Today I turn 70. It’s a milestone; makes you think. What better way to celebrate it than by doing what I’ve been doing for well more than half my life, while tackling a favorite subject: Writing about meaningful wines.
Last week I ventured out from my summer abode in Albuquerque to spend a grand total of two days in the Healdsburg area of Sonoma County to help kick off the newly opened tasting room of Marchelle Wines.
While Marchelle is an itty bitty handcraft brand that makes wine in custom crush facilities, unlike other transient, itty bitty brands of today it is not operated by a young or youngish, idealistic, up and coming vintner; but rather by an old, bent, grizzled winemaker who has been making “natural” style wines in California, and elsewhere around the world (during his years as a “flying” consulting winemaker), long before the word was bandied about.
Marchelle was co-founded less than five years ago by Greg La Follette and Kevin Lee, together with their respective spouses Mara and Michelle (hence the name, “Marchelle”).
I have cited and written about Mr. La Follette many times over the years for two reasons:
1. When I first “discovered” the wines he crafted at Flowers Winery in the late 1990s, and then wines under his Tandem Wines label in the early 2000s, I found in La Follette a pervasive value system very similar to my devotion to French “country” wines (we used to call them that) imported by Kermit Lynch in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as recalling the bright, ringing purity of German Riesling qualitätswein which I used to sell like hotcakes in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Although we weren’t using the term forty, fifty years ago, the quality I found in all these wines were what we now call terroir⏤wines that actually taste like where they come from, not just an intellectual idea of their “sense of place.”
2. La Follette’s approach to this style of wine was never touchy-feely. To him, it was always a science, not a spiritual kick, not a philosophical whim. Sure, it involved the usual machinations associated with low intervention winemaking followed, like gospel, by many of today’s handcraft producers. But it was never low intervention for the sake of low intervention; the yielding of alternative style wine for the sake of being alternative. It was always, as La Follette never stopped putting it, about “letting a vineyard find its voice.” Something that starts with work done in the vineyard, and continues in the winery.
Today I am still talking about Greg La Follette because of something he might not like me talking about at all: The fact that he is coming up on his Last Waltz, and is well aware of it. He is no longer capable of doing what he loves best (making wine, of course) for 18, 12, or even just 8 hours at a time. He has officially passed on the title of “Marchelle Winemaker” to a younger man named Evan Damiano, who is more than capable of crafting La Follette style wines. La Follette cannot even be depended upon to jump on a plane to fulfill speaking engagements—his cerebral, logical approach to winemaking has long made him popular as a guest speaker—or to represent his wines in markets in Southern California, let alone the East Coast or Midwest. His partner Kevin Lee, a Silicon Valley technology exec, has recently picked up most of the slack in the sales area.
So we need to talk more about Mr. La Follette… while he is still very much alive and kicking.
Last week, for instance, it was a thrill to get back together with Greg to chat about his 2023 Marchelle Manchester Ridge Chardonnay, from a vineyard perched 2,200-feet high on a Mendocino Ridge AVA site overlooking the Pacific which consistently produces a wine bristling with bright citrus acidity, a pervasive flintiness and an almost briny minerality in a sleek, compact body (the label says 13.8% ABV). An antithesis of California style Chardonnay. Like the various Chablis crus the wine suggests, there is no need for the usual dreary laundry list of descriptors. The wine is simply what it is: A “Manchester Ridge”—not a Chardonnay.
It was about 23 years ago when I first tasted a couple of wines, both of them Chardonnays, crafted by La Follette under his Tandem label. They stopped me in my tracks. If you judged the wines by the standards of “varietal character” by which almost all California Chardonnays were judged at that time, the Tandems were all “wrong.” The acids were soaringly high, their noses more of mineral and flower petal notes than the tropical pineapple/apple fruitiness all the critics seemed to favor, and they didn’t rely on toasty qualities of oak, nor the yeastiness of bâtonnage or creaminess of malolactic fermentation, to achieve the textures for which many of the bigger California Chardonnays were acclaimed.
To me, this was always what was fundamentally wrong about most California Chardonnays. Even the most discriminating, presumably smart judges expected them all to meet the exact same sensory profiles, no matter where they were grown. Having first learned about wines in the late ‘70s by studying the differences between, say, a Lafite and a Mouton, a Musigny and a Chambertin, or a Steinberger and Scharzhofberger, I could never quite get it. Shouldn’t we expect wines from different places to taste different? Of course, I loved California wines; especially selling them. I just resented their sameness.
Another one of Marchelle’s current releases, the 2023 Marchelle Haiku Reserve Chardonnay from Mendocino County, typifies a La Follette “find” because of its unlikely location in Inland Mendocino (as opposed to the vaunted Anderson Valley AVA). It’s a growth he chooses to dote on precisely because of its propensity to produce “unChard-like” whites. Instead, it is a wine exuding slivers of hazelnuts and scented orchard blossoms, crackling crisp citrus and a filagreed length with its own sense of minerality on the palate.
If, ever since the 1976 Judgement of Paris which set an unrelenting course in which all California Chardonnays have since been “rated”—that is, according to how close they come to the opulent, ultra-ripe and lavishly oaked style of a Montrachet—a Haiku Reserve would be considered closer to a Meursault by dint of its tightly wound, stony, grippy feel, putting fruitiness as a secondary or even tertiary objective, and oakiness even farther down on the totem pole. It is not, of course, a Meursault. It is a Haiku. Point being, it is what it is meant to be, rather than just another facsimile of varietal Chardonnay.
It is not as if, of course, an opulent, ultra-ripe Chardonnay is not a California typicité. It often is because of coastal regions’ Mediterranean climate, and the 2023 Marchelle Lorenzo Vineyard Russian River Valley Chardonnay comes a little closer to that expectation; only, also typical of a La Follette, there is a more solidified acid and phenolic core to its outwardly ripe apple-like profile, creating a tense, coiled, balanced snappiness that ends up being a little more Beaune-like than Californian. At least in terms of feel.
As it were, La Follette and other high profile brands have been sourcing Chardonnay from Lorenzo (planted in 1973) for over 30 years precisely because it is planted to an Old Wente selection of the grape; meaning, extreme “hens and chicks” cluster morphology (i.e., frequent millerandage) which naturally puts citrus acidity front-and-center in the nose and on a taut palate tension. The difference is, La Follette never endeavors to “balance out” or counteract that peculiarity by picking at high sugars or by layering it with oak esters. Instead, he takes almost morbid pleasure in playing up the vineyard’s idiosyncrasy. Take it or leave it.
I believe it was in 2007, when I was living just outside of Denver, that I sat in the backyard of a 100-point critic with a half-dozen other fellow wine geek friends, and we blind tasted about a dozen California Pinot Noirs, one of them a Tandem. The group could not make heads or tails of it. It had exotic, floral or weird perfumes that stood out like a sore thumb. Again, the high acid and earthy qualities made it fit in with the rest of the group like a square peg in among the rounds. Plus, it was not driven by the sweetness of up-against-the-threshold volatile acidity (i.e., VA)—indicative of Pinots picked at high sugars, necessitating adjustments in the winery—which used to please disciples of Parker style criticism immensely (and still does). Naturally, the Tandem wasn’t “scored” as highly. It just didn’t fit into their usual idea of what California Pinot Noir was supposed to taste like.
I found that amusing because, by then, I had already gotten to know Greg personally, so I knew exactly why his Pinots and Chards did not fit in with the usual expectations: Because they were made to taste like the vineyards they came from, not like every other version of these varietals. They were, in that sense, Euro-centric. Something a wine buff always discovers when going back to the “old” European regions, where reds made from Pinot noir aren’t made to taste like “Pinot Noir.” When you realize that in vineyards planted to Chardonnay or Sauvignon blanc, the identity of the grape is neither here nor there.
During our talk on Terroir broadcasted over Zoom that I did with La Follette last week Tuesday, we tasted two Pinot Noirs. The first was the 2022 Marchelle Harmony Lane Estate Pinot Noir from the Russian River Valley: An exquisitely sculpted iteration of the appellation⏤rounded, soft and, yes, “opulent,” exuding red berried fruit so long and textured that it recently took the the “Pinot Cup” (topping 59 other “hand picked” bottlings, mostly West Coast) at Charlie Palmer’s Pigs & Pinot Competition. Although very typical of Russian River Valley, I can see why competition judges found it irresistible because it executes this familiar New World style with an uncommon sense of lightness and finesse.
More telling, perhaps, is La Follette’s devotion to possibly the oldest planting of Pinot noir in the state (its original block dating back to 1952 or 1953): The 1,400-ft. elevation Sonoma Mountain vineyard known as Van der Kamp. The 2023 Marchelle Van der Kamp Sonoma Mountain Pinot Noir is indubitably a Van der Kamp: Deceptively light in color, yet solid as a rock, low key (rather than lavish) in its red berry fragrance and confluence of earthen and distinctly foresty nuances (the vineyard is surrounded by dense stands of redwood, oaks, madrone and other evergreens), edgy in acidity and highly phenolic (typifying high elevation/accentuated UV growths in which grapes naturally grow thicker skins to protect their seeds).
There is no other Pinot like Van der Kamp; neither in California nor anywhere on the West Coast or elsewhere in the world. Although there are other wineries that have produced Van der Kamps in recent decades, we owe a debt of gratitude to La Follette for not only sticking to the sensory profile intrinsic in the vineyard, but also for championing it⏤despite the rage for softer, rounder, more opulent styles of the varietal (which also garner the highest scores) epitomized by wines of, say, Russian River Valley, Anderson Valley or Santa Lucia Highlands. By now, you may be tired of me describing wines in Cartesian terms, but Greg has always let Van der Kamp be Van der Kamp.
The day before our talk on Terroir, La Follette and I talked for nearly two hours about one of my own specialties, Old Vines. Since 2015 he has been crafting red wines (plus most recently, an enchanting rosé) from absolutely the oldest vines in my old stomping grounds, Lodi.
La Follette makes no bones about why: He has found that the older the vines, the more likely a wine⏤if vinified in low intervention ways⏤expresses its respective terroir. This is not a world changing revelation. Wineries like Turley have been championing such wines for over 30 years. I’ve done Substack just long enough to have composed a couple of interesting posts on entire slews of these wines (re my most recent one, The 2026 HVS in the City), while also bringing up a recurring issue: How many talented winemakers and established brands in California put winemaking prerogatives, or “artistry,” over sense of place, even when working with old or ancient vines.
This is also a thorny issue among many of today’s so-called natural proponents. With all the interesting techniques associated with the emerging category⏤foot treading, native or wild yeasts, whole cluster red or skin contact white fermentations, use of large format or amphora vessels, minimal sulfuring, etc.⏤the results can include lots of funky or feral, oxidized or dirty microbrial aromas and flavors, which can become as predictable as what you find in clean, unblemished but highly commercialized conventional wines sold on grocery store shelves by the container loads.
Sure, many people are into this, but is this terroir? For the most part, you have to say “no.” It is mostly about winemaking, or winemaker ego. Just another case of winemakers taking the grapes furnished by Nature and imposing themselves, rather than letting sensory qualities natural to a vineyard express themselves.
Nowadays you often hear the expression, “wine made with intention.” I have to say, wine made intentionally to be dirty or yucky is just as unpleasant as wine made intentionally to taste fruity and meet boring commercial standards.
I would describe the 2022 Marchelle Old Vine Family Cuvée Red Wine from Mokelumne River-Lodi as a wine of intention. Thank goodness, it’s not yucky. What you may find even interesting about it is what it is not. It is not like many old vine reds made from just Zinfandel or Carignan, Cinsaut or Mission, or any of the cultivars typically found in California’s historic vineyards. It is a wine that forces you to think completely outside a varietal box.
Marchelle’s Family Cuvée is made from a combination of all those aforementioned grapes, plus tiny bits of others (such as Monbadon and Black Prince), sourced from three different vineyards averaging over 130 years of age. Therefore, its aromas, flavors and structural attributes are a combination of the wild red and dark berries, rose petal, rotundone (i.e., peppercorn-like) and kitchen spices, smidgens of licorice, cranberry and rhubarb, zesty acidity (higher than in most Pinot Noirs) and the rounded tannin common to all those cultivars.
Permeating through these layers of Zinfandel, Carignan, Cinsaut and Mission, though, is a faintly earthy/loamy tone, as inviting as the scent of an “old book”—and that is the wine’s distinctly “Lodi” character. Specifically, the west side of Lodi where sandy loam soils with nary a speck of gravel or rock sink down as far as 100 feet before hitting any hardpan; as unique a winegrowing geology as any in the world. As a wine, it is “well balanced,” while also possessing a taste that can only come from grapes grown in Lodi.
Five years ago, when La Follette first began taking Lodi grapes and composing partially co-fermented, native yeast/neutral oak aged blends like this, he told me:
These wines, from extremely old vines, stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us and pioneered our industry. It’s why I love making wine. These days I feel like an old vine myself, having weathered so much and, hopefully, attained a little more wisdom in my bones.
As with any choir consisting of multiple voices, my Old Vine Red is about the harmonizing of grapes rather than highlighting a soloist. The wine speaks for itself. It is all about the finding the voice of an entire wine region, and what these old vines have to say when they are put together.
In recent years I’ve heard it said that terroir as a sensory factor is complicated. Or so negligible that, in blind tasting, even experts (including professionals with “Master” in their titles) can’t tell the difference between one wine or another on the basis of where they’re grown. This is true because blind tasting is hard, very hard; but it’s mostly true because winemaking typically trumps sense of place. No matter how good the vineyard or appellation, most New World winemakers could still care less about letting voices “sing.”
But, however, when both farming and winemaking is executed in a fashion that leaves well enough alone, as Greg La Follette has been doing all these years, the taste of terroir in a glass is not just plain as day, it is as easy as A, B, C to perceive. Like understanding why we might prefer a wine from California in general, as opposed to wines from, say, France, Italy, Spain, South America, Australia or anywhere else in the world. Consumers, as I always say, are not stupid. They know what they like when they taste it.
What a winemaker such as La Follette does, on the other hand, is make appreciation of the provenance of wines easy to perceive to an nth degree: By preserving the distinctions of individual vineyards and sub-regions on a sensory level. He doesn’t blur the delineations with heavy handed winemaking; nor does he obliterate them with sloppy winemaking.
So let us appreciate this level of craftsmanship while we can; and hope, some time soon, we’ll begin to see more and more of this.
