Cloverdale, California
I had met Caleb Leisure in Oakland a few years back, in the pre-pandemic Brumaire (scroll down to the 23rd pic). To rewind back to the start, Caleb has discovered the real wines when he moved to New York in 2006, this was then the early stage of the natural-wine scene there (let's remember Joe Dressner of course). He
grew up in California and was until then not interested in wine, but here in the big city a friend of his at the time introduced him to the wine world, he went for example to the Hospices de Beaune auction in NY, then there were parties where everyone would bring an extra bottle to share and that's how he discovered these wine. His wife is English and they came over to England in 2012 fot two years, and natural wine was already a big thing there.
That's at the time that he first met Derek Trowbridge of Old World Winery, he's been Caleb's farming mentor when he started his own thing here in California. Derek is part of the Martinelli family which runs a large and old winery in California but he's kind of the black sheep considering his unconventional approach aiming at natural wine and with the related farming going along. At this time Caleb was not yet planning to make wine, he was interested in Derek's philosophy. At the time he was in London Caleb actually was looking into making cheese, visiting lots of dairies and cheese producers, learning the trade, trying his hand at making a bit of cheese. There's actually, he says, some kind of big overlap between cheese making and natural-wine making. At the time he was in London he also travelled to France, making 3 harvest season at Ludwig Bindernagel's domaine in the Jura (read aldo Aaron Ayscough's piece about a harvest there). That's when his interest switched really toward making wine, he felt this was pretty cool. After that he worked with Didier Barral for a summer and a long harvest. that's when they come back to California.
This visit took place in the 3rd week of august, and I met there as well Pete Bloomberg (Llewelyn wine), pictured on left, who started to make wine in 2021 and also works here, both for himself and for Caleb.
The picture here shows the cellar and facility rented by Caleb in Cloverdale. Pete Bloomberg on the right is also a winemaker, Pete comes from Los Angeles where I came in contact with him as he's been working for Lexie Jordan's Funk De Funk imports (and we also had an exchange through email in the past). Here he both works for Caleb and tends hiw own cuvées here (Pete's operation is Llewelyn Wine), and this visit was a chance to hear both of them and taste their respecting cuvées.
So, getting back to Caleb's return to California, there were a few natural wine producers there but not many, he himself felt comfortable around wine but had not the first clue how it'd work in California, the business side of things, he was an English major originally by training, a different world. He reached out to people, a lot of them would be willing to sit down with him, give him time and advice, and he ended up in 2015 with Tony Coturri in Glen Ellen. Coturri was willing to adopt him, he's a large personality and an early actor in California in this artisan-minded philosophy. Caleb felt more at ease strolling through his cellar, it was very rustic and very appealing for Caleb, much more in line with what he saw in France than the typical Californian winery. Caleb feels lucky because for someone who was getting into wine quite late, he met Coturri at the right time, he offered Caleb to work here if he wanted, he liked Caleb's enthusiasm and experience abroad, and for Caleb, to be given this opportunity was like roaming through a candy store for a kid, he tasted the barrels in the cellar, taking notes and so on, it was very exciting but a lot of responsability on his shoulders suddenly. Caleb says it was a good exercise for his palate.
Another chance for Caleb is that Tony let him direct this whole harvest, like 30 tons of grapes, the estate surface was a pretty small parcel but he relied also on his brother's vineyard, his brother Phil being kind of an organic viticulture guru in the area. To complete the picture when the two brothers started, Phil was the one taking care of the vineyard and Tony would do the cellar part, and somehow along the years Tony remained passionate for an artisan, non-interventionist winemaking while his brother pursued a path which was maybe more business-minded. Tony kept his route and aim at making the wines he wanted to, Unapologetically. and that's when Caleb showed up. Asked about the interest of customers for Tony's wine, Caleb says that with the rapid fame of natural wines in California, there was a growing interest of consumers for Tony's wines, and an awakening to the fact that that he had been vinifying naturally since the start. Before the interest for natural-wine rose in the region, Tony's wines were viewed as the work of an original working on his mountain and with this new era the consumers' expectations changed, many palates evolved and many wine lovers began to appreciate his wines and his work. Tony was buying grapes to different growers for his cuvées already back in the time and it's interesting to see that even today the local natural-wine producers are also buying grapes to these same growers; he had also opened the way for the sourcing to the right fruit, like for example Poor Ranch. We drove through Hopland by the way and I thought about Poor Ranch while there, there's certainly a good visual story to make visiting them.
So, Caleb was happy to be offered the opportunity to be fully in charge, at the same time he was learning, and Tony also let him do as much as he wanted to. Tony was incredibly hands on, Caleb would make wine along his specifications : Tony is a very pragmatic winemaker, doing everything the same way regardless if it was Cabernet or Pinot, which means he let the fruit speak the differences with the other vintages. Everything was crushed and destemmed, put into large fermenters. In the old days he would use these big open-top redwood fermenters (they're still on the property, very nice vessels). When going with him to purchase grapes at Poor Ranch that's where he met Avi of Absentee Winery (Avi moved from Marin County to Fort Bragg since, and was even here in Cloverdale in this very facility in-between for a year when Caleb signed the lease 3 years ago). I thought Tony's son Nic would make wine there now but i learn he's making wine in Washington State, in San Juan Islands, his operation there is named Piquenique Wines. Pete says it's pretty far North and the grapes may be sourced inland for now (he just planted vineyards) but he makes lots of cider as well.
So, while Caleb enjoyed these years working with Tony, he had his own perspective which he got from his experiences in Europe. At Coturri it was all very simple, no forklift, there was just a small crusher and a very old-school basket press, about as simple as it could be, all done by hand, even punchdowns (no tool, just the hands) to get the physical intimacy with the grapes and the process. In some sense, Caleb keeps working like that to these days, he says there's information to be gleaned working an intimate way with the grapes and juice, it's somehow registered in your whole experience, you internalize it and this feeds your knowledge and understanding. There at Coturri it was all a very simple and practical way of processing the fruit, Tony wasn't too worried about numbers, he wanted physiological rightness, healthy microbiology, he wanted clean fruit, he wanted no stems and he would ferment until dry, then press. Caleb says he makes his own wines are with much lighter macerations but he says he's still hardwired at leaving the fermentation go as long as it can. At the time he was with Tony, he still could experiment on his side and play around, make some whole-cluster fermentations with a couple lots. Since the start of working with Tony he made small volumes of his own wine and I understand it helped him finetune his own winemaking style. Working with Tony was a hyper-accelerated experience because he was in charge of the whole thing even if Tony helped and he says without this challenging responsability there's no way he could have get the amount of intimate experience with the reality of making wine anywhere else, it was like a 5-year internship concentrated in a very short time frame. After two years working together they found an arrangement in 2017, he would work for Tony a couple days a week and then make all the wine he wanted there. He got a dedicated space dug in the hillside, a very rustic place with earthen floor where he could have his own vessels, he brought some qvevris and that's how he started his own thing officially even though he had made his first vintage in 2016. With using qvevri he could rise his production to 20 tons, using Tony's basket press, fermentations bins and so on. When he started make wine like this he went his own way regarding the modus operandi, he wanted to separate himself with Tony's way of doing things (even if he appreciated his work), his palate was different, he was looking for things maybe lighter, with less extraction, and he was looking for more experimental processes, trying new techniques, he was not into making wines the same way every vintage.
For his first vintage in 2017 he also bought grapes to different producers, like Sumu Kaw Vineyards, he had discovered this grower and his vineyard through Hank of La Clarine; he had been bringing the qvevris in and he was interested in playing with the whites especially, with whole-cluster grapes macerations (the reason he chose to use Georgian vessels). He didn't have any money and had to launch a crowdfunding campaign to pay for the qvevris, something he hated to do but that was the only way actually to finance this investment. This was a time things were starting, Ordinaire and The Punchdown had opened in the Bay Area just a few years before (by the way, The Punchdown has recently opened a wine bar/wine shop in Sebastopol !). Both D.C. and Bradford committed to buy him a certain number of cases which helped him at a crucial moment along with a few other local spots that took his wines as well, and he took part to Raw at the beginning which helped him being noticed by California natural-wine lovers. Already at this time he was looking for vineyard lease opportunities (to rent parcels rather than just buy fruit tended by others) but it's difficult in California. Of course places like the Sierra Foothills are cheaper but he has a young family here in Sebastopol where he developped ties and don't want to drive all the way to tend the vineyards or move live there (and also his wife works in San Francisco and needs to be not too far). He now has a few parcels he farms, some around here and one in Calaveras county (Sierra Foothills). He also works with a vineyard close to here in Alexander valley, the owner is a businessman who moved here from San Francisco and he's not looking at making the maximum money with this vineyard, he likes how Caleb farms and they both have a good relationship that can stand the test of time. Some varieties are hard to reach for him without connections, like for quality and organic Pinot Noir, as it costs 4000, 5000 to 6000 $ a ton. Caleb also works with Derek of Old World Winery, he's a pal and will give access to fruit when available.
About the qvevris above, there are 14 of them, all are Caleb's apart a Flextank that looks like a qvevri. They come from Georgia, emereti region. He first brought 10 of them, travelling in Georgia to find a qvevri maker was kind of epic, not easy to find the places in the countryside, then the language barrier also. He lost two qvevris that turned out to be tainted with a fungus that found its way in the terracotta (he found out after having made wine with them alas). He had some qvevris he had been using already in Glen Ellen at Coturri, so he dug them up and brought them here as well. These qvevris are lined inside with beeswax, just the right amount because too much would be thick and inpenetreble, loosing the micro oxygenation, the thing is, every now and then at some point the vessel have to get coated again, or the wine begins to seep through, he had the experience of this, it showed like little black dots on the outside and he was loosing a quarter of an inch a week, that's not too much but still. So he moved the wine in a different vessel ater a while. Now before putting a new wine and before putting a new lining he uses electrical coils that heat indirectly, penetrating the walls for 2 hours at 350 F, it helps a lot. he uses also before that hot water, a brush and 10 % tartaric acid mixture. In Georgia he noticed that every winemakers does differently from their neighbor, so there's no unique way of treating them. To put the beeswax he does it from the outside with a brush or a roller, the thing is to do it with the right temperature for the beeswax to be even.
With the qvevri Caleb and Pete have to be very careful with the co2 as there's no opening in the bottom to get everything out including the co2. Traditionall they're buried of course and here he couldn't because of the condition, the leased facility and so on. He had also a 2nd shipping of qvevris in 2021 when he settled here and half in the container were smashed, that was another blow. also on this 1rst harvest in 2021 the fruit was coming in and they realized that the new qvevris, in spite of the lining were leaking
Here in the cellar Caleb works mostly by himself and with the help of Pete, who also makes his own wine here and splits his time between los angeles and Sonoma. Caleb says that beyond himself 4 people make their wine in this facility, they all feel comfortable with each other, each has his own delimited area somehow and its separate license. I say that they share the costs like the aircon but to my surprise I learn there's no aircon in here although it felt so cool coming from the outside : the building sits along a retaining wall and that's why. This facility was built in 1936, it's one of the oldest post-prohibition wine-devoted buildings with augmented structure added in the 1970s. They also shared the tools which makes it affordable, unlike custom-crush facilities which are the other options and are very expensive for a young winemaker. Caleb says that also with the custom-crush thing you don't have autonomy and don't have real control on your winemaking, and many boutique wineries in California use these but don't tell it on their labels although you don't make as demanding wines when you use these commercial services instead of having your own place (shared or not). This said, some of these businesses let you do more your stuff by yourself than others, but still these folks can decide to inoculate, it's a talking point among starting winemakers, what type of structure is best to use.
Caleb vinifies 80 % of his wines in qvevri, the rest in a combination of stainless and barrels, the choice depending on the year, the grapes. He uses used barrels, not new ones, the good thing in California is that you can find used barrels very easily and very cheap [mainstream wineries love new oak and renew their barrels all the time]. Speaking of vinifying in qvevri, Caleb says the good thing is what they call "leaving the wine with the mother", raising the wine, giving it strength and nutrients from the skins and stems, and the way that these vessels are shaped encourages the use of skin contact, he feels by experience that fermenting-wise things roll cooler and slower, more even than in a square-shaped vessel, there's a constant motion going on in these qvevris, and during fermentation you can see the wine fold over itself in its atmosphere. There's a noticeable difference of temperature between the core of the wine and the outside part, which keeps the wine moving like a flow over the skins, but not the seeds which separate themseves and fall in the cone in the bottom. What is surprising also is that compared with the other types of vessels which he uses as well, the wines in the qvevris are always crystal clear, and pretty quickly, he notices the difference the first time he tastes the wines in the winter. this may have to do with some kind of self-filtration that gets through here with the wine passing through the skins and stems. If some of his wines may look cloudy it's because he takes everything when he racks the vessels. To empty the qvevris, it's the old way, fork, rake and bucket, not easy, that's why it's not commercially used in mainstream wineries, but for him it makes sense for the wines he wants to make. He never worked with concrete vessels, mostly because he didn't have access to (they're very expensive) but that's something he'll try one day.
Pete says that for his own wines this year it will be all barrel, it's easy to be distracted there's a whole choice of varieties to choose from in California and he'll try to settle on a limited range of them. the other thing is sometimes you find grapes that are far away, leading to logistics issues and he doesn't want to have to drive his truck and trailer excessively far, ideally he try to settle on deals 30 minutes from here which he brings back with his pickup truck. He jokes that when his peers winemakers meet they often speak about trucks because that's part of the life here with the logistics issue of buying grapes. He says they're lucky here, it's an aera lucky with opportunities, with the Russian river, Mendocino, the Poor Ranch, he buys for example Carignan which Tony Coturri used to work with, it's 70 to 100 years old, in goblet, pristine, beautiful, and it's not that expensive, Poor is a ranch farm.
__ Caleb Leisure Mother Sees 2022, a white blend, 50 % Viognier, 25 % Marsanne, 25 % Roussanne from the El Dorado area in the Sierra at an elevation of 3000 feet (900 meters) on decomposed granite. Maceration on skins. 12 % alc. Beautiful color. Good acidity and enjoyable tannins, long mouth with a light oxidative feel and you have this nice texture of skin contact in qvevri. All unfiltered and unfined, and no added so2. He usually make this winewitrh a seven month maceration but from I understand it was shorter this year. There was a new problem withy the Viognier it's that the bear ate a lot of the bunches in 2022. In thiss area hunting bears is not possible, it's only if they're a threat to the public, so there is little that can be done (Caleb is not a hunter anyway). Usually he makes a sparlikg wine with the Viognier. asked if he was not too worried at the beggining making hiw wines without so2, he says the fact he had this first hand experience in doing so at Tony Coturri's place helped him relax with this issue. Since he started he thus never added any and was actually never tented to. Asked if he never had an accident, he says he never had an accident which he thinks so2 would have fixed. And he says it's all part of that risk/reward balance, and he's quite sensitive to sulfur and he doesn't mind the risk, plus he would be upset thinking that by using some it's like he was beginning to use a crutch.
__ Llewelyn (Pete Blommberg) Blanc 2021, Chardonnay frm Mendocino County, some 30 minutes from here, from up the Russian River near Hopland in a place which is cold at night; 13,50 % alc. 2-day maceration (in a picking bin), he says just stylistic because he wants the fermentation (which took place for 13/14 months in a barrel on lees) to be happy and smooth. Some batonnage. Some oak feel on the nose. Goes down pretty well and easy. No filtration, no so2. As the label reads : "Contains Only Naturally Occuring Sulfites. None Added" I love this sentence (you can see the vertical caption on the picture on right if you have good eyes), the French wine adimonistration should fast-track this label info righ away ! Pete says that in the future he'll extend the élevage length for this cuvée to 18 months/2 years. He says it still taste quite young, it's rich, I like that, but Pete says not that much compared to California standards. Generous wine.
__ Caleb Leisure I Got It Bad 2022, Pinot Gris from Petaluma Gap. Mostly clay soils, very low elevation, the region gets sea influence, wind and fog, sometimes has small berries and low yields with ripeness sometimes difficult to achieve. About 12 % alcohol. Magic color. Nice tannic touch in the mouth, very enjoyable chew. The name : Caleb's father is an artist (sculptor) and it's the name of one of his pieces. His mom is also an artist and she's the one who made these labels (nice work !). Vinification : 50 % maceration for 5 weeks in qvevri and 50 % 5-day maceration in stainless, then blended together in a Flextank. This is the first time he works with this fruit. Beautiful colr. In the mouth, very thirst quenching, very nice. Speaking of volumes, Caleb makes 100/150 cases for each cuvée in general (total production 1200/1500 cases a year). Caleb was very happy to play around and experiment with this Pinot Gris, and if not with the seepage in the qvevri that shortened his maceration, he'd tried longer maceration, and the sad thing is that he'll not get the fruit this year, the grower sold all the fruit to the winery Maitre de chai, but maybe next year he'll get some. Asked when he released this rosé, he says he had to do some bottle élevage after a relatively eraly bottling, and he says the down thing when you make zero-zero natural wines is that you loose the little bit of control regarding the release, because the wine is the boss and decides when it is ready. He'll not add 15 parts of so2 just to get the wine on the market when the market asks for it, but it's just a little inconvenience actually.
At one point we're speaking about the varieties, some being so trendy like Pinot Noir and Sauvignon (with grapes almost impossible to find because of the demand in California), and Caleb says that for Pinot Noir for example there seems to be now a reverse stigmatization of it, and to some degree of Chardonnay. He says he likes Chardonnay, there's still a lot of Chardonnay around that is not very exciting, and you could say that about Pinot Noir but it sells well, and he thinks you can do beautiful wines with it.
__ Caleb leisure Forty Pulses 2022, Pinot Noir from the Russian River Valley, North Sebastopol (another cuvée name stolen from his dad, Caleb says). 12 % alcohol. On skins for about 40 hours in clay, just foot stomped then pressed, then 8 months in clay, very simple vinification he says. He got the fruit from Derek at Old World Winery, the vines are 20 years old. Nose : very feminine, subtle, with peony notes. He says on the market for grapes the price of Pinot Noir is too high. Caleb says it was tasting very reductive in the qvevri but he racked it and it cleaned up. It tastes very delicate now. He says there's a misperception that California wines are by nature big and browny because of the heat, but actually a lot of conventional winemakers are really pushing for maximum flavors and then they're watering back to dilute the alcohol andre-acidify.
__ Llewelyn (Pete Blommberg) cuvée Hildy 2021, Pinot Noir. Grapes from Henderson Valley, at a 1800 feet (550 meters) elevation, above the fog (fog can be good for bringing moisture but it can bring disease as well), a beautiful, pretty cool climate for California with a lot of consistent sunlight, lot of wind, pretty cool temperatures. Fermentaion in barrel. 6-7 days for maceration, then 8 months in a neutral vessel. 12,5 % alc. Moderate extraction, the color is not very dark. Full mouth, richness and light tannins. Balanced and easy to drink. Pete says he wants to make wines he likes to drink, with freshness. He does the labels himself, here his brother made the drawing of the dog. Asked where he sells his wine, Pete says mostly in Los Angeles, plus some in the Bay Area, like in Ordinaire. Pete confirms that L.A. is hot (in the sense of booming demand) for natural wines, just that this summer with this Hollywood strike and considering much of the economy depends of the film industry, the economy has been slow.
__ Caleb Leisure Off-Glide 2022, Merlot from Chalk Hill (North-East of Healdsburg) got it from Derek, 12 % alc. Chalk Hill is quite a prestigious appellation with volcanic soils. He made this wine in the past in a more traditionnal manner, with longer maceration, but this year he wanted to make something different, not a big red (he as 2 or 3 in the pipeline). He did a 50 % carbonic (10 or 12 days), blended with a very short whole-cluster 2-day maceration (same fruit picked on the same day), picked quite lean, especially for Merlot. Then in clay. Lightly turbid, energy feel in the mouth, he says the soil nature is why. I love this color, like a tamed, chalky red. Dust feel in the mouth as well, lovely ! He made 120 cases of this. Speaking f the sales, for his first vintage he found local buyers at first, and at that time his son was just born, so he hadn't much time with also the vineyard work. Now the kids are older and he has a bit more time to work on distribution. His wines are on the shelf for a price like 35 $.
__Llewelyn (Pete Blommberg) Will You Miss Me When I Burn, Carignan Mendocino county Red 2022, grapes from Testa Vineyard, 40 minutes from here (North). Vineyard is 70 to 100 years old, head trained, always organic, really perfect, the Testa family in Calpella has it for ages. He made two picks, the first vinified as rosé, the 2nd pick whole-cluster maceration and carbonic. So this cuvée is 50 % rosé and mzybe 35 % one-week whole-cluster maceration for one week and the rest, 15 %, carbonic. He did it in puncheon. Exciting turbid color (the one he opens for sample are the most turbid, the ones he sells are clearer). Very fresh and easy drinking, love it § 12,9 % alc. 90 cases total. Pete says he will keep buying grapes to this family. Pete says that Carignan tends to ripe lare and late september 2022 there had been rain after a heat period, he was worried that the Carignan would turn bad with rot, mildew or whatever, but when it was picked around october 10 it had turned back beautifully with its chemistry back in order, it's very resilent compared to the Zinfandel for ewample where the tight clusters just burst. He has also a barrel of rosé (non blended) on which he did batonnage, he'll bottle that separately.
__ Caleb Leisure AB OVO 2022, red blend of 75 % Mourvèdre & 25 % Marsanne, grapes from Sumu Kaw Vineyards in El Dorado County. 12 % alc. The name means "from the egg"
in Latin because it's the first wine he made in qvevri, it means also starting a story chronologically at the earliest point. It's by accident that he had to buy the Marsanne the first year, he had misjudged thghe size of his vessel, the Mourvèdre would have filled it easily and that's the reason he thought he had to buy an extra load of red, this Marsanne. When he picked the Marsanne was ripe but the Mourvèdre was quite lean and still a bit green and as they were cofermented the chemistry of them together worked nicely. He may reproduce this cofermentation. The wine is interestingly aromatic, I feel leather, mushrooms, I love that ! Bottled end of april.
Speaking of bottling, Caleb makes it himself, he shows me a tool (picture on left) which he uses and that is even better than gravity for bottling because there's really no oxidation during the process. It's an Italian vacuum filler, and for unsulfited wines it's very good the maker is Zambelli Enotech and from what I understand the canister goes fully into the vessel and from there it pushes the wine out.
__Llewelyn (Pete Blommberg) Love Songs for Friends & Foes 2022, red blend of Syrah (75-80 %) and Carignan, some of the vines are very old, the rest 25 years. The Syrah (also bought in Calpella) he did some whole clusters at the bottom, maybe a 3rd, untouched, and then destemmed grapes on top of it, the whole macerating for about a week, fermentation in puncheon (demi-muid). Red fruit notes on the nose. Generous wine, demonstrative, he nods, saying it's more Californian in this sense. But it's not burning, I need to say.
__ Caleb Leisure, no label (it's not the one he's opening above) 2018, a tile-colored sort of rosé, a blend of Marsanne (80 %) and Roussanne (20 %). It's sold out for a long
time. 12,5 % This one was 7-8 months on the skins, he's interested also to see how it tastes now. Tannin touch on the palate, interesting character ! It is a Georgian amber wine (qvevri vinified, each grape separately, blended in march or april), a first try for him at the time and as it was the 1st time he felt he had to try this long Georgian-style maceration. He moved on different direction from there, this first one was very tannic at the beginning but after 7 or 8 months it mellows.
__ Caleb Leisure, pet-nat 2020 made with Viognier (plus 5 % Roussanne) 2020 Sumu Kaw Vineyards (El Dorado County), soldout also, 150 cases total (Small production again). 3 years on lees (the next was 18 months on lees). He began to disgorge it 18 months later. He really likes to push the time on lees. Bubbles are quite intense in the mouth but they're thin. Feels rich ! Caleb says it took another year to go dry, it still had a little of residual sugar to go through.
At one point during this trip we had the chance to stumble upon a small village festival (this was in Pescadero along the Pacific) with kind of hippie vibes, it was a great time and everyone was having fun. The music was at that time of the day the Gary Gates Band, they seem to play there every year. In the evening with slept in our tents on the grass near a parking lot.
The Japanese also kept wine in such ceramic barrels for hundreds of years. Wow is it impressive
Posted by: Nipter | October 20, 2023 at 08:12 AM