Back in the late '70’s, Dan & Robyn Gehrs founded the CongressSpringsVnyds up on CongressSpringsRd in the SantaCruzMtns. Their partner, who owned the vnyd, was Vic Erikson. In the late '70’s & thru the '80’s, Dan made some wines at CongressSprings that I really liked, including OV Zin/Chard/PinotNoir, from that old vnyd. And somehow they connected up w/ FredFranzia/Bronco & were making Lodi wines for awhile.
When CongressSprings shut down, the property was bought by the Ballards in 1996 & renamed Savannah-Chanelle, after their two daughters. Dan then went onto become winemaker in SantaBarbara at ZacaMesa and eventually started his own label of DanGehrsWine. His daughter was also making wines under her own name for awhile. Dan retired from winemaking in 2017 and I assume still lives in the SantaYnezVlly.
So these very old vnyds planted in the '50’s are still being used by Savannah-Chanelle. I’ve not tried these wines. Yet. Does anybody have any experinence with the Savannah-Chanelle wines. AnthonyCraig is the winemaker.
Tom
Nothing recent. I went out for ZAP-fest in 1998 for my first big industry wine event with my store’s owner, who grew up near the SCM. We actually visited Savannah-Chanelle on our own, iirc our owner hadn’t been to them since the Ballards had taken over. We helped them get in contact with a distributor out here for at least a little while in the early 2000s, don’t think they’ve been active for more than a decade if not longer. Zins and Pinots were very good, Chard was more average by comparison.
slightly off topic but I think Dan Kravitz made some chards for his Travis label back inthe day from Congress Springs fruit…Perhaps Dan might have some insight re your question.
I did in fact work with Dan Gehrs when he was at Congress Springs. I liked Dan and admired him greatly as a winemaker. He wasn’t always easy to deal with. He made significant quantities of some great sparklers there, but did not have a brand name, a label or a marketing plan and the economics simply did not work.
I think the vineyards are capable of making great wine. I visited and tried a few Savannah - Chanelle wines soon after the transition. They were good, but IMO not up to the potential of the vineyard. But we are going back about 3 decades! I hope they are doing well.
I recall reading something about Merry Edwards being involved with Congress Springs early on, around the time she was the Mount Eden winemaker.
Haven’t visited in awhile. It’s a nice visit, but not winegeeky. Well, other than walking up a checking out the old vine Zin blocks. One was planted 1917, the other i think is older. The wines are mostly just okay, but there’s occasionally something notable.
The last wine of theirs i had i posted about here. It was a one-off Petite Sirah from Manton Valley that they got because they were low on yield that year. Sean Smith served ot blind. It tasted very Italian. Thats very volcanic soil from Mt. Lassen. We were getting Cab Franc from a Manton vyd at Harrington at the time. I was pushing to get some PS, but it didnt make much sense. Bryan was in talks about possibly grafting in some Italian grapes at the site he was buying from, but that didnt happen. But, that was an impressive and unique Savannah-Channel.
I think you are right about Merry Edward’s being involved early on.
I did a visit w/ Dan early on & walked the Vnyd.
Beautiful old vines. The OV Zin was always a favorite.
Tom