The SOMM Journal

October / November 2016

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{ SOMMjournal.com } 61 Rhonda Wood Owner/Winemaker, Wood Family Vineyards Before falling under the spell of wine grapes, Rhonda Wood enjoyed an 18-year career as a commercial pilot for U.S. Airways. She has ridden the wind, seen the world through grains of sand and has even hung ten alongside Chelsey "Sully" Sullenberger. Now she makes wine. Like other fairly recent arrivals to Livermore Valley, Wood was prompted by the acquisition, in 1996, of a Crane Ridge property that came with grapes, originally planted in 1992. After taking classes at U.C. Davis and working in a few cellars, she produced her first barrel (25 cases) of Merlot in 1998. She quickly expanded her portfolio to multiple 100-percent varietals—she prefers the focus of pure grape expressions—and today Wood Family Vineyards is up to 5,000 cases, while occasional flights are done in a 1940s-era Cessna. "I consider Zinfandel a specialty," says Wood, "because not a lot of it is made in the valley. When I first started, I was one of the few to do Grenache, Malbec and Cabernet Franc as varietals." Wood has been a big part of the trend making Livermore Valley more relevant to today's tastes for balance and diversity. She also finds irony in some of the changing attitudes from the outside, sharing this story: "At a winemakers-only technical tasting dur - ing a recent Chardonnay Symposium, my wine was one of 20 Chardonnays presented blind. A couple of winemak- ers commented on one wine showing lots of citrus complexity and balance, saying, 'This is definitely cool-climate Chardonnay.' Of course, it was my wine. Livermore Valley may not be perceived as a cold-climate region, but we're certainly capable of wines of that style." Indeed, the Wood Family 2015 Para Mas Amigas Chardonnay is compact, cit - rusy, toasty with barrel-fermented aromas, yet sleek and minerally on the palate. In dramatic contrast, the Wood Family 2014 Big Wood Zin Zinfandel is a brazen cacophony of Bing cherry and cranberry-ish pop—yet nothing raisiny, and cunningly free of oak crutches—filling out an uncut, badda-bing (16% alcohol) body, brimming with bright, upbeat sensations. "To make a Zinfandel like this, you can't be afraid of high pH or ripeness—as long as the acid is there, you're going to get a balanced mouthfeel," says Wood. "Livermore Valley wines have been winning their share of golds in competitions, and when that happens it's still a big surprise. We have the quality vineyards, and we've always had people with vision and capability. For myself, I always say winemaking is like flying an airplane. You have to pre-plan carefully before leaving the ground, and when you're harvesting and crushing, it's like taking off—one big high. Then when you finally get it in the bottle, it's like landing the plane, and everyone's clapping!" Look for our Livermore Valley SOMM CAMP story in the February-March 2017 issue. "One thing led to another. In 2005 we produced a few gallons of our own. My parents talked me into moving up from Southern California to help, and Mark Clarin, who later became our winemaker [in 2009], began consulting with us. We went commercial and production increased, making it necessary to build a winery in 2008, followed by a tasting room. Then in the 2012 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition our Cabernet Sauvignon won the Sweepstakes award, as the best of all American red wines entered that year. Suddenly, we're famous. And so today, we keep all the fruit from our home estate for ourselves, and we are planting another 12 acres of new vineyards." Like the brash, young upstart that it is, there is nothing quiet about the McGrail Cabernet. The currently released McGrail 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve wears its regal black-purplish robe extremely well; oodles of luxuriously dark fruit, veering towards framboise, penetrate the nose and occupy a big, dense, meaty body; its cup runneth over with concen - trated fruit and man-sized tannin. "It's partially house style and partially site," says Clarin, whose winemaking career began 1989 with stints at Wente, Tamas and Bonny Doon. "I like a bigger style than, say, Steven Kent. But I also like that the move to hillsides has made such a big impact on Livermore Valley over the past 20 years. These sites can produce sturdier, more structured wines, and so that's what we're doing." The McGrail Vineyards tasting room. Rhonda Wood of Wood Family Vineyards.

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