The Writer's Workshop » Wine Making and Wine Writing

JIM HOLMES’ CIEL DU CHEVAL DEFINES THE EXCELLENCE OF RED MOUNTAIN

admin — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 02:01:17 +0000

Jim Holmes and Ryan Johnson

Red Mountain rises above the low, brown sagebrush country outside of Benton City, Washington. Located northwest of the Tri-Cities, Washington’s smallest and most prestigious American Viticulture Area (AVA) looks more like a hill than a mountain, one of a series of rounded basaltic ridges marching southwest along the Yakima River.
The landscape is bare, dry, austere, nothing like the carefully tended gardens of Burgundy or the regal architectural jewel boxes of Bordeaux first growth Chateau Latour. There are no restaurants, hotels or wine trains on Red Mountain, but there likely will be someday. For now, the area is as pure and abstract in its undulating beauty as a landscape in Tuscany.
The road to Red Mountain follows the meanders of the Yakima River. The asphalt climbs past farms and discarded machinery. Unlike the world’s highly developed wine regions, this is still farm country, with an unfinished quality to it. I pass the white chiseled granite sign, Welcome to Red Mountain, the only indication that I’m approaching one of the premier wine growing regions in the world.
Rows of grape vines line the road. Carefully tended clusters of Cabernet, Merlot, and Syrah grapes hang from beneath the vines, reflecting the perfectionism of growers like Ciel du Cheval’s Jim Holmes, whose astonishing fruit reveals the power and elegance of the Red Mountain AVA. Wines made from these vineyards earn stratospheric scores from wine critics. Influential wine critic Robert Parker rates Quilceda Creek Vintners wines from this vineyard among the best in the world.
I turn left and head up the road toward Ciel du Cheval Vineyards to meet owner Jim Holmes, one of the pioneers of Washington State wine. In recent years, the industry has experienced staggering growth, from 155 wineries and 28,000 acres of vines in 2000, to 700 wineries and 40,000 acres today. As the industry explodes with growth and innovation, I sought to understand where it’s headed by talking with him, Red Willow Vineyard owner Mike Sauer, Nefarious Cellars of Chelan, Syncline Winery of the Columbia Gorge, Saviah Cellars of Walla Walla and Woodinville Wine Country, the center of the state’s industry.
Though not a winemaker himself, Holmes sells grapes to some of the best wineries in the state: Betz Family Winery, Andrew Will Winery, Delille Cellars, and McCrea Cellars. Red Mountain specializes in red varietals like Cabernet, Merlot and Syrah. I park the car and greet Holmes, a sturdy man wearing jeans, a jean jacket and a baseball cap.
“Making great wine is like painting a great picture: you have to have some idea of what you want to paint before you put paint to canvas,” he says, indicating the vine rows. “We’ve got a great site – we’ve got great paint! If you want to make a great bottle of wine, you’ve got to think about what you’re doing in the field. You’ve got to know why you did this, and why you did that, and why one worked and the other didn’t work. You’ve got to keep working at those things because the desire is to put great art on the canvas. “
At 75, Holmes still enjoys the challenge. A systems engineer who grew up in the Bay Area north of San Francisco, he developed an early taste for wine. When he moved up the Tri Cities area in 1958 to work for Hanford, he wanted to drink some decent local wine. So he and partner John Williams eventually bought 80 acres of land on Red Mountain. A short time later, Washington State University professor Walter Clore released his ground-breaking report on Washington wine in 1972. It made the case for growing vinifera grapes in Washington. The rest is history.
“It was a great report,” Holmes says. “He’d done 20 years of research. It turned out to be the start of the whole thing.”
Clore’s data convinced Holmes that growing wine grapes was worth doing, but it wasn’t a sure thing. “It was a high level risk,” he says. “Anyone who planted grapes on Red Mountain back then could qualify as crazy.”
For the rest of the story, read the June issue of Alaska Airlines Magazine. For more on writing classes, please visit www.thewritersworkshop.net.

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An Oenophile’s Eden: Wine Touring Story about Napa Valley

admin — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 19:10:50 +0000

By Nick O’Connell

Stag’s Leap winemaker Nicki Pruss beside the “Hands of Time” tribute to those who have worked at the winery.

It’s harvest in Napa. The smell of fermenting grapes fills the air. Pickers comb the yellowed rows of vines, culling glistening clusters before fall rains or early frost damage them. Wine makers work feverishly to crush the fruit at the apex of its ripeness, insuring a stellar vintage. Fruit flies buzz excitedly, caught up in the frenzy of the crush.
“It feels like we’ve been doing an ultra-marathon,” says Nicki Pruss, the red-cheeked winemaker at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, one of the most famous houses in Napa. “I sometimes don’t know what day of the week it is.”
During the harvest, Pruss serves as chief “grape herder,” coordinating the picking and tasting the fruit before it enters the stainless steel maw of the crushing machine. Amid the noise and haste, she recites her mantra “balance, elegance, restraint” allowing her to decide which juice from the vineyard blocks will go into the winery’s signature blends.
“Each block is like a color on a painter’s palette,” she says. “Each block is a slightly different expression of cabernet. Some have bigger, more structural components. The soils, climate and grapes all make a difference in the blend. We are trying to become in tune with this place.”

Warm days and cool nights make for an ideal Napa wine harvest.

Stag’s Leap occupies one of the choicest sites in the Napa Valley, an oenophile’s Eden of some 400 wineries located 50 miles northeast of San Francisco. Thirty miles in length, it ranges from five miles wide near the city of Napa to one mile near the town of Calistoga. Internationally known as one of the world’s greatest wine regions, the valley contains the richest concentration of wineries, fine dining and wine touring facilities in North America.
After leading wine tours for The Writer’s Workshop to France and Italy, I wanted to see how North America’s greatest wine region stacks up against the best of the Old World. I’d passed through the valley before, but didn’t have the time to fully explore it till a three-day trip last fall. What is special and unique about the place? Why do so many people fall under its spell? How does it differ from the great wine regions of Europe? These were some of the questions I sought to answer during my visit.
I was here on assignment for Alaska Airlines Magazine to write about Napa as a wine touring destination. In the course of the writing assignment, I interviewed Nicki Pruss of Stag’s Leap, Chris Howell of Cain Five, Antinori’s chief enologist, Renzo Cotarella, and visited with Karen Trippe at the Conn Creek Barrel Blending Experience. The assignment required research and interviewing skills, as well as structuring the story in terms of a quest, some of the techniques I discuss in my writing classes as well as trying to put into words what makes a wine like Stag’s Leap Cask 23 so superlative. The story will be coming out in the February or March issue. Please let me know what you think!

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Home Winemaking Chez O’Connell

admin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:23:37 +0000

Here I am punching down the cap on our bodacious Ciel du Cheval syrah, a monster wine destined for greatness.

Taking a break from writing and teaching, I spent the past fall fermenting our cabernet, merlot and syrah. It’s physical work, but very rewarding, allowing me to get in touch with my inner winemaker. We buy most of our grapes from Ciel du Cheval vineyard on Red Mountain in Eastern Washington. These are some of the best grapes in the state; two wines rated 100 by Robert Parker came out of the same vineyard. As long as I do my job, the eventual wine will be superb. My winemaking partner Tom Remmers and I share winemaking duties and our crew of Les Copains volunteers does a fantastic job of helping us our with crushing, pressing, fermenting and finally bottling. It provides a good break from more cerebral activities like writing and teaching, and allows me to experience winemaking from the ground up.

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