulch Vineyard, bottled in december 2017. From the Santa Cruz Mountains, the vineyard is located 3,5 miles from the ocean near the town of Aptos, in a canyon oriented west to east and soils are marine sedimentation and sand, the vines having been planted in 1971. This is the coldest Chardonnay site that they work with. The nose and mouth are very fresh, very saline wine, impressive. Very mouth watering, delicate and harmonious wine. That's the Chardonnay John prefers among his range. 2nd sip gives an even more striking feel in terms of minerality and saline. This wine is unfiltered and no wine is ever filtered at Ceritas. They share this vineyard of Trout Gulch with Arnot-Roberts whom I visited a few years ago and as I was reading my notes on this story I saw their Chardonnay was also very saline. Most of the vineyards they rent are monopoles, otherwise. Lovely wine. John shows me the bucket if I want to spit but no spitting, too good and anyway in the U.S. I know there aren't random breath checks on the highway, the only thing to do is drive quietly & you'll be fine...
__ Chardonnay 2016 Porter-Bass Vineyards (Phoebe's family property), Sonoma County. Located on the West Sonoma coast, 5,5 miles from the ocean with influence from the ocean, fog coming in. Vineyard planted in 1980, the soils (there are two parcels) are either sandstone with mica, very hard (not decomposing) and on the other side decomposing sandstone into powdery nature.
Very different Chardonnay, beginning with the nose which is very expressive and flowery, with an appealing, seductive side. John says that indeed the Santa Cruz mountains Chardonnay is more chiselled and with salinity while this one has these underripe peach, nectarine aromas and more tannin, he says the two wines go different ways with the age, each with its own benefit. I notice here also a pleasant energy feel in the mouth, which is in line with the fact that Porter-Bass is farmed biodynamically. Phoebe says they've been farmin biodynamic for 17 years, and when they took over the farm in 1980 vine growing was kind of a new crop back then in Sonoma, so there wasn't lots of knowledge about how to farm organicly. After an early beginning with conventional farming (albeit with little pesticides) they gradually implemented organic farming, first taking out the weeds by hand then adapting an attachment behind the tractor; they later moved on to biodynamic and they really love farming this way, it makes them enjoy farming even more, doing the teas themselves as well as the preparations.
For the SO2 there is none added during the vinification and they will with a long time (months) after the malolactic to add some (20 ppm typically), they'll wait to smell the almond skin and then sulfur at once, it will be the only time, there will be no further adding at bottling.
__ Ceritas Pinot Noir 2016, Elliott Vineyard. Vines planted 1978. Soil blue schist and quartz. Clone is a Mount Eden clone (very early-introduced Pinot Noir in California, by Paul Masson). The berries are tiny on this clone, yielding a lot of power and very low sugars, it is very aromatic and perfumy also, John says. At Ceritas they only work with clones of the past, for example all the Chardonnay is Old Wente clone with millerandage (younger berries and older berries in the same cluster). Same for the Pinot Noir, the wood was taken from various vineyards in France back in the 1800s' or early 1900s', before you got the numbered clones. With the older clones they can get physioligical ripeness and much lower sugar levels. Add to that the fact that the parcels are older and dryfarmed and you have a very delicate Pinot Noir with comparatively low alcohol and very fine grain tannins. 70 % whole-clustered vinification for this wine (destemmed grapes on top).
Here again that's why it's important to sort the grapes in the field in advance, that's because of the high percentage of whole clusters. Combination of remontage & pigeage, least amount possible though, and they only touch the cap in the middle, not in the beginning or end.
Precise nose with exciting fruit feel, delicateness. In the mouth thin tannins and some welcome bitterness. Aromas of cherry pit (like in clafoutis), like John notices rightly. This is the 2nd to last Pinot they pick.
__ Ceritas Pinot Noir 2016, "Old Shop Block" Hellental Vineyard. Planted in 1978 on itds own roots, the oldest ungrafted Pinot Noir on record in the Sonoma Coast area. Calera clone, the budwood is said to have been taken from La Tâche in Romanée-Conti. Soil is iron-rich sandstone. Jhon says that if we could map all the soils on the Sonoma coast area we'd have 70 distinct types, it's amazing in such a small area. Plus there's this fog influence which you can in some places, and 200 feet above you don't have it, so this plays also for big differences. Parcel here located almost at the top, with low mildew pressure, but with still the cooling influence of the fog.
Darker Pinot. The own-rooted vines give some sort of more early dark colors to the grapes, John says. in a good balance, enjoyable substance. Light, sweet mouth with freshness in a good balance, enjoyable substance here. 13,1 % alcohol, in the Sonoma area lots of wineries get this type of alcohol.
__Ceritas Pinot Noir 2016 Occidental Vineyard. Parcel located 4 miles from the ocean, west of the town of Occidental on Taylor Lane, a road with a few other top-terroir parcels nearby. Very, very cold part of the Sonoma Coast. This vineyard is on the south side of Taylor Lane, it was planted in 1985, soil is blue schist and serpentine. Calera clone, multiple selection with very, very small berries. Clone selected by Steve Kistler. Vinified with 90 % whole-clustered grapes. The fruit comes direct, he doesn't cold-soak the fruit like it's done sometimes in France for a few days [before the vinification], the fruit here come cold from the truck and they vinify it immediately upon arrival. They need to pump over a little bit to kep the acidity in check.
Love this wine, no spitting for sure, great swallowing experience.Great balance, pepper notes. 2400 bottles of this wine. Maximum allocation for this wine is 6 bottles (even restaurants, except a few exceptions), so that everyone can get some. Great wine, especially thinking that it's only from 2016 and the wine will show more say, in two years.
__ Ceritas Cabernet Sauvignon 2015, Peter Martin Ray Vineyards, Santa Cruz Mountains. Planted on a lower parcel at Peter Martin Ray, Rixford clones (very old clone from the early 1900s', supposedly taken from Chateau Latour). They began to make this wine in 2012 and John says that for him trhat what a beautifully-balanced Cabernet tastes like. Some of the best Cabernet from California comes from the Santa Cruz mountains but few people knows it. John says that Montebello which sits just north of Peter Martin Ray was one of the pioneers for these Cabernets in the 1970s', and until the mid-80s it was all Rixford clones at Montebello, but now they use some other stuff, other clones. John says he never intended to make Cabernet but Peter took him down to the vineyard and the place moved him, with the old vines, the soil. It happened like that, one day he got a call from Duncan (Arnot-Roberts) who was standing in this vineyard (he had just been introduced to Rick who works there) and he told him, you got to come right now in Saratoga and see this. They began to work with 2 acres of Cabernet (from the total 5 acres) and now have 3,5, increasing along the years. In 2012 they made 30 % whole-clustered, he didn't like it although the wine has beautifully recovered now, but this 2015 is 1OO % destemmed. And he things whole cluster is not appropriate for every region, for example he loves using whole clusters for Pinot, it works well in Sonoma Coast but not as well in the Anderson Valley, and for Santa Cruz Pinot Noir you can use more whole clusters, plus this has to do with the clones, the Dijon clones are not well suited for whole clusters (his consulting experience opened his eyes on these issues across the regions).
Splendid nose, you feel already the frehness and the fine grain somehow. This wine hasn't been released yet (bottles kept at their 55 F warehouse a few miles away), will take another year. So enjoyable alread, delicious. Cabernet Sauvignon is known as a wine to eat meaty dishes with, but just like here by itself, sip after sip, it's such a treat...
Waxed bottle, they used to do that themselves (Phoebe, John & Augustine) at the beginning when they were making 2000 cases but now they have a team managed by their part-time employee. It takes 5 days to wax by hand all 4000 cases, they're 2 men and 8 women to do that, and they wax all the cuvées bottles.
Nice visit, like usual I leaved with a few opened bottled which were a terrific moment in the evening in our campground on U.S. Forest Service land
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