BREAKING NEW GROUND

With Pinot Noir currently the red-hot red wine, Francis Mahoney might well have rested on his laurels, content to tend his own garden. Labeled a “pioneer” and “visionary” for founding Carneros Creek Winery in 1972 and for conducting decades of Pinot Noir clonal research with U.C. Davis, Mahoney did step away from winery management in 2001 to focus on farming his 160 acres of Carneros vineyards.

Although his lifelong passion for Pinot Noir never flagged (and his clonal trials, now in phase three, have never ceased), the pioneer spirit has led him in new directions – to Italian and Spanish varieties as well as French. He’s worked the past ten years to develop the 110-acre Las Brisas Vineyard in southern Sonoma Carneros, creating a mosaic of 15 different Pinot clones on six rootstocks, but also planting Montepulciano, Vermentino and Tempranillo.

Back on the warmer, more northerly Mahoney Ranch near his home in Napa Carneros, the hillsides nurture a bolder style of Pinot Noir and an intense Syrah. “After over 30 years of growing grapes in the same place,” Mahoney notes, “we now have a true, 100% estate program with the experience and capacity to deliver consistent styles of our wines.”

That style is the approachable, fruit-forward, pure expression of varietal character, according to Mahoney, who says that’s how Carneros producers began “before we lost our way in the 1980’s and let oak suck the fruit from our Pinots, before we made wine for critics, not to match our soil and climate.”

Carneros Creek earned praise in the late 1970’s for balanced, elegant wines with bright cherry and strawberry fruit. The winery grew steadily over two decades, reaching over 30,000 cases of Pinot Noir production when investment banker Bill Hambrecht bought an interest in 1998. The facility was expanded and updated, and by mid-2001, Francis had left to tend his vines.

Two years later, he was back, joining winemaker Ken Foster, a 15-year Pinot Noir veteran who rejuvenated David Bruce Winery before coming to Carneros Creek in 2002. The Carneros Creek brand was sold to a marketing firm in 2004. In 2006, Francis bought out Hambrecht’s interest, then sold just his winery facility to the Michael Mondavi family, reversing their respective roles as custom-crusher and client while leaving Foster in place as winemaker.

While Mahoney is first and foremost a grower, selling grapes to a number of prominent producers in and outside of Carneros, he and Foster collaborate on Francis’s new brand. Launched last year, Mahoney Vineyards is a small, artisanal project that coaxes the “best of the best” from Mahoney’s holdings. Mahoney Vineyards could have been dedicated solely to Burgundian varietals had Francis and Kathleen Salverazza Mahoney not traveled to Italy in 2000 to visit her family. Charmed by the people and wines of Liguria, Francis promised on the return flight to plant Italian varieties in honor of his wife’s heritage.

Mahoney Ranch comprises 45 convoluted acres of vines on the upslope of Dealy Lane. Here the climate and steeply sloped exposures produce intense, perfumed, well-structured Pinot Noirwith black cherry, black pepper and allspice aromas and flavors. Consistent Pinot Noir is not easy to come by in this terrain. Mahoney says the north wind can play havoc with set on hilltop vines, while results are more predictable and abundant in the protected swales. At the warmest reaches of the property’s northwest corner, the western exposure yields dark, brooding Syrah that exudes blackberry, black tea and lavender characters. Ken Foster said the site “demanded Syrah,” Francis notes. “A later variety, Syrah sets better here. During harvest, we get considerable 4:00 o’clock heat, but then it cools right back down, so the fruit is ripe but not pruney.”

Las Brisas Vineyard, 95 planted acres swept by cool bay and ocean breezes that confirm its name, provides interesting contrasts. Located just off Ramal Road hard by the San Pablo Bay marshlands, the site offers Pinot Noir that is a round, ripe expression of red cherry fruit and spice, elegant wine with excellent underlying structure. “The vineyard is an old stream bed laid in with decomposed sandstone, silt and gravel, and about 20% black clay,” Mahoney remarks. “It’s unusual soil for Carneros.”  Across the vineyard, the elevation drops a mere 50 feet, Mahoney says, “flowing downward so gently that both ends of a 105-vine row yield virtually identical fruit.” He claims this consistency is enhanced by the east/west row orientation that helps manage wind and sunlight without cooking the crop, and, literally, by the fruit of his clonal work. In addition, Las Brisas is home to a “full palate” of promising new varieties.

Vermentino is a principal white grape of Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily and Liguria, where the Mahoneys discovered it. In cafés along the Italian Riviera, the refreshing wine is invariably consumed with local seafood. “It has a bright, floral nose like Riesling,” Francis comments, “and a crisp, dry, clean Sauvignon Blanc finish, perfect for sipping or paired with calamari, shrimp or cheeses.”

Montepulciano, widely planted in the hills of central Italy along the Adriatic, is often blended and makes a supple easy-to-drink red with flavors of berries and peppery spice. In the slightly cooler Carneros context, “it distinguishes itself with a red, round, very serious statement,” Mahoney says. His wine is deeply scented with black plums and blackberries, firm acidity and pleasant tannins.

Tempranillo, the versatile Spanish grape, is “easy to work with” for Mahoney, offering a “brighter, more refreshing wine” than he had anticipated. The Mahoney Tempranillo displays considerable depth of rich cherry and berry fruit, supple textures and considerable substance without hard tannins. Francis gained an appreciation by drinking Riojas while visiting his daughter in Madrid.

“The trick to growing these varieties,” Mahoney confides, “is don’t be greedy. We constantly manage the vines, sometimes thinning crop three times.” Las Brisas gives wonderful round, red fruit, he says, not jammy, briary or earthy. A devotee of great Burgundies, Mahoney has always made balanced wines that present the true character of the grape, with fruit foremost and oak restrained. Mahoney Vineyards extends that style to a host of exciting new varietals.