DOMAINE ANDERSON WINERY IN ANDERSON VALLEY rapidly gaining notoriety

Michael Hepworth

DOMAINE ANDERSON WINERY IN ANDERSON VALLEY

MAJOR INVESTMENT BY THE ROEDERER GROUP

Northern California (Spiritsman) —This is a relatively new winery in the Anderson Valley region of Northern California that is and not just for the pot farms in the area. One of the newer and more ambitious wineries there is Domaine Anderson, financially backed by the Roederer Group and open for business, despite the current lack of a tasting room.

At a recent wine dinner at the London Hotel in West Hollywood, I got the chance to meet Head winemaker Jerry Murray, and he laid out the plans to get to the goal of 1800 cases of Chardonnay and 3000 cases of Pinot Noir. Of course Anderson Valley is also famous for its Pinot Noir Festival every May that also sells out if you are lucky enough to find a hotel room in the quaint and rustic region. Burgundy winemaker Jeremy Seysses is a consultant on the project who was quoted as saying “At Domaine Anderson, I think we can make wines hat have fruit and generosity but that are weightless and restrained.”

Those wines include the 2012 Pinot Noir emanating from 37.13 acres of Pinot Noir grapes where the soil is rocky, river gravels and clay loam. This Pinot Noir is aged for 16 months where the barrel aging process (also known as elevage) produces rich and complex wines.

Open top fermentation tanks are used in the process for the precise extraction of flavors and color and slow malolactIc fermentation defines the structure and clarity of the wIne.

The 2012 Chardonnay has a long finish with a hint of apricot, Meyer lemon and spicy oak. There are 13.7 acres of Chardonnay vineyards stretching from the warmer Boonville area to the cooler area closer to the ocean. Here they practice the art of battonage, a process of slow hand stirring while the wine is still in the barrel, ultimately helping the flavor and the balance. About 30% of the French Oak barrels are new in this vintage, and the aging process for this wine is 11 months, quite long for Chardonnay.

The original release from Domaine Anderson was the Dach Vineyard Pinot Noir which lies just half a mile east of the town of Philo in the valley at an altitude of 300 feet. The growing season for this wine is extended thanks to the fog and the cool nights as well as the soil, which is sandy clay Perrygulch. This wine which also benefits from the barrel aging process described previously is aged for 16 months.

To find out more about these wines or to purchase them only from the wine club, go to