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Pure Terroir Via Organic Farming

Dan and Donna Lee's dream of buying a property for growing their own grapes and providing a building site for their permanent winery came true in the Fall of 1996. The 65 acre property in the northern end of the Santa Lucia Highlands was perfect for growing Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the two cornerstone wines of Morgan Winery. The Lee's named the ranch the Double L, short for Double Luck, for their identical twin daughters, Annie and Jackie, who were 5 years old at the time. The Double L is farmed organically, the only organic vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands.

Wine quality is mostly determined in the vineyard. One of the key quality factors is the clonal selection of the fruiting wood along with the growing characteristics of the scion and the rootstock. Clonal selections along with proper trellising have provided the most exciting advances in wine quality in the last several years. Because there were very few of the new clones planted in Monterey, Dan decided that he would plant a large variety of new clones on different rootstocks and see what worked well in terms of quality in the Santa Lucia Highlands. One acre of Syrah was added to the mix in 2001.

To date, Dan has planted the following:

The rootstocks are 101-14, 5c, Riparia Glorire, 3309, 110R, 420A, SO4, and Schwarzmann.

 Click here for a (4 meg) GPS clone map of Double L Vineyard 

New Plantings of Pinot Noir Clone 828

In our quest to make the best possible Pinot Noir from Double L Vineyard, I found an exciting new clone that we've planted this year. Investigating Pinot Noir clones for our vineyard requires a bit of detective work.

Most of the information on Pinot Noir 828 is anecdotal at this point because there is so little of it in the US. Archery Summit in Oregon has the largest planting of 828 and talking with their winemaker, they are quite pleased with it.

Currently, in France, the Pinot Noir clones that are favored are numbers 667, 777, and 828, along with the reliable 114 and 115. The Richter Company, a viticulture research and development company in the Montpellier area of France classifies clones of several different varieties into three groups: Productive, Qualitative, and Medium. For Pinot Noir, they list two qualitative clones: 777 and 828. In the Medium group, they put the clones 113, 114, 115, and 667. These groupings are similar to what we are finding in the Santa Lucia Highlands for all these clones except for 828, which we didn't have until this year.

Recently, New Zealand agricultural officials were looking for a winemaker that illegally smuggled in some Pinot Noir from France. The vines that were smuggled in were a clone of Pinot Noir, and guess which one? Pinot Noir clone 828.

When we first planted the Double L Vineyard in 1997, we selected our clones of Pinot from similar anecdotal information because we were among the first in the Santa Lucia Highlands to plant new clones. Based on that experience, I'm very confident that 828 will be great. - Dan

Compost Tea

2000 was the first year of significant production from Double L Vineyard. Being an organic vineyard, we are unable to use chemical fertilizers. We tried a compost tea in the drip lines, which is made just like tea, by steeping compost in a large bag in a vat of water. The micronutrients and microbes that leach into the water are most beneficial to the vines. It is applied 4 times per year.These micro-things allow the plant to more efficiently use the nutrients in the soil, resulting in more colorful and flavor-intensive fruit.

A recent experiment with Gary Franscioni's Rosella's Vineyard proved the effectiveness of this treatment. We took in portions of the 2002 Pinot Noir from Rosella's Vineyard with and without the compost tea treatment. We made the wines identically, not knowing which lot was which.

We made the wines "blind", and later, tasted them blind. Gary revealed which lots had been treated with the compost tea after the tasting. The lots that got the treatment had more detailed fruit expression, better structure, and better aroma. Better wine, hands down. Needless to say, Gary is now using some compost tea at Rosella's and at Garys' Vineyards, and we are continuing with it at Double L.