RSF Vintners Association Update

Author: Phil Trubey

Date: March 6, 2022

Work is progressing on the application submission to create a Rancho Santa Fe AVA (American Viticulture Area), which is a winegrowing region designation. I wrote about this effort last summer, and last Friday I found myself at Mille Fleurs getting an update.

Bertrand Hug in his natural element.

OK, OK, it was really a wine tasting masquerading as an update. Mille Fleurs proprietor Bertrand Hug was on hand to lend his expert palate. Rancho's own vineyard owner and producer of The Cov wine (ask for it at the golf club restaurant or Mille Fleurs) Jon Williams, treated us to a wine tasting of the blending of his 2019 vintage.

We started off tasting the individual varietal pieces - two different Cabernet Sauvignon clones, one Cabernet Franc, and one Merlot. We then tried three different ways of blending them.

Euan Parker, The Cov's winemaker

Jon's winemaker Euan Parker and Bertrand were the expert "noses". I just enjoyed the wine.

We then tasted Jon's great 2016 vintage, which he is still deciding what to do with since it is so good (double the price and sell it Jon!). We tasted several other local Rancho wines. Things got a bit fuzzy after that.

Sorry, where was I?

There are now 29 vineyards in Rancho growing grapes for winemaking. Only one winemaker has gone to the trouble of getting a license to sell their wine. All the others have lot of friends who help them out with their, um, supply "problem".

At the wine tasting we talked about fun things the group could do in the future. There was talk about putting together a co-op so that smaller vineyards could band together and sell a blended "Rancho Santa Fe Region" wine. Costs for licensing, producing, and marketing could be spread across more than one winemaker. A fall harvest and grape crushing festival was discussed.

Rosetta, another wine from grapes grown in Rancho Santa Fe

Jon talked about the need for a "champion" to organize some of these things. Everyone is individually busy (just growing grapes is involved, let alone making and bottling wine). Anyone interested in helping a bunch of winos, I mean wine connoisseurs? Any help would be appreciated, I'm sure!