Jarvis-Tomei Syrah
The Italian philosophy of not making wine for the sake of wine, but as a part of the greater celebration of family and food is something that Jessica has always embraced and this was an opportunity to explore this to greater depth. She also spent time in Sonoma working for Mondavi Carneros as the assistant winemaker and then managing the Chilian wine center, Caliterra, a joint venture between Mondavi and Eduardo Chadwick.
Jeff is from Chicago where he was a winemaker who came to California to pursue a dream of owning a winery and vineyard. In addition to being a co-winemaker for Jarvis Tomei, Jeff owns a wine distribution and import business that deals primarily with wineries in Northern California. He and Jessica also consult to local wineries as well as a few in Chile and produce a red wine blend in Chile under the Nomad brand. Nomad is a marriage of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Carmenere and Malbec that is very complex, fruit forward wine with some great mineral earthiness and a note of oak and smoke.
Jeff and Jessica are very involved with the operations of the vineyard and work closely with Dr. Geel and Keith to assist in the decisions about how to prune, what to grow and when to pick. When it appears the grapes are nearly ready it is time for the winemaker to come up and verify they feel the time is right to harvest. For Jessica the decision for the 2005 grapes came when the Brix hit 24 degrees, the tannins tasted ripe and the seeds were brown. We are anxious to see how that decision plays out with the next 2005 vintage of the Reserve Syrah.
The Winery: The wine is actually produced in a custom crush winery at the Clarksburg Sugar Mill in the town of Clarksburg located in the Delta region of California. A custom crush facility is a bonded winery owned by one group that is used by another to produce wine. There is a huge variety of services that can be purchased with the use of the winery, all the way up to and including making the wine from start to finish. Many winemakers use the facility to do their own winemaking, but use the services of the winery’s cellar rats and record keepers, etc. They often even use the consulting services of the resident winemaker because of the house winemaker’s familiarity with the facility. The custom crush operation in Clarksburg is a 20,000 square foot temperature controlled state of the art facility complete with computer monitoring and full winemaking services. For winemakers producing small lot wines like Jarvis Tomei this is a great solution to the incredible expense of building a winery from the ground up.
The Wine: So what about the wine? The 2003 vintage, the first produced by Jarvis Tomei in this region, was superb. The nose was full of blackberries and black cherries, chocolate, black pepper spice and that intriguing scent of dry earth with just a hint of that meatiness that can often mark a good Syrah. On the palate the fruit was bright and clean in the attack followed by the chocolate and vanilla with a long finish that still had the fruit and oak spice, but all carried through with that lovely dry earthiness. This is a fairly complex wine that evolved nicely on the palate, with soft rounded tannins and some excellent acid that is not often evident in a California Syrah.
The 125 cases of the 2003 vintage is almost completely sold out with just a few bottles remaining in restaurant cellars. The winemakers are making a wine made under the Nomad name with the 2004 vintage which will be a blend of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre. For 2005 vintage of the reserve wine, Jeff and Jessica promise a more significant representation of the Jarvis Tomei style with acidity that will be somewhat enhanced to give it even more of that famous Northern Rhone style, but with a little sense of its place in California.
So, we wait for 2005, anxious to see how the stylistic changes and the great 2005 vintage will compare to what was a very nice 2003 and how the 2004 blend will measure up. Look for updates to this article to see the results when they arrive!
