Mendocino County Wine Tour, August 2017 (Part 2) – Foursight, Navarro, Baxter, Witching Stick, Elke, Pennyroyal Farm
I’ve posted a portion of a report on an August wine trip to Mendocino County. The report has been split into two parts, and the portion below is from Part 2. The full reports for each day of the trip can be found on the Grape-Nutz.com website – here’s the link for Part 2:
Mendocino County Wine Tour - August 2017 - Part 2
Visits covered in Part 2 include:
Foursight Wines
Navarro Vineyards
Baxter Winery
Witching Stick Wines
Elke Vineyards
Pennyroyal Farm
I’d made a couple of Mendocino County wine visits on Saturday, to two higher-elevation vineyards located far out in the middle of nowhere – Halcón in Yorkville Highlands and Drew in Mendocino Ridge. That meant a lot of driving for me on some winding roads through the mountains of Mendocino. I expected that Sunday would another fairly long day, but at least the driving would be easier as I was focusing exclusively on wineries in Anderson Valley that day.
The only winding road I’d face on this day was Highway 253 between my motel in Ukiah and Boonville in Anderson Valley. Getting an early start on Sunday morning meant that there were hardly any other cars on the road, so it was a pleasant and scenic drive. My first destination of the day was Foursight Wines, located just outside of Boonville and one of the first places you come to as you head into town from the east end of the valley.
Foursight Wines
I pulled into the driveway to Foursight Wines a few minutes before my scheduled appointment there, but proprietors Kristy Charles and her husband Joe Webb were already there, along with their young son Evan. I suppose that should not have been a surprise as they live on the same property, which is owned by Kristy’s parents and winery co-proprietors Bill and Nancy Charles. I had tasted the Foursight wines several times at various wine events and always enjoyed them, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to visit the vineyard and winery.
Bill Charles is an Anderson Valley native, and he met Nancy when both were studying at Cal State Chico in the early 1970s. Bill’s father settled in Anderson Valley in 1943 and ran a lumber mill outside of Boonville – he also purchased additional property in the area over the years. Bill went into the construction business as well as commercial real estate, while Nancy worked at a hospital in Ukiah for a number of years. They both worked at farming on the family’s property as well, raising beef cattle and poultry, and growing hay and other crops. Like her father, Kristy was born in Anderson Valley. She attended college at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where she earned a degree in journalism – she’s written for Wine Business Monthly among other publications and has worked with highly-regarded wine marketing and sales company Wilson Daniels. It was while Kristy was at Cal Poly that she met Joe, who was a business major at nearby Cuesta College. Joe transferred to Cal State Sonoma and earned a degree in their wine business program in 2005, while working for local producers such as Sebastiani and Landmark. Following his graduation, Joe spent 2½ years at Joseph Swan vineyards as assistant winemaker and direct sales manager, then moved to Anderson Valley in 2007 where he was the general manager / managing partner for Londer Vineyards for seven years. He’s been focused full-time on Foursight for the past three years. Besides his wine work, Joe is an avid skier.
Bill and Nancy first planted the 15-acre vineyard on their property just outside of Boonville in 2001 – it’s planted mostly to Pinot Noir along with Sauvignon Blanc and a little Sémillon. They sold nearly all their fruit for the first couple of years but Kristy and Joe made small lots of the Pinot for family and friends starting in 2004. In 2006 Bill and Nancy along with Kristy and Joe established Foursight, and their first commercial wines came from that vintage. They completed their winery and tasting room in 2009 – the same year that Kristy and Joe married. Foursight is very much a family business, and Kristy and Joe told me that they’d just recently hired the winery’s first full-time employee for tasting room and harvest help. The winery name refers to the four founders of the label as well as to the four generations of the Charles family who have lived and worked on their land in Anderson Valley. The total current annual Foursight production is close to 2,000 cases.
Kristy and Joe with Evan
The estate Charles Vineyard is at the heart of Foursight. It’s a gently-sloping site featuring 2-3 feet of loamy topsoil with cobble and sand below – it’s ancient riverbed soil of Anderson Creek, which now borders the property. Joe told me that they generally have wind coming down the valley and through the vineyard starting in early- to mid-afternoon during growing season, and that the site can get up to a 50-degree diurnal temperature swing. Since frost can be an issue in spring, the family has installed a wind machine near the center of vineyard. They also recycle water through french drains and catch basins, while working to reduce irrigation water use. Pinot Noir clones planted include Pommard 5, 114, 115, and 777. Bill and Nancy still do much of the farming, with help from highly-regarded Anderson Valley vineyard managers Paul Ardzrooni and Norman Kobler. There’s no tilling at the site, and they use compost tea and wettable sulfur for spraying the vines. The family currently sells about half of the vineyard’s fruit to various producers including Papapietro Perry, The Withers, and Navarro.
All of the Foursight wines are made with estate Charles Vineyard fruit. Joe told me that picking decisions are mainly based on sugar, seeds, and flavor (he’s looking to retain red fruit flavor for the Pinots), and the aim is to make wines with less than 14% alcohol. The fruit is picked in the early morning – the coldest time of the day – and since the winery is adjacent to the vineyard, it can be typically processed within an hour of picking. There is no cold soak for the Pinots, and the wines are all fermented with native yeast. Pinots are fermented in one-ton t-bins, and are usually pressed after 28-35 days. Joe adds CO2 pellets contained in small plastic bins at both the beginning and end of fermentation for protection of the must from oxygen, and uses permeable bin lids to blow off some alcohol and volatile acidity during fermentation. The winery has a large Champagne press that they use for all the wines, and Joe will press Pinots to tank for 1-2 days before racking to barrel. The Pinots are typically racked once during barrel aging, and most are aged in barrel for 10-11 months plus additional time in bottle prior to release. Beginning with the 2016 vintage, a couple of bottlings will get more extended aging – the “Zero New Oak” and Charles Vineyard Pinots will spend 18-20 months in barrel and 11-12 months in bottle before release. In terms of wine style, Joe told me that he’s a fan of Ted Lemon and his Littorai wines.
After I’d arrived at the tasting room and talked with Kristy and Joe for a few minutes, Kristy excused herself to attend to some business, and Joe started me on tasting the current Foursight wines. He began by pouring me the bright and citrusy 2016 Sauvignon Blanc – this was made in 1/3 neutral oak and 2/3 stainless steel. Next was 2015 Sémillon, made in 20% new French oak, 20% stainless steel, and 60% neutral oak – very distinctive honey and spice notes on this wine. Joe said that both the Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon are picked at the vineyard after the Pinot Noir, and that he has occasionally blended the two varieties but usually keeps them separate.
We proceeded to two Pinot Noirs which were identical except for the barrel treatment. First was the 2014 “Zero New Oak” Pinot, aged entirely in older barrels, followed by the 2014 Charles Vineyard Pinot, aged in 33% new Remond barrels (mainly for tannin rather than aromatics/flavor). The fruit for both was picked at the same time and both were fermented with 50% whole clusters. There was quite a noticeable difference between the two, with the “Zero New Oak” bottling showing more red fruit and floral notes while the regular Charles Vineyard bottling had a slightly darker fruit profile and a bigger spice component.
Joe next led me back into the winery to taste some barrel samples as well as a few more current releases. We tried samples of the 2016 “Zero New Oak” and 2016 Charles Vineyard Pinots, which will be bottled in about a year – both of these were fermented with 40% whole clusters and the Charles Vineyard bottling will have about 40% new French oak. Next we tried a bottle of 2015 “Clone 05” Pinot Noir – entirely from Pommard 5 clone – with about 40% whole-cluster fermentation and 40% new French oak. This bottling was quite distinct from the basic Charles Vineyard Pinot, with more tea leaf and mushroom notes. Joe then pulled me a 2016 barrel sample of the “Clone 05” Pinot, and he mentioned that the fruit for this single-clone bottling is usually a bit riper than for the overall Charles Vineyard Pinot.
Joe next opened a bottle of the 2015 “Paraboll” Pinot Noir. The “Paraboll” name was used by Londer Vineyards for one of their Pinot bottlings, and Joe was able to take over the name from Londer after they closed their winery – he told me that he also wanted to keep the name as an ongoing tribute to Larry and Shirlee Londer. In keeping with the Londer “Paraboll,” this wine is in a bigger, riper style, aged in 66% new heavy toast French oak. We tasted a 2016 barrel sample of the “Paraboll” Pinot, then finished with a bottled dessert wine, the 2014 Late Harvest Sémillon. The fruit for this was picked at 28 brix with about 20% botrytis, and the finished wine is 8.0% alcohol and 13.2% residual sugar. This wine is not something that Foursight typically makes – more of a one-off – and Joe said that he likes to make something new and different in most years, for example their 2011 Vin Gris, 2013 “Unoaked” Pinot Noir, etc.
I had mentioned to Joe that I would like to see their vineyard, so after we were finished with tasting the wines, we walked out of the winery and east along the road through the property until we reached the vineyard gate. We walked past the Sémillon vines along vineyard fence, and I noted that they had quite large clusters. It was just about that time that Joe yelled out and grabbed his ankle – he’d been stung by yellowjacket! While we were in the tasting room earlier, he’d told me that he’s allergic to the stings and has been fortunate to largely avoid being stung during harvest and crush over the years. He wasn’t so lucky this time, as I saw a Facebook post from him a day or so later showing that his ankle had swelled up quite a bit. We looked at some of the Sauvignon Blanc vines – Joe said that these often have a good deal of shatter, and indeed there were many “hens and chicks” clusters with different-sized berries in the same cluster.
As we walked over to the Pinot Noir vines, we felt a few raindrops, a very unusual occurrence in the area for early August. Joe said that the family farms the Pinot with a goal of two clusters per shoot, so the yield is modest. We saw that veraison had begun on many of the Pinot vines, and Joe was surprised that the color was mostly on the morning (east) side of the vine rows – something he said he had not seen before. With veraison underway, the family was starting to install bird netting in vineyard. We looked at various parts of the vineyard, with different Pinot clones and different rootstocks and trellising in some areas. Joe told me that he’d like to do some denser meter-by-meter planting for the Pinot Noir at some point.
My visit to Foursight was a great way to kick off my day in Anderson Valley. It was good to see Joe and Kristy again – they proved to be terrific hosts, and it was fun to taste through the entire line-up of their current wines. I also enjoyed my walk through the Charles Vineyard with Joe – a scenic location. All the current Foursight wines were quite good, and all of their four Pinot Noirs were very distinct from one another. The 2016 Sauvignon Blanc, 2015 Sémillon, 2014 “Zero New Oak” Pinot Noir, and 2015 “Clone 05” Pinot Noir were my favorites of the current wines, and the other wines were not far behind. The 2016 Pinot barrel samples I tried with Joe all showed good potential as well. The Foursight tasting room is an easy choice for a winery stop when visiting Anderson Valley, and if you’re looking for a place to stay in the area, they have two guesthouses on the property too.
Current releases and barrel samples
Foursight 2016 Sauvignon Blanc, Charles Vineyard, Anderson Valley. This displayed bright citrus, stone fruit, and herbal aromas with floral undertones. Medium-light bodied with lively acidity and a clean finish, nice.
Foursight 2015 Sémillon, Charles Vineyard, Anderson Valley. Pear and melon fruit, spice, and touches of honey and vanilla/oak on the nose. Medium weight on the palate with good acidity and a long, tasty finish, nice.
Foursight 2014 Pinot Noir, “Zero New Oak,” Charles Vineyard, Anderson Valley. Light ruby color, featuring lots of bright red fruits, tea leaf, flowers, and spice. Medium-bodied with a pleasant texture and fine tannins, nice.
Foursight 2014 Pinot Noir, Charles Vineyard, Anderson Valley. Similar color to the previous wine, with a bigger spice component along with a somewhat darker fruit profile along with earth and herb notes and undertones of sweet oak. Showing a bit more structure than the previous wine, with slightly chalky tannins on the finish – still on the young side but should develop nicely.
Foursight 2016 Pinot Noir, “Zero New Oak,” Charles Vineyard, Anderson Valley (barrel sample). This featured higher-toned red fruit, exotic spices, and earth on the nose, with juicy acidity and a bright finish with milder tannins.
Foursight 2016 Pinot Noir, Charles Vineyard, Anderson Valley (barrel sample). Red fruit, rhubarb, spice, and earth aromas, with a more texture on the palate and more tannic finish than the previous wine.
Foursight 2015 Pinot Noir, “Clone 05,” Charles Vineyard, Anderson Valley. Plum and black cherry fruit, tea leaf, mushroom and forest floor aromas along with a touches of flowers and vanilla/oak. Medium weight with a slightly richer mouthfeel than the previous Pinots, finishing with fine tannins, nice.
Foursight 2016 Pinot Noir, “Clone 05,” Charles Vineyard, Anderson Valley (barrel sample). Darker fruit profile than the previous wine and a bigger oak component, plus exotic spice aromas. Plenty of structure and grippier tannins, promising barrel sample that needs time.
Foursight 2015 Pinot Noir, “Paraboll,” Charles Vineyard, Anderson Valley. Ripe plum and spice aromas, along with vanilla/oak and earth notes. Bigger mouthfeel and structure, with a firm tannic finish – should develop with more time in the bottle.
Foursight 2016 Pinot Noir, “Paraboll,” Charles Vineyard, Anderson Valley (barrel sample). Ripe plum and blueberry, somewhat woody oak, and spice on the nose, fairly big and rich with youthful tannins.
Foursight 2014 Late Harvest Sémillon, Charles Vineyard, Anderson Valley. Ripe apricot, honey, and spice aromas with a touch of orangepeel. Moderately rich texture with good acidity and a long, clean, sweet finish, nice.