A Long Time Coming
Mary & Steve in front of Buena Vista Winery | Sonoma CA | circa early 1980s
Clearly, everything about the wine industry is time, and place, sensitive. And farming stands at its core!
Fundamentally, wine grapes are tied to mother nature and seasonality. Fine wine farming is dependent on your ability to attend to the moment. A hands-on farming focus is critical to insure a vineyard’s potential capacity to express PLACE. To this end, and from the onset, we have poured our resources and physical efforts.
Mother nature is relentlessly persistent and we, as stewards of the land, must learn to adapt to its always changing/complex rhythms…most of which are not understood. We become more comfortable each year by working the vine rows, being observant and respondent in-the-now, while reflecting on each vintage’s conditions. Ultimately, this rigor serves to shape each wines quality… of our wines for Delmas, as well as other respected vintners we have previously sold fruit to over these last 14 vintages.
Through it all, SJR Vineyard has proven to be a PLACE of singular wine expression within the Rocks District. We could not be more excited for the future, as Delmas takes its inevitable step forward with Brooke Delmas Robertson, as winemaker.
Celebrating her many contributions at SJR Vineyard as Viticulturist, Brooke began this new role with the 2023 vintage. A new chapter of wine expression begins, with hands-on farming of SJR Vineyard remaining the cornerstone of Delmas.
A new wine (B | D | R) memorializes this long-planned, step forward for the Robertson Family.
Brooke’s vision for the estate includes new Rhône-varieties and clones (red and white), all of which will be planted on various rootstocks with wider plant spacing beginning in 2024. The B | D | R program expands our toolbox to address vintage variation, climactic challenges - and will create the estates most complex blends.