Oregon PN vs. Santa Barbara PN <<< Kelley Fox, Whitcraft

[ChrisJames]

Every time I look at this thread, I see “KelleyFox, Witchcraft”

I have had the pleasure of visiting both wineries and meeting both winemakers. Jim and Kelley are very different personalities to be sure and have unique styles to their wines. But they are both very hospitable and generous at tastings and highly passionate in what they do. Oregon is a richer place as a result of what they each brings and I am glad to be cellaring wines from each of them.

[Jim_Maresh]

Mitch - If you come up and visit me at the red barn when all this hell blows over I’ll roll out red carpet and do my best to make you a believer. I like a challenge. Same goes for anyone else out there. I’ll tell you what dealing with this distancing I really miss pouring wine and seeing what people think.

Thanks Scott, time sure flies by.

[Sean_S]

Mitch - If you come up and visit me at the red barn when all this hell blows over I’ll roll out red carpet and do my best to make you a believer. I like a challenge. Same goes for anyone else out there. I’ll tell you what dealing with this distancing I really miss pouring wine and seeing what people think.

Thanks Scott, time sure flies by.

Hi Jim,

We all miss the interaction, thanks for chiming in. Have you ever thought of having an online zoom tasting. Those have been quite fun. When we visited the barn uou were hanging with your family and we never got to say hi, but I got to taste with your buddy Sean and your mom. The atmosphere, hospitality and wines were all top notch. We were very impressed. Our motivation for the visit was for the Pinots but we left being even bigger fans of the Estate Chardonnay.

[Marshall_Manning]

Mitch - If you come up and visit me at the red barn when all this hell blows over I’ll roll out red carpet and do my best to make you a believer. I like a challenge. Same goes for anyone else out there. I’ll tell you what dealing with this distancing I really miss pouring wine and seeing what people think.

Jim, good to see you here! I might take you up on that offer, too…it’s been too long. I still remember those old wines from your father that you were generous to share…what was that, 15+ years ago?

[larry_schaffer]

I know with my wines, for instance, that most show really well on Day 2 - but are always ‘judged’ on first taste/smell and then over the next hour or two. It’s ‘challenging’ to say the least, but it is what it is.

Cheers.

Larry, a bit of thread drift, but your comment raised a question to me: does it seem to you that people are drinking your wines “too soon”, if they are often showing better on day 2? It seems to me the usual condition would be to drink a bottle soon after opening, so I assume most wines are “judged” on the initial/early showing.

As always, thanks for your participation and insight.

Mike,

Great question - and one that I’m gonna believe most winemakers deal with. I tend to be a bit ‘different’ than many of my cohorts - for instance, the current releases of many of my red wines is 2013s, and my whites are 2015s. This may sound ‘strange’ but it means that the wines have had time to ‘evolve’, both in barrel and bottle, and therefore are more ‘approachable’ than if I had released them earlier, but still have plenty of ‘upside potential’. And it is not uncommon for my wines to still taste better and ‘more complete’ on day 2 versus day 1 . . .

Paul will have a chance to try these tonight as part of our live Zoom tasting - it’ll be interesting to see his comments on them, especially versus the 18’s of his that I’ll be trying.

Cheers.

[Eric_S_n_y_d_e_r]

Hey Mitch - I hear your scuttle. The ‘farmer not winemaker’ is my grandpa Jim Maresh describing himself. His last year farming was 2018 but he’s still strong at 94. I hadn’t seen that page. I love making wine but promotion doesn’t feel natural. Hard to take serious and I’d rather troll it. Not really sure what grounded means but as the father of a 1 year old and 3 year old that consume all my time I chose the wrong time to expand to 7,000 cases and now I’m beaten to the ground.

Kelly makes great wines. She is the ideal partner on Maresh vineyard. Et Fille leases one acre of Pommard that I also recommend. Kelly and I like the same vines. We both use Maresh and Weber so it’s nice that we are very different in the winery. She likes stems and I will always be 100% de-stemmed. She bottles earlier and I bottle later. Very similar in the vineyard. I usually pick about a week earlier, she does some biodynamic sprays that I don’t. When Scott Paul shut down some blocks on Maresh moved around but it’s all been figured out and I imagine Kelly will be making Maresh vineyard wines for decades to come.

There is indeed a Marsh estate in Carlton. In 1970 Maresh vineyard was called ‘The Red Hills Vineyard’. All the old Arterberry ‘Maresh’ vineyard bottling’s from the 70s and 80s used that name. My grandpa has suggested I put Maresh Red Hills Vineyard on the label, seems a bit long.

Thanks for chiming in Jim. I was just about to say that I’ve really liked the Arterberry Maresh bottles that I’ve tried in the past.

I see that you’re offering free shipping on your site - I’ll be sending an email shortly. If you’re sitting on some excess inventory, check out the Berserker Quarantine offer page!

[Jim_Maresh]

Hey Marshall! I can’t thank you enough for all the times you and Carolyn included me early on as a student of drinking wine. What an adventure heading into Portland in 2003 to Park kitchen. I had never seen anything like it hanging out in Dundee my whole life. I have such fond memories of you pulling Jobard and Roulot from your wine bag under the table at Alba Osteria. The goat cheese ravioli with the brown butter sage sauce at Lucy’s table. Pizza and Italian nights… All those bandols… and crashing in your guest bedroom on magnum madness, you and Carolyn were looking out for me. You and Carolyn, Vincent, Dudley, Bob really accelerated my love and understanding of wine.

[Kirk.Grant]

Great notes indeed - but it did seem like a bit of ‘apples and oranges’ to me. As you said, the Whitcraft is drinking well now - but the Fox seems to have the legs to go out awhile. That’s always the ‘joy’ and the ‘challenge’ of capturing a wine at one specific time, eh>

Interesting comment that you could tell the Whitcraft was ‘minimal intervention’ - would love to hear more about your rationale on this, please.

And PLEASE folks - quit saying ‘Central Coast AVA’ when we are talking very specific areas - in this case, Santa Barbara County or most likely Sta Rita Hills . . .

Sorry - but I don’t see folks getting on here and talking about boutique Sonoma producers as ‘North Coast AVA’. It’s just a consistent thing unfortunately and one that gives our area less ‘distinction’ than I think it deserves. As usual, just my $.02.

Will have to try to get my hands on both of these and see how they develop over time.

Cheers

Larry,

That’s how it was entered into Cellartracker at some point. It may be worth making the recommendation to change in the program.

[larry_schaffer]

Kirk,

I have brought this up to Eric et al in the past and have been told that it would be ‘too difficult’ to make those changes in the database. That answer has never made sense to me since, well, it is a database . . . Or perhaps it’s because I asked

Cheers.

[Josh_Grossman]

Kirk,

I have brought this up to Eric et al in the past and have been told that it would be ‘too difficult’ to make those changes in the database. That answer has never made sense to me since, well, it is a database . . . Or perhaps it’s because I asked

Cheers.

I used Central Coast because I was talking about a combination of smaller AVA’s collectively. If a producer made wine from both vineyards in Deep Creek of Anderson Valley and and another wine from the Sonoma Coast, I would say collectively North Coast.

[larry_schaffer]

You might say that but not sure most would. But CT would usually not default to that . . .

Cheers.

[Mike_Evans]

You might say that but not sure most would. But CT would usually not default to that . . .

Cheers.

CT shows the wine as Santa Barbara County, which is the narrowest geographic identification shown on the label. What exactly is your complaint about how CT is displaying this bottle?

[GregP]

Kirk,

I have brought this up to Eric et al in the past and have been told that it would be ‘too difficult’ to make those changes in the database. That answer has never made sense to me since, well, it is a database . . . Or perhaps it’s because I asked

Cheers.

Larry, right you are, one can program anything IF there is a will. And, in this case, not even programming, but a simple addition/deletion of values in database tables used to populate drop downs. Takes minutes, at most. With a glass in hand…

[larry_schaffer]

You might say that but not sure most would. But CT would usually not default to that . . .

Cheers.

CT shows the wine as Santa Barbara County, which is the narrowest geographic identification shown on the label. What exactly is your complaint about how CT is displaying this bottle?

Here is my beef:

Look up a Sojourn Sonoma County Pinot and it will say:

US / California / Sonoma County / Sonoma County

It does not say:

US / California / Noth Coast / Sonoma County

Hopefully that clears up the distinction I’m talking about?

Cheers

[lleichtman]

That’s the thing about Pinot Noir. The wines produced are all so different that it is often difficult to compare them. Santa Barbara has a very different climate than Oregon. The soils are different so there is little likelihood of overlap. There is a lot of good to great CA Pinot Noir out there. And great Oregon Pinot Noir as well.

[Bryan_Price]

You might say that but not sure most would. But CT would usually not default to that . . .

Cheers.

CT shows the wine as Santa Barbara County, which is the narrowest geographic identification shown on the label. What exactly is your complaint about how CT is displaying this bottle?

Here is my beef:

Look up a Sojourn Sonoma County Pinot and it will say:

US / California / Sonoma County / Sonoma County

It does not say:

US / California / Noth Coast / Sonoma County

Hopefully that clears up the distinction I’m talking about?

Cheers

I remember a debate we had at work before the quarantine and there were varying opinions of where “Central Coast” started and ended. Some coworkers thought Santa Barbara was part of “Southern California” and others thought differently. I do find it as a useful description when you tell someone you are going on vacation, but I usually start out “I’m staying in Los Olivos” and then further expand the region until I get to an understanding with the person if they are unfamiliar with California AVAs. Common expressions should be used if they are found useful and generally understood by others, but from a technical standpoint I agree with Larry.