Ojai Vineyards

The key to producing special wine is in the care taken growing the grapes. After more than 3 decades at The Ojai Vineyard, what keeps me motivated and excited about running a winery is the craft. The slow process of assessing the outcome of choices made with experience and intuition is what it’s all about—and using that knowledge to make wines that fit a harmonious vision. Keeping the place small, and keeping my hands in the winemaking has allowed me to stay focused on craft.

Making wine in California, and particularly in the south here, one works with grapes that naturally deliver generosity. At this latitude it’s easy to make bombastic monsters, the trick is finding nuance and elegance. And that has been the quest: to combine European sensibilities of balance and finesse with the exuberant fruit from coastal southern California vineyards. By definition, great vineyards have something unique to say, and we take it as our job to capture those characteristics in a clear and unadorned way.

After so many years of experience I have a good idea of what can be expected from a particular vineyard and attempt to fashion the winemaking of each lot to bring out its best. Vintages vary, and that has to be considered in the process—craft punishes rigidity and demands adaptability. We take an attentive but hands off approach as we watch the development of the wines in the cellar and avoid moving, pumping, fining and filtering. The ultimate objective is to do next to nothing and let the vineyard express its unique personality.

Roll Ranch, Ojai’s Pride and Joy - Upper Ojai, Ventura Country

Roll Ranch is located under the dramatic striated bluffs of Topa Topa mountain in Upper Ojai, and the roots of our vines there plunge deep into poor rocky soil that was once part of those bluffs. It’s a warm generous climate and the wines from this site are gutsy.

Our history with Roll Ranch goes back to 1992, when Suzanne and Richard Roll’s ranch manager Larry Finkle approached me for advice about planting a vineyard at their place in Upper Ojai. Suzanne was just launching her eponymous restaurant in downtown Ojai, and they had the momentum to get several acres under vine too. They wanted to plant some Chardonnay and Cabernet Aauvignon because, well, that’s what most people want to plant. I told them Syrah and Viognier would be better choices for our climate, and so Richard bought a bottle of Guigal’s famous Coté Rotie called La Moline, which is made from Syrah and a dollop of Viognier in the northern Rhone. He tried the wine and thought if I could make something like that it would be okay, so we planted five acres of syrah and two of viognier (all own-rooted) and harvested the first crop in 1995.

What’s unusual and consistent over the years with Roll Ranch is that the fruit there retains acidity remarkably well for a warm climate vineyard. Warm sites tend to give grapes with lots of sugar and too little acidity, which often means overstuffed and sweet flavored wines. I’m not sure if there’s some soil voodoo to thank, or the magical abilities of vineyard manager Martin Ramirez (who planted Roll Ranch with Larry and has farmed it since), but some combination of factors has contributed to what seems to be an inherent balance to this site.

No doubt though, there used to be a real Californian exuberance to Roll Ranch wines. In the early years, many Roll Ranch Syrahs were big bruisers with over 15% alcohol, and the viognier was often so unctuously ripe that I would only make dessert wine with it. After a while I felt the over-ripeness presented a problem: our wines from the Ojai Valley were so saturating you would only want to drink them on cold rainy winter nights, and we rarely have them in our warm climate!

So, over the years we’ve tinkered in the vineyard and the cellar to temper some of that opulence. We’re fermenting the Syrah fundamentally differently than our cool climate sites now. And these days we’re finding no shortage of flavor when harvesting a bit earlier. The wines are better for it actually (when a wine has so much to say it does not need to yell!). They are fresher with more cut and intricacy than ever. Making wine from Roll Ranch has been a 20-year evolution; learning to listen to what a vineyard has to say and trying to capture its spirit is a slow process!

Grape growing:
Low yields tend to make higher quality wines.

• Low yielding vines can push wines beyond their varietal distinction by expressing unique vineyard characteristics.
• We buy all of our fruit by the acre. It’s expensive but gives us better control over vineyard practices and yields.
• Longer growing seasons can bring more complexity to the grapes thus we prefer vineyard sites in the cooler climates of the Santa Maria Valley and Santa Rita Hills.

Winemaking:
Decisions have to be made and intervention is inevitable in crafting wine.
• We give all of our red grapes the opportunity to undergo fermentations naturally. This approach helps express characteristics unique to the vineyard that would otherwise be mostly lost by a systematic inoculation of wine musts with cultured yeast strains.
• Sulphur Dioxide is used conservatively to avoid losing subtleties in the wine.
• No chemical cleaning agents are used. Steam is used to sanitize barrels, tanks and winery materials.
• Acid additions are avoided. We farm to harvest ripe grapes with balanced natural acidity.
• Stainless steel tanks are used for fermentation and temporary storage of wines, not for maturation.

Barrel maturation:
All of our wines are matured in oak. Barrels are an aging vessel used for a slow controlled development of wine, not as a substitute for complexities.
• New barrels are bought to replace older barrels when the older barrels reach the end of their usefulness. They are treated with steam and boiling water before use to reduce any excessive oak influence on the wine.
• Sauvignon Blanc and Rosé are aged in older barrels for about 6 months.
• Chardonnays are usually aged in barrel for 10-14 months. We utilize 0-10% new barrels in the process to keep oak flavors in the background.
• Pinot Noir has the ability to integrate new oak components better than Syrah. It is usually aged about 11-18 months in 10-25% new oak barrels.
• Syrahs have about 0-20% new oak. The Santa Barbara County Syrah is usually aged for 14 months in barrel. The single-vineyard Syrahs and Grenaches are usually aged for 18-27 months in barrel.

Fining and filtration:
We try to make wines that don’t need to be fined or filtered. These tools are used to help stabilize some wines that may be at risk for the growth of undesirable bacteria.
• Whites are usually fined and sometimes filtered.
• Reds are rarely fined and rarely filtered.

Bottle aging:

The bottling process is very hard on wine.

• Wines usually go through “bottle shock” after they are bottled. Some wines can take over a year to recover their initial expression and balance.
• Before releasing our wines, we typically age them in bottle for at least as long as they were in barrel.

Cellaring Ojai wines:
Our wines are enjoyable and expressive in their youth, but they usually show more distinction and complexity with bottle age. Great wines become even better with age.
• Sauvignon Blanc – We have had great success with these. Even some wines from the early 90s have continued to evolve positively. They will not disappoint you 2 to 10 years after vintage date.
• Chardonnay – They are aging very well and hit stride after 3 years and peak somewhere between7-15 years.
• Pinot Noir – These wines really show their true colors 5 -8 years after vintage, peaking around 6-12 years.
• Syrahs – The Syrahs that are more approachable in their youth seem to age well but start their plateau at about 5 years. The wines with massive structure and intensity seem to start showing their beauty after about 8-10 years after vintage date.

Serving our wines:
Decanting wines young and old helps to reveal true character.
• Most well-crafted young wines benefit greatly from aeration before tasting.
• Aged wines usually need aeration and a separation from their sediment. They also taste better with more time in the decanter
• Ancient wines can fall apart quickly after decanting. Best to not let them sit for a long time before drinking.
• In our experience most of our wines show better when they are decanted at least an hour or more before tasting.
• You may find our wines are most expressive between the 3rd and 8th hour after decanting.

Dogmatic thinking limits the evolution of creative and intuitive winemaking. After 30 years of winemaking the constant pursuit of new and better ways of uncovering unique and special characteristics from each vineyard is my goal.