I’ve posted a portion of a report from an early-February visit to Thomas Fogarty Winery in the Santa Cruz Mountains with their winemaker Nathan Kandler. The full report – including tasting notes on 33 wines (mostly 2012 barrel samples) and more photos – is on the Grape-Nutz.com website:
A Visit to Thomas Fogarty Winery with Nathan Kandler – February 2, 2013
A Visit to Thomas Fogarty Winery with Nathan Kandler – February 2nd, 2013
I took a day-trip in early February with Wes Barton and Bryan Harrington to visit Thomas Fogarty Winery in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Bryan is the owner and winemaker at Harrington Wines in San Francisco (where I work part-time), and Wes is a wine blogger and an amazing source of information on the wines and vineyards of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Wes had arranged for us to do some tasting with Thomas Fogarty winemaker Nathan Kandler.
All of us were already familiar with the wines of Thomas Fogarty – known in particular for their fine Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays, and I’ve always enjoyed their Gewürztraminer as well. But there were two areas of special interest for us on this occasion. One was that Wes is making a Syrah / Sangiovese blend – currently in barrel – sourced from Ascona Vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and these same two varieties from the same vineyard are also in barrel at the Thomas Fogarty facility. The other particular interest was in the tiny amount of Nebbiolo that the winery produces from a vineyard block on its estate property. Harrington Wines has been making Nebbiolo sourced from the Westside of Paso Robles since 2008, so we were interested in checking out what Thomas Fogarty is doing with that variety in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
On a cool but pleasant morning, I met Bryan in San Francisco and we drove from there to Thomas Fogarty Winery, high on a ridge along Skyline Boulevard in the northern part of the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA. Wes was waiting for us when we arrived at the parking area, and we walked from there up the hill to the winery building, atop one of the knolls on the property. As we reached the building, we found Nathan talking with someone just outside, and he introduced us to Tommy Fogarty, the son of winery founder Dr. Thomas Fogarty. Tommy is an integral part of the winery team, and he was able to join us for part of our visit that day.
I should provide some background on the winery before proceeding. Dr. Thomas Fogarty is a famed surgeon and the inventor of the embolectomy catheter, a small balloon-like device that he developed in the 1960s as a less invasive and more effective method to remove blood clots from arteries. Over the years, he has patented over sixty other medical inventions as well. His first exposure to the wine business was in 1969, when he was teaching surgery at Stanford University and helped a colleague who had a small vineyard and winery. His interest in wine grew from there, and he purchased a 325-acre property in the mountains above the town of Woodside in the early 1970s. The first few acres of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir vines were planted in 1978, some of the oldest commercial winegrape plantings in that part of the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Thomas Fogarty Winery was established in 1981.
Michael Martella, who studied enology at California State University in Fresno, has been in charge of the Thomas Fogarty winemaking and viticulture from the beginning, but he’s stepped back a bit as Nathan has recently been named the winemaker there – Nathan noted that Michael is now something of a winemaker emeritus. Michael also has his own label called Michael Martella Wines. Nathan first joined the Thomas Fogarty winemaking team in 2004. He grew up in Michigan, and studied political science at the University of Michigan. But a short stint working as a bartender got him interested in wine, and Nathan moved to California. He worked for a few Sonoma County wineries while studying viticulture at Santa Rosa Junior College, then earned a degree in enology at CSU Fresno. His first winery position after that was at Testarossa Winery in Los Gatos, and he also spent time at Torbreck Wines in the Barossa Valley of Australia before joining Thomas Fogarty.
Michael directed the planting of nearly all of the Thomas Fogarty vineyards over the years. There are now 25 acres of vines at the main estate property, plus another 15 acres at a second estate vineyard called Gist Ranch, about 17 miles south of the winery site. Most of the early Pinot Noir plantings were with Martini clone cuttings obtained from Louis Martini’s Winery Lake Vineyard in Carneros and from David Bruce Winery along Bear Creek Road in the Santa Cruz Mountains. There are a number of separate small vineyard blocks throughout both the main property and Gist Ranch. The main estate site is at around 2,000-foot elevation, with a variety of soil types but mostly shallow loamy topsoil over sandstone, shale, and marine deposits. There are three Pinot Noir vineyards at the main estate – Windy Hill, Rapley Trail, and Razorback. Razorback is the newest and lowest-elevation of these – two acres were grafted over from Chardonnay to Pinot in 2006 with 115, 667, 777, and Swan clones. Windy Hill, immediately to the southwest of the winery, is in the process of being replanted, with the 2½ acres of old Martini clone vines being replaced with Calera, Swan, and Mt. Eden clone Pinot with denser spacing than before. The largest estate Pinot site is 5½-acre Rapley Trail – this vineyard consists entirely of the original Martini clone vines planted in 1981 on AxR#1 rootstock.
The Gist Ranch vineyard is at a slightly higher elevation, about 2,300 feet, and is mostly a warmer-climate site. The first plantings at Gist Ranch were in 1999, with Chardonnay, Pinot Gris (now grafted to 828 clone Pinot), Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Malbec. Pinot Noir was planted at Gist Ranch in 2000 at the Will’s Vineyard site, on a steep hillside site with rocky sandstone soil. Swan, Rochioli, and Mt. Eden Pinot clones are planted there, although Nathan noted that the Rochioli selection vines might actually be Pommard. Michael also noted that the Gist Ranch Syrah may be grafted over to Nebbiolo this year.
All of the estate vineyards are farmed sustainably, without the use of any herbicides or chemical fertilizers. Use of cover crops, compost, and compost tea treatments is increasing in the vineyard management. The new Windy Hill planting will be farmed organically but there are no plans for certification.
Nathan led us downstairs to the main barrel room of the winery, and he started us right in on tasting a wide array of 2012 barrel samples. Most of the wines we tried were Pinot Noir, though there were a handful of other varieties as well. With one or two exceptions, Nathan selected older barrels for us to taste from so as to reduce the oak influence from these single-barrel samples. He told us that most of the barrels had been sulfured quite recently, but that didn’t detract from our tasting. It’s always fun to barrel-taste wines, but of course all of these 2012 samples were very young, only in barrel for a few months, and most of the wines we tasted will be components in larger blends. Still, it was quite interesting to go through so many barrel samples with Nathan – 27 of them in all! – and the vineyard and clonal distinctions were often quite clear.
After awhile, we were ready for a break from barrel-tasting. Tommy had to meet with another group visiting the winery, but the rest of us hopped into Nathan’s car and rode down the hill a short distance. There we got out and walked a few hundred feet to Walker’s Vineyard, Thomas Fogarty’s Nebbiolo block. Only about ¼-acre in size, this was planted about 1999 in sandstone soil, on a southwest-facing slope. Nathan told us that the original planting was all Nebbiolo Rosé clone but most of the block has since been grafted to a variety of clones, and these older vines are being dry-farmed. The first crop was in 2006. There are also a couple of rows at each end of the vineyard block that have been recently planted with 230 clone – Nathan told us that they planted this to try getting a full barrel’s worth of wine each year, as some vintages have only yielded a half-barrel. And he’s reported that in 2008, the entire crop from this tiny block was lost to hungry raccoons. For being over ten years old, the Nebbiolo vines looked thin and scraggly. More than one Santa Cruz Mountains vintner has given up on Nebbiolo, a tough variety to grow in this area, but hopefully Thomas Fogarty will have success with the wine from their small planting – because it’s so scarce, it all goes to wine club members.
The extensive barrel-tasting had taken longer than expected, and Nathan needed to take off, so he drove us back to the winery and Bryan, Wes, and I stopped in the tasting room there to try a few of the currently-available wines. The winery tasting room is open on Monday from noon-4pm and Wednesday-Sunday from 11-5 pm. In addition to various bottlings of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, Thomas Fogarty Winery produces Gewürztraminer, Riesling, Pinot Gris, Barbera, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Meritage, plus small bottlings of dessert wines, Nebbiolo, sparkling wine, and occasional small bottlings of other wines. Total annual production is around 12,000 cases. The winery is also known for hosting events, including weddings, corporate, family, and other events. The panoramic views of the Bay Area on a clear day are spectacular. We couldn’t resist tasting the finished 2010 bottlings of both the Santa Cruz Mountains appellation Pinot Noir as well as the 2010 Rapley Trail Pinot at the tasting room. We also tried a Merlot, Syrah, and two dessert wines.
We sampled a lot of wines during our visit with Nathan at Thomas Fogarty. Of course, all of the 2012 barrel samples still have a ways to go, but most of them showed a lot of promise toward assembling some very good wines. My favorites among the non-estate 2012 barrel samples included Pinot Noirs from the Muns Vineyard 667 clone, Kent Berry Vineyard, Hicks Vineyard 115 clone, and Pinot press wine without the Chardonnay lees, as well as the Michael Martella Ascona Vineyard Syrah and the Precedent Wines Zinfandel and Riesling. Among the estate vineyard 2012 barrel samples, I thought standouts included both the Swan and Mt. Eden clone Pinot Noir samples from Will’s Vineyard, the Rapley Trail T and B (Henry Ayrton’s) Block Pinots, and the Nebbiolo. My top pick of the bottled wines was the 2010 Rapley Trail Pinot Noir, and I liked the regular Estate Pinot and the late-harvest Gewürztraminer too. Overall, we tasted some very good wines.
Tommy Fogarty and Nathan Kandler were great hosts during our visit to Thomas Fogarty Winery. It’s always fun tasting with a winemaker who is so excited about sharing samples of their wines – I think that Nathan would have continued with more barrel tasting for the rest of the afternoon if he hadn’t had to leave when he did. Nathan noted that the winery has been working to better showcase the terroir of their vineyards, and based on the barrel samples we tasted, I think they’re heading in a good direction. Michael Martella has left some big shoes to fill as Thomas Fogarty’s winemaker, but Nathan looks to be more than capable of carrying on the tradition of producing fine wines there and perhaps carrying them to new heights.
