SAN MARTIN
– Winemaker Stephen Tebb cupped his palm into the dark purple
juice-pulp streaming out of a 3,000-gallon tank at the Clos
LaChance Winery. He took a quick taste and nodded with
satisfaction.
SAN MARTIN – Winemaker Stephen Tebb cupped his palm into the dark purple juice-pulp streaming out of a 3,000-gallon tank at the Clos LaChance Winery. He took a quick taste and nodded with satisfaction.
The merlot juice was undergoing a “pump-over” technique to extract its flavor and color before being put into wine barrels for aging. Tebb glanced at documentation attached to the machine.
“Six percent sugar,” he said with a smile. “That’s very good.”
The first harvest from the vineyard fields of one of South County’s newest wineries shows all the signs of being an excellent vintage. Clos La Chance is located just off Watsonville Road in the swank CordeValle estate development of San Martin. Its French villa-style facility, completed in 2001, overlooks 55-acres of rolling vineyards lining the hills. The grapes grow amidst islands of greens of CordeValle’s championship golf course.
Tebb previously worked as a winemaker for the Artesa Winery in Napa, but, after Clos LaChance hired him to oversee its wine-making four months ago, he moved to the South County area with his wife Kathleen and 2-year-old daughter Elena.
Comparing the wine industry of South County with Napa, Tebb said there is little difference in terms of quality. Many of the family-run vineyards and wineries located here easily match the high-reputation of Napa Valley wines, he said.
“Napa has name recognition. That’s the bottom line,” he said. “As a result of that, it’s attracted a lot of money and people who will put forth to produce quality wine.”
Napa winemaker Robert Mondavi created the marketing push that brought the once-hidden valley north of San Francisco to international renown.
And Tebb hopes Clos LaChance will repeat that for the South County area, helping to spread the news that excellent wineries are here, too.
“There’s plenty of wonderful wines produced here,” he said. “This was the cradle of California viticulture until Prohibition. … I’d like to bring attention to the viticulture and wine-making in this area.”
Tebb earned his degree in the fermentation sciences at the University of California at Davis. His expertise in the process of making wine uses techniques that are thousands of years old. But, this being Silicon Valley, Clos LaChance has added a high-tech twist.
Bill Murphy, co-owner with his wife Brenda Murphy, spent years as an executive at Hewlett Packard. So it was a natural step to bring in software and computer technology that controls the moisture in the ground as well as the temperature of the fermenting wines.
Tebb will even use software that will suggest blends of wines based upon what he has harvested to produce a better wine for lower cost.
And the design of the winery’s crushing process allows a “gravity flow” of the fruit so that they are gently handled for best quality, he said.
But, regardless of being possibly the most high-tech winery in the world, ultimately the quality of the grapes will determine the caliber of what wine drinkers will find in Clos LaChance bottles, Tebb said.
“It’s all about the grapes,” he said. “In the end, it comes down to the grapes. … This being the first year, it’s my goal to get to know the vineyards to see what kind of wine grapes they produce.”
Clos LaChance has 20 different grape varieties including merlot, syrah and Cabernet sauvignon grapes growing in the backyards of the multi-million dollar homes of CordeValle Estates. The winery purchases other grapes from small vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains as well as from Napa and the Paso Robles region.
The Murphy family, who started Clos LaChance in the Saratoga hills the mid-1980s have been selling their wine for more than a decade. And hiring Tebb was a key decision to the South Valley stage of the winery’s growth, said Cheryl Murphy Durzy, spokeswoman for the winery and one of the owners’ daughters.
“We interviewed quite a few people,” she said. “Stephen has quite a lot of experience. … He has an incredible palette. And you want someone to be fluid, not sticking with the same old recipes.”
Locally, the winery’s selection of wines can be purchased at the on-site tasting room as well as at local restaurants such as Gilroy’s Station 55 or Morgan Hill’s Rosy’s At the Beach.
The first wine produced from the winery’s CordeValle vineyard will reach the market next summer. It will be an estate white that will be sold under a proprietary name that is yet to be determined.
Clos LaChance’s higher end wines from this harvest will appear in the fall of 2005, Tebb said.
In terms of pricing, Clos LaChance has a three-fold plan. High-end limited editions for collectors will sell at more than $50 a bottle. The mid-range of $20 to $30 a bottle will include a Cabernet blend, a syrah blend and a zinfandel estate wine. An appellation series priced under $20 will include a merlot made from Central Coast grapes.
In terms of quantity, Tebb will produce about 30,000 cases of Clos LaChance wine this year. As facilities expand, that number will grow to 60,000 cases a year, he said.
“My goal is to make the best possible wine we can make,” he said.
