We have here in NorthernNewMexico a single/very-old vine that is thought to be PinotNoir. It's not been DNA tested, but several people that recognize Pinot have declared it to appear to be Pinot.
The vine, definitely of very old age, was alleged (by me) to have been brought to back to NM (one of the very early Samsonite clones) by Archbishop Lamy ca. 1860's (and, yes, that was before my time!!!). Story below.
A friend (DeborahBennett) is working at JaconaVlly this Summer before returning to her new job in Calif and expressed an interest in harvesting some cuttings to take out there. Is this legal?? If that makes any difference.
So...my question for any Pinot growers....would there be any interest in obtaining cuttings from this Mother vine to propagate and see what kind of wine/grapes we've got here from BishopLamy? Or any referrals to somebody who may be interested?
Tom
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Jacona Valley Vineyards and Its Bishop Lamy Heritage
TomHill & Susan Clough
for edible SantaFe
Pinot Noir, the wine..from cradle to bottle...it's almost like raising a teenage daughter.
Sometimes her charm and guile will have you wrapped around her little finger...totally smitten.
And other times... you just want to send her to her room, nail the door shut, and tell
her to come out when she's grown up.
Or to paraphrase winemaker Gary Eberle: Q: What's the difference between a teenage
daughter and a bottle of Pinot Noir?? A: You can sit down and reason with a bottle
of Pinot!!
As I've followed the slow, fitful evolution of Pinot Noir to greatness in California
over the last 35 years, there's always been one common trait of those who
grow and vinify this finicky grape. They all seem to have a passion for making
great wine that other grapes seldom inspire. Yet they have no illusions that the task
is a simple one. They have just a touch of craziness and bulldog in their persona.
It's not called the "heartbreak grape" for nothing.
Trey Naylor of Jacona Valley Vineyards pretty much fits this description to a tee.
Growing grapes in Northern New Mexico, where the occasional winter freeze can kill
even the most hardy of grapevines back to the ground, is definitely not for the faint
of heart. But to grow a fragile and persnickety grape like Pinot Noir in these climes
takes a special breed of cat.
The Townsley Era
The property, located in Jaconita on CR 84 between Pojoaque and Los Alamos, is
laden with history. It is on the Jacona Land Grant that was ceded to settlers by
the Spanish Crown in 1702. Although there are no records indicating such, it's likely that
these early settlers had grapes in the ground, probably of the Mission variety, back through
the 1700's. None are known to have survived.
Elmer and Caroline Townsley bought a parcel of this land in 1967. Their home was originally
a bustling mercantile building on what was then the main road running to Otowi Crossing and up
to Los Alamos. During the Manhattan Project in the early 1940's, the scientists and their
families would frequently stop here to buy supplies on their occasional trips off the Hill.
The building, now used primarily for wine events, still has the feel of a country store.
" Isn't that Oppie over in the corner purchasing a tin of tobacco for his pipe??"
Modern viticulture here traces back to Elmer's interest in growing grapes and making
wine in the late 1960's. He planted an assortment of hybrid grapes
to see what just would grow well; a pretty safe choice. In 1968, he heard that
Bishop's Lodge, a rural resort just north of SantaFe, was planning to build some new casitas
and would be tearing out some very old grapevines. At this point, the story gets very intriguing.
Bishop's Lodge was originally Bishop Lamy's rural retreat, a peaceful spot three miles from
the hectic demands of Santa Fe. Lamy, who was appointed by the Pope to oversee the newly created
Southwest Catholic Diocese in 1851, hailed from France's Auvergne region. He arrived
after a ten year stint in Ohio, an early hotbed of grapegrowing and winemaking. Bishop Lamy's
passion for horticulture soon set seeds. His six acre garden in downtown Santa Fe is legendary; a
veritable arboretum in this high desert clime. He traveled home to France, returning with a myriad
of cuttings, especially fruit trees. And, according to noted New Mexico historian
Paul Kraemer, there is documented evidence these cuttings included grapevines. Pinot Noir is
rare in Lamy's Auvergne, but he had friends in the nearby Burgundy region, a possible, maybe likely,
source for his grape cuttings.
In addition to the Shangri-la Lamy created in downtown Santa Fe, his passion for horticulture was
soon evident at his retreat near Tesuque, which he named Villa Pintoresca, now know as the Bishop's
Lodge. In a blurry photo of the property, taken in the early 1890's, young apple trees line what is
now a driveway. Surely Lamy planted these himself. These ancient apple trees still exist 120 years
after the photo was taken. Lo and behold, in the background of that grainy photo, there is a plant
covered arbor walkway. Grape vines?? It's very likely, but hard to be sure. One old gnarled vine
still grows on that arbor, intermixed with Virginia Creepers.
Now the story gets a bit whacko. Elmer, for reasons unknown, felt compelled to rescue
one of Lamy's threatened vines. The commonsense approach would be to take
pruning shears to a vine, harvest some cuttings, and propagate directly from those cuttings into
a vineyard. Instead, Elmer and friend Ted Asplund journeyed to Bishop's Lodge and dug up a whole
vine with its roughly 100 year old root system, a Herculean task to be sure!!
Elmer returned with this vine and planted it on his Jaconita estate. Amazingly, the vine
survived this transplant and grew. From this single "mother" vine, Elmer took cuttings,
propagated them and voila...a small vineyard resulted from which he made his wines. Alas, both men
died some years ago, and with them the details of "Elmer and Ted's Great Adventure".
Caroline's memory of the project is a bit sketchy.
The Naylor Era
The Townsley property was purchased by Trey and Blair Naylor in 1998. During the years
from Elmer's death until Caroline sold it; the vineyard was very well maintained by Greg
Sopyn, who merely sold the grapes at the farmer's markets in the area.
Trey Naylor grew up in Alabama and Louisiana, was educated at Auburn. and met Blair while working
for Conoco on offshore drilling platforms. Who would predict such a career path would lead Trey
to grow fine Pinot Noir in Jaconita, New Mexico? Seeing Elmer's "mother" vineyard and
additional plantable acreage inspired Trey to take the plunge and try his hand at growing grapes
and making wine. He was thus launched down that slippery slope of aspiring Pinot grower and vintner.
Rather than simply propagating vines from Elmer's mother vineyard, often a tricky proposition,
Trey purchased certified Pinot Noir vines from California to plant on the vacant acreage.
They included Pommard and Dijon clones, grafted to a variety of rootstocks.
His first vintage, afore these new vines were producing, was in 2003, made from Pinot Noir
purchased from Paola D'Andrea in Deming, plus the tiny harvest from the mother vineyard.
As mentioned, growing Pinot in Northern New Mexico is not for the timid. That Winter of 2003,
a hard freeze wiped out some 30% of these new vines. Undaunted, Trey picked his
first crop from the surviving vines, plus the mother vineyard, to produce his just released
2004 Estate Pinot Noir. Of the original 124 cases, only a few dozen remain. The 2005 vintage,
a paltry two barrels worth, was just bottled for release later this year. And the 2006
vintage has been safely harvested, fermentation completed, and already barreled down
into new French oak.
The 2004 Estate Pinot is a fine wine, indeed. It has the fragrance and perfume that boldly
shouts PINOT. This Fall it won a Silver medal at the Southwest Wine Competition in Taos, the
highest award given amongst all the submitted Pinots. It even received a glowing write-up this past
July in the British "The Drinks Business" magazine. The wine is a light, elegant, feminine,
aromatic wine with a twinge of toasty oak and a trace of earthiness that one can
only surmise to be the Jacona Valley terroir. This Fall Trey replaced his vines "done in" by the
hard freeze of 2003 with Dijon clones from California.
Some very interesting questions remain to this story. Can Elmer's mother vine from Bishop's
Lodge be actually traced back to Lamy's known imported cuttings? Where did Lamy obtain his
original cuttings in France? Is that 125+ year old mother vine Elmer transplanted, in fact,
Pinot Noir?? Trey describes the grapes from that own-rooted, ungrafted 35 year old mother
vineyard as smaller berried then his newer block, but seems convinced they are Pinot. A DNA
testing of material from this mother vine would lay that question to rest.
It would be interesting, down the road, for Trey to vinify a mother vineyard wine
separately from the newer block to see how they compare. A Bishop Lamy bottling of Pinot Noir
from Jacona Valley Vineyard has mind-boggling marketing possibilities.
Beyond that, there is much curious history to be uncovered about the Bishop's broad
horticultural legacy in Northern New Mexico. Can that old hold-out grapevine on the arbor at
Bishop's Lodge be propagated and identified as to variety? Though Paul Kraemer has been doing
considerable research on the early history of New Mexico grape growing, he only touches on the
Bishop Lamy contributions. Caroline Townsley's early ancestors immigrated from the Basque country
and settled in Abiquiu. She has evidence that they brought grapevine cuttings with them and seems
certain they planted vineyards. Could there actually be some surviving Txakolina vines there??
It will be interesting to follow Trey and Blair's vision for Pinot Noir as it plays out
at Jacona Valley Vineyards. One thing is certain. Bishop Lamy's horticultural legacy is alive and
well, in Santa Fe, at Bishop's Lodge, and at Jacona Valley Vineyards. The old mother vine is a
wonder to behold and you can only guess the storys it could tell. It's well worth the journey.
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