Classic Wines Spotlight: St. Helena Road Winery
Written By: Matthew Apsokardu on Tue, Oct 7th 2008
Classic Wines is proud to present the next installment of our spotlight series. Patty and Richard Maier, COO and CEO of Saint Helena Road Vineyards and Winery, have made a name for themselves in very short order. A young business, comparatively speaking, St. Helena opened its doors just a few years ago. Since its inception, Patty and Richard have worked very hard at ensuring not just the quality of their products, but the visibility as well. Read our interview below to hear about the very unique history of how St. Helena began, and where it intends to go.
CW: Thanks for joining us Patty and Richard. Let's start off with a little history. I understand your winery has an interesting background - would you share a little of that with us?
StH: Sure. We are a new company, purchasing our 60 acre property and planting our 18.5 acre vineyards in the 5 Bordeaux Varietal's in 1999-2000. We built our winery facilities in 2003 and passed inspection in Sonoma County California on April 1, 2004. We financed our project with the inheritance we received from Richard's paternal grandfather's business, the Roy J Maier Corporation of Sun Valley, CA. the world's largest producer of musical instrument reeds for woodwind instruments.
RICO Reeds by Roy J. Maier.
Richard spent nearly 20 years in raw materials acquisition and farming operations to secure Arundo Donax, the cane used in reed production, for the Corp. Roy J Maier spent 1928-1930 as a musician for PAUL WHITEMAN and HIS ORCHESTRA with vocalist Bing Crosby, the world's most recorded band of the era, where Roy played 10 different instruments on some of America's most beloved musical memories. Our Roy J Maier Cabernet Sauvignon is a tribute to this extraordinary musical and mechanical genius.
CW: What would you say the mission statement of your company is? What do you really wish to accomplish in the wine world?
StH: Our intention is to create the finest wines possible in each of our price categories, using only our estate grown Bordeaux varietal grapes. We blend these grapes, creating unique combinations of aromas, flavors and colors that surpass ones expectations for the price point paid, presenting exceptional value and quality. With wine consultant Mike Hirby, we do all we can to meet our goals and make wines that will stay in your memory and bring you back for more!
CW: What makes your company stand out from the competition? Is there anything particularly unique that you do?
StH: Almost everything we do can be considered unique. In order to produce the finest Bordeaux varietals, we acquired our land on the Sonoma side of Spring Mountain in the Mayacmas Range, some of the finest terroir for these varietals on earth. Our 18.5 acres of mountain grapes were shaped by a single vineyard expert and all fruit was dropped the first two years to guarantee that all energy was utilized by the developing root systems, trunks and cordons, since 0ver 80% of all plant energy is consumed by the fruit when present.
Each year all of our 14,500 vines are pruned by this same expert to guarantee continuity of our vineyard blocks and the production of well balanced vines and clusters. We are constantly striving to improve and maintain our cultural practices in the fields, in particular by keeping control of our canopies, by raising movable wires in sync with the cane growth. This allows the canopies ventilation and access to sunlight which advances the clusters toward ripeness and chemical balance. We harvest when the vineyards are cool, which means that we take the fruit at night when necessary and process the next morning. We cold soak our grapes to maximize color and flavor extractions and simmer our fermentations to achieve the best, most flavorful results.
The aromas and mouth feel from these processes allows our wines a richness and smooth elegance not found in other wines in comparable price points. We age our wines a minimum of 20 months in only French oak to bring more tannic balance to our blends. We transfer our free run wine from the fermenting tanks to only French oak and do the same with any wines we press. All wines are kept in their separate lots while barrel aging and the determination of how they will be blended is decided in the later months of the aging process.
CW: What major markets would you say you reach out to?
StH: We now have three wines to market. Our Roy J Maier Cabernet Sauvignon, our tribute to our Grandfather and Great Grandfather, is our 'Reserve' wine. 'Roy J' is made from the best 25-30 barrels of our entire vintage's 'free run' wines, not pressed wines. Roy uses only new French oak barrels filled with our vineyard's 'sweet spots' as determined by our wine consultant Mike Hirby.
We use only the finest glass, corks, foils and label printing techniques we could assemble. Our 2005 Roy J Maier, is as fine a Bordeaux blend as you can find at $49 winery retail. Many of the finest restaurants in the US offer Roy J between $75-$125. This vintage of Roy J, 796 cases, was our third produced. Roy is sold to fine wine shops, wine bars and quality restaurants.
Our new label, introduced in 2008, 'Maier Family' has two offerings, "Meritage" and "Cenote". Our Meritage is aged in only French oak barrels, one vintage from new, our previous Roy J barrels. This wine blends selected lots of all five of our Bordeaux varietals, free run and pressed wines. This $34 winery retail wine is targeted at restaurants, wine bars and wine shops looking for lower price points of fine California boutique wines. From the moment the cork is removed, you'll identify the luscious aromas of our estate produced, mountain fruit; Cab Sauvignon, Cab Franc, Malbec, Merlot and Petit Verdot.
Our final offering is "Cenote" a four varietal blend of free run and pressed wines targeted for the new generation of wine consumers. At $24 winery retail and contained in a 'twist top' Bordeaux style bottle, this wine is all about 'today'. As defined on the rear label, a 'Cenote'(sey-no-teh) is 'Access to underground waterways, flowing beneath our Sonoma County Mountain vineyard', offering irrigation to the vines on demand. This wine should excite the legion of 'wine by the glass' programs at selected wine bars and restaurants.
All three wines should surpass expectations of their given price point.
To browse all St. Helena bottles, click here.
