Summer ‘22 Recap
Well everyone, it’s been a long time since we checked in, but we promise our prolonged lack of updates is not without reason. Since we last spoke, we have begun sales of our first vintage, planted 5 acres of Syrah on our virgin hillside, started hosting tours and tastings at the ranch, continued to react to the many challenges of our changing climate, but most importantly…we got married!
After 11 adventure-filled years together, Sydney and I tied the knot June 17th on a perfect Carmel day. About 4 years ago, the small seed of a thought of starting a winery together seemed to be nothing but a far-fetched dream. When the opportunity to start Tira Nanza presented itself (much earlier than we ever foresaw happening), we took the leap and committed to building a whole lot more than just our relationship together. We’re now actively building our marriage, vineyards, ranch, and business together and have grown so much as a team because of it. We feel so incredibly lucky to be on this path and are very excited for what the future holds for us.
In other news, we opened our wine sales for our very first release and the feedback has been truly moving. The opportunity to share something we have worked so hard on with others and see them enjoy it means everything to us. Your kind words and excitement for the future are a huge reassurance in a business that is full of constant ups and downs. We are thrilled to have officially sold out of the wines available this year but have reserved a small amount for upcoming events and tours/tastings. This first release has been a huge success and we can’t thank you all enough for your support.
Another joy of having wine to share has been opening the ranch to tours and tastings. We now offer complimentary tours of our ranch and vineyards with the opportunity to taste the Viognier, Rosé and a sample of our 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon pulled directly from barrel. It has been a true joy getting to meet new people and taking them through the vineyard on UTV, doing tastings up at the cabin, and talking through our farming and winemaking processes. If any of you are interested in scheduling a tour, click here to send us a booking request.
One of our favorite things to exhibit on our tours is our new Syrah planting. A large part of what drew us to Cachagua (aside from the breathtaking natural beauty) was the tremendous untapped potential for producing Northern Rhone wines of incredible quality. After extensive exploration of our entire property, we picked 3 adjoining hillsides where we felt the soil was the most compelling. We then prepped each of these small fields and hand installed over 8,000 wooden stakes, called “echalas” upon which the vines will be trained. Perhaps most unique, however, is what we did not install: irrigation lines. The mixture of decomposing granite and clay in these soils provides a harmony between drainage and water retention that we believe will allow these vines to thrive without the drip irrigation that is standard in all but a handful of California vineyards. Obviously, baby vines need water so to establish the vines we are irrigating every vine by hand using our tractor, a water tank, two long hoses, and a lot of walking uphill. Everything about this project is incredibly labor intensive, but the result will be a vineyard truly unlike any others in America and our hope is that resulting wines will be equally distinctive.
As always with farming, each year is never without its own unique set of challenges. On May 12th, our lower vineyards were hit hard by a late frost, something that hasn’t occurred in our region since 1998. Fortunately, about 40% of our Cabernet Sauvignon vines and most of our Merlot were unaffected and are looking great. Unfortunately, we will not be able to produce quite as much Cab as we were hoping to this year but such is farming in an ever more challenging climate. Additionally, our Malbec crop was completely wiped out, but luckily we were able to source fruit from a vineyard Greg used to work with that shares a similar farming philosophy and has fruit that will work really well in our Rosé program. It’s hard for us as our goal is always to produce estate wines that we grow ourselves, but due the demand for our Malbec Rosé we have decided to buy fruit for this vintage in order to continue its production. As soon as our vineyard recovers, our Malbec Rosé will once again be made exclusively from our estate fruit.
We don’t bring up the challenges of farming out of a desire for sympathy, but rather to provide you all with transparency into everything that goes into each bottle of wine. There are always challenges, but our focus remains on finding the most holistic solutions we can and trying to produce the best wines possible. We are overwhelmed by all of your support and so glad to know that you have been enjoying the wines. As of last week we have officially jumped into our second harvest here and can't wait to see what this vintage holds.
Cheers,
-Greg & Sydney