Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/66135
G r AP e G ro WING and root crops need gravelly soil. So it was all a validation of the kind of soils that we would like. I wasn't there in the afternoons in the summer, when the wind is blowing so much, but I really liked the soil. We had our first very small crop in 1975. By that time I knew that it was pretty windy in the summer, and I finally realized why people have the huge eucalyptus windbreaks. In 1977, we had our first good crop. By that time we had learned that the area was actually cooler than it theoretically might be. Where Char- donnay and Riesling would ripen in the area, and Pinot Noir would ripen, it was difficult to properly ripen Cabernet. Unripe fruit in that area is just not good. On the 280 acres that we bought, I planted 90 acres of Cabernet, 30 acres of Merlot (because I wanted to make a Bor- deaux blend), 27.5 acres of Chardonnay, 27.5 acres of Riesling, and then we planted small quantities of other things. We planted a total of 11 varieties. We had financial partners with us, and we told them that CALIForNIA Pacific Ocean J. Lohr Vineyards St. Helena San Francisco Chardonnay in that soil, and the Chardonnay does much better. W&V: What did you learn about vineyard practices such as spacing and trellising from Arroyo Seco? Lohr: We started out with sprawl, and it was harder to get the sprays in, the mildewcides that we had to use because of the cool, damp mornings in Monterey. One of the things that really helped was using vertical shoot positioning. Consequently, we were able to cut down on the number of sprays that we used. Especially for Chardonnay, which is quite subject to mildew, that was really good. When we went from sprawl to vertical shoot positioning, there was no sense in having 10-foot center-to-center rows. We cut that to 8 feet. For the spacing between vines, we typically decreased that. I first planted at 10 feet by 7 feet. We've now gone to 8 feet by 6 feet or, in some cases, 8 feet by 5 feet. On these strong soils, we sometimes use less-vigor- ous rootstock. If you have too-vigorous rootstocks, then you have too-vigorous vines in almost any spacing. We always work toward having dappled light. NV CALIFORNIA Monterey Arroyo Seco Paso Robles After Cabernet and Merlot proved difficult to grow in the Arroyo Seco region of Monterey County (left), Lohr bought land in Paso Robles (right). we're going to graft over from those that did poorest to those that did best. W&V: Which grape varieties didn't work out? Lohr: The first one that really didn't work was Merlot, because it didn't set well in the wind. Merlot did poorest and Pinot Blanc did best. So on the windiest side we grafted over the Merlot to Pinot Blanc. The next one we saw wasn't work- ing well was Cabernet, so we started grafting. We actually spent about three years grafting because we had so much of that Cabernet. We grafted it to Chardonnay, primarily, and to some Pinot Blanc. We grafted in '78, '79, '80, and we finished some in '81. We grafted, eventually, 70-plus percent of that origi- nal vineyard and wound up with four varieties: Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Blanc and Napa Gamay (now called Valdiguié). We stayed with the Pinot Noir for several years, but it always had a rubber boot character, and it just didn't do well at all. We had 7.5 acres, and we tried experiments like barrel fermenting and small-lot fermenting and thinning and opening up the vine by leafing and so forth—practices that didn't become common for the next 10 or 15 years. We finally decided it was a clonal problem, maybe in the wind. We didn't even know what clone it was. Forty years ago, we weren't as sensitized to clones. Because it was a relatively weak vine, we had it in some of our richest soil. So we thought maybe that was a problem. We now have W&V: In the mid-1980s, you purchased land in Paso Robles. What brought you there, and what have the results been? Lohr: What brought us there was learning that we needed to be in a warmer, less-windy climate. We had a fortunate thing happen to us in 1981. We had a call from a fellow who was part of the Hyatt hotel chain (to make wine for the hotels). Barry Gnekow, the winemaker, and I tasted over 500 samples in '81 and '82 of wines from all over California. We saw that the flavors we liked came from Paso Robles. So even though it was farther from home, I went down there and got the soil maps and talked to Realtors and began looking into the area. I was down there enough times that I saw that it would get very hot in the daytime and saw how cool it got at night. Eventually I acquired 640 acres in six parcels. W&V: What did you plant there? Lohr: Largely Cabernet and what I call "Bordeaux blend- ers." We took the heavier soils and planted those to Merlot. We have well over 100 acres of Petit Verdot down there. We planted a little Petite Sirah as a coloring variety. We planted Malbec, which hasn't done all that well—oh, and we planted a little Syrah. We've planted almost continuously since 1987. We have more than 2,500 acres. We look for new clones, like Cabernet Franc: We planted some, and it only did so-so. We found there were potentially better clones of Cabernet Franc. Wines & Vines JUne 2011 57