Vineyards
We learned, the hard way, a long time ago that great wine begins with great grapes. The best winery or winemaker in the world can't make great wine from crappy fruit, although we've probably all have had wine that tasted like someone tried. ...
m2 doesn't own vineyard land, a deliberate choice we made when m2 was founded. Instead we have long-term contracts and relationships with our growers that ensures we get great fruit from which to make m2 wines. And we've been making wine from many of the same vineyards for years now.
Meet some of our growers ...
Kevin Soucie, Soucie Vineyard, Lodi
Soucie Vineyard is on West Turner Road in Lodi, about a half mile east of I-5. Kevin is a fifth generation Lodi native; his family originally owned and farmed 240 acres of melons, cherries and vegetables. The remaining piece of the original family land is now a 40-acre Zinfandel vineyard.
We source our fruit from the original six-acre block of vines planted in 1916 by Kevin's grandfather. The vines in this block are self-rooted and the clone is not known - no one knew much, or care, about rootstock or clonal selections back in the early 1900's.
The soil is 'DeVries Sandy Loam' and is known to be at least 80 feet deep. Phylloxera, a sap-sucking insect that feeds on the roots of grapevines (and destroyed all French vineyards in the 1890s), cannot survive in the soil here; that's why there are so many 'old vine' vineyards in Lodi.
Elevation of the vineyard is only 15 feet above sea level and less than 15 miles from the upper reaches of the San Francisco Bay. (One little recognized fact is that the west side of the Lodi appellation is closer to the San Francisco Bay area than Calistoga in Napa Valley.)
The entire vineyard is irrigated by an underground drip system supplied by well water. Kevin practices intense vineyard management including deficit irrigation, but waters when necessary.
We've been making Zinfandel from the 1916 block since 2002. and have won awards for our Zin every year.
Jim Chapman, Lani's Vineyard, Shenandoah Valley in Amador County
We've been making Syrah from Jim's grapes since 2002. The vineyard is located off Steiner Road in Shenandoah Valley. Jim has roughly 12 acres planted to two different clones of Syrah in four different blocks. The rows in what we call Block A and Block B are oriented north/south. The other two blocks, C and D, are east/west.
This vineyard is planted on a steep mountain slope (steep for Amador County) composed mostly of granite. The soil is very poor, in places bedrock is 3 feet below the surface of sand and loam. The elevation of the vineyard is 1,800 feet.
Syrah from Lani's Vineyard has traditionally been blended with Cabernet Sauvignon from Pratt Vineyard to create Trio. We bottled our first varietal Syrah from Jim's grapes, the 2007 vintage, in the spring of 2009.
There are additional acres planted, but not yet producing, including a special, super-secret clone of Syrah and quite a bit of Petite Sirah that we can't wait to get our hands on.
Dave Pratt, Cabernet - Pratt Vineyard, Fair Play AVA in El Dorado County
Dave's vineyard in the Fair Play appellation has been the source of the Cabernet Sauvignon in our Trio wine since 2001.
The vineyard is about 20 acres in size, planted to Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. There are two blocks of Cabernet; our grapes come from the block right next to Dave's winery building. We don't know for sure but we suspect that it is Clone 6. The wine from these vines is consistently lean, racy and deep in color. The flavors are very similar to the known Clone 6 vineyard source we have in Rutherford. One of these days we're gonna get a DNA test to confirm.