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Monday, August 31, 1998 By Leslie
Sbrocco
“We wanted to make our wine in a style we liked. One that would
highlight the beautiful fruit of the Russian River, and one that would go
better with food than heavier chardonnays,” said co-owner Meinken.
Nestled between the famous chardonnay vineyards of Dutton Ranch, Sonoma-Cutrer and
Saralee Kunde’s vineyard, the grapes that go into Sapphire Hill come from
hallowed land. At first, the husband-and-wife team of Meinken and Giere
sold all their fruit to producers such as Murphy-Goode, Kendall-Jackson, La Crema and
Sonoma-Cutrer. They still sell the majority of the grapes, but decided in
1996 to make their own wine.
“Our vision was to plant the grapes first and then think about becoming
winemakers with our own fruit,” said Meinken. Their vision has become
reality with the recent release of the 1997 Sapphire Hill
Chardonnay.
Consulting winemaker Michael Scholz crafts the wine as Meinken put it,
“in a unique 50/50 way.” That means one half of the wine gets the full
treatment most high-end chardonnays are used to: whole-cluster pressing,
barrel and malolactic fermentation, and barrel-aging in a combination of
new French and American oak.
The difference between Sapphire Hill and other chardonnays, however, is
in the remaining half. Scholz ferments it in stainless steel tanks, but it
doesn’t undergo malolactic fermentation or see oak. When the two halves
are blended together, the 50 percent that receives the full treatment
gives the wine richness and depth. The half from the tanks emphasizes the
bold, tropical fruit flavors associated with Russian River Valley
chardonnay.
“When we first tasted this wine we said, ‘wow, we’ve got a winner,’” an
enthusiastic Bill Traverso, co-owner and wine buyer of Traverso’s Market
in Santa Rosa, CA., said. “The customers love it because it doesn’t
overpower food. It’s fresh, well-balanced and the tropical fruit flavors
are so pretty…we’re just all enamored with it.”
The story behind Sapphire Hill is the stuff of wine lovers' dreams. A
young couple meets in Chicago and discovers their love of wine while
living in Denver. When transferred to the San Francisco Bay Area, they buy
vineyard land in Sonoma County and eventually make their own wine. The
inaugural release garners rave reviews and they become an overnight
success.
The good-natured Giere laughs at the romantic concept. “From the time
Tim and I moved to San Francisco in 1988 until our first wine…it’s been
ten years. We’re certainly not an overnight success.” In fact, the couple
is a study in the amount of hard work and dedication it takes to become
small wine producers.
They, along with partners John Hall and Denice Engstrom, bought the
historic property in the heart of the Russian River Valley in 1989. They
planted the first 20 acres of chardonnay (of the total 33 comprising the
property) the same year. “We knew chardonnay would grow well, but it was
an economic decision. Chard was selling,” Giere said.
Meinken, a management consultant for a large international firm,
continued to live in Marin and work in San Francisco. He would commute one
day a week to Sonoma to take viticulture courses at a junior college.
Giere lived in Healdsburg for several years with her children while their
home was being built. As of this July Meinken was able to leave consulting
and be a full-time winegrower and small producer. “You have to be an
all-around business person … a designer, artist, marketer and salesman.
It’s more than just planting grapes,” he said.
Sapphire Hill vineyards is named after the color of the night’s sky
from the couple’s wrap-around porch and the knoll on which the estate is
located. The sweeping views from the property encompass lower-lying
vineyards planted to mainly chardonnay and pinot noir. On the hill’s
plateau where the couple built their home stands a lone chimney — a
testament to the property’s rich history.
Originally, the land belonged to General Mariano Vallejo, who was the
last Mexican governor of California before the state’s independence. In
the early 1840s, Vallejo granted a portion of his vast holdings to his
son-in-law, Captain Cooper. Cooper sold 120 acres, which included the
portion now dubbed Sapphire Hill, to Lucy Sullivan and her husband Levi
Grove in 1869. The Grove’s original home burned down in 1916 but the
chimney, crafted out of rocks from the nearby Russian River, remains.
Though the property is steeped in history, Giere and Meinken are firmly
ensconced in the Internet age. The majority of their 1,350 case production
of chardonnay is sold through the online wine commerce site,Virtual Vineyards. “We’re big
Internet fans,” said Giere. “It’s really great for consumers because they
have access to limited-production wines that they’d never be able to get
otherwise.”
Peter Granoff, owner and self-proclaimed “cork dork” of Virtual
Vineyards, offers wineries the chance for distribution in more than 40
states. “Small producers have a painless decision to make with us. They
get access to states without having to have a distributor,” Granoff said.
“It’s really a win/win for everybody.” Meinken concurred: “We’ve taken
non-traditional routes to distribution because with our
limited-production, it’s tough to get out there. We think the electronic
age is amazing.”
Currently, the winery makes only chardonnay, but the 1998 vintage will
include small lots of pinot noir and syrah. Meinken and Giere have planted
three rare Dijon clones of pinot noir, and in preparation for the
impending blow of phylloxera, are inter-planting syrah vines when they
replant chardonnay vines. Production should hit 3,000 cases in 1998 and
the couple hopes to be making 10,000-15,000 cases within five years. “It’s
exciting and being small we do everything, but we love it…what a life,”
Meinken said.
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