Winelog #3 Failla Wines

Winelog 3. Failla Wines.

I visited Josh at Failla Wines. Josh is super-friendly, knowledgeable about the wines and willing to throw down and go to whatever level of wine geekdom you ask of him.

Built in 1939 as a hunting lodge up in Calistoga, the property changed hands several times, had been previously owned by the great Napa restauranteur Cyndy Pawlcyn http://www.cindypawlcyn.com/ and planted to apple orchards for her then-partner to make hard cider, later sold again to Ehren Jordan and Anne Marie Failla and opened as “Failla-Jordan” in 1998.

 A big wooden barn that once held a cider mill is now where they have their offices and a white wine production facility.

Ehren has been a winemaker for Turley Wines out of Paso Robles for the last eighteen years (he commutes from Napa in a single-engine plane). Chard, pinot, syrah, zin, his first big winery job was working for Neyers. Ehren left Phelps with Bruce and Barbara Neyers to help start their family vineyard. He also worked with Helen Turley for a time. Ehren also studied in the northern Rhone, town of Cornas for 2 ½ years under Jean Luc Colombo. http://www.vinscolombo.fr/uk/Learned a bit about viognier there. He won SF Chronicle winemaker of the year for 2008. For more on Ehren Jordan, here’s a great blog from a terroirist blogger who met with Ehren directly. http://blog.terroirist.com/?p=2777.

Old world style winery, 5000 cases. 20 different wines. As one might imagine with a 5000-case winery producing 20 wines, over 90% of the fruit is sourced. They have a little estate of 80 acres for chard, pinot and syrah. Accounts for 5 – 10% of production. They’re doing 10 pinots right now. 3-4 chardonnays, 1 viognier, 2 syrahs. Traditional Rhone varietals. They don’t do much of the Syrah. It sells out immediately. Viog- 180 – 200 cases. Syrah is about 145 cases. They go immediately. Estate Syrah comes out in Fall. New Syrah coming out in the Spring. Hudson Vineyards. Viognier coming out in the Spring. I’ve got to get on the mailing list.

There isn’t a wine club. Josh says there are very few wines that they could give a wine club member. Everyone on the mailing list has their own preferences in terms of which vineyards they prefer to receive wines from, above and beyond that allotment, there really isn’t enough wine to disburse to any kind of club.

5-10% of fruit is grown on property; Chardonnay, Pinot, Syrah. 20 different wines at Faella. 10 pinots; 3-4 chardonnays, one viogniet, 2 syrahs. Viogniers and Syrahs are traditional French varietals. Super wide range of soil types on Sonoma Coast. Huge appellation. So many microclimates. So fun to source fruit from there, because differences there can be so vast. California sun, coastal breeze to cool down the fruit.  

Rhone style Viognier 180 – 210 cases, and an Estate Syrah 140 cases. There's a new one coming out but another very limited production. Estate Syrah comes out in the Fall. Hudson Vineyard Syrah is coming out this Spring. Viognier is coming out this Spring as well. I'm writing these down because they all sell out so quick that it's worthwhile to pay attention when they come out. There's a newsletter; they send out a notification of the release and have a thirty day window to respond. http://www.faillawines.com/mailinglist.php

Keefer Ranch ’09 Chardonnay got 95 points in Wine Spectator and is in top 100 Wine Spectator this year. Also Estate Chardonnay got a write up in top 100 in SF Chronicle.

Mainly Sonoma coast fruit with the exception of the Viognier which is from Edmund Valley down by Paso Robles. Sonoma Coast is a huge appellation with a wide range of soil types and microclimates, so it’s fun for Ehren to source Pinot from there. No Napa fruit. Keefer Ranch is Russian River. Monument Terrain Patch in Mendocino. Huge appellation, Russian River Chard: ½ Keefer Ranch (near the headwaters of a creek and planted on gentle, well-drained slopes with Goldridge Soil), ½ Floodgate Vineyards (Northwest end of Anderson Valley, owned by Duckhorn and renowned for Pinot). This is not a traditional buttery, oaky chard. 100% ml, 100% French oak, 20% new. From younger vines in the vineryards. 30% fermented in giant concrete eggs. Charles Thomas (think Robert Mondavi Tokalon 1) first here in the valley at Rudd Winery was first here to use the egg. Porous like oak but without the wood flavor components, the egg shape promotes more natural movement of lees where they stay in contact with fruit more and adds layer of minerality as well.  No fining, filtering. http://www.illuminationwine.com/wine/winemaking.cfm.

For a 2010 release, I find this wine to be a well integrated, outstanding, easy drinking, velvety, oaky, but not a huge butter-bomby-type wine. Would pair well with food.

Next Josh poured several (of 10) pinots of increasing body, mouth feel and richness, from austere to bold, all, differences in these Pinots due only to the terroir. All aged in the same way with same ratio, 30% new oak, 11 months, native yeasts, no fining or filtering. He pours new stuff all the time. Failla is truly a pinot lover’s paradise.

2009 estate pinot.  They own 80 acres out there. 125 cases of estate pinot. Incredible aromatics on the wine. Light notes of bright cherry. Grainy and lightly viscose, austere yet long in the finish.  There is a complexity to this pinot that I could unpack for a long time. I hope to buy a case and open one each year. This is my favorite pinot of the bunch.

2009 Peay, Nick and Andy Peay. From up North. Selling fruit to Failla since 2006. Bit more fruit forward than Occidental. Typically one of last pinots to release for the year. Nice smooth character, more tannic, but very integrated tannins, which to me are surprisingly soft for their youth. Acidity in this wine is just right. From top of Sonoma Coast Forest.  This wine garnered an average of 92 points from 7 different rating agents.

2009 Occidental Pinot 14.1% - Light violet, anise, clove, leather, damp earth. Lilac on the mid palette. Heaviest and distinctly most robust of all pinots of distinction here at Failla. Josh pours it at the end when they are out of Syrah, which is most of the year. 


I highly recommend a visit to Failla, or at the very least, a sampling of the wines if you do not yet know them.