It is the dream of many young winemakers to foster their own brand, though the traditional path of purchasing a vineyard and or estate has become increasingly unattainable due to inflated land prices and a general oversaturation of the Napa Valley. Still, the determined always find a way, as is the case with winemaker Ryan Pass with his newly launched family brand, Pass Wines.
Though still quite young in his career, Ryan has worked the last six harvests at Farella Vineyard in Coombsville, one of the original family-owned estates in the AVA and the first estate to grow, and consequently champion, Cabernet Sauvignon in Coombsville. His mentor, Tom Farella, instilled in Ryan that winemaking can and should be more of an art, inspired by well-trained instincts and a watchful eye on the weather, (they are both self-proclaimed weather nerds). This kind of philosophic training allowed Ryan to develop his winemaking skills beyond the ABC's of cellar and lab work – instead, he’s grown to understand winemaking in more of a holistic sense which in turn gave him the confidence to launch his own brand.
Over the last 13 years of his career Ryan has worked at 6 different estates, and the one varietal that remained consistent between them all was Chardonnay. So, it felt only natural to introduce his family brand with two single vineyard Chardonnays. The Redwood Road is sourced from the Yates Family Vineyard which is nestled near the peak of Mount Veeder. The AVA remains largely old-school in it’s operation and has only 1,000 planted acres, a mere 7.6% of which is planted to Chardonnay. The vineyard is home to the historic ghost winery Castle Rock Vineyard, built in the 1800s, which was one of the original gravity flow wineries in California. It is planted next to an old Redwood grove on Redwood Road, hence the name of the wine. This tiny block of Chardonnay was an experimental block to see how white varieties would do at this site – in fact, there are only 4 rows of mixed clones, yielding only one barrel each year, which Ryan has sole access to.
The grapes were harvested in the morning and the single macro bin was driven to the winery in the back of the Yates’ Pickup. The fruit was whole cluster pressed in a tiny bladder press, and the juice then sat in a stainless-steel tank overnight without temperature control and without sulfur. The next day, the juice was racked to neutral barrels where both primary and secondary fermentation took off at their own, wild pace. The wine was given a dose of sulfur four weeks before bottling, and then racked off its lees and returned to barrel two weeks later. The resulting wine has a density and richness that Ryan credits to the vineyard’s high elevation site. The palate is soft and integrated with subtle tropical flavors, white peach, and a touch of citrus. A mere 22 cases produced!
