We’ve had a lot of time at home lately and have found ourselves sowing a few seeds of contemplation (which have fared much better than the lone tomato plant I, Emily, have been trying to keep alive). There’s something about being at home that lends itself to reflection—along with organizing drawers (Emily) and learning how to play guitar (Cody). That has led us to this point today, where we’re getting to share a story that is perhaps the part of our journey we’re most proud of: the beginning.
This whole big, beautiful adventure – our wine brand, creative outlet, and family business Desire Lines Wine Co. – started very simply in 2014 with a gift from two dear friends. It was the harvest of 2014, and I (Cody) was on the forklift at Bedrock during a busy harvest day, when Morgan and Chris walked over to play the daily game of tank-Tetris.
A standard day in the winery during the peak of harvest is equal parts soothsaying and logistics, kind of like trying to decide ahead of time which pots and pans you’ll need to cook dinner for the next 10 days. With the additional caveats that you can only use each pot and each pan once, you may not have enough pots and pans, you’re not entirely sure how much food you’ll have to cook each night, and each decision you make is critical. Tough right? I think Morgan and Chris asked, “if you had to pick one, which lot would it be?” and in my harvest-muddled brain I thought that we were trying to decide where each of the five lots we’d been discussing would go for fermentation.
I reasoned that the Syrah we’d received from Eaglepoint Ranch that day might be especially unique. The vineyard sits high on a rugged plateau above the Ukiah Valley and has yielded some remarkable wines – Sean Thackrey made some incredible wines from an old-vine block of Petite Sirah, and Wells Guthrie crafted some remarkably succulent and savory wines from a block of Syrah on the exposed western edge of the vineyard for Copain. Decision made: the Eaglepoint Ranch Syrah was the good stuff. With a pair of grins, Morgan and Chris said that one ton of the fruit was mine, to do with as I pleased. Whaaatt?!?
2014 EXPERIMENTAL SERIES NO. 1 – 'THE GIFT' EAGLEPOINT RANCH SYRAH, MENDOCINO
Here it is: the first wine we ever made, thanks to the incredibly generous gift of one ton of Syrah from Morgan and Chris to allow us to experiment and try to learn something along the way. The wine today is exactly what we’d hoped it might become when we bottled it back in June 2016: rich and concentrated, all black cherries, olive brine and dried flowers on the nose, with a soft and mouth-coating texture on the palate. Time has softened the edges of the wine and polished the mouthfeel, and yet the wine still speaks of the rugged intensity of its terroir.
2018 EXPERIMENTAL SERIES NO. 2 – FRED’S HOME BLOCK MOURVÈDRE, CONTRA COSTA COUNTY
Fred’s Home Block Mourvèdre is from a small parcel of magnificent Mourvèdre planted in the 1880s in Oakley. The vineyard was for many years a core piece of the Bonny Doon Cigare Volant, and for good reason, we’ve discovered: the wine is incredible. The vines are planted on the eastern edge of the Oakley Sands three miles east of Evangelho Vineyard. The wine was fermented with 30% whole cluster for 30 days in tank (we typically drain and press our Evangelho Carignan around 18-21 days) and raised in a single neutral 600L barrel. The wine smells like our local Watmaugh strawberries baked in a cobbler, with orange citrus and a hint of Mourvèdre’s distinctive gaminess.
We’re particularly pleased that Antonio Galloni so clearly enjoyed this wine because this is the raison d’être for our Experimental Series – so that we can share wines that are simply too good not to bottle, even if they don’t fit neatly into our vineyard designate series. The Experimental Series allows us to prospect for new vineyards while we experiment with new techniques in the cellar, and to bottle the best of those experimentations. As a result, each Experimental Series wine is necessarily very small in production.
“The 2018 Mourvedre Experimental Series No. 2 - Fred's Home Block from the Del Barba Vineyard, is bold, racy and full of character. Sweet red cherry, plum, leather and earthy notes abound in this mid-weight, flavorful Mourvèdre from Cody and Emily Rasmussen. Medium in body, yet deep and so expressive, the 2018 is a winner in this lineup.”
– 93 points, Antonio Galloni (Vinous)
2018 COLE RANCH RIESLING, MENDOCINO COUNTY
Cole Ranch is but a blip on the map of Mendocino County – at just 189 acres in total, with less than 50 acres planted, it is the smallest American Viticultural Area (AVA) in the country, and the only AVA with just a single vineyard. In this sense it is a very singular terroir. The vines were planted at Cole Ranch in 1973, making it the fifth-oldest Riesling vineyard in the state. The vineyard sits in a narrow valley in the mountains between Boonville and Ukiah. The valley benefits from the cooling maritime influence of nearby Anderson Valley, and yet has a large diurnal and seasonal range of temperatures like inland Mendocino County. It snows in Cole Ranch once or twice a winter, and by October the nights are freezing cold. Truly – the first fruit to come of the vine the morning of harvest, before the sun crests the ridge to warm the valley, are frozen clusters. We are fortunate to work with the fruit, and grateful that John Cole thought to plant Riesling in his valley so many years ago.
The 2018 Cole Ranch Riesling was whole-cluster pressed to tank, where the juice was cold settled for 48 hours before being racked to neutral wood barrels for fermentation. For whatever reason, Cole Ranch has always been a slow fermenter, and 2018 proved to be no different – I got only two of the four barrels sulfured before Christmas, while the other two barrels didn’t finish primary fermentation until late January. The 2018 is beautifully fragrant, with a dizzying array of aromas: white flowers, lime zest, peach, mango, and fresh ginger. And, like the German Grosses Gewächs Rieslings that we love so much, the wine is a study in tension and richness, with a few grams of residual sugar retained to balance the abundant acidity.
“The 2018 Riesling Cole Ranch is a wine of real distinction and class. Varietally expressive and beautifully layered, the 2018 dazzles from start to finish. Orange confit, wild flowers, ginger, sage, honey and tropical accents all run through this nuanced, inviting Riesling. Bright saline notes play off the wine's more overt leanings so well. I have a feeling the 2017 has room to grow today. The 2018 is simply impeccable, not to mention incredibly delicious.” – 94 points, Antonio Galloni (Vinous)
2018 EVANGELHO RED WINE, CONTRA COSTA COUNTY
Our 2018 Evangelho Red Wine is a blend of roughly 90% Carignan and 10% Mourvèdre. Like the 2017, the wine was fermented with 30% whole cluster under a submerged cap and aged for ten months in neutral 400L barrels. I love the 400L barrel size for Carignan – it retains freshness and builds tension like all large format barrels, but with a less reductive tendency than the 500L and 600L barrels that I prefer for Syrah and Mourvèdre. The Carignan from Evangelho gives a juicy wine that smells of flowers and red fruits, with a soft tannin profile and vibrant acidity. The inclusion of cluster adds spice to the nose, while the small portion of carbonic maceration and Mourvèdre add flesh to the palate. The winemaking style is inspired by our love for the great cru Beaujolais of France (and in our book, that’s Clos de la Roilette’s Cuvée Tardive and the old-vine single parcels of Château Thivin): wines that are a joy to drink while young and age gracefully as well.
“The 2018 Red Wine Evangelho Vineyard, a blend of 90% Carignan and 10% Mourvedre, is a very pretty, lifted wine. Bright floral notes, red Carignan fruit, blood orange and wild flowers give this silky, mid-weight Contra Costa red tons of class and personality. There is just a touch of reduction, so I would give this a few hours of air.” – 92 points, Antonio Galloni (Vinous)
2017 SHAKE RIDGE RANCH SYRAH, AMADOR COUNTY
Our 2017 Shake Ridge Syrah was fermented with 60% whole cluster and aged for 14 months in large-format 500L barrels, including a single new light-toast Taransaud barrel. The 2017 is richer and even more intense than the 2016, owing primarily to the warmer growing season of 2017, but also in part from the inclusion of 2% Viognier co-fermented with the Syrah. We get fruit from two different blocks on the front of the ranch, from the first vines planted at Shake Ridge in 2003. Both blocks run from the crown of a ridge down into the colder swale, giving us a range of flavors to work with – textbook Syrah game and funk from the top, acid and fresh blue fruit flavors from the bottom. The wine is exotically perfumed with firm tannin and a sweet core of fruit that runs through the center of the wine, fitting for a wine from the foothills.
2016 GRIFFIN'S LAIR SYRAH, PETALUMA GAP
The vines at Griffin’s Lair are planted on a north-facing hillside in the very throat of the Petaluma Gap. The vineyard bears the full brunt of the chilly winds that rip through the Gap – as the Central Valley warms each morning, the resulting convective uplift sucks cold marine air inland from the Sonoma Coast, in through a gap in the coast range and along the Petaluma River to San Pablo Bay. This marine influence moderates the afternoon temperatures of the Petaluma River valley, delivering cool air when temperatures would otherwise be at their highest. The vines are regularly buffeted by winds strong enough to limit leaf stomatal conductance, which delays sugar ripening by shutting down photosynthesis, often for hours at a time each day. Portions of the Petaluma Gap are effectively the coldest parts of the vast Sonoma Coast AVA.
Our 2016 Griffin’s Lair Syrah was fermented with 50% whole cluster, with a submerged cap for the first half of fermentation and raised in neutral large format barrels for 15 months before bottling without fining or filtration. The 2016 is vibrant and lithe and a bit more red-fruited than the 2015, especially after a decant, revealing bacon, olive tapenade, and black tea that practically shout “Griffin’s Lair!”
“The 2016 Syrah Griffin's Lair Vineyard is a beautifully polished, nuanced wine that captures the personality of this Petaluma Gap site so well. Lavender, spice, leather, black pepper, licorice and dried flowers are all nicely woven together in this sleek, nuanced Syrah from Desire Lines.” – 93 points, Antonio Galloni (Vinous)
2017 GRIFFIN'S LAIR SYRAH, PETALUMA GAP
2017 was a challenging year for calling picks – though the winter was unusually wet, the summer was dry and very warm, with multiple heat spells of temperatures over 100 degrees. The heat stressed the vines and pushed sugars along quickly, so rather than wait for the tannins to soften on the vine (at the expense of high alcohol levels), we decided to pick like usual and work the ferment a little differently, to avoid the extraction of hard, green tannins. The resulting wine is lovely; our most ethereal Griffin’s Lair to date. It’s in a great place right now, seeming like the friendliest young Griffin’s Lair we’ve made yet.
Like previous vintages, the wine fermented un-inoculated with 50% whole cluster and a submerged cap through the first half of fermentation, pressed off just short of dryness, and put down to neutral large format barrels for 15 months before bottling. The wine tastes unmistakably like Griffin’s Lair, suffused with cherry, black tea, and bacon fat, all of which are cast in high relief by the cap submersion. The wine is a touch softer on the palate than previous vintages, with a silky texture and rich yet delicate mouthfeel.
2018 LICHAU HILL CABERNET SAUVIGNON, PETALUMA GAP
We didn’t intend to make a Cabernet when we started Desire Lines. But, like a desire line along a hiking trail, the path to Lichau Hill appeared for us in 2018, so we happily followed it up Sonoma Mountain. The vineyard is thoroughly singular, the only Cabernet Sauvignon planted in the Petaluma Gap AVA. How then can Cabernet Sauvignon fully ripen, you ask? It’s all thanks to Lichau Hill’s elevation, situated inland and far enough above the fog line to reliably ripen Cabernet, even if it may take until late October to reach just 24° brix.
Planted in 1999 in soil so rocky that a wall was built around our block from the rocks excavated during planting, Lichau Hill (Lichau pronounced “lee-how”) sits high up on a south-west facing ridge, looking down at Gap’s Crown Vineyard below and the rest of the Petaluma Gap splayed out into the distance, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. We were drawn to Lichau Hill because it has all the markers of a great mountain Cabernet site, with a cooler coastal climate.
Our 2018 Lichau Hill Cabernet Sauvignon was fully destemmed but not crushed, fermented and left on skins for thirty days in tank, and aged for 15 months in 225L barriques with 40% new oak included. The wine has a silky mouthfeel with vibrant acidity and a distinctly red-fruited profile, with pretty notes of red currant, red apple skin, rose petals and graphite.
