Green Man Wine Works

2009 was a watershed year for GMWW. Excellent harvest and a bit of luck. Got syrah and zin from Kemp vineyard, more zin from Vyborny, and to top it off Dave Coffaro (David Coffaro Winery) was in a genial mood and sold me some Block 4 that he'd just crushed. Talk about a score.

Then as the season progressed and the early rains came, Dave had not yet picked his carignane and was pondering just writing it off, but in November Catarino came in with some good numbers and he let me know he was going to pick it. So I went back and got about 350 lbs of the stuff, from which I made conventional red, rosé, and a port.

Bottled varietals and a couple blends. The only off wine was the Kemp zin, which developed H2S and even after I got rid of that had persistent bitter tannins I could not make go away. So several cases of that went toward h***h.

The others, though, have continued to be delightful over the years. The Block 4 lagged Dave's version but recently is coming into its own. The carignane, whole cluster fermented, was woody and spicy for a long time but now is a pretty neat wine. Nothing saw oak this year, it's all just fruit.

A few bottles of the port left and they are a unique pleasure.

'07 and '08 were somewhat dismal years for GMWW. In 2007 had great fruit--petite from Vyborny in Alexander Valley, zin and syrah from Kemp. Vinification went fine. But one of my barrels had gone skunky, and the zin and syrah ended up being marginal or disgusting, depending on how much lipstick you want to put on the pig. Tried a few over time hoping there was some bottle variation, but eventually they all got turned into h***h. The petite survived in the other barrel and was good albeit a bit over the top with acids and tannins. Opened one the other day and still drinkable, still evolving, still a bit on the acidic side and not readily recognizable as PS.

A 2008 syrah I made from Kemp fruit was all right, never great, and many bottles went into the h***h bucket. Don't think I have any left. I finally got the hint and threw away the other barrel too.