Back in 2019, when Heitz Cellar owner Gaylon Lawrence purchased the Wildwood vineyard in Rutherford from Treasury Wine Estates, it appeared to be just another piece of the large pie that the Nashville native farmer and financier was assembling. But it seems there was a plan for the historic patch of dirt all along.
Wine Spectator has learned that Lawrence Wine Estates (LWE) has launched a joint venture with vintner Jeremy Seysses of Burgundy’s Domaine Dujac to use a small portion of the property for a new wine. Seysses will team up with Nico Cueva, winemaker for the Lawrence-owned Haynes Vineyard, to tackle a new approach for Napa Cabernet.
“It was Carlton [McCoy, LWE CEO,] who approached me back in 2018,” says Seysses. “I was working in California a bit at the time, consulting for Flowers and some other projects. Then COVID hit and all that consulting disappeared and my time freed up. So we started talking about a project more seriously. I had assumed it would be Pinot and Chardonnay, for the Burgundy and Haynes connection with Nico. But then Carlton said, ‘No, I want to do Cabernet with people who don’t normally do Cabernet.’ And I thought that was interesting.”
Not that Seysses is unfamiliar with Cabernet. And he doesn't need to go far for advice. His wife Diana Snowden Seysses is both winemaker at Dujac and at her family's Napa estate Snowden Vineyards.
An Ideal Spot for Cabernet Sauvignon
The 51-acre Wildwood Vineyard is planted on a gently sloping three-mile swath of alluvial fan on the western side of the valley in the Rutherford AVA, referred to as the ‘Rutherford Bench’. Initially planted to Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc, the vineyard had been used by Treasury as a grape source for wineries such as Sterling and Provenance.
Since the sale to LWE, other clients have come in, including Andy and Annie Erickson’s Favia and winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown. The property is contiguous to and features the same soils as the Trailside Vineyard, a longtime part of the Heitz portfolio. McCoy has combined the two pieces to bring the total acreage for Trailside to 137 acres, primarily planted with Cabernet Sauvignon, along with Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot. The Sauvignon Blanc was recently ripped out.
The new wine, labeled under the Trailside Vineyard name, will debut with a ’22 vintage bottling in spring of 2025. The wine is sourced from a choice selection of the vineyard, which is farmed following biodynamic principles (though not certified). Production is a modest 500 cases; a price has not yet been confirmed.
“The vineyard definitely has history,” notes McCoy. “It was partly owned by Spring Mountain Vineyard before Treasury, and was their primary fruit source before the 1980s. Since then, major replantings were done in a few waves starting in the early 2000s and so now the oldest vines are nearing 15 to 20 years old. The clonal selection is a wide mix, but the rootstock is fairly consistent. What makes it interesting is that while it’s Rutherford Bench, it has a mix of soils.”
A Different Winemaking Approach
That soil mix is the first part of the ‘new’ approach the winemaking team is taking here. While the vineyard blocks are aligned for farming logistics, they tend to have varying soil types intersecting throughout the site, from deeper clay over sand along the western edge, which borders Conn Creek, to volcanic Cortina and Boomer soils that have eroded down off the Vaca range on its eastern side. Geologist Brenna Quigley was brought in and around 200 pits were dug to identify the varying soils.
“It’s a winemaker’s dream to just kick the rocks and pick the best aspects of the site to play with, based on soil. To play with respectfully, of course,” says Cueva. “The goal was to isolate the different soil profiles and then treat it a bit like Burgundy, fermenting those portions separately. As a winemaker, I’m not tied to clone, I’m tied to soil.”
Cueva worked at Pinot Noir specialist Kosta Browne from 2009 through 2019 before being hired for Haynes Vineyard. He has worked with Cabernet before, including with Zelma Long at her Vilafonté project in South Africa. Seysses also has some Cabernet experience at his family’s Domaine de Triennes in Provence, but both admit it’s all a bit new for them. That wide-eyed approach has perhaps led them to choose an atypical vinification for the wine, one that employs fermenting some whole clusters with the cap submerged—something more typical for Pinot Noir, Nebbiolo or Syrah.
“The criticism about Cabernet regions in general is that their winemaking is [based on a consensus], which results in a lot of the wines tasting the same,” says Seysses. “In Piedmont, where a submerged cap is typical, I discussed the idea of using it on Cabernet with some producers and they said ‘Sure it will work’, which is not something I think a lot of Cabernet producers would agree with. But I do think a little bit of whole cluster in Cabernet works."
Whole cluster refers to bunches that aren’t destemmed. Stems in a vinification can add additional aromatic complexity and freshness to a wine, though if underripe or overly used, can result in bitter, astringent notes. A submerged cap keeps grapes and stems from coming into contact with air, which could risk the formation of acetic acid, a flaw in wine, while allowing for a longer and gentler extraction.
“The submerged cap brings texture via a different tannin profile,” Seysses continues. “It’s not always easy in an area like Napa, which is rich in sunshine, to achieve richness without higher alcohol or even a touch of residual sweetness, which can make the wine feel less spry. Plus there’s an additional aromatic complexity [whole cluster] brings when the fruit isn’t just being picked on the early side. It is a high risk approach. It’s much safer to de-stem. But when it works, aromatically, the wines are another level.”
In the case of the Trailside Vineyard bottling, the lots fermented as whole clusters represent just a small portion of the overall blend. The whole cluster lots also spend 60 to 80 days on their skins in closed tanks to keep the cap submerged.
The rest of the wine, roughly 80 percent, goes through a more typical Cabernet vinification. After fermentation (which is performed by ambient yeasts), the wine sees aging in oak vessels that range from typical 228-liter barrels to larger demi-muids of 500 liters and a few 1,000-liter casks. With a higher volume of wine to oak ratio and with minimally toasted oak, the idea is to preserve freshness and aromatics while accentuating a vineyard site’s minerality. It’s a style now also being employed by Promontory and Harlan, for example.
A Sneak Peek
Rutherford terroir typically delivers minerality in the form of a bolt of iron. A sample of the 2022 Trailside Vineyard shows that bolt through the wine, along with that vintage’s precocious fruit. The growing season was marked by extended and extreme heat over the Labor Day weekend, though Cueva notes picking was done before the more deleterious heat arrived.
The wine shows dark mulberry and blackberry flavors married to noticeable lift and freshness in the form of iris and violet notes. It finishes with more lipsmacking acidity than a typically broad-shouldered and tannic-driven Rutherford Cabernet. It checks in at a modest 13.1 percent alcohol. (An official review based on a formal blind tasting will appear in the future.)
“Part of this is curiosity," says Seysses. “We’re certainly not looking to sacrifice the aspect of being Rutherford. What we’re looking for is something that has its own style and terroir, all while respecting both.”
Read more of James Molesworth's Winery Intels, hear his interviews with leading winemakers on Wine Spectator's Straight Talk podcast, and follow him on Instagram at @jmolesworth1.
