Enter the Monks

Winemaking in some of the major regions of Europe owe much of their existence to the Catholic Church, and more specifically, the Monks who spent centuries in France and Germany finding the perfect grapes for the perfect place to make the perfect wine.  Many of the nobility of Europe in the early years would buy their way into heaven after a life of indulgence and excess by deeding a portion of their massive estates to the Church as a cleansing upon their death.  Soon, the Catholic Church owned most of the good vineyard sites and, with their massive labor force of Monks, primarily from the Benedictine Order, spent the next several centuries trying different grapes in different spots and carefully cataloging the results.  The Cistercian order, from the larger Benedictines, was involved in much of that work in some of the greatest vineyards in Burgundy, France, and Rheingau, Germany. 

The Trappist Monks, a group within the Cistercian order, still have that great love of manual work and agriculture that was so important to the early formation of France’s wine culture.   In 1955 the monastery in Kentucky was becoming over crowded and the old winery site was purchased to build a second monastery on the 580 acres of land in Tehama County.  The Benedictines believe in self support of the separate monasteries through manual labor, primarily agriculture.  After trying such things as walnuts and prunes with no great success they decided to go back to enology and viticulture.  They began researching the great winemaking regions of Europe to see which most closely resembled the conditions in Tehama County.  This lead the monks to do a great deal of research into the viticultural areas Spain, Italy, Southern France, and Australia to settle on which grapes might thrive best in this warm, dry environment. 

The New Vineyards: Finally the right grape for the Terroir.

Finally the vineyards were to be planted with the grapes that belonged there!

After the Monks extensive studies the first experimental vineyards were planted in 2000.  The 3 ½ acre St. James Vineyard was planted to Syrah, Viognier, Zinfandel, Tempranillo, Graciano and Albarino in deep Vina loam soils.  The 3 ½ acre ‘Poor Souls’ (named for the poor souls who have to work in its rocky soils) was planted to Petite Sirah, Barbera, Trebbiano, Zinfandel, Viognier and Muscat Blanc in sandy Vina loam and river rock.  The St. James Vineyard has since been expanded to 5 acres due to the success of the Viognier and Albarino.  All vineyards are watered with drip irrigation to ensure just the right amount of water can be applied at just the right time. 

Hang time, the length of time the grapes can remain on the vines and such a critical part of the maturity of complex flavors, would seem to be short in such a hot environment, but just the opposite is true.  A strange characteristic of wine grapes is that they shut down and stop maturing any time temperatures exceed 98 degrees.  Since there are so many more days in the far northern valley in that temperature range, the effect is somewhat similar to the cool evenings in the central Sierra Foothills, the warm temperature encourage the grapes to rest thus lengthening hang times allowing heat loving grapes to mature more slowly. 

The initial harvest came in 2002; the first on the property since the removal of the vineyards in 1915.  Many grapes were initially sold to local wineries, but are now used by the winery to produce the wines of New Clairvaux.   Continued ...