Foursight Wines estate grown and produced wines from Anderson Valley PN, SB, Semillon

First I wanted to mention a little about me, and below I have detailed our winemaking. Since this is only our second Berserkers Day, I decided to re-introduce myself through the Newbies section.

My name is Joe Webb. I am a founder and winemaker for Foursight Wines – a business owned and operated by me and my family in Anderson Valley. I grew up in the Sierras, and in the winemaking off-season, I’m an aspiring ski bum. My journey to wine came when I met my wife in college, whose family farms Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon grapes in Boonville, on their four-generation family property. I got into wine in a big way, and ended up getting a degree in wine business and working for wineries in Sonoma Valley and Russian River before we began to produce our own, Foursight Wines in 2006. We just celebrated our tenth anniversary as a winery – a big milestone for a family business who makes wines a little outside of the normal, New-World standard.

I produce only estate-farmed wines – many different Pinot Noirs as well as Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. To me, winemaking is getting out of the way of great ingredients as much as possible. There are a lot of tools than can be used, and often doing the least is more difficult mentally than doing everything. Luckily for me, my wife’s parents farm the vineyard to very high standards. They do all but pruning and picking themselves. The quality that arrives to my crush pad is as good as I have ever seen in my winemaking career. The fact that the fruit is delivered to the winery within minutes from picking, with no long-haul trucking, keeps the fruit cool and prevents it from being beaten up by the windy roads in and out of the Anderson Valley.

We have produced Pinot Noirs from our estate, Charles Vineyard, since 2006. In general, the winemaking philosophies and techniques are the same from vintage to vintage, with small changes to craft the best wines from that particular year.

Once the fruit arrives to the winery, we hand-sort a portion of whole clusters into the bottom of our T-bin fermentors. Our whole cluster inclusion averages 33% and has ranged from 10% (my personal minimum) to 50%. The remaining fruit is also hand-sorted for quality then is destemmed into the T-bins, on top of the whole clusters. All of this is done by gravity; the must is never pumped.

I use 100% wild yeast and ml strains for primary (alcoholic) and secondary (malolactic) fermentations. The fermentation is not temperature-adjusted via cooling or heating. Punchdowns are done by hand for an average of 21 days, though the range is 19-28 days on the skins. Once the fermentation slows and there is no longer a cap of skins on the top, we press off. Pressing is done with a traditional, wooden-slatted basket press. The wines are then settled in tank overnight and racked to barrels the following day.

Malolactic fermentation takes place in barrel, and once complete, the wines are given their first addition of sulfur. They age in barrel until early May, when we decide on the blends. The wines are then racked to tank with a bulldog style wand (where inert gas pressure is used to move the wine to tank to avoid pumping). The barrels are cleaned and the wines are returned to barrel for bottling in August. Usually they are released after 18-20 months in bottle.

I do not use any additives other than sulfur and tartaric acid, if needed. No water, nutrients, enzymes, yeast, or fining agents are added. The wines are always bottled unfined and unfiltered, including our white wines.

My estate wines include a blend aged in 0% new oak that we call “Zero,” and a bottling of just the Pommard “Clone 05” blocks. I also produce a vineyard-designate blend, Charles Vineyard, with some fruit from all 6 blocks of Pinot Noir, aged in some older oak and 20-40% new oak. We also do one-off, sometimes esoteric bottlings each vintage. We occasionally produce a Vin Gris of Pinot Noir, which was whole-cluster pressed. In 2013 I also made an unoaked Pinot Noir and I started producing the “Paraboll” Pinot Noir, which was inspired by my time at Londer Vineyards (and it is a bigger, more New World-style wine using riper grapes and more oak with more toast).

For our Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, we whole-cluster press the grapes in the wooden-slatted basket press. The quantity of juice we get by doing it this way is much less, but the clarity and quality is much higher. They are both fermented with wild yeast in a combination of barrels and stainless drums. The Sauvignon Blanc is racked off the lees once alcoholic fermentation is complete and is aged in older oak and stainless drums. The Semillon is left on the lees until May and usually has one new barrel during aging (of the 4-5 we generally produce). If the production is smaller no new oak is used. The remainder of the wine is aged in older oak and stainless drums. The wines are bottled in August and usually released after 6-12 months in bottle.

I believe the best wines are ones that reflect the time (vintage) and place (vineyard) from which they come. Everything I do or don’t do in the winemaking process is to maximize both time and place for every bottle produced. I believe that having my winery, vineyard, and residence on the same plot of land that has been in the family for four generations allows me to truly focus on what really matters to grow and make great wine.

Joe,

I’ve seen your posts but never realized your vineyard was Charles Vineyard. I assume that’s the same Charles Vineyard that Papapietro Perry uses. Correct?

Yup thats the one. My in laws sell to a few other producers. Papa perry, pangloss and i are the largest for pn. Navarro gets most of the sb, it goes into thier cuvee 128 blend of sb.

I am a previous Berserker Day taster of his wines. Here is my endorsement!

Thanks for the kind words anton. Glad u enjoyed the wines.

They grow some seriously fantastic SB at Foursight/Charles Vineyard. We’re honored to work with it!

Thanks Dan I am glad y’all still digging the fruit. As I think you know its not an easy varietal to work with up here but the wine it makes is well worth it.

Cool stuff Joe! Wishing you great success tomorrow and into the future.

Thanks, Joe. We had a few of you wines last month on vacation in Truckee, the '06 Pisoni was great as was the '09 Sierra Mar which I have not had before. Great stuff your doing to.
I hope to plan a visit by your place on my way to Falltacular.