As part of my trip blog that I have been adding over the course of the past few days, I now come to Jemrose. I came to know Gloria and Jim Mack, of Jemrose Vineyards, via both Shane Finley (who helps make their wines), along with Jim being a part of Falltacular the past few years. Let me tell you something about the Macks, who not only make very nice wines, but they do it with a warm and generous heart. They know how to not only do these traits with grace and ease, they make a mean dinner and have one heckuva jump off point in the Bennett Valley. I have grown to appreciate Jim and Gloria as friends and I always enjoy seeing them, talking wine with Jim and Gloria. Top flight are the Macks.
If you don’t have a firm sense of the Bennett Valley, and more focally where their Jemrose vineyard within it lies, think of it as sitting between the town of Sonoma and the town of Santa Rosa, positioned right in the middle of it. The vineyard within Bennett Valley lies about 3-4 miles south of Matanzas Creek winery and about 5-7 miles north of Glen Ellen. The Bennett Valley is cool, as it takes the funnel of fog from Petaluma and it’s often quite foggy there, cool and while it can warm up, much like that of Santa Rita Hills, the ocean and the breeze cool it down. The photo link below will give you a sense of not only Jim and Gloria’s estate, which includes their new grafting of Alban clone greanche, along with their current grenache and merlot plantings, and while not shown, the viognier and syrah which sits out near BV Road, near the front of the estate. FWIW, both Shane Finley (SHANE) and Mike Officer (CARLISLE) get fruit from Jim, both for their Cardiac Hill and Jemrose bottlings.
Here is the photo link (and you’ll see Gloria Mack, Joe Judge (Judge Vineyard) and Buzz in one of the shots:
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While we were there, while Jim tried to ply me with grand cru burgundy and Chave, the thrust of my notes below concerns the tasting of barrel samples, both close to final blends for the 2008s and then raw samples of the 2009s. The wines are made at Kosta Browne by Michael Browne and Shane Finley. What I appreciate about Jim’s wines is that his own palate lies in both Europe and CA, so his wines reflect that. More specifically, you’ll hear Jim talk about his goal of getting the oak, the stems and the alcohols to what he thinks are wines that are suited to CA, that honor the Jemrose estate: not to make Euro wines in CA but to make wines that reflect the old world roots but recognize that the fruit comes from CA, leaving the fruit to talk in the wine. So, typically on the syrah you’ll find 30% new oak, 30% whole cluster and about 14% alcohols. This works for me and Jim continues to dial in these numbers, experimenting with co-ferments (which by the way we helped out with this past October as we thinned out the Clone 174 to go in the co-ferment blend for the 2009 that includes a small inclusion of estate viognier!!). Anyway, the notes below are from our visit and tasting with Jim @ KB.
2009 Jemrose Viognier–honey, lemon, orange and lemon bar (sans the crust!)
2008 Jemrose Syrah (final blend)–Inky, juicy, and spicy with a cool core of blueberry. Some mineral and wet stone complete the finish. Hold me 4 bottles, Jim.
2009 Jemrose Syrah Clone 174 sample–100% whole cluster. Black hued, pen ink, chalk and a blueberry driven wine with an iron core. I really love 470 for how it shows and this is a bitchen sample. If I could, I’d take a 750 of this out with me and drink it straight up.
2009 Jemrose Syrah Clone 877–Bacon fat, large mid palate, black fruit, most rich of the samples with a teriyaki jerky note, akin to a Rosella’s vineyard sample. Would be the center component of the final blend, I presume.
2009 Jemrose Syrah Estrella Clone–Really nice on its own. Charcoal, iron, pure dark fruit, very juicy and long.
Blend all these samples, I can see how we get to a final product and these 2009s are very nice and I will be eager to try the final 2009 next year. At the end of the tasting, we did just that, having Ryan create a mock 2009 blend, which turned out phat.
2008 Gloria’s Jem (the syrah and merlot blend from of course the estate)–Some decadence, but this is intentional given this is the style that Gloria wants made so we gots to give Gloria what she likes, of course. Dark plum, nutmeg, hint of black licorice, sexy blackberry and juicy. This one is for you Rob Winn!
As a final note, I realize that not everyone wants to drink CA rhones but Jim is committed to this varietal, he’s investing the sweat into making these wines better year after year so try and find a bottle if you are not on his list and see what you think.