Estate wines are not just every wine you pick up at a winery that has a vineyard attached. What “estate” means is the bottle of wine you are looking at, is 100% from grape to finish, has never left the property. There is a certain orientation to a winemaker that does all 100% estate wines, and almost no winery you are going to visit today does. The reason it is less and less common, is winemakers like to pull in grapes from many sources. It adds to diversity and with much of the regions overproducing as wine takes a small downturn, you will see more and more “non-estate” wines. Not a big deal but estate is something special. Consider it a long term relationship.
So what kind of wineries exist today? Well there is the rather rare, 100% estate and I will feature a few from the Fair Play region. There is the winemaker that adds some non-estate grapes to add to the portfolio, and then there is the winery that doesn’t have any vineyards attached to them. The 100% estate is special and I see it because of economic and portfolio diversity reasons less and less. So pay attention when you find one.
You really want to focus on estate’s and product that you know are well cared for. Poorly cared for grapes will mean less complex wine. The estate if it has a team, high standards, great vineyard management, and the processes that produce the style you like then you can get the wine you prefer at a pretty consistent level. Other factors still exist. Does the wine maker use a database and a chemistry lab, is careful process controlled year to year, and then there is the weather. Nobody can control that. So anybody who tells you a wine is the same every year, clearly is not an enthusiast. Every vineyard and winery is constantly changing.
Don’t go to the supermarket for “estate” wines. Estates move wines into supermarkets when something went wrong, the wine is in decline, or there is simply too much wine. Let the broker clear it out. Maybe they picked too late and this wine is a bit pruney, or the taste of the oak isn’t really meshed well with the variety or style. Wine is variable. Even the temperature and what you drink it with are impactful. Most red wine should be opened between 55-60 degrees. Be careful of drinking huge red wines on hot patios, this is not a great combination.
So back to the estate, I was updating the history of the Fair Play AVA wiki and was noticing, what estates are really still intact and producing all on the same property. Lots of things have changed in Fair Play wine AVA since it started the modern era around 1980. Well several still exist and do some great wine from their own vineyards here are 6 I can recommend in the very heart of the Fair Play AVA all close to each other where Brian Fitzpatrick first started it all around 1980.
- Cedarville Vineyard (oldest estate with the original proprietor, mid 1990’s)
- Element 79 Vineyards (great for hospitality and a large portfolio)
- Mastroserio Winery (a founding vineyard known as Granite Springs)
- Medeiros Family Wines (all estate winery, no sourcing)
- Shadow Ranch Vineyards (10 acres planted, sources off property)
- Chateau D’ Estienne (one of the newest estates in Fair Play)
These all have vine to bottle estate wines worth your time. Some of them source varieties such as Sam Patterson, of Shadow Ranch, which has 10 acres planted. I have left out other estates that may have had changes recently, so I can’t recommend.
So much is about hospitality these days, and not necessarily about the wine. This blog was about the very core, why grape to bottle from one team matters. A wine that never leaves its place, till you take it home. 