It’s so rewarding to get letters from our wine club members.  Gordon and Chris Collins sent us this very nice note after a recently visit to MacLeod Family Vineyard.

Hi Marjorie and George,
Just wanted to let you know that our case of wine arrived today in good order. This weekend we will do a little barbeque and raise a glass to the MacLeods! We want to thank you for a wonderful afternoon in your vineyards. It was quite an experience to feel the love that you all have for your ranch.
And as we drink your wonderful wine we will feel like a small part of the MacLeod wine family. We hope the summer growing season goes well for your vines, “Marie and Javier” and that they don’t give George any fits! We will talk to you soon (I know this case of wine won’t last us until our October case arrives).

All the best,

A few nights ago, an email arrived to John and Marjorie from their friends Marjolein Grooters and Coen Hofstad of Cape Town, South Africa.  The big news of the email was that their new baby girl, Merle, is “growing fast and now smiling.” 

Coen also told us, “last night we opened the MacLeod Sauvignon Blanc…..my God, what a beautiful wine!  We thoroughly enjoyed it with our home made pasta Alfredo.”

And there’s nothing we like more than having our wines be a there when friends are sharing a good time…(except perhaps being there ourselves).

Thanks Marjolein and Coen.  Great to hear about little Merle, and glad you enjoyed the SB.

Passport weekend in Sonoma Valley is always a good time.  It’s a great opportunity for people to taste a wide variety of wines, and for the wineries to develop a personal relationship with their customers.

My favorite story from the weekend came the following week and from an unexpected source.  A work colleague of mine was telling me that his fiancee had recently hired a person to work for her.  As an expression of gratitude (or maybe just to impress the new boss) the person had returned to work on Monday bearing a gift of a bottle of wine that they had picked up while participating in Passport weekend in Sonoma.  The wine she chose to bring … you guess it - a bottle of MacLeod Sauvignon Blanc.  She said that she had been to 10 different wineries and that the MacLeod Family Viineyards wine and overall visit experience were by far her favorite.

Nothing feels quite so good as an unsolicited testimonial.

Saturday, February 7 was a brilliant day between storms, and a perfect day for adding new plants to the MacLeod Vineyard diversity garden - or as we call it, the “insect-o-site.” As you can tell from these photos, we had a great crew of family and friends on hand ready to prove the old proverb true that “many hands make light work.” More on that in a minute. First, a brief word about why we’re creating the insect-o-site.

Vineyards are a mono-culture - a large area cultivated to grow a single type of plant. This is not nature’s way of doing things. In nature, plants take care of themselves through diversity, with certain plants playing favorable hosts for the “good” bugs. that thrive by feeding on “bad” bugs. Bad bugs, in our case, defined as those that may introduce disease into the vineyard. By spotting clusters of plants around the vineyard that are strategically selected to attract the good bugs, we hope to create a biodiversity that promotes a healthy vineyard naturally.

It’s all part of our drive to become an organic vineyard, which is a critical piece of our quest for ultimate grape quality. To grow grapes that are a perfect expression of our wonderful terroir, we want to eliminate the introduction of non-natural elements into the vineyard (e.g. pesticides, herbicides). So when you drink a bottle of MacLeod Family Vineyard wine you find special flavors and aromas that are unique to this very special Sonoma Valley location.

Putting in plants is no walk-in-the-garden at MacLeod Vineyard. Our rocky, volcanic soil is great for growing premium grapes, but you literally can not drive a shovel into the soil without hitting a rock. With patience and persistence the work crew extracted the rocks and got all the new plants comfortably settled. They even used the extracted rocks to make an artsy perimeter for the insect-o-site.

OK, now everyone hop in the back of the truck and lets head back to the house to taste some of the fruit of our labor.  I think George would agree that this ranch couldn’t run without the participation of all the family and friends.  Well, maybe it could.  But it wouldn’t be as much fun.

Wednesday was bottling day for our 07 vintage Zinfandel. We got to the winery in Dry Creek by 7:45 and the place was alive with the giant bottling truck, a dozen workers plus people from the winery. All under the firm direction of winemaker Ashley. Hoses to connect, pallets of bottles to be put in place, corks and labels on the ready, adjustments to the bottle labeling machine to be sure the labels were where we wanted them on the wine bottle, one or two sample bottles filled for inspection.

By 8:15 with all in order four or five workers in the giant trailer the others all along the steep conveyor. The filled cases came cascading down the steep conveyor at the rate of one every 20 seconds . The job of outside jcrew was to catch them, slow them down and put two identifying labels neatly - not crooked but precisely on the exact same side of the case and position. The now finished cases of wine were then moved off the conveyor and neatly stacked on wooden pallets at 56 cases per pallet. When complete the pallets were moved out of the way with a forklift and then tightly wrapped with tough clear plastic by lady winemaker Ashley. Altogether 325 cases.

I was one of the `outside` team doing all the catching of the 40 pound cases and labeling them. It sort of reminded me of a calf round up where the calf is caught and then branded with the home ranch brand. But as I was doing this my mind drifted to the story of the product itself. Our ranch team had taken years to develop the vineyard source of the grapes, for the wine itself we had started back in winter of 07 with vine pruning of the individual vines, then irrigation, vine care, thinning of bunches, cultivation, observing the first purple grapes in late July, watching the slow maturation of each bunch, counting and weighing them, and finally taking multiple samples to the winery for evaluation to make certain the grapes had reached the harvest day with the joyful men of the Mexican Army, hauling to winery and temporarily turning them over to winemaker Ashley.

The journey of the grqpes through crushing, fermentation, pressing, decanting, ageing in oak barrels for a year in a mixture of one third new barrels, one third one or two year olds, and one third three or four year old barrels, more decanting and filtering and finally this morning into the bottles. After several months of bottle ageing we will be shipping these bottles all over the country to share this wonderful vintage with friends and loyal clients. The wine itself has a beautiful color, aromas and flavors of blackberry. raspberry with hints of chocolate and vanilla. Truly a splendid personal product years in the making. One that hopefully will ….”gladden the hearts of men…” and women too! Frankly we don`t know if this lovely wine will ever really return a cash profit to compensate enough for all of this effort. But to all of us MacLeods and the Zinfandel vines and winemaker Ashley involved in creating this great vintage it has been a personal and group triumph that truly trumps all the other mundane issues such as cash and profit,. As Scarlet O`Hara would say …… we can think about that tomorrow.

Each Spring we throw a party at the ranch to give our customers a chance to see the vineyard and taste new wines. And give ourselves a chance to say “thank you” to people who have shelled out their hard-earned cash to enjoy MacLeod Family Vineyard wines.

Most of the family turns up to “work” the party. While there is a lot of work that goes in to putting on the party, you wouldn’t know it at the event itself. Looks more like a lot of wine drinking, oyster eating, friendly chatting and general good timing. Here are just a few photos to share. From the top: The scene outside the barn. It was a beautiful day, warm but with a cooling afternoon breeze (just like the grapes like it).

That’s Gail running the tasting room. It was hard to tell who was having more fun, the people tasting the wine or Gail and Rich pouring it for them.

The true hit of the afternoon, however, were the “ranch tours” led by George himself. Having built the vineyard himself from bare land, George seems to know every rock, every emitter, and every grape vine. The stories that come from 30 years of this labor of love are a joy. And, we think, add extra enjoyment to each bottle of MacLeod Family Vineyard wine.

MacLeod Family Vineyard Set to Add Zinfandel & Merlot

2008 is shaping up to be an exciting year at MacLeod Family Vineyard. As many of you know, we’ve been growing grapes on this exquisite patch of Sonoma Valley for over 25 years. Most of that time selling all we grew to some of the region’s finest wineries.

Three years ago we started our own adventure into wine making. Continuing to sell the majority of our crop to other wineries, but partnering with the excellent wine makers at Mauritson Winery to produce to bottle wines under our own “MacLeod Family Vineyard” label.

Our Sauvignon Blanc was the first come to market. With vintages 2005 and 2006 we produced less than 300 cases. To our delight, we discovered that there were real customers out there, interested in tasting our effort at capturing our terroir in a bottle.

This year we have the high pleasure of offering our customers our first MacLeod Family Vineyard Zinfandel and Merlot - from grapes grown exclusively on our beloved Indian Springs Ranch. These wines will be released later this Spring, and we can hardly wait to share it with you.

Vintage 2006 has introduced many new customers to our Sauvignon Blanc, and we’re both proud and a little nostalgic that the 330 cases are now all gone. We even celebrated with a family trip to realize one of Greta’s longstanding dreams of being in Hawaii with all her grandchildren.

All eyes (and noses and palattes) are now on vintage 2007. We’ve been barrel tasting our Zinfandel which has wonderful aromas and flavors of blackberry and raspberry- beautiful color and great mouth feel. Almost zero astringency.. Both Clay and Charlie (winemaker at Cline) think wine will be spectacular after three or four more months of bottle ageing.

George and winemaker Clay Mauritson tasted our ‘07 Sauvignon Blanc the other day and concluded that it may be our best yet. Really superb mouth feel and finish, with flavors that go on and on, and a minerality that is distinctively Sonoma Valley. Bottling date for the SB will be in March.

Click on the “Join Wine Club” link if you’d like us to send you a notification when the new vintage becomes available.

For the first time this year we entered our Sauvignon Blanc in the prestigious “North of the Gate” wine festival.  To our delight, we won the Silver Ribbon.

The Wine Exchange of Sonoma says, “We became fans of the MacLeod Sauvignon Blanc with the first release in 2005, and the 2006 is a crisp and zesty beauty!  Subtle fragrances and flavors of apricot, melon, pear and pineapple delight the nose and palate, and underlying notes of honeysuckle, minerals and citrus linger in the finish.  This is the perfect wine for summer – delicious by itself or with fresh oysters, grilled vegetables and fish, and cheese platters. This is a refreshingly complex and flavorful Sauvignon Blanc.”  (Personally, I enjoy our Sauvignon Blanc with foods of spice such as Thai or Indian food.)

We love to hear what foods you enjoy eating with Sauv Blanc.  Comment on this blog and let us know.