Size Matters: The Journey to a New Frontier--Cartograph Wines
Surrounded by the silent woods on a lake in northern
Wisconsin, Alan Baker opened a bottle of 1998 Riesling from the Alsace region
of France, a wine that had traveled well over 4,500 miles to be poured.
Alan still remembers the wine’s flavor as a “cacophony of citrus blossom,
pear, black tea, and petrol.” He was also acutely aware of how much that one
wine “engaged his senses.” It spoke to
him and intrigued him.
His
official wine journey had started.
At this time, Alan was working in Minnesota Public Radio,
after being a vocal music major in college.
His radio job found him working with many orchestras and composers, including
two projects that earned Alan prestigious awards. Though he found much gratification and
success in this work, he still was nagged by the fact that wine
needed to be a part of his future.
In 2005, he changed courses by selling his home in Minnesota
and moving to Healdsburg, California.
He was able to take this step after meshing his radio
career with the wine career he was trying to pursue. As a way to finance his interest in wine and
get hands-on learning, he created cellarrat.org. Part of his web site was a blog while the
other part was a podcast, a then-new concept.
Alan’s goal was to offer his services as a “cellar rat” to
wineries. In addition to the work, Alan
gave publicity through his blog and podcast.
Sonoma producers Peterson and Unti were first to give Alan a chance.
Alan never expected to make a great deal of money on this leg
of his journey; he just wanted to learn everything he could about the industry. He was still so good at his public radio job
that NPR picked up the podcast, which turned into a lucky break for his
wine-making career.
At this point, Alan knew he wanted to make wine full time;
however, he could no longer do both radio and wine. He would have to commit to one completely. He took yet another giant leap and asked his online
audience for help. His supporters purchased
wine futures, basically paying for his first vintage of wine before it was
made, enabling the production to be completed.
Alan used this early form of crowd sourcing to produce his
first vintage at Crushpad. About 100 of those
who purchased futures—called The Rat Pack—helped do cellar work to make
the vintage, all documented in a video podcast called Pinot 2.0. The Cellar Rat Cellars label production was
100 cases of Wentzel Vineyard’s pinot noir.
Immediately following, Alan became the director of Crushnet,
a web site that virtualized “the winemaking process so anyone
across the globe could create their own customized barrel of wine.” This kept
him at Crushpad for three years and introduced him to another wine lover, a
meeting that would forever change his course.
Serena Lourie’s wine journey started an
ocean away, as a child in France. Having
a grandmother that lived in Brittany, Serena’s family spent four months every
year there. Serena’s French experience with
food and wine would follow her home and to adulthood.
In Washington D.C., Serena found her
interests in health care, specifically adolescent psychiatry, a field in which
she worked for fifteen years. At 18, her
first job was in an adolescent unit. She
finished her degree at Georgetown, then later went on to get an MBA. This led her to be in charge of programs for
teenagers, often creating these programs herself.
D.C. was also home to Serena’s wine
aha! moment. At a table of friends overlooking
the beautiful city harbor, she ordered a bottle of Shafer Cabernet from Napa to
celebrate her graduation. The taste and
smell was amazing, but she still recollects how the finish lasted two full
minutes—an amazing wine. The ultimate irony
came years later when a Napa cab was the first wine she made.
In order to take a break from her
high-stress job, Serena traveled cross country to Crushpad, getting her hands
dirty while enjoying her wine passion.
She and Alan found themselves working together and noticed all they had
in common: a zest for life, a love for
wine, and a palate for pinot noir.
After a long day of wine work in 2009,
Alan and Serena mapped out their plan to launch a label together, focusing on Russian
River Valley Pinot Noir. They knew they
wanted their wines to tell a story—not just any story—but the story of the
paths they took to end up in Healdsburg making wine.
Their first vintage consisted of “two barrels, 50 cases, of pinot
noir…which would become the inaugural release under the Cartograph label. The
logo on the front of each bottle is a visual encapsulation of the winding road
that brought the two of them together and how they joined forces to launch the
new brand.”
Cartograph’s primary focus is pinot noir; it is the reason
they produce in the heart of Sonoma and from the Russian River Valley. Alan and Serena both love the versatility of these
wines. They also love the challenge of producing
wines from such a finicky—and prestigious—grape.
Alan uses his musical background to explain: “Making Pinot noir is the winemaking equivalent of a composer
writing a string quartet. Any composer who decides to write a string quartet is
instantly putting their work up against some of the greatest composers who have
ever put pen to paper: Beethoven, Bartok, Mozart, Schubert, Debussy, Haydn, Brahms.”
Cartograph’s pinot noirs are wonderful works. The
Mariah Vineyard (my personal favorite because my sister’s name is Mariah) is wonderfully
delicate and complex. The Choate
Vineyard and Perli Vineyard are also excellent examples of terroir-driven
wines. The Russian River Valley pinot is
yet another quality wine.
It
shouldn’t be a surprise that Cartograph also makes an amazing riesling. In true Alsatian style, the wine is bone dry
and elegant with a hint of petrol and wet rock, a wine both novices and experts will enjoy.
A
sangiovese from Upton Vineyard (my husband’s hometown name) brings the
Cartograph story back to the beginning, as the first wine Alan and Serena made
together at Crushpad was from sangiovese grapes.
The
Cartograph journey continues its course with the recent purchase of an estate
vineyard. Alan and Serena will be growing their own fruit on just under ten acres in western Sonoma County, fourteen
miles from the coast. In addition to the
four clones of pinot noir, there are also 180 olive trees. (Yes, there will also be Cartograph olive
oil!)
This
vineyard will continue to help Alan and Serena reach their wine-making
goals: “to produce
wines of quality that can be called great, unique, memorable and meaningful…it
is the most important element of our winemaking at Cartograph.”
The journey of a thousand miles literally
started in different locations for Alan and Serena. Their lives were on a direct course to
collide, over the most exceptional of topics—wine. Together, they have traveled far and wide on
a winding path to get to where they are today: making beautiful wines in a
beautiful place.
See another great look at Cartograph Wine's story by watching American Wine Story.
See another great look at Cartograph Wine's story by watching American Wine Story.
