In response to my MarkVernon/Ridge TN post, Sean Devaney sent me this link:
SCM Wineries/Winemakers
It has a wealth of information in there on a lot of folks that are historic to the SCM.
Thanks, Sean. More time to waste here!!
Tom
Link didn’t work for me.
This is awesome Tom - thanks. I started visiting the Santa Cruz Mountains in the early 80s, and was just in total awe of the region. Duane Cronin was an early hero - as was Kathryn Kennedy -
I was introduced to Santa Cruz wines thru Val and Dexter Ahlgren and their great Cabs and Zins. Was able to buy quite a bit of their aged stock when they were retiring. They were my introduction to aged wines from the source. Had my share of poor corks but also lovely old fashioned small batch wine making.
Thanks so much for posting, really enjoyable to read!
That was nothing short of amazing. I just looked it up a couple of weeks ago, I ended up buying four cases over the course of four visits during the library sale (vintages 1979 through 2009). Perfectly stored, and very fairly priced. I have one case left and am trying to make it last.
I’ve been slowel working my way reading thru some of these. Thus far, they’ve all been great reads.
Been reading the one on Leo McCloskey. He was the first real chemist they hired at Ridge, about 1969.
He describes some of the tension between DaveBennion & PaulDraper that went on at Ridge in the '70-'72 period as Paul was transitioning
to winemaker for Dave.
Now I can hardly wait to read the (huge) chaptre on Ridge. Will take several hrs.
Tom
Not sure I bought any of their Zins, but drank plenty of their other wines. The Bates Ranch Cabs could be amazing. They had a pretty rustic and low tech winery, as well.
-Al
Just finished the chapter on LeoMcCloskey.
Much of his early work was at Ridge. Ridge relies enormously on chemistry analytics. Leo was instrumental in setting up the analytics laboratory there just after PaulDraper arrived. Dave Bennion was not so big on Leo’s work but Paul gave it serious attention.
In the late-'70’s to early '80’s, Ridge developed a huge Brett problem. In the early '80’s, I nearly blew off Ridge altogether. It describes how Ridge conquered the problem by introducing filtration. All Ridge wines are now filtered… even though we’ve been told by Monktown attorneys and Sweet Alice the filtering is evil.
It describes the rise & fall of his Felton-Empire wnry, and their production of bottled grape juice. I still a btl of the F-E WhiteRiesling Grape Juice '79. I should pull it out.
It describes his development of chemical analytics in analyzing wine flavor chemistry during his PhD work at UC/SantaCruz and at Ridge, particularly with polyphenolics. The winemaking at Ridge is different for each vnyd source based on Leo’s work.
Leo went on the establish Enologix, that some wineries use to manufacture 100-pt wines. Ridge still uses Enologix for their analytics to guide their winemaking.
Anyway, a fascinating read & I’ve developed a greater respect for Leo’s work.
Now onto the DavidBruce chapter and then the lengthy Ridge one. A truly monumental work by CharlieSullivan.
Tom
DaveBennion was the one who invented the submerged cap fermentation. In his ho-made first vintage, '59, Dave made the wine in their Loma Mar garage. He fermented the Cabernet in a small vat. They were going away for a week’s long vacation and he was worrying about the floating cap acetiefing as it was floating on top, exposed to the air. So he rigged up a system of wooden blocks and bricks that would keep the cap submerged whilst they were gone.
They continued to use the submerged cap whilst making the wines at the lower wnry up on MonteBelloRidge because all the principals had day jobs and couldn’t be there every day for punch downs.
They continue to occasionally use a submerged cap fermentation at Ridge but my impression is fairly infrequently. I was always told that the submerged cap led to a gentler extraction of the phenolics. I’m curious if Leo McCloskey’s polyphenolics analytics confirmed that and what basis they use to decide to use submerged cap ferments these days at Ridge. I suspect it is more labor intensive than pumpovers or punch downs.
Things were pretty primitive back when Dave was making ho-made wines at his home from the MonteBello grapes. In his first year, he did not have a grape press to press off the juice. The Cab was not destemmed, either. Which made for a fiercely tannic wine. To press off, Dave lay down a plastic tarp, and put planks atop the pomace and drove over it with his car whilst helpers held up the edges of the tarp to contain the juice/wine. That must have been a sight.
Tom
Fran (and her son, who some said is the splitting image of Dave) came to a friend’s birthday party a few years ago and gave a long talk. Her favorite vintage still was that '59, which she noted many of their friends they gave bottles to probably made wine coolers out of. Many amusing stories, and perspectives on the history I hadn’t heard. She met Dave in physics class, with her the first and only woman in the program. He was the only guy who wasn’t afraid to talk to her. The history as I’d always heard it was Dave and some of his coworkers at SRI were the founders, no mention of Fran. Her version was it was all Dave and her, with the others onboard only as financial partners. My friend was also at SRI and still has '60s era Ridges in his cellar. He and others supplied a vertical of all the '60s era (commercial) Monte Bellos, including the vintage blends. Amazing evening.
I saw Charles Sullivan speak about local wine history in Saratoga back in 2012. Hmm, actually it was years prior to that after Dave Tong got my a copy of this tome from Fran (it’s nearly 2’ thick), Dave had an active SCM blog and ran an SCM wiki database full of info on current and historic vineyards and wineries. This volume is just a fraction of what Sullivan has, with much on long obsolete computer tapes and disks. There’s also funds in the Bennion Trust to do a new one of these, now 3 decades later.
Turns out Dave didn’t invent it. That '59 was fermented in a large crock in his garage. But they had already used the technique down at the Pichetti Ranch and earlier in Bdx. Both had open-top fermenters. So use of a grid to submerge the cap was simple.
When they went to SS/closed top fermenters in Bdx, they lost that capability.
When Paul fermented the '71 MonteBello at the upper wnry in their new SS fermenters, he was able to cobble together a foldable grid so he could do submerged cap.
Tom
This is an impressive compilation. As a long time burgundy and Oregon pinot fan, I tried a PN from Santa Cruz Mountain Winery for the very first time last week (upon the recommendation of a member of this forum) and was blown away. It made me want to explore the region more, so I look forward to flipping through this in more detail. Thanks Sean and Tom!
Well, technically he invented it, in a kinda-sorta way, since he was unaware of the technique or such a devise.
Have you read the Bancroft Library oral history with Paul Draper? There’s a whole lotta gad-zooks in there. He thought Chile was capable of producing the same quality wines as California, since it’s pretty much a geographical mirror image, with the same vast range of climates, soils, elevation range, etc. Winery tech in place was a century old or improvised. The local wood used for barrels, for example, imparted an acquired taste he deemed not acceptable for export. (The couple years previous, he and some buddies had worked on a project identifying potential export products the various South American nations could develop to boost their economies.) He went through every piece of equipment he would need to make world-class wines there and decided if an existing antique would be fine, if he could design and build what he needed, or if he’d have to have it shipped from Europe. That’s what started his ongoing close relations with coopers. At Ridge he designed some now industry standard equipment.
There are so many more high quality producers these days, there’s a lot to explore. Huge range of soil types, elevations, coastal influence and warmer lee side. About a decade ago Clark Smith came and helped identify subregions for Pinot Noir, with their general traits and such. A friend is following that, trying to do the same for Chardonnay, including making a distinct one from each of several disparate sites. Back in the '90s, when I first got into wine, the region’s producers group (SCMWA) was pushing Chardonnay as the future. Go to one of their tastings back then and there’d be 4 dozen Chards to try. A decade later that had flipped to Pinot.
Probably a big factor in why Charles Sullivan never got very far updating this oral history with the new producers is he doesn’t like Pinot Noir. He’s very clear on that. He’s a Cab guy, especially. You can the level of knowledge and interest in his questioning in these interviews. He’s written excellent books on things that interest him, like the history of Zinfandel, the history of Napa… Can’t imagine him doing that for Pinot.
Just finished reading the Ridge chapter. Absolutely fascinating read. The interviews took place over the '93-'94 time range. Wish Charlie we continue them to bring us up to the current date… at least for Ridge.
The sale of Ridge to Otsuka in 1986 is incredible. Because of the change in capital gains, the sale had to be completed by Dec.31 of '86. They put the deal together in about 3 weeks. $10m.
Tom
Yes, so much has gone on since, and continues to. Legends, like Prudy Foxx. New wineries. A new generation of winemakers and growers. Rhys, Windy Oaks, Neely, Richard Alfaro, Ryan Beauregard, Ian Brand, Nathan Kandler & Marshal White at Fogarty, Martin Ranch, Ken Swegels and so many more. Some folks have come and gone in this interim. Plenty to update at places like Ridge and Mount Eden. Charles Bates has some good stories from Bates Ranch (though the fist fight he got into with Robert Kennedy Jr. predates the grapes being planted by a decade).
I am glad you mentioned Mount Eden. I’ve looked at the site linked several times and never found it. Am I missing it?
Wow! Not there. Big omission. Jeffrey is an encyclopedia of information. He came to a '73-'82 Mount Eden Cab tasting we did last year. That’s right after the investors took over and there were quite a few different winemakers, some just for one year. In the later few of those years he was there as an intern/apprentice. So, some of those wines would have been current and recent releases when he started. And, of course, he learned quite a bit about what they had each done, to help inform his choices. He’s also managed quite a few vineyards in the area. He’s evolved and improved his practices in relation to the various challenges and really get what he wants out of the vines.
Peter Ray is also missing. He’s in his 90s, lucid, and must have plenty to tell.
In the “About This Project” section, the author states “I ended by setting my sights on people who started work here before 1980.” In the decade of the 70s, Mount Eden was run by investors and had a number of winemakers, including Richard Graff and Merry Edwards, as well as other “short-timers”. While there were some notable wines made in that era, there wasn’t a particular person behind the wines that (I’m guessing) would be a suitable candidate for inclusion in this book. Jeffrey and Ellie Patterson came to Mount Eden in 1981.