Jarvis-Tomei Syrah

The vineyard is situated on a hillside with grand views to the west of the foothills declining in the distance to the Central Valley floor.   When we arrived the vineyard partners, Keith Wright and Dr. Stanley Geel, were there to walk us around the vineyards and give us their view on why the wines from these grapes have such a distinct taste of place.    

The first big plus is the orientation of the vineyard on a splendid west facing hillside which has an average 11% slope. This slope allows optimum sunlight to reach the grape clusters.  Planted here is the Syrah Clone Noir imported from France.  These two viticulturists are convinced the deep and fertile soils found in this little strip of land that includes the vineyard, and a bit of the surrounding hillside, is what gives the wines from here their unique taste of earth and minerality.  These soils are fairly deep for the Foothills;  some going  down as much as 5 feet and made up primarily of loam from the weathered Merhten Formation volcanic rock that is prominent on the ridges in the region.These deep soils create an interesting challenge in that their fertility encourages the vines to become overly vigorous and produce too many leaves with a further risk of developing grapes that lack the necessary concentration of flavor and color in the juice.   

To prevent this in the five acre vineyard Keith and Dr. Geel personally hand-prune the canopy and employ ‘just in time’ watering methods to contain the green growth.  instead of moisture monitors, they measure actual plant available water (PAW) in the rootzone to ensure only watering when necessary which is generally done two weeks after bloom, again at veraison (the period when the grapes turn from green to red) and then finally just prior to harvest. The ‘just in time’ water management technique also ensures that the berries will remain small, thereby achieving the appropriate ratio of skin to juice that produces optimum flavor and color qualities in the wine. Another tool the vineyard employs is the use a cover crop between the rows of vines that not only competes with the vines for water to decrease vigor, but adds nitrogen to the soil and encourages pests to stay out of the grape vines. 

The grapes are usually picked at 24 degrees Brix (a measure of the sugar content in the grapes), which is a bit lower than average for many of the other grapes in the Foothills, taking three different pickings to complete the harvest of the four acres to ensure perfect level of ripeness in the fruit.  The vineyard produces an average of three tons produced per acre. 

The winemakers arrived as we were finishing up our vineyard tour and we were able to begin exploring their philosophy of what it takes to turn the hard work in the vineyard to a great wine on the table. 

The Winemakers: Jeff Jarvis and Jessica Tomei met in 2002 and have been making wine together ever since.   Jessica has a degree from UC Davis in Enology and is another one of those exciting young winemakers that has practiced their art in multiple regions of California as well as in Europe and the Southern Hemisphere. She completed her first harvest at Gloria Ferrer Winery in Sonoma.  She went to Italy in 2001 to work at the famous Antinori Winery in Tuscany which has focused on producing great Chianti since 1385 and produces a more modern Super Tuscan as well. Continued ...