2017 WineSmith Grenache, Bates Ranch, Santa Cruz Mountains
Tasting Notes
There is, in my view, no other region in California that compares to the Santa Cruz Mountains for producing wines of distinctive terroir expression. Something about its mountain soils and mix of sandstone and greenstone, plus the lush surrounding herbs that encircle its tiny vineyards and impart their own distinctive “air-oir” gives each vineyard a unique stamp. The area is moderated by heavy Pacific influence but also lifted above the fog so that it enjoys plenty of cool direct sunlight, the perfect recipe for the grape to express itself.
Because of this, most of the region is best suited to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, of which there are many stunning examples. The Bates Ranch is located in the sheltered Corralitos region just south of Ridge Vineyards, and is famous for their Cabernet Sauvignon, while their Grenache, less well known, is also quite wonderful.
The nose is instantly alluring. One expects from your basic Grenache a simple strawberry aroma, but here we have in support of its bright fruitiness an intriguing collection of melon, droughty “garrigue” herbs, saddle leather and Asian spice. The mouth is medium-bodied with fine tannins and energetic minerality.
As a result, the wine is more complex and intriguing than a simple picnic wine but is certainly suitable for an outing in some summer meadow with a basket full of chicken and three-bean salad with sun-dried tomatoes. Its tannins have no edge at all, so I wouldn’t serve it with a steak, but it loves game, from venison to quail and is magic with my Swedish meatballs, doused in a morel / porcini cream sauce with a dash of Marsala.
Specs
Vintage: 2017
Vineyard Location: Bates Ranch
Corralitos subregion, Santa Cruz Mountains
5th leaf of experimental planting
Harvest Date: 11 October 2017
Harvest Sugar: 25.7 Brix
Fermentation techniques:
100% crush/destem
Anchor VN112 yeast inoculum
7 gm/L untoasted Alliers chips, air seasoned 2 yrs
Elevage details:
Malolactic fermentation in barrel
Neutral French oak aged 27 months
TA 6.7 g/L, pH 3.73 at bottling
Alcohol 14.0%
212 cases produced
Included in the Box
3-bottles:
3x 2017 WineSmith Grenache, Bates Ranch, Santa Cruz Mountains
Case:
12x 2017 WineSmith Grenache, Bates Ranch, Santa Cruz Mountains
Clark Smith is an MIT drop-out who wandered out to California in 1972 and sold wine retail in the Bay Area for several years, where he acquired a love of Bordeaux, Burgundy and all things French and observed first hand the California winery explosion in the 1970s. After a three year stint at Veedercrest Vineyards, he secured enology training at UC Davis and spent the 1980s as founding winemaker for The R.H. Phillips Vineyard in Yolo County. In 1990, he founded WineSmith Consulting and patented a group of new winemaking techniques involving reverse osmosis, spinning off Vinovation, which went on to become the world’s largest wine production consulting firm over its 17-year history.
Frustrated with California’s winemaking trends, Clark started WineSmith Cellars in 1993 as a teaching winery to make Eurocentric wines to explore traditions beyond the mainstream, expanding for his winemaking clients the range of possibility for California fruit. Choosing to create long-term partnerships with committed growers rather than growing his own grapes, Clark has become an renowned expert on Cabernet Franc, having vinified twenty vintages from a wide variety of sites.
Teaching at Napa Valley College gave him access to the Student Vineyard for Faux Chablis and his Pauillac-style $100 “Crucible” Cabernet Sauvignon. From Renaissance Vineyards in North Yuba County he has made a sulfite-free Roman Syrah and also produces a Pinot Noir from Fiddlestix Vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills in a delicate, age-worthy Côtes de Beaune style. These wines are vinified in an ancient beat-up warehouse in Sebastopol, California.
WineSmith wines are noted for their longevity, classic balance, structural integrity, minerality and understated soulfulness. They often are aged extensively prior to release. When drinking a WineSmith wine, always ask yourself “What is this wine trying to teach me?” Clark is a vocal advocate of living soil and graceful longevity, and generally avoids excessive oak, alcohol, or extended hang-time. He is not shy about employing new tools when they are needed, such as alcohol adjustment to bring fruit into balance or micro-oxygenation to build refined structure, but always fully discloses techniques which are controversial and is outspoken in explaining his rationale.
His book, Postmodern Winemaking, is the culmination of four decades of reflection on wine’s true nature.
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY
Hi everybody! Great to be back with you fine folks that really understand the WineSmith project. Here’s another Eurocentric forgery in the style of he Southern Rhone. Loads of strawberries along with the distinctive Bates Ranch melon and that earthy note so like the “garrigue” of the Rhone, but in this case imparted from the creosote-coated stems of a pretty white flower that grows in the vineyard named tarweed, and imparting something similar to gunpowder green tea. We like to call these aromas imparted by local flora “air-oir,” and because the Santa Cruz Mountain vineyards are small and surrounded by woods, each has its own unique air-oir signature.
Like most SCM wines, there is plenty of mineral energy in the finish.
Those of you familiar with the 2014 will find this richer in both fruit and tannin but less developed at this stage. This will improve with breathing and will easily go a decade in a decent cellar.
I just got back from visiting the Bates Ranch with ace viticulturalist Prudy Foxx to look at the 2020, which we’ll pick next week. I’ll post a video of our discussion a bit later.
@winesmith Thank you Clark for your continuing involvement with this group - your wines are always welcome here, and your geekiness about them is much appreciated!
So I was lucky and got a bottle to rat. But then I got unlucky because it was pretty badly corked.
I’d thought about comparing the 2017 to the 2014, so I ended up opening the older bottle. It’s excellent! Lots of wild strawberry like when I could pick them in the backcountry in northern Ontario. Some herbs that I can’t quite place. Very nice finish with some mineral energy.
I’ll wait to hear from another rat just for confirmation, but I’m almost certainly down for a split.
This is incredibly bad luck. I set up the quality control system for Lafitte Cork and Capsule 30 years ago, and it’s second to non. A corked WineSmith wine is a very rare occurrence - less than one bottle in a thousand.
Here’s what they do. When a shipment arrives, they take a 200-cork random sample and soak the individual corks in a light white wine and do sensory analysis. If they find one bad cork, the shipment is rejected.
The warehouse contains no wood and is kept a very low humidity. This prevents mold but makes the corks hard as rocks. So you have to order them a week in advance. We designed a hydration room which is kept sterile with UV light and ozone and 100% humidity. It takes about 5 days for the corks to rehydrate to the perfect 5-6% humidity for insertion. At this stage, another 200-cork sample is taken from each ordered lot. If sensory is okay, the 1,000-cork milar bags are sealed and shipped.
We always order for corks to arrive the day before bottling so there is no opportunity to pick up TCA in the cellar. We test a sample upon receipt. You may have noticed that we never brand our corks. This is so they can be rejected. That’s very rare, but I always wonder who ends up with the rejects. Probably home winemakers.
Anyhow, Murphy strikes again. The one bad bottle had to go to a lab rat. Oy.
@winesmith that’s quite the system!
Yeah, it’s a bummer we got the extremely rare example. And I’ve had zero corked bottles of yours over the years, too. If it’s less than one in a thousand then I should never see one again either!
@klezman Like many SCM wines, these Grenaches never taste very good when they’re young. I actually despaired about the 2014 when it was young. Three years later, it had improved so much that we chose it for the shared Blessing Cup at our wedding. Today, nobody doesn’t love that wine.
RuthE is a brilliant composer. Here’s the story of the WellSmith Blessing Cup. Be a dear and subscribe to her channel.
@tercerowines At 5PM tomorrow Pacific Time we are inviting you all to join us on Zoom as i filll your heads with Grenache fun facts and taste through our red, Rose and Brut Zero methode champenoise sparkling wine. I’ll explain why California is a much better place to make sparkling wines than Champagne is. Register free here.
@tercerowines Disagreement is very important in postmodern winemaking. When we do a Postmodern Symposium, It’s a roundtable discussion with 100 winemakers, each bringing one wine she wants to talk about. (That means we pour 10,000 glasses over two days.) The first thing we do is promise not to agree, but just to share perspectives. If we were all to agree about the way to make wine, there would be no room for 10,000 wineries. We’d just be in the dairy business, where it’s all about distributing a standard product. That is what million-case wineries do, but us small guys each have to make our own kind of music.
I hope you’ll Zoom in tomorrow. I will argue that the French agree with me that Brut Champagne is fundamentally shit. The history of Champagne is very revealing on this point. Not saying that recent vintages of Dom Perignon are not great wines, but the rank and file of bruts are not playing to the region’s strengths, which are the production of very sweet wines. Let’s wrassel.
2017 Winesmith Grenach; Bates Ranch - Santa Cruz
PnP. 58F Poured into a Riedel burg glass. Ruby colored with good clarity. Aroma are popping out of the glass immediately after pour. Fresh picked strawberry and assorted bright red fruit, an herbal note I can best place as tomato leaf, and perhaps a touch of rosemary. No heat detected. Palate is vibrant and acid driven, doling out strawberry/cran notes, medium to medium+ acid, and just enough tannin to provide balance and grip. Mid to long length on the finish and a mild white pepper hit.
After 40 minutes open I’m starting to get a little more character with the acid component with streaks of minerality. Really impressed with the balance and finesse of the tannins, plenty of grip but not enough to deter even the more sensitive palates (like SWMBO right now).
Almost 2 hours in and the nose and palate are largely unchanged from last check in, but the finish on this is now really long and enjoyable. 30+ seconds. Currently not getting a ton of complexity, but will check in again tomorrow afternoon evening. This is a delicious quaffer that is good to go right on the PnP! Another terrific effort from our resident smith. Cheers!
@trifecta@winesmith Day 2 follow up. Nose is still fresh and vibrant, turning a hue darker red from strawberry to plum notes. Palate has gained some heft and complexity with the extra time open exposing more layers of strawberry, boysenberry, and almost a sense of light chalk mouth coating that is quite pleasant. Streaks of mineral buzz and a hint of salinity. Still a quite long finish and great balance. Screaming deal for a delicious wine.
Yes, I agree that while it has a lot more going on than your typical strawberry lollipop Grenache, the wine is at present undeveloped compared to the 2014. I’m really looking forward to watching it gain those nuances over the next few years.
Great timing on this sale! I actually cracked into my first bottle of the St. Laurent, and first time tasting any Winesmith wine, today. And I was immediately filled with regret… regret that I only got 3 bottles, and not more. That was a really, really pleasant experience, and I’m looking forward to the next opportunity to open up another. I’m pretty convinced that I will try anything from Winesmith after that.
So yeah, OK, I’m definitely sold for some of this grenache. Probably regret only three bottles again… But that’s life.
@worbx In this case, it’s really not so much that it’s an unknown. Maybe only a little bit inasmuch as I’ve never had a granache, but after the St. Laurent, I’d try about anything @winesmith pushes out. More than anything it’s that a full case is an awful lot of wine for someone who might drink 3-4 bottles of wine a year on the outside. Six would be ideal. Enough that I don’t have to be too precious about opening a second bottle if I REALLY like the first, one or two to gift, and still a couple spares left. I’ll have to work up the bravery to ask if anyone in my region (around Davis, CA) wants to do a split case next time there’s a Winesmith offering!
@jiltant Ah, yes, I see. I’m also familiar with the problem of buying too fast for consumption… it’s why I’ve held off on a few interesting offers I’ve seen here this year.
Oh heck. I forgot to update that for 2017. Thanks for pointing it out. I obviously just updated the spec sheet I prepared for the 2014 and neglected to update this detail. I am so jazzed that you guys are keeping me honest.
Let’s start by clarifying the language of vineyard age. In general, when you put a vine in the ground, it grows as a little bush and establishes a root system. You can’t get any fruit, because the way grapes work is that sunlight need to shine on a bud for a year before it will produce berries.
Any cane growth you get in the first year is cut back to a single bud, so all the growth energy (carbohydrate storage) is concentrated into a single cane in the second year.
In year two, this cane grows like crazy, increasing length by one inch per day. The vine is very intensely trained during year two. Any off-shoots are stripped away until the vine reaches a height of about three feet, at which time the primary cane is snipped off, encouraging lateral growth.
Now we have a choice whether to make a wagon wheel of short buds (head-trained, spur pruned for cane pruning) or to set up two cordon branches with stations every six inches (cordon training). I almost always argue for cane pruning because a smart pruner can choose the right number of canes. You get more fruit and better fruit.
However it requires smart staff and is twice the price of cordon pruning, so that is more common. This is what Bates Ranch does, but Prudy and her crew spends a lot of time going through and culling poor fruit.
Getting back to wine age, it generally takes three years to get a crop. Maybe you get a small amount in year two, but it’s usually discarded. In challenging locations, it my be four or five years. This first crop happens when the leaf canopy has not been fully established and (particularly in California) can give you the best wine you’ll get for a decade and establish the potential for the vineyard.
So when we say fifth leaf, we generally mean the third year of production, which in this case was 2014. The 2017 was eighth leaf.
@LorriCA@rjquillin I’ll take 4.
But my staging area for splits is getting piled pretty high.
I’m near 10/405. Between LAX and San Diego county is about 50 miles of highway…
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: Tax & Shipping not included in savings calculations)
2017 WineSmith Cellars Grenache - $60 = 23.06%
You just had to do this to me, didn’tcha? Just when I was starting to get the cellar under control, just after spending too much on other stuff recently, but I can’t pass this up.
In for a case, would share some in the Sioux Falls/Twin Cities area if anyone is interested.
@wojtek OK. I don’t get to the Twin Cities quite as frequently as I used to (gee, I wonder why), but I should be making my way up there soon after this arrives, assuming it arrives in reasonable time. I’ll let you know when!
I love grenache when it’s done well, and I love wine from SCM. A case it is! And any SoCal peeps wanna connect to occasionally group purchase for future casemate wine offers, let’s private chat or whatever… Happy Friday, all!
@winesmith Thanks Clark - can you talk a little bit about the stats that she was reading at the end? I got the brix and pH but the others I wasn’t so sure.
Sure. To begin with, this FOSS Winescan instrument is all the rage in California, and I think it’s a piece of junk. What it does is shine infrared light light through a sample, creating light scatter patterns. For example, dextrose sugar (glucose) rotates the plane of polarized light to the right, while levulose (fructose) rotates it to the left. The acids, nitrogen compounds and other stuff will add to the complex pattern you get on the other side of the sample. Then a mathematical operation called a Fourier Transform to correlate these patterns with standard wet-chemical determinations so it can spit out a whole analytical panel in minutes. It costs about $40,000, so if you invest in one, you’re going to pretend that it works.
But it doesn’t. The results are commonly laughably bad. The problem is the samples you use for calibration. The manufacturer recommends 20 to 40 samples, but we have shown that it takes about 200. Even then, the FTIR reading of the tea leaves is only good for what you used to calibrate. 2020 Lodi Cabernat Sauvignon is not the same as 2019 Lodi Cabernet Sauvignon.
Nobody ever calibrates a FOSS for the exotic varieties I work with and the extended aging I do. It can tell me nothing about my Grenache, Petit Manseng, St. Laurent, or Norton, to say nothing of a sulfite-free Humboldt 2014 Meritage after 6 years in the barrel.
Prudy and I could tell that the vineyard is way more than 19.6 brix just by tasting it. The malic acid number of 2.6 gm might be about right. This acid is burned for energy to raise the brix by transporting sugar from photosynthesis, so it starts out very high (maybe 6 gm/L and declines in overripe fruit to about 1.5 (varies with variety). Picking on brix is a bad idea, because rain or raisining, high or low humidity can affect it, so it doesn’t tell us much about physiological ripeness, but when the malic stops dropping, we know sugar transport has ceased.
FOSS is terrible at predicting pH, so I never pay any attention to that. What it is good for is an instant estimate of the nutrient condition. This is expressed as ammonia plus free amino acids (except proline, which is high in grapes but cannot be used by yeast) expressed as Yeast-Assimilable Nitrogen or YAN. This should be in the range of 100 - 150. If it’s below that, we correct with organic products derived from yeast, though some people use diamonium phosphate (DAP), which is fertilizer. I don’t. It makes the yeast go crazy, shortening fermentation time on the skins and leaving behind a lot of nutrients for spoilage organism.
Before we had readily available estimates of YAN, winemakers would always add nutrients whether the must needed them or not. If you’re starting with, say, 400 ppm YAN, this is a disaster. So I like the FOSS reading since it’s quick and probably within +/- 50 ppm.
@jhkey@winesmith The Winescan thing; didn’t know about that. Now on the other hand if they could make the new Apple Watch do that (along with doing your blood O2 and ECG), then I might get one!
I was supposed to be a Lab Rat on this wine, but UPS hasn’t delivered the wine yet - they’re taking by 9:00 pm EST on 9/18 very literally. Pox on them, but thanks to Clark for asking me to Rat this wine. I like Clark’s Grenache. I’m very sorry Klez got a corked bottle - it sometimes happens no matter what one does for quality control!
@chipgreen@rpm Yeah I like my local UPS guys they’ve always been good, but… this wine shipment thing isn’t optimal. On the West coast they have used Ground (which should be fine), but several shipments have been delayed by “Late trailer arrival” (this was before the wildfires which closed highways so that’s excusable).
The weird thing is one shipment was already in Portland about 20 min from its destination, then the next day went up to visit Tacoma WA, about 3 hours away, spent the day there, sightseeing I guess, then came back to my area to be delivered the next day (not sure if that was 1 or 2 days after schedule target.)
I had a bottle of this a few days after delivery, and, I’ve gotta say, it’s some yummy juice! Better the second day and will certainly age well. Glad I got a case and looking forward to more WineSmith purchases.
Just don’t do what I did. I got a UPS email saying the wine would be delivered the next day to my house. Knowing we don’t get there until later, and not wanting to bother my mother (lives with us), I had the shipment diverted (via my UPS online account) to the local UPS store. As far as I can tell, the shipment never got to the store: I went, my wife went, the UPS data appears to say it never got there. So, UPS sent it back, without ever contacting me. They are refunding my money.
Too bad, because I buy little wine here and mainly ONLY Winesmith’s wine.
@ctviggen thats really unfortunate. I have not had that problem yet, I have been able to redirect my packages without losing the package but they usually take an extra day to arrive. I just don’t like the highly variable delivery times when delivers to the house, I can’t be waiting around all day to sign for a package.
On the bright side, assuming you got all your money back, you can contact the winery directly and they should hook you up with the same price. @winesmith 7073320056 is their number. Alternatively you could talk with casemates and see if they want to do anything about it. @winedavid49@wccwinegirl
Clark Smith here. If I understand correctly, you have had your money refunded and are square with Casemates and your delivery costs. We still have stock and are happy to make the same deal work from the winery directly. Please contact Sandra Johnson at 707-332-0056 between 9AM and 4PM Pacific time Monday through Friday and she will get you taken care of.
There are other advantages of going winery-direct. We honor any Casemates past offer that we still have in stock. The promocode IKNOWCLARK gets you 20% off on any bottles and if you are shipping 12 or more, you get 36% off on any non-deal wines you wish to pile on top. We provide free cellaring until you want your shipment sent.
We also offer a VIP deal which gets you free shipping for 12 months for a one-time fee of $70.
@winesmith TY, I tried emailing a while back but I will be calling tomorrow to grab a case if still available… I love your Grenache and I was worried about the temps and shipping during the time of the CM offer. Again thank you!
Sure, just call Sandra at 707-332-0056 between 9AM and 4PM Pacific time. I believe we still have some and will give you the Casemates deal. While we’re on the subject, we have a crazy good deal on the methode champenoise Brut Zero Sparkling Grenache made from the same grapes. You should also consider purchasing a VIP membership. It’s sort of like Amazon Prime. It gets you free shipping for a year for $70.
Wanting to try out our friend’s decanter (we normally just pour from the bottle), we selected this bottle last night and am really glad that we did.
Dark strawberry, plum, and the best black cherry I believe I’ve ever tasted in a wine. So smooth. This is one of the few times where my wife and I were 100% on the same page with the flavor profile. We’re not prone to hyperbole and agreed this is hands down one of the best wines we’ve ever had, in any class. It was so delicious by itself we held off on eating so that we could finish the bottle. Wow.
I’m glad I grabbed a case. We’ve got several in the cellar to hold for a couple of years and a few in the rack so that we can treat ourselves over the next few months.
Some of Clark’s wines are truly… transcendent. So far, his 2007 RRV Pinot Noir and his 2010 Roman Reserve Cab Franc have been so for me. His 2014 Humboldt County Meritage is also exceptional. Most of his other wines are merely excellent.
2017 WineSmith Grenache, Bates Ranch, Santa Cruz Mountains
Tasting Notes
Specs
Fermentation techniques:
Elevage details:
Included in the Box
3-bottles:
Case:
Price Comparison
$371.42/Case at WineSmith Cellars for 12x 2017 WineSmith Grenache, Bates Ranch, Santa Cruz Mountains
About The Winery
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY
Estimated Delivery
Monday, Oct 12 - Tuesday, Oct 13
WineSmith Cellars Grenache
3 bottles for $64.99 $21.66/bottle + $2.67/bottle shipping
Case of 12 for $199.99 $16.67/bottle + $1/bottle shipping
2017 WineSmith Cellars Grenache
Hi everybody! Great to be back with you fine folks that really understand the WineSmith project. Here’s another Eurocentric forgery in the style of he Southern Rhone. Loads of strawberries along with the distinctive Bates Ranch melon and that earthy note so like the “garrigue” of the Rhone, but in this case imparted from the creosote-coated stems of a pretty white flower that grows in the vineyard named tarweed, and imparting something similar to gunpowder green tea. We like to call these aromas imparted by local flora “air-oir,” and because the Santa Cruz Mountain vineyards are small and surrounded by woods, each has its own unique air-oir signature.
Like most SCM wines, there is plenty of mineral energy in the finish.
Those of you familiar with the 2014 will find this richer in both fruit and tannin but less developed at this stage. This will improve with breathing and will easily go a decade in a decent cellar.
I just got back from visiting the Bates Ranch with ace viticulturalist Prudy Foxx to look at the 2020, which we’ll pick next week. I’ll post a video of our discussion a bit later.
@winesmith Love your wines. Already purchased. Thank you!
@danandlisa @winesmith Ditto!
@winesmith Thank you Clark for your continuing involvement with this group - your wines are always welcome here, and your geekiness about them is much appreciated!
Here’s my video description.
So I was lucky and got a bottle to rat. But then I got unlucky because it was pretty badly corked.
I’d thought about comparing the 2017 to the 2014, so I ended up opening the older bottle. It’s excellent! Lots of wild strawberry like when I could pick them in the backcountry in northern Ontario. Some herbs that I can’t quite place. Very nice finish with some mineral energy.
I’ll wait to hear from another rat just for confirmation, but I’m almost certainly down for a split.
@klezman
This is incredibly bad luck. I set up the quality control system for Lafitte Cork and Capsule 30 years ago, and it’s second to non. A corked WineSmith wine is a very rare occurrence - less than one bottle in a thousand.
Here’s what they do. When a shipment arrives, they take a 200-cork random sample and soak the individual corks in a light white wine and do sensory analysis. If they find one bad cork, the shipment is rejected.
The warehouse contains no wood and is kept a very low humidity. This prevents mold but makes the corks hard as rocks. So you have to order them a week in advance. We designed a hydration room which is kept sterile with UV light and ozone and 100% humidity. It takes about 5 days for the corks to rehydrate to the perfect 5-6% humidity for insertion. At this stage, another 200-cork sample is taken from each ordered lot. If sensory is okay, the 1,000-cork milar bags are sealed and shipped.
We always order for corks to arrive the day before bottling so there is no opportunity to pick up TCA in the cellar. We test a sample upon receipt. You may have noticed that we never brand our corks. This is so they can be rejected. That’s very rare, but I always wonder who ends up with the rejects. Probably home winemakers.
Anyhow, Murphy strikes again. The one bad bottle had to go to a lab rat. Oy.
@winesmith that’s quite the system!
Yeah, it’s a bummer we got the extremely rare example. And I’ve had zero corked bottles of yours over the years, too. If it’s less than one in a thousand then I should never see one again either!
@klezman Like many SCM wines, these Grenaches never taste very good when they’re young. I actually despaired about the 2014 when it was young. Three years later, it had improved so much that we chose it for the shared Blessing Cup at our wedding. Today, nobody doesn’t love that wine.
RuthE is a brilliant composer. Here’s the story of the WellSmith Blessing Cup. Be a dear and subscribe to her channel.
@klezman Of course, we will send you a fresh bottle. We always trust our customers and replace any defective bottle without question.
Hey Clark! Sounds like an interesting wine! And perfect to help celebrate International Grenache Day tomorrow!
@tercerowines At 5PM tomorrow Pacific Time we are inviting you all to join us on Zoom as i filll your heads with Grenache fun facts and taste through our red, Rose and Brut Zero methode champenoise sparkling wine. I’ll explain why California is a much better place to make sparkling wines than Champagne is. Register free here.
@winesmith ummmmm - i think many will disagree with your assertions but there’s nothing new with that, right?
@tercerowines Disagreement is very important in postmodern winemaking. When we do a Postmodern Symposium, It’s a roundtable discussion with 100 winemakers, each bringing one wine she wants to talk about. (That means we pour 10,000 glasses over two days.) The first thing we do is promise not to agree, but just to share perspectives. If we were all to agree about the way to make wine, there would be no room for 10,000 wineries. We’d just be in the dairy business, where it’s all about distributing a standard product. That is what million-case wineries do, but us small guys each have to make our own kind of music.
I hope you’ll Zoom in tomorrow. I will argue that the French agree with me that Brut Champagne is fundamentally shit. The history of Champagne is very revealing on this point. Not saying that recent vintages of Dom Perignon are not great wines, but the rank and file of bruts are not playing to the region’s strengths, which are the production of very sweet wines. Let’s wrassel.
2017 Winesmith Grenach; Bates Ranch - Santa Cruz
PnP. 58F Poured into a Riedel burg glass. Ruby colored with good clarity. Aroma are popping out of the glass immediately after pour. Fresh picked strawberry and assorted bright red fruit, an herbal note I can best place as tomato leaf, and perhaps a touch of rosemary. No heat detected. Palate is vibrant and acid driven, doling out strawberry/cran notes, medium to medium+ acid, and just enough tannin to provide balance and grip. Mid to long length on the finish and a mild white pepper hit.
After 40 minutes open I’m starting to get a little more character with the acid component with streaks of minerality. Really impressed with the balance and finesse of the tannins, plenty of grip but not enough to deter even the more sensitive palates (like SWMBO right now).
Almost 2 hours in and the nose and palate are largely unchanged from last check in, but the finish on this is now really long and enjoyable. 30+ seconds. Currently not getting a ton of complexity, but will check in again tomorrow afternoon evening. This is a delicious quaffer that is good to go right on the PnP! Another terrific effort from our resident smith. Cheers!
@trifecta @winesmith Day 2 follow up. Nose is still fresh and vibrant, turning a hue darker red from strawberry to plum notes. Palate has gained some heft and complexity with the extra time open exposing more layers of strawberry, boysenberry, and almost a sense of light chalk mouth coating that is quite pleasant. Streaks of mineral buzz and a hint of salinity. Still a quite long finish and great balance. Screaming deal for a delicious wine.
Yes, I agree that while it has a lot more going on than your typical strawberry lollipop Grenache, the wine is at present undeveloped compared to the 2014. I’m really looking forward to watching it gain those nuances over the next few years.
I think you’ll see a lot more tomorrow.
Great timing on this sale! I actually cracked into my first bottle of the St. Laurent, and first time tasting any Winesmith wine, today. And I was immediately filled with regret… regret that I only got 3 bottles, and not more. That was a really, really pleasant experience, and I’m looking forward to the next opportunity to open up another. I’m pretty convinced that I will try anything from Winesmith after that.
So yeah, OK, I’m definitely sold for some of this grenache. Probably regret only three bottles again… But that’s life.
@jiltant It’s hard to justify buying a full case of an unknown when you cannot find someone to split with, isn’t it?
@worbx In this case, it’s really not so much that it’s an unknown. Maybe only a little bit inasmuch as I’ve never had a granache, but after the St. Laurent, I’d try about anything @winesmith pushes out. More than anything it’s that a full case is an awful lot of wine for someone who might drink 3-4 bottles of wine a year on the outside. Six would be ideal. Enough that I don’t have to be too precious about opening a second bottle if I REALLY like the first, one or two to gift, and still a couple spares left. I’ll have to work up the bravery to ask if anyone in my region (around Davis, CA) wants to do a split case next time there’s a Winesmith offering!
@jiltant Ah, yes, I see. I’m also familiar with the problem of buying too fast for consumption… it’s why I’ve held off on a few interesting offers I’ve seen here this year.
Can you expand on 5th leaf of experimental planting? Never seen that listed under specs
@losthighwayz
Oh heck. I forgot to update that for 2017. Thanks for pointing it out. I obviously just updated the spec sheet I prepared for the 2014 and neglected to update this detail. I am so jazzed that you guys are keeping me honest.
Let’s start by clarifying the language of vineyard age. In general, when you put a vine in the ground, it grows as a little bush and establishes a root system. You can’t get any fruit, because the way grapes work is that sunlight need to shine on a bud for a year before it will produce berries.
Any cane growth you get in the first year is cut back to a single bud, so all the growth energy (carbohydrate storage) is concentrated into a single cane in the second year.
In year two, this cane grows like crazy, increasing length by one inch per day. The vine is very intensely trained during year two. Any off-shoots are stripped away until the vine reaches a height of about three feet, at which time the primary cane is snipped off, encouraging lateral growth.
Now we have a choice whether to make a wagon wheel of short buds (head-trained, spur pruned for cane pruning) or to set up two cordon branches with stations every six inches (cordon training). I almost always argue for cane pruning because a smart pruner can choose the right number of canes. You get more fruit and better fruit.
However it requires smart staff and is twice the price of cordon pruning, so that is more common. This is what Bates Ranch does, but Prudy and her crew spends a lot of time going through and culling poor fruit.
Getting back to wine age, it generally takes three years to get a crop. Maybe you get a small amount in year two, but it’s usually discarded. In challenging locations, it my be four or five years. This first crop happens when the leaf canopy has not been fully established and (particularly in California) can give you the best wine you’ll get for a decade and establish the potential for the vineyard.
So when we say fifth leaf, we generally mean the third year of production, which in this case was 2014. The 2017 was eighth leaf.
Who’s in for the inevitable SoCal split?
@klezman I’d split a case.yiu say SoCal but: what part? We live between LAX and San Diego County. I’m guessing you’re North. How far north?
@klezman @LorriCA
Three way?
Four each?
Or more likely this will end up as a multiple case event.
@LorriCA @rjquillin I’ll take 4.
But my staging area for splits is getting piled pretty high.
I’m near 10/405. Between LAX and San Diego county is about 50 miles of highway…
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: Tax & Shipping not included in savings calculations)
2017 WineSmith Cellars Grenache - $60 = 23.06%
The St. Laurent was so good. Wish I’d bought two cases then.
/giphy astounding-lax-ginger
Clark is an autobuy in this house…
/giphy furious-limited-frame
/giphy manageable-smelly-monk
Time to start stocking for winter, right?
/giphy pretty-tailored-sound
You just had to do this to me, didn’tcha? Just when I was starting to get the cellar under control, just after spending too much on other stuff recently, but I can’t pass this up.
In for a case, would share some in the Sioux Falls/Twin Cities area if anyone is interested.
@coynedj let’s split a case. I’ll order.
@coynedj Or did I misread and you already ordered a case?
@wojtek I already ordered - you still up for it?
@coynedj Yes! Let’s split your case. I won’t order another one then.
@wojtek Sounds great - you’re helping me justify that order. Where are you located?
@coynedj South Minneapolis
@wojtek OK. I don’t get to the Twin Cities quite as frequently as I used to (gee, I wonder why), but I should be making my way up there soon after this arrives, assuming it arrives in reasonable time. I’ll let you know when!
I’m in. Clark’s wines are an auto buy for me and I love his Grenache.
Happy Grenache Day!
@ScottHarveyWine Thanks, Scott. Means a lot coming from you. RuthE will be very happy.
I love grenache when it’s done well, and I love wine from SCM. A case it is! And any SoCal peeps wanna connect to occasionally group purchase for future casemate wine offers, let’s private chat or whatever… Happy Friday, all!
/giphy agile-beaming-ham
/giphy outrageous-gruntled-badger
It’s time for me to revisit the heady days of my grenache-heavy youth!
/giphy possible-misty-peanut
Here’s a link to a video of my visit to the Bates Ranch yesterday to look at the 2020 Grenache with ace viticulturalist Prudy Foxx.
@winesmith Thanks Clark - can you talk a little bit about the stats that she was reading at the end? I got the brix and pH but the others I wasn’t so sure.
@jhkey
Sure. To begin with, this FOSS Winescan instrument is all the rage in California, and I think it’s a piece of junk. What it does is shine infrared light light through a sample, creating light scatter patterns. For example, dextrose sugar (glucose) rotates the plane of polarized light to the right, while levulose (fructose) rotates it to the left. The acids, nitrogen compounds and other stuff will add to the complex pattern you get on the other side of the sample. Then a mathematical operation called a Fourier Transform to correlate these patterns with standard wet-chemical determinations so it can spit out a whole analytical panel in minutes. It costs about $40,000, so if you invest in one, you’re going to pretend that it works.
But it doesn’t. The results are commonly laughably bad. The problem is the samples you use for calibration. The manufacturer recommends 20 to 40 samples, but we have shown that it takes about 200. Even then, the FTIR reading of the tea leaves is only good for what you used to calibrate. 2020 Lodi Cabernat Sauvignon is not the same as 2019 Lodi Cabernet Sauvignon.
Nobody ever calibrates a FOSS for the exotic varieties I work with and the extended aging I do. It can tell me nothing about my Grenache, Petit Manseng, St. Laurent, or Norton, to say nothing of a sulfite-free Humboldt 2014 Meritage after 6 years in the barrel.
Prudy and I could tell that the vineyard is way more than 19.6 brix just by tasting it. The malic acid number of 2.6 gm might be about right. This acid is burned for energy to raise the brix by transporting sugar from photosynthesis, so it starts out very high (maybe 6 gm/L and declines in overripe fruit to about 1.5 (varies with variety). Picking on brix is a bad idea, because rain or raisining, high or low humidity can affect it, so it doesn’t tell us much about physiological ripeness, but when the malic stops dropping, we know sugar transport has ceased.
FOSS is terrible at predicting pH, so I never pay any attention to that. What it is good for is an instant estimate of the nutrient condition. This is expressed as ammonia plus free amino acids (except proline, which is high in grapes but cannot be used by yeast) expressed as Yeast-Assimilable Nitrogen or YAN. This should be in the range of 100 - 150. If it’s below that, we correct with organic products derived from yeast, though some people use diamonium phosphate (DAP), which is fertilizer. I don’t. It makes the yeast go crazy, shortening fermentation time on the skins and leaving behind a lot of nutrients for spoilage organism.
Before we had readily available estimates of YAN, winemakers would always add nutrients whether the must needed them or not. If you’re starting with, say, 400 ppm YAN, this is a disaster. So I like the FOSS reading since it’s quick and probably within +/- 50 ppm.
@winesmith thanks! very interesting!
@jhkey @winesmith The Winescan thing; didn’t know about that. Now on the other hand if they could make the new Apple Watch do that (along with doing your blood O2 and ECG), then I might get one!
/giphy tedious-predominant-poppy
Any Denver peeps want to split? Would love some of the newer vintage to go along with the 2014 which is quickly disappearing… @COBrent you buying?
I grabbed a case - if any Atlanta folks want 3-6 bottles, let me know.
/giphy pompous-predictable-glove
Fantastic information Clark in the comments. Thank you.
/giphy lone-holy-dragon
@douglasp60 You are most welcome. It’s great to have a tribe that goes for the geeky stuff. Any other questions?
yesssss! Wonderful info in the thread and love supporting great small producers.
/giphy guided-inane-creator
/giphy handsome-bawdy-helium
I was supposed to be a Lab Rat on this wine, but UPS hasn’t delivered the wine yet - they’re taking by 9:00 pm EST on 9/18 very literally. Pox on them, but thanks to Clark for asking me to Rat this wine. I like Clark’s Grenache. I’m very sorry Klez got a corked bottle - it sometimes happens no matter what one does for quality control!
@rpm Well, that will still give you a few hours. Probably will help to give it a shake to open it up after its road trip.
@winesmith LOL, you know I just love shaking things up a little!
@rpm Well, it’s 9:17 pm EDT and no wine has arrived! Clark: you need to get a rebate on the shipping!
@rpm I had wine arrive at around 9:30 last night.
@rpm now UPS says it will arrive by 9:00 pm Monday!
@rpm @winedavid49
Welcome to the family.
@rpm
That’s UPS for ya’…
@chipgreen @rpm Yeah I like my local UPS guys they’ve always been good, but… this wine shipment thing isn’t optimal. On the West coast they have used Ground (which should be fine), but several shipments have been delayed by “Late trailer arrival” (this was before the wildfires which closed highways so that’s excusable).
The weird thing is one shipment was already in Portland about 20 min from its destination, then the next day went up to visit Tacoma WA, about 3 hours away, spent the day there, sightseeing I guess, then came back to my area to be delivered the next day (not sure if that was 1 or 2 days after schedule target.)
I opened my one bottle of 2014 from the 3 pack. Then I ran back to my computer to grab a case of this. Thanks Clark.
unhurried-lofty-skirt
/giphy unhurried-lofty-skirt
@drgonzo99 ok if I try?
@drgonzo99 @ttboy23 I’ll grab a case if you’re interested…
/giphy calm-tonal-apricot
@lagloriafan If you look up “disquieting” I think you’ll get that image.
So @rjquillin @MarkDaSpark @merrybill @CorTot et al…is a split happening?
@klezman Its a no for me.
@klezman I liked the '14, but I’ve no room to wait for this one to blossom. Sorry.
@klezman No for me as well.
Q: What’s a red wine served with a little snack?
A: A Gre-nosh!
In for a case. fanatical-scandalous-leather indeed! Now I can safely start to drink the three 2014 I have left.
NE OH in the house, thanks to mrn1 for pulling the trigger!
Noooooooooooo!! Stupid work and life got busy and I missed this.
@pseudogourmet98 they may honor the deal if you contact Winesmith wines directly.
@pseudogourmet98 @Twich22 This is true. Just call Sandra on Monday at 707-332-0056 between 9AM and 4PM Pacific time and she’ll take care of you.
I had a bottle of this a few days after delivery, and, I’ve gotta say, it’s some yummy juice! Better the second day and will certainly age well. Glad I got a case and looking forward to more WineSmith purchases.
Just don’t do what I did. I got a UPS email saying the wine would be delivered the next day to my house. Knowing we don’t get there until later, and not wanting to bother my mother (lives with us), I had the shipment diverted (via my UPS online account) to the local UPS store. As far as I can tell, the shipment never got to the store: I went, my wife went, the UPS data appears to say it never got there. So, UPS sent it back, without ever contacting me. They are refunding my money.
Too bad, because I buy little wine here and mainly ONLY Winesmith’s wine.
@ctviggen thats really unfortunate. I have not had that problem yet, I have been able to redirect my packages without losing the package but they usually take an extra day to arrive. I just don’t like the highly variable delivery times when delivers to the house, I can’t be waiting around all day to sign for a package.
On the bright side, assuming you got all your money back, you can contact the winery directly and they should hook you up with the same price. @winesmith 7073320056 is their number. Alternatively you could talk with casemates and see if they want to do anything about it. @winedavid49 @wccwinegirl
Clark Smith here. If I understand correctly, you have had your money refunded and are square with Casemates and your delivery costs. We still have stock and are happy to make the same deal work from the winery directly. Please contact Sandra Johnson at 707-332-0056 between 9AM and 4PM Pacific time Monday through Friday and she will get you taken care of.
There are other advantages of going winery-direct. We honor any Casemates past offer that we still have in stock. The promocode IKNOWCLARK gets you 20% off on any bottles and if you are shipping 12 or more, you get 36% off on any non-deal wines you wish to pile on top. We provide free cellaring until you want your shipment sent.
We also offer a VIP deal which gets you free shipping for 12 months for a one-time fee of $70.
@ctviggen
@winesmith
You sir, are a stand up man.
Knew it before, from other posts, but you really do stand out.
@winesmith TY, I tried emailing a while back but I will be calling tomorrow to grab a case if still available… I love your Grenache and I was worried about the temps and shipping during the time of the CM offer. Again thank you!
Sure, just call Sandra at 707-332-0056 between 9AM and 4PM Pacific time. I believe we still have some and will give you the Casemates deal. While we’re on the subject, we have a crazy good deal on the methode champenoise Brut Zero Sparkling Grenache made from the same grapes. You should also consider purchasing a VIP membership. It’s sort of like Amazon Prime. It gets you free shipping for a year for $70.
Wanting to try out our friend’s decanter (we normally just pour from the bottle), we selected this bottle last night and am really glad that we did.
Dark strawberry, plum, and the best black cherry I believe I’ve ever tasted in a wine. So smooth. This is one of the few times where my wife and I were 100% on the same page with the flavor profile. We’re not prone to hyperbole and agreed this is hands down one of the best wines we’ve ever had, in any class. It was so delicious by itself we held off on eating so that we could finish the bottle. Wow.
I’m glad I grabbed a case. We’ve got several in the cellar to hold for a couple of years and a few in the rack so that we can treat ourselves over the next few months.
Some of Clark’s wines are truly… transcendent. So far, his 2007 RRV Pinot Noir and his 2010 Roman Reserve Cab Franc have been so for me. His 2014 Humboldt County Meritage is also exceptional. Most of his other wines are merely excellent.
