As returning readers of this blog well know I am a tireless enthusiast for the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA. I feel it has enormous unrealized potential, this despite fistfuls of awards won by its wines over the years. What is missing is greater national recognition. A stronger effort must be made by winegrowers, through their modest collective instruments of publicity and marketing, to better promote the unique qualities of the region. Terroir means something here. Creative indifference to both fashion and the latest technological innovation is the rule. A barn not a faux chateau is the dominant architectural form. If you like your wine spiked with masking oak, look elsewhere. The preference is for structured, balanced wines, approachable in their youth but, like the winemakers here, in it for the long haul. Indeed, the continuity of the AVAs wine history is unmistakable.
After I had finished my interview with Jeff Emery of Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard (pt.1, pt.2, and pt.3) and was preparing to leave he volunteered the following meditation on the origins of the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA.
Jeff Emery The Santa Cruz Mountains (SCM) AVA is unique in a number of ways. It was the first American Viticultural Area whose criteria was based entirely on geographical and climatological considerations. All the appellations up to that point were generally political boundaries. For instance, Napa Valley. To say Napa Valley on a wine label, on a bottle, you only have to be within Napa county. It is actually somewhat meaningless in terms of climate, soils and geography. Whereas in Europe those things are very strictly controlled based on where you are, that type of thing.
What ended up becoming the Santa Cruz Mountains Wine Growers Association, through a number of different changes, was a group of what was being called the new renaissance of winemakers in the Santa Cruz Mountains in the late ’60s early 70’s. They would get together for these monthly or quarterly pot lucks and discuss the criteria to submit to the government for establishing the SCM AVA.
The main players felt strongly that appellations needed to mean more than they had previously in the US. Appellations here were kind of a farce, a straw version of what they were in Europe. They really needed to have reasons why. The main people involved in that push were David Bennion of Ridge, Ken Burnap of Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard, Val and Dexter Ahlgren of Ahlgren Vineyard, Bob Mullen of Woodside Vineyards, and I’m sure I’m going to miss some people…, Jan and Nat Sherrill of an outfit called Sherrill Cellars, long gone now; so this core group of people, we would get together and meet. I was a teenager when I came to this group in the late ’70s. The main focus was developing this AVA criteria. We had endless meetings about what to do with vineyards such as Bates Ranch which has an upper portion and a lower portion, and the lower portion would have been kicked out of the appellation based on the criteria that the upper was in. So a little gerrymander was made for that one….
In short, the boundary is much more complicated than this but generally the West side of the Santa Cruz Mountains the elevation has to be above 400 feet with the idea being that if it is below 400 feet it would be too cold for quality grape growing. And on the East side of the mountain range the vineyards have to be above 800 feet, the idea being that below 800 feet it is too hot for quality grape growing. There are a whole bunch of exceptions to that but, by and large that’s the deal. So when you look at a map of the SCM AVA it’s this incredibly squiggly line because it follows the contour lines. The most arbitrary limits, perhaps, are the northern terminus at Hwy 92 [Half Moon Bay] and Hwy 152 in the south [Watsonville].
So this group got together to establish this. The appellation was approved in 1981 by the TTB or what was called the ATF at the time. Now, they’d gotten used to meeting together and had, in and amongst establishing the appellation criteria, they had also done some marketing things and some tastings here and there, done some collective efforts like that, so it just naturally evolved into a marketing group for the Santa Cruz Mountains. Then, I’m sketchy on the dates, a group of folks started a Santa Cruz County group that was much more marketing-based than the Santa Cruz Mountains group, and it was sort of a sub-group. But as time went on they became more and more similar, in fact, a whole bunch of us, about half the membership, were in both. And it was decided that it was redundant and silly to have these two organizations duplicating efforts. The two organizations were merged, that was at the time the Santa Cruz County Winegrowers Association and the Santa Cruz Mountains Vintners. They became the present-day Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association (SCMWA). I was president of the board at the time when that happened, so you’d think I would know when that was but I cannot recall off the top of my head! I was chosen primarily because I was in both organizations and they wanted someone to sort of unify the groups and get it together.
Now we’re an organization [SCMWA] of over 70 member wineries from around a dozen in those days. We don’t do potlucks in people’s homes because there are too many of us! But we still do meet at least twice a year.
The SCM AVA does have one sub-appellation…
JE Yes.
In a conversation I had with Bob Mullen he was quite opposed to any further sub-appellations.
JE Interesting…
He believes it would dilute the branding. On the other hand there are so many microclimates…
JE I don’t know that sub-appellations dilute appellations. I mean, does a vineyard designation dilute the Gevry-Chambertin AOC in Burgundy? It’s a difficult question because it is such a broad appellation, certainly in terms of microclimates. And there is not just a single varietal that says this is what’s grown here. So it’s very hard for the consumer to get a handle on what Santa Cruz Mountains is. This is what the SCMWA has been struggling with for decades as far as what is the AVA’s identity. To an extent I could make a case for sub-appellations as helping with that. But I also don’t know that it needs to be that specifically legal called out. When you get into an application for an AVA you going to have to spell out the exact boundary. It’s like a property line deed. And we all know that applying such rigid, objective things to such a subjective, organic process like growing grapes is never going to be perfect. What I’ve heard proposed more recently that I think is a good way to do it, and to an extent winegrowers have started to promote it this way, is to talk about the different districts within the appellation, and their different characteristics. The wine group that has done a very good job of doing that is Appellation America which is an on-line presence that looks at and judges wines in the context of their given appellation, tries to pick out the different styles and then the sub-regions within that. They just did a whole thing on Pinot Noir…
Yes. Clark Smith and Laura Ness wrote a wonderful series…
JE Right. They developed these different regions like Corralitos and what they’re calling in our old area, the Vine Hill area, Los Ranchos, the Summit area, Skyline… so you can do these different plots and regions, and I would say you could do that in general with the Woodside, the Saratoga, the Corralitos…
Without a formal sub AVA…
JE Yes, without formal subs and formal boundaries because in many cases, within a given varietal, I think you could argue those boundaries would shift with what variety you’re growing, its requirements, heat, exposure, etc. It’s become so cumbersome to do applications for AVAs now that I think it’s probably more trouble than it’s worth. In fact the Feds are talking about throwing out the whole process entirely.
Paso Robles has been involved in quite a long fight over their proposal…
JE Yes, because they are trying to do lots of sub-appellations. We had a big fight years ago when the San Francisco Bay appellation was proposed. That was a situation of applying a bigger, broader based thing on top of an existing smaller one, in this case the Santa Cruz Mountains. The group actually fought pretty hard against the San Francisco Bay. We felt it was pretty meaningless. The Bay is a huge, diverse bunch of microclimates. It was mostly proposed, in our opinion, as a marketing tool for people that distributed world-wide because nobody knew where things were if you didn’t tie it to San Francisco Bay. And in the end the winegrowers group met and came up with the official policy by voting, and it was by no means unanimous, there was a lot of contention about whether it was a good idea, but the great majority thought it was a bad idea.
To my knowledge Santa Cruz Mountains is the only exception in the American Viticultural code wherein a smaller appellation within a bigger one is nevertheless exempt from it. In other words, the Santa Cruz Mountains said, “We do not want to be called San Francisco Bay”. Normally in that case if you were in the small one and the big one you could choose which you wanted on your labels. So, for instance, if you were in the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA under the normal circumstances if you wanted to say [on your label] San Francisco Bay you could. In our case we said we never want to do that because it is ridiculous and meaningless. Santa Cruz is not part of the San Francisco Bay appellation, which did get approved. But we are carved out of the middle of it.
And if you’re below the 400 foot elevation on the western side?
JE Well, you can always call yourself by a county, Santa Cruz County, Santa Clara County, San Mateo, Monterey, or you could do San Francisco Bay were you located in the first three counties. Or Central Coast.
Thank you for your insight, Jeff.
JE You’re welcome, Ken.
Admin
November 30th is the 2009 Rossi Prize scholarship application deadline for graduating Napa Country high school students pursuing a degree in viticulture and enology at UC Davis. (PDF link here.) The $20,000 Rossi Prize was established in 1979
“ in order to benefit viticulture and enology students from the Napa Valley, and to honor the memories of their late parents and brother. The Rossi family has been involved in grapegrowing and winemaking since the early 20th century and has been an integral part of the agricultural history of the Napa Valley.”
The Rossi’s have a very distinguished viticultural history in the Napa Valley and with UC Davis. Their generosity is legendary. It was in late 2007 that Napa valley native Louise Rossi’s estate donated 12.7 million dollars to the University. The full details may be read here.
With a less pressing deadline of April 3rd, 2009, the California Association of Wine Grape Growers, through their affiliate, the California Wine Grape Growers Foundation, offers qualifying high schoolers the following:
“Up to two scholarships being offered each provide $1,000 per year for four years (provided studies continue to be completed satisfactorily) at any campus in the University of California or California State University system. Another four scholarships each provide $500 a year for two years at any California community college.”
However, the scholarships offer comes with a praiseworthy, culturally significant requirement. (application PDF here.)
“Only the children of vineyard workers employed in the 2008 or 2009 winegrape growing season are eligible to apply. However, children of wine grape growers may request a waiver from the eligibility requirement based upon financial need.”
The Foundation also offers the Robert Miller Scholarship for Viticulture and Enology. This is a more general prize for viticulture and enology students on the Central Coast planning to attend either the Alan Hancock Community College or CalPoly. (application PDF here)
Cal State Fresno also offers significant wine ag scholarship awards, but I found their portal difficult to research. However, interested parents and students will find a way!
I will locate other Cal. enology and viticulture scholarships for another post soon. Anyone with relevant info is invited to write Reign of Terroir with details.
Admin
Reign of Terroir is pleased to introduce a new series, Young Winemakers. The effort will be to interview up and coming winemakers, our next generation of creative producers.
First up is Denis Hoey, 25, owner and winemaker at Dragonfly Cellars located among the Surf City Vintners group here in Santa Cruz, California. Denis graduated from UC Santa Cruz with degrees in Economics and Business Management. During his last year at the university he met Jeff Emory, the highly regarded owner and winemaker of Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard who graciously took him under his wing.
The rest is history.
I caught up with Denis at Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard’s winery where Dragonfly shares space.
Admin Tell us how you began making wine?
Denis Hoey I began at Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard. I was introduced by one of my teachers at UCSC to Jeff Emory, and he gave me the opportunity to come in and learn, the old apprenticeship style. And I continue to work at Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard to this day. From there is was exploring the UC Davis library, reading year in and year out until I felt like I was ready I started Dragonfly Cellars.
I studied very, very hard about an individual grape variety, Durif, found about its origins, how it’s been treated in the past, what has worked, what hasn’t worked. I pieced together a bunch of different winemaker’s methods so as to create my own. That’s the origin of my winemaking.
Are there other grapes besides Durif that interest you?
DH Durif is one of my main focuses. I’m trying to do mostly Santa Cruz Durif. I think it is a wonderful grape that can grow well here. It has a tremendous expression of smoke, spice, and beautiful flavors that is brought out here in the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA. So I’m working very closely with some growers who are just getting some vineyards online. And that’s going to be my main focus. However, I also like to play with Cabernet vineyards. The last few years have been fun. I don’t ever have a contract, it’s just through my friends I get a great vineyard source and I make great Cabernet from them. One vineyard source one year and one vineyard source another year, and that’s been a fun thing. So I’m kind of getting back into the traditional bit with the Cabernet. I also have the opportunity to work with alot of Santa Cruz Mountains [AVA] Pinot seeing that I work for Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard, so I’m also making a Santa Cruz Mountains [AVA] Pinot blend. I working with Pinot, Cabernet and Malbec.
Speaking of smoke I’ve heard reports of smoke from this year’s summer fires affecting some vineyards in Northern Napa and Mendocino. Have you detected it in the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA where we too had a number of fires?
DH I have not noticed anything as of yet from my vineyards. I could very rarely, if ever, smell the fires from my vineyards or seen any ash in my vineyards. So, therefore, I haven’t seen any problems for myself. I know of alot of vineyards that were very close to the fires where that could be an issue.
And the sources of your fruit, are they from all over Cali?
DH Yes, but as of 2007 I will be about 75% Santa Cruz Mountains AVA.
Your case production?
DH Case production as of this year will be 600 cases, so very, very small. We started with 65 cases, went up to 100, went up to 350 (laughter), and now were up to 600! So were growing about 100 per cent every year. There’s been a wonderful response and make me feel, like, “Ok, I should be making more wine!”
You hear various reports about the quality of this year’s crop, that there is a reduction overall and some quality issues. How would you estimate the quality of the grapes you’ve seen pass through your doors?
DH The grapes that first appeared, I was highly skeptical because they were coming in so fast and so early. But the flavors that I’m getting from the finished wines that are now in barrel are wonderful. I didn’t feel as though I had as much control this year due to the heat because you can only pick one or two vineyards a day. And when they’re all coming in in a three or four day period, you know, some of them get away from you, from optimal. But on the whole I’m enjoying the flavors. The yields have been very, very low. Alot of our vineyards are coming in 50 to 60 percent low. That’s a big hit to a winery. I know I would have produced alot more wine this year had some of the vineyards I was working with hadn’t come in so shy.
But as far as the quality of the fruit, I think the quality has been quite good from the vineyards we’re getting from. From year to year I’ve been noticing that guys right next door can have a bad year just due to the microclimate not only in Santa Cruz but in other appellations. I’ve worked with two different vineyards and have enjoyed the fruit out of one but not the other. They shared the same growing techniques but it was just the different microclimate.
That is one of the strenghts of the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA.
DH I think so.
Here in the winery would you tell us a little about your barrel regimen?
DH I had the privilege of working in a brewery for about a year and a half. My brother is a brewer. And when I was commuting back and forth, my fiancé at the time, now my wife, was going to school up in San Rafael, I needed to get a job where I could work part time for Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard and also work up there. So I got a job at Bison Brewing. I learned breweries have to be alot cleaner than wineries have to be. Wineries produce more of a stable product. But in breweries you’re constantly fighting microbiological warfare due to the nature of beer. Beer is prone to infection. No pathogens can live in alcohol. By infection I mean producing off-flavors, you know, basically ruining what you’re trying to create. I translated that experience to the winery. So I work under brewery’s regime of cleanliness. I sanitize everything; no water rinses. It is always organically sanitized and neutralized. Nothing touches the wine that hasn’t been cleaned.
There’s a saying in the industry that brewers are neat and tidy, wineries are a little messier, and distilleries are disgusting! Because nothing can live in high proof alcohol. Distillers don’t have to worry about infection or things like that. That’s the pecking order of who’s more stable.
But to get back to the point, the wines I work tirelessly to have clean…, clean, perfect wines going into the bottle. So I can’t look back and look at myself and say, “God, I messed that one up”.
We have about 300 barrels in the winery. My regime is to top routinely, clean each bung because that is a major source of infection, and to taste every barrel at least every one to two months. Otherwise your barrel can start to have its own micro issue that you can nip in the bud. If you’re tasting often and you know you might have a problem, you can fix it before it becomes a problem.
How did you come up with your beautiful label illustrations?
DH I bumped into a nice lady by the name of Gilli Wolf, she is my graphic designer. She just came up to the table and said she wanted to design a wine label and I said, “You’re in luck. I need a wine label designed”. So I sent her a scrap that I knew I wanted the feel of the label to be. I told her it’s Dragonfly Cellars, I’d like Celtic knots in the wings, make it look a little nouveau. She took it from there and knocked it out of the park in the first two or three tries.
That’s for sure! I love the label.
DH I am really happy and blessed with the label. It really all came together.
The origin of the name of the winery is my wife and I were sitting in a field at a brew festival with my brother. We were wondering what we were going to call the winery. There were thousands of dragonflies flying all around us in this field. I said, “Dragonfly Cellars!” But then I said, no, somebody will have that name. I went researching and found nobody really had that name. So I threw it through the TTB, it got approved, got my bond, started the winery. Now it’s all trademarked. Its been a wonderful growth and we’re blessed even to have the name.
Plans for the future?
DH I plan to hopefully stay at an 800 case level. I’ve got a preview program that’s slowly growing. I’ve got a whoppin’ 35 members! We’re still in our infancy stage. What I’m working on is working with organic growers for the vineyards I work on personally and farm myself, on sustainability, towards doing the majority of my winemaking from grapes of the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA, just trying to work local and as green as possible. In the wine industry we have to use certain things like sulphur just because that is a tried and true method to produce quality wine. At least from my research thus far. I’m always open to having my mind changed!
But for the future, I want to create very balanced wines. My wines are all about balance, all about accessibility; they’re wines that I design where people can come to the winery, buy a bottle of wine, and go home and drink it. But you can also age it for 5 or 6 years, which is good for people who have cellars. That’s what I do! So I’m trying to play on both ends instead of having these hard lines where people come in and taste it and go, “Umm, I don’t like it right now.” I want them to come in and say, “Wow, this is balanced; this has everything I want now. I can only imagine what it’s going to be in 5 years.”
That’s the ultimate goal.
It’s just my wife Claire and myself. We do everything, everything there is to do at Dragonfly. We have no employees. It is just us.
Absolutely delightful. Thank you very much, Denis.
DH Thank you.
Admin
Jeff Emery The Santa Cruz Mountains (SCM) AVA is unique in a number of ways. It was the first American Viticultural Area whose criteria was based entirely on geographical and climatological considerations. All the appellations up to that point were generally political boundaries. For instance, Napa Valley. To say Napa Valley on a wine label, on a bottle, you only have to be within Napa county. It is actually somewhat meaningless in terms of climate, soils and geography. Whereas in Europe those things are very strictly controlled based on where you are, that type of thing.
Yes. Clark Smith and Laura Ness wrote a wonderful series…
