Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/314400
W i n e s & V i n e s J U n e 2 0 1 4 49 spending eight to 12 months in barrel before blending and bottling. The Hol- man Estate Pinot Noir gets 100% first- year oak. Bottling and packaging White wines are bottled in February and released in April, and reds are bottled between June and August, making way for the new vintage in the fermentation and holding tanks. The wines are filtered with the Winetech mobile cross-flow fil- tration system. Bottling is performed outside the cave by Sobrante Wine Systems (formerly Cen- tral Coast Bottling). Most of the wines are bottled into shiners and then labeled as the winery brings them to sale, which Holman Ranch says is good for tax and cash-flow purposes. (Since the wine is under bond, it is taxed as it is labeled. A small producer like Holman Ranch can prudently hold onto its cash by labeling the wine only as needed.) Glass for the wine comes from Demptos Glass (the Ranch also produces olive oil, bottled in Bruni Glass), with capsules by Ramondin, corks from Portocork and labels by Collotype. The clonal program and wine sales Holman Ranch makes one barrel of Pinot Noir from each of its six clones. Picked on the same day, fermented identically with the same yeast and hand-bottled, the wines are sold as a unique six-pack. Elliott offers tastings of the clone program to wine club members (and to tasting room visitors on selected dates) to allow them to taste the differences each clone can pro- duce under otherwise identical conditions of growth and fermentation. "This was developed between Greg, Nick and me," Lowder says. "Since our focus is on planting the right grapes in the right soil, climate and elevation, we thought it was a great idea to show how we get so many different Pinot bottlings." (Holman Ranch currently is up to four.) "After going through the clonal devel- opment of the vineyards and wines, we thought it would be interesting for the consumer to experience the individual clones," Vita agrees, "and even to be able to create their own wines by blending the different clones." The six-pack comes with blank evalua- tion forms as well as tasting notes from the proprietor and winemaker. The winery sells nearly 100% of its wines directly to consumers (one local restaurant and bottle shop also sell the wines). The Holman Ranch wine club has 225 members, the majority of them from California, followed by Alabama, Florida and Texas. Most of the wines, which retail for $16-$40 per bottle, are sold through Holman Ranch events and the Carmel Valley tasting room, with wine club premium members receiving perks like wine education classes, events at the ranch or an annual stay at guest cabins on the property. With a combination of smart promo- tion, a well-established hospitality business and studied wine production, Holman Ranch is making a success of the wine business in a unique and desir- able setting. NV CALIFORNIA Pacific Ocean Holman Ranch Santa Barbara Paso Robles San Francisco Napa Monterey Sacramento C A L I F O R N I A (707) 431–9342 westectank.com G R A P E G R O W I N G W I N E M A K I N G