The 2005 harvest at Tandem can be summed up in three words: Long Hang Time. Some folks might choose to say “extended”, but we saw the 2005 vintage as an opportunity to gain some great flavor with the cool, relatively dry weather conditions and pay a lot of extra attention to our ferments as they evenly metered into the winery. This kind of vintage can be either a vintner’s joy – or a drawn-out nightmare if the weather and fermentations don’t cooperate! But cooperate Mother Nature did, allowing the crush crew to take in fruit, ferment, press off and reload in smooth, almost languid succession.
Chardonnay The Porter-Bass vineyard saw a classic year for this outstanding, on-the-edge-of-viticultural-limits site. Crop was down tremendously due to cold Spring weather and rain during flowering. The “Rued” clone was picked October 4 th at a mere 22 Brix, yielding a firm, flinty and mineral-toned wine that is just now starting to show the floral tones in barrel that this clone can bring to the party. The Dutton clone (picked October 28 th) is producing some incredibly exciting visceral aromas that we have not seen to such full extent from this vineyard since the cold 1998 vintage. Look for a classic, exciting Porter-Bass Chardonnay from Tandem this vintage. Michael Sangiacomo is ever the perfect winegrowing partner. In this vintage when most of the growers in the county were calling up their wineries daily and asking when the harvesting of their fruit would begin, Mike and brother Steve were patiently playing the waiting game, even asking if we shouldn’t hang the grapes a few more days if the weather held. Exceptional family, exceptional fruit. Look for another great cool-climate vintage with bracing acid and deep, complex flavors and aromas from this great name in Sonoma County viticulture. Kent Ritchie is a worthy keeper of one of the Russian River’s viticultural treasures: Poplar Vineyard. Since we first started making wine from this now hallowed site, we have opted to put the Ritchie name to the vineyard to honor this hockey-playing, straight-talking man who embodies what he says: “We will grow the best fruit possible”. He does. As is often the case with Ritchie Vineyard fruit, the fermentations are not yet complete and we expect we won’t be putting his wines to bed this Winter, but watching and waiting as the native yeasts slowly wend their way towards dryness sometime in the Spring or Summer. The result will again be a richness and depth of fruit and complexity that is found in few other vineyards. Good show, Kent! We have some new “old” vineyards that we are working with this 2005 vintage. Greg L hasn’t worked with the Lorenzo Vineyard Chardonnay since juice from the 1993 harvest. Looks like we are picking up right where we left off, with this latest-of-the-late picked Russian River vineyards in classic form again this year, with harvest completed not until the first week of November. The wine is still actively fermenting as of late November, but already the aromas and flavors are classic Lorenzo as has been demonstrated and defined by Turley, Ramey, Hunter, Stern and a few other noted winemakers. Thanks to Bill Hunter for turning us on to this two tons of fruit this year. Pinot Noir More and more, as California Pinotphiles are looking for the unique terroir experience, Tandem is finding resonance with consumers in its site-driven winemaking where presence of place is favored over big oak and manipulated wine microbiology. Below are a few notes on the vineyards and wines of the 2005 vintage.
2004 marked the inauguration of our Silver Pines vineyard designate. Located only a short distance from the Van der Kamp vineyard on Sonoma Mountain, this small but tenderly-cared-for vineyard of Norm and Carol Silverman shows much of the regional character of Sonoma Mountain’s high-altitude vineyards: power with grace, sauvage flavors with elegance. The 2005 vintage is confirming the notion that mountain tannins CAN be harnessed to yield Pinots that have weight yet somehow defy gravity with their grace and poise. The two clones were blended just before Thanksgiving so that the Mariafeld clone’s yeast could help the Pommard clone finish its primary fermentation. Stay tuned for great things from this vineyard-with-a-view that has attitude to match! To match some of our mainstay vineyards we also have some new Pinot vineyards that are showing some potential for possible vineyard designate. Chief among these is Manchester Ridge Vineyard, located on a remote maritime ridge at 2800 feet elevation above the Pacific Ocean. Picked October 22nd at an amazing 10.5 grams per liter of acidity (most California Other notable mentions include the Chris Lee Vineyard, a tiny plot on the slopes between Bennet and Sonoma Mountains. Pure fruit tones are coming forth from this lot which was hand-shepherded through a tricky fermentation by our friend Steve Yafa. Hawk’s Roost Vineyard, farmed by Chuck Jones, is not a new vineyard to us but continues to be a steady beat in this our third year of working together. Chuck’s Mariafeld clone produces a very strong Pinot noir, with loads of color and structure that has been a mainstay in our Peloton blends. Other wines that hold together Peloton are looking exceptional this year. The old-vine, dry-farmed Caballo Blanco Carignane continues to delight us – so much so that our winemaker continually threatens to “expand focus” and bottle this as a separate varietal. It has been regarded by some as one of the best Carignane produced in California. Dense and chewy, this third year of our vinting the CB CG is showing perhaps the most promise yet. The Aldine Vineyard “Talmage Bench” Zinfandel ended up with about 1/3 the crop that we normally receive, but the outcome was an extraordinarily concentrated wine in 2005. For 2004, look for our first ever single vineyard Tandem bottling of this Zin made famous at Flowers winery in Greg L’s single-vineyard rendition of this old-vine, Dry Creek clone. “Big Daddy” Don is back in bottle for those of you Zin fans who loved this wine at the ZAPP weekend off-line parties of yore! Well, folks, time to get back to racking barrels, finishing up prepping for bottling the last of our 2004 Pinots, Zin and just a bit of Sangiovese. Thanks for supporting Tandem and our pursuit of pure terroir expression along with a bit of blending fun in the Peloton. We promise to deliver to you the best of what soil, sun, yeast, winegrower and cellar hands have to offer, with passion and pride in every drop of Tandem wines! Vint with Honor, The Tandem Winegrowing Team
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Unlike the 2004 vintage with its record-early and compressed harvest, 2005 looked to belong to the other end of the record books. We harvested our last Pinot noir on Oct. 22 nd and the “big red” and Chardonnay varieties from our Talmage Bench Zin, Caballo Blanco old-vine Carignane and the venerable Lorenzo Chardonnay into early November. We did see a few showers into the tail end of October, but our growers were superbly prepared and the condition of the fruit was excellent. Result: some of the darkest, most lush and flavorful Pinot noir we have yet worked with and bright, ripe flavors in the Chardonnays. Both reds and whites are experiencing some development of feral, sauvage tones as they age in barrel, particularly wine from vineyards which experienced a touch of rain before harvesting.
Ulysses Van der Kamp is firmly at the reins of vineyard management for Martin and Dixie in this amazing historical vineyard. There are only a few vineyardists in the world who give the kind of dedication that Ulysses gives to his family’s vineyard on Sonoma Mountain, and the results show. Each year we can’t imagine it getting better, and every year Ulysses pulls out all of the stops and keeps growing with his vines, reaching out to understand sun and soil, wind and water. This year we have been able to keep separate, for the first time, each clone and soil difference. We are contemplating pulling off a “terroir” series bottling to showcase the differences that can occur in one vineyard, with vine age difference and clone speaking with the voice of each soil type. We would love to bring the story of the Van der Kamp vineyard to you, in bottle, clone-by-clone.
Pinots are picked between 6 and 7.5 g/L), this wine is showing tremendous promise and reminds us in barrel of some of our favorite grand cru wines in Burgundy and the Camp Meeting Ridge wines we worked with in the mid-to-late 90’s.