MARITANA VINEYARDS Chardonnay and Pinot Noir Russian River Valley, Sonoma, California, USA
As of the end of May we will be preparing the wines for their final clarification and bottling which is scheduled for the end of July 2018 on all of our wines. I recently tasted through all the 2017 vintage Maritana Vineyards wines with a friend and retailer from Honolulu. It’s exciting to see them slowly transforming into the kinds of wines I had envisioned a year ago when we started. In case you haven’t seen the whole lineup yet here is the complete 2017 set of wines.
2018 Outlook Although we are still several months from the 2018 harvest we foresee a number of changes from the 2017 vintage. In the Chardonnay program the Big River Vineyard departs having been sold at harvest 2017. We are sorry to see it go but it opens the way for including a lovely block of Dijon Clone 76 Chardonnay from the Martinelli vineyards along River Road.
A late addition is going to be Block 10 of Susanna’s Vineyard owned by the Lynmar winery and planted in 2007 to Old Wente Clone Chardonnay. These will accompany the Dutton Ranch Shop Block 1967 and the Dutton Ranch Hansen Hill grape sources we carry over from 2017.
With the Pinot Noir program we are turning over all the 2017 sites and doing a complete retooling. The 2017 Pinot Noir is good but each of the vineyards we used last year found their way out for different reasons. To anchor the 2018 Maritana Vineyard “Le Russe” we are beginning with grapes from Martaella Vineyard by Benovia. Mike Sullivan there has generously agreed to part with a selection of clones to set the table for the blend. Maclain Wells has a new vineyard called “Five Wells Vineyard” and we could see a little bit of fruit from them in 2018 but more likely it will be online for 2019.
The Martinelli vineyard along River Road is going to be a solid source in 2018 of Clone 828 Pinot Noir. Michael Browne has a newly acquired vineyard that should give us a small amount of mixed clone Pinot Noir this year. The biggest news is the addition of a portion of the Jenkins Ranch with Dijon clone 115 recently given up by other producers – not Patz & Hall. We fully expect the Jenkins Ranch site to yield a single vineyard designate for 2018. There may be potential for other single vineyard wines out of this set of vineyards, but we need to see the wines to make that determination.
The 2018 vintage will be produced at Sugarloaf Crush near Santa Rosa. The equipment is ideal and the staff there understand Chardonnay and Pinot Noir very well.
Most probable lineup for 2018
MARITANA VINEYARDS 2018 – Russian River Valley Chardonnay “La Rivière” MARITANA VINEYARDS 2018 – Russian River Valley Pinot Noir “Le Russe” MARITANA VINEYARDS 2018 – Russian River Valley Chardonnay – Dutton Ranch Shop Block 1967 MARITANA VINEYARDS 2018 – Russian River Valley Chardonnay – Dutton Ranch Hansen Hill Vineyard MARITANA VINEYARDS 2018 – Russian River Valley Pinot Noir – Jenkins Ranch