Heitz buys Burgess

The Lawrence Family, Heitz Cellar owners, acquire Howell Mountain’s Burgess Cellars

And they did not retain the staff, guess the Lawrence family will be pressing their own by hands and feet!

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The story skips over a lot of history
Lee Stewart started the winery and made a lot of legendary wines, inc the 68 Cab, and trained many winemakers.

A group of businessmen bought the winery In the early 70s and decided it was not big enough so they built a new winery and sold the old one to Tom Burgess, who had been a pilot for IBM.

The winery was successful in the 70s and 80s but I don’t think Tom was that interested in wine. He had decided to retire to the SF region and liked Napa so he bought the winery.

Does anybody ever think about Burgess wines any more?? What shape is the vineyard in??

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Mel, you are a huge asset to this board. It is always a learning lesson to hear your frame of reference. For some reason when I first got into wine in the late 70’s I thought Burgess was great. Truth is that I was just guessing based on what I had read. I liked the Ohio connection. I bought cases of '77 and '78 regular and Vintage Selection. They were priced right at the time compared to Mayacamas, Heitz Marthas, BV GdlT, etc. Parker gave them good reviews and I did not know what I liked and didn’t like at the time. I just bought blindly. I still have some to this day. Sentimental value.

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I remember having some Burgess Cabernets from the late 1970s but have not had any or even seen any (other than in a friend’s cellar) for a very long, long time. I thought the wines were very good but not of the highest level. Interesting, esp. Mel’s comments.

I remember receiving a 1975 Burgess as a gift from George Hauer (La Jolla Georges) in 1986 as a going away present after working there a few years. My mother who still lives in Ohio told me about the Ohio connection after she visited the winery a few years ago. WTSO was selling 90s and early 2000 Cabs for about $25 around 10 years or so ago. I bought a bunch of those and they were very fine. Not blockbusters, but that’s not really what I’m looking for. I always respected that they stayed true to their style and didn’t go the over-ripe route like so many of their peers.

I had a 1997 Burgess Merlot earlier this year (that I bought from Benchmark for $28) and it was definitely enjoyable, although, nothing special for me. Good value at that price for sure.

Still have one 1982 and 1986 vintage selection bottlings in the cellar. Will have to pop them and report on the results. Prior old bottles have held up perfectly.

I had a 1978 about two years ago courtesy of a friend that was sublime. It led me to seek out more Burgess and since then I’ve had half a dozen bottles of the 1984 Vintage Selection that were equally superb, as well as a bunch of 1994, 1995 and 1998 (Library Release) that were very good but not in the same league as the ‘78 and ‘84s.

1980s and 1990s Burgess show up now and then at auction (Heritage, Winebid, K&L, etc.).

It would be awesome if they released some of the mid 70s Petite Sirah. The 1974 was a great wine! I think I liked the 1973 as well.

A friend brought a 76 Burgess PS to the IPNC around 1990…fantastic.

The whole story of what happened to the Souverain brand is a long one. The new owners decided the facility was too small so they built what is now Rutherford Hill. Then they got involved with Pillsbury, who decided that facility was too small so they built Ch Souverain in Geyserville. They also bought Schoonmaker selections. The new owners over bought a bunch of French and German wines and then the oil crisis hit and then Pillsbury discovered they had a legal problem on their hands as they also owned restaurants. So they sold everything and now the winery in the Alexander Valley is now Francis Ford Coppola Presents. Schoonmaker got folded into a kind of merger with the Austin Nichols selections and became Chateau and Estates. The Ch Souverain brand is made elsewhere.

I have always felt that reviving a winery brand is one of the hardest thing to do. I don’t know what the new owners will do with Heitz and now they have added Burgess to the mix. No shortage of grapes.

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I was at a tasting at Burgess last year. We started our day at O’Shaughnessy and Burgess was clearly a large step down in quality from what we had just tasted. I think the wine has promise but the stop may have been doomed by starting somewhere better.

‘84 was darn good. About $10, if I remember.

Interesting connection b/w the two wineries

Have had some really good '70s Burgess. '76 and '78 lined up for the fall/winter.

A ‘77 Burgess for my wife’s 40th was my first foray into sourcing and pouring older wines on my own. All others to that point had been from friends cellars. It was a wonderful experience. Got me hooked on buying older wines and even buying all the older Burgess I could find at reasonable prices. Especially birth year wines for the whole family.

Hope to see the brand revived but hope it doesn’t drive up cost of the old stuff!

Perhaps related to the acquisition, but some bottlings are being liquidated locally, that were originally intended for DTC / mailing list / tasting room sales. I enjoyed a bottle of the 2016 Burgess Cellars ‘Burnside Road Vyd’ Chardonnay [Russian River Valley] over a couple of days and this cool climate true Sonoma Coast hillside Chard is hanging in there. It is better on the second night, which I wonder if that is related to its synthetic cork, which might have not had the OTR of a natural closure. There is still a nutty, oxidative note at first but it balances out. These purchased grapes(must?) come from Goldridge soils farmed by the Balleto’s, mostly barrel fermented. This 100% chardonnay end up at 14.1% abv, and the wine is quite round, almost blurry today. Strangely, reviews across CT over multiple vintages all seem to slot into the 90pt zone, but the tasting notes are all over the place, in terms of sensory perception. For me it’s soft, tropical, but NOT flagrantly Big Butter. I’d give it a B+ although I’m not sure about repurchasing – I had a 2014 Phelps ‘Freestone’ Chard a while ago that had held it’s crisp, bright edge much better; that location is not all that much more westerly / seaside than this.

The winery has both changed their labels and bottlings, and under new masters, gone much more upmarket, and - I think - shed their bought in Chardonnay efforts.

Years ago, I found a small stash of old Burgess Petite Sirah for sale. Kim, geo and I snatched them up and arranged a visit and lunch with Tom to open the bottles. It was the Thursday before Ridgestock and turned out to be a typical Gang deal.

https://www.gangofpour.com/tastingnotes/burgess/index.html

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The winemaker Meghan Zobeck shows up regularly on Somm TV. That’s the only sighting I see. Haven’t seen bottles for sale in a long time.

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I have 1 bottle of the 1982 Burgess cabernet left. The 1986 we opened recently was still very good.

We had the Burgess Contadina CS 2017 a week ago and I thought it was a solid Cab in an old-timey way like the Inglenooks of the '70’s. Should go out another 10 yrs or so.
Tom

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