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Wine Description
The Story
Rhys Vineyards is, together with Ridge Vineyards and Mount Eden Vineyards, the stars of the Santa Cruz Mountain appellation. The company was founded by Kevin Harvey, who in 1995 planted a tine vineyard with Pinot Noir on his property and a few years later started to make some wines in his garage. The first commercial vintage was 2003, and since then production has increased over the years. In 2006 Jeff Brinkman was hired as winemaker. In 2009 a brand new winery and wine cellar was built on the Skyline Vineyard property, at one of highest peaks of the mountain. All wines are small lot fermented (there are 80 one ton open top fermenters in stainless steel and nine in French oak) and kept in French oak barrels in the caves.
Altogether Rhys Vineyards owns 18.20 hectares of vineyards in Santa Cruz Mountains and below in the San Mateo appellation, but they also planted around 10.00 hectares with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay on high slopes in the deep end of the Anderson Valley appellation in Mendocino. That vineyard will bear fruit in 2013, or 2014.
Production is small, around 4 000 cases per year, and almost everything is sold through the winery’s mailing list.
Vintage 2009
Napa 2009 Vintage Report “We consider the vintage 2009 was the start of a three year cooling cycle (2009, 2010, 2011) that ended with the 2012 vintage. If We look at the big picture of the decade We see warming each year from 2006, 2007 and then 2008. 2009 then started a cooling cycle where the vintages were progressively cooler and wetter. Out of these vintages the 2011 was the coolest and wettest. We are pleased to see the vintage 2012 is breaking this cycle.”
