Mostly pinot

[Rahsaan]

originally posted by Thor:
What are the two different vineyards?

1) The 1st Home Vineyard which was 1/4 of an acre.

2) The 2nd Home Vineyard which includes all of the 1st Home Vineyard as well as 1.5 acres of land not in the 1st Home Vineyard.

And really, I don't want to make it seem like I am picking on Kevin Harvey. I am sure his wines are great and I know vineyard borders get redrawn in other cases as well. However, this is not like someone gaining new vines within an existing vineyard (which would change the expression of that person's wine). This is changing the entire expression of what is known as 'Home Vineyard'.

 

[VLM]

originally posted by Rahsaan:

originally posted by Thor:
What are the two different vineyards?

1) The 1st Home Vineyard which was 1/4 of an acre.

2) The 2nd Home Vineyard which includes all of the 1st Home Vineyard as well as 1.5 acres of land not in the 1st Home Vineyard.

And really, I don't want to make it seem like I am picking on Kevin Harvey. I am sure his wines are great and I know vineyard borders get redrawn in other cases as well. However, this is not like someone gaining new vines within an existing vineyard (which would change the expression of that person's wine). This is changing the entire expression of what is known as 'Home Vineyard'.

It's all always been Home Vineyard, it's just that the other 1.5 acres was recently recaptured.

Do you have issues with Prager Wachstum Bodenstein?

To insist that .25 acre constitutes a vineyard isn't really realistic.

 

[Jim Hanlon]

originally posted by Rahsaan:

originally posted by Thor:
What are the two different vineyards?

1) The 1st Home Vineyard which was 1/4 of an acre.

2) The 2nd Home Vineyard which includes all of the 1st Home Vineyard as well as 1.5 acres of land not in the 1st Home Vineyard.

And really, I don't want to make it seem like I am picking on Kevin Harvey. I am sure his wines are great and I know vineyard borders get redrawn in other cases as well. However, this is not like someone gaining new vines within an existing vineyard (which would change the expression of that person's wine). This is changing the entire expression of what is known as 'Home Vineyard'.

The Home Vineyard (so called because it's next to Kevin's house) was already "expanded" once, in 1998. The original planting was in 1995. There is nothing Kevin likes more than to talk soil types, so I am pretty confident that the new plantings are on the same soil. I agree that the wine may change, but you've got to realize that Kevin's not dealing with La Tache. Instead, he's the equivalent of the monks, experimenting to see where the vineyard plots should end. There was nothing wrong with doing that in Burgundy 500 years ago, and there's nothing wrong with doing it in the Santa Cruz Mountains today because, from the perspective of experimenting with terroir, we are where the Burgundians were centuries ago.

 

[Thor]

1) The 1st Home Vineyard which was 1/4 of an acre.

2) The 2nd Home Vineyard which includes all of the 1st Home Vineyard as well as 1.5 acres of land not in the 1st Home Vineyard.

Home Vineyard doesn't exist outside of his definition, though. It's not like he's planting across borders drawn by monks a few hundred years ago. Whatever Kevin Harvey designates as the boundaries of Home Vineyard is Home Vineyard. There's not some other vineyard -- Bob's Truckstop Vineyard -- that he's planting and renaming Home Vineyard.

This is changing the entire expression of what is known as 'Home Vineyard'.

You know this how? From your soil chemistry/mesoclimate studies of the older and newer parts of the newly-expanded Home Vineyard, which you have just to the left of your home computer?

 

[Rahsaan]

VLM and Jim seem to be contradicting each other:

originally posted by VLM: It's all always been Home Vineyard, it's just that the other 1.5 acres was recently recaptured.

originally posted by Jim Hanlon: The Home Vineyard (so called because it's next to Kevin's house) was already "expanded" once, in 1998. The original planting was in 1995.

For whatever reason, VLM's line seems more satisfying to me because I don't like to think of the conceptual borders of vineyards (not individual holdings within those vineyards) changing over time yet retaining the same name.

However, I acknowledge that experimentation is fine and I really don't mean to degrade what Kevin Harvey is doing. I'll save my ire for other winemakers.

 

[Ned Hoey]

Thinking more broadly about what's happening, it's interesting to me that in Burgundy, suitability for
top pinot noir is limited to a very specific, narrow zone. Certainly it's grown and produces decent wines
elsewhere but much fuss is made about superiority the Cote d'Or. No other place has been found to compare.
Here we have a situation where Kevin went out in his yard and planted grapes. Apparently the soil, drainage, exposure and climate happen to be amenable to fairly highly regarded wine. Is that just
a lucky coincidence? It seems too miraculous somehow. There's an enormous contradiction in these two
paradigms.

 

[Arjun Mendiratta]

I had thought the story behind the Home Vineyard was slightly more complicated than "went out in his yard and planted grapes." Kevin did a lot of research on soil and climate in the Santa Cruz mountains before going ahead with this, right?

 

[Jim Hanlon]

originally posted by Arjun Mendiratta:
I had thought the story behind the Home Vineyard was slightly more complicated than "went out in his yard and planted grapes." Kevin did a lot of research on soil and climate in the Santa Cruz mountains before going ahead with this, right?

Kevin planted the Home Vineyard in his backyard back in the mid-90s as a hobby venture. He made wine by himself, in his garage. When he decided to start Rhys, he did a lot (a real lot) of research before purchasing parcels for the other estate vineyards. All of his vineyards are on different soil types (the Santa Cruz Mountains have incredible diversity of soil). Kevin is highly skeptical of the idea (espoused strongly in California by Josh Jensen and others) that high quality Pinot can be grown only on limestone. Rhys is, in a way, a project designed to debunk that idea. Time will tell.

 

[Arjun Mendiratta]

Thanks for the additional information Jim.

 

[Keith Levenberg]

originally posted by Ned Hoey:
Thinking more broadly about what's happening, it's interesting to me that in Burgundy, suitability for
top pinot noir is limited to a very specific, narrow zone. Certainly it's grown and produces decent wines
elsewhere but much fuss is made about superiority the Cote d'Or. No other place has been found to compare.
Here we have a situation where Kevin went out in his yard and planted grapes. Apparently the soil, drainage, exposure and climate happen to be amenable to fairly highly regarded wine. Is that just
a lucky coincidence? It seems too miraculous somehow. There's an enormous contradiction in these two
paradigms.

Same thought has struck me. But not necessarily a huge coincidence. The SCM area is pretty damn close to the U.S. equivalent to the Cote d'Or, a small appellation that for whatever reason seems to produce the best pinots the U.S. is capable of. Someone surely wouldn't have had the same luck with a backyard planting in, say, Los Angeles.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
The SCM area is pretty damn close to the U.S. equivalent to the Cote d'Or, a small appellation that for whatever reason seems to produce the best pinots the U.S. is capable of.

I am not prepared to agree with this statement until there's been a couple hundred years of monasterial investigation.

 

[Ned Hoey]

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
The SCM area is pretty damn close to the U.S. equivalent to the Cote d'Or, a small appellation that for whatever reason seems to produce the best pinots the U.S. is capable of.

The two places are very different. The Cote d'Or is a relatively consistent strip of southeast facing slope with a distinct seam of Jurassic limestone running all along it. The SCM is anything but consistent. Numerous exposures, numerous soils, numerous microclimates of wide divergence.
The Home vineyard may not even be in the AVA as it is very close to the line. It sits at a fairly low
altitude compared to most of the AVA, on sandstone, and pretty much right on the San Andreas fault.

I'd say that the absolute minimum time to really begin assessing a site is 50 years. Twenty five year old vines and wine aged twenty five more. Real assessment is decades away.

 

[Levi Dalton]

I visited a Brunello producer about 7 years ago. Here, to the left was the vineyard. And then to the right was the future vineyard, planted to a different density. It was 2 year old vines at that point, so not producing. I was told that when the newly planted vines got old enough the Brunello would be made from those, and that the older vineyard would then be uprooted and replanted. Presumably that has happened by now. I saw a bottle not long ago from the producer. The label for the recent vintage had not changed at all from when I visited.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

Levi, do you think the change in density will change the wine? If so, how?

 

[Levi Dalton]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Levi, do you think the change in density will change the wine? If so, how?

I think that basically the gist is: more plants per meter equals more competition for nutrients in the soil, causing a sort of stress on the vines and encouraging deeper root growth.

There is also the matter of how the vines will be trained, and what sort of tractor/harvester will be accomodated between the rows, in terms of row spacing.

 

[Bwood]

I don't know if the '04 Rhys "Home" was the same "Home" vineyard wine I had last fall with Fla Jim or not (Jim?), but i really liked the weight (lighter weight) and the balance (reasonable acidity here) of the wine, but I thought there was a lack of density on the palate that suggested very young vines or perhaps addition of water at some point to address alcohol? But i thought it was promising,

 

[Florida Jim]

John,
Nope.
I have two bottles of the Home Vnyd. and this is the first I have opened.
And I doubt that Kevin would water back this vineyard but, what do I know.
Best, Jim

 

[Kevin Harvey]

Hello everyone!
I am flattered to see so much debate about Rhys and would like to address some very legitimate questions in this thread:

The extension to the Home Vineyard is on an adjacent hillside (with similar soil) that is about 200 ft away from the original Home Vyd. According to our weather stations, the climate is identical but the aspect differs slightly (the new parcel is steeper). The new parcel is planted with better clones, rootstock and spacing based on what we have learned to date. Given the soil, I hope (and expect) that the wine will be of similar character to the original Home Vyd, but we really won't know until we make wine in 2010. If it differs meaningfully, then we won't combine it with the original Home. Also, we are seeing increasing complexity from the original planting as it ages and at this point I am concerned that young vines from the new parcel will need to be bottled separately...but only time will tell.

On two other minor points:
The selection of the Home Vyd site definitely includes serendipity. We have extensively researched all of our sites, but there is no denying that luck is always at play.

Also, we have never added water to Rhys estate wines. Our shallow soils, clone selection and management mean that we pick our estate Pinot between 12.0-13.8% natural alcohol. In fact, we have an '08 parcel that is 11.7% in barrel. At this point, I think it is just as likely that we will add sugar as water and we don't intend to add either.

 

[Bwood]

originally posted by Kevin Harvey:
Hello everyone!
I am flattered to see so much debate about Rhys and would like to address some very legitimate questions in this thread:

The extension to the Home Vineyard is on an adjacent hillside (with similar soil) that is about 200 ft away from the original Home Vyd. According to our weather stations, the climate is identical but the aspect differs slightly (the new parcel is steeper). The new parcel is planted with better clones, rootstock and spacing based on what we have learned to date. Given the soil, I hope (and expect) that the wine will be of similar character to the original Home Vyd, but we really won't know until we make wine in 2010. If it differs meaningfully, then we won't combine it with the original Home. Also, we are seeing increasing complexity from the original planting as it ages and at this point I am concerned that young vines from the new parcel will need to be bottled separately...but only time will tell.

On two other minor points:
The selection of the Home Vyd site definitely includes serendipity. We have extensively researched all of our sites, but there is no denying that luck is always at play.

Also, we have never added water to Rhys estate wines. Our shallow soils, clone selection and management mean that we pick our estate Pinot between 12.0-13.8% natural alcohol. In fact, we have an '08 parcel that is 11.7% in barrel. At this point, I think it is just as likely that we will add sugar as water and we don't intend to add either.

Kevin, good to see you posting here. I wish Jim could remember which vintage of Home Vyd he opened at my house.

What is the vine age on the Home Vineyard wines?

I really like the willingness to make lighter bodied, more red-fruited pinot noir than many are willing to try to sell.

 

[maureen]

oh, now, kevin, why are you mucking up this thread with actual factual information? speculation is soooo much more fun!