What’s the difference between Oak Knoll, Calistoga and Carneros? Winemaker Mia Klein takes us through a terroir tour of some of her top Napa wine regions as we taste a couple of her Selene Wines and talk about dirt, shoots and leaves in this 360-video from the vineyard.
Don’t forget to move your screen to get the full 360-degree video view!
Mia Klein interview with Amanda Barnes
So, Mia, we are here in Oak Knoll in the Laird vineyard. What are the characteristics of this particular part?
Well, let’s talk a little bit about soil here. In Oak Knoll we have some nice, loamy soil as you can see. It crumbles up really, really nicely. It’s good for the vines, there’s some good nutrition there but the water penetrates really nicely, and it is held a little bit so that it doesn’t just go through. You can see that the shoots here, they are all about a metre long or so.
Maybe 12 or 14 leaves on each shoot, and each shoot has about 2 or less clusters on it. So it’s kind of really perfect for just enough leaves, to mature the fruit that is on this particular cane. You can see that the cane is hardening off, so this is the green area, and this is the hard area. The growth tip has stopped. And what this says is that the vine has stopped putting its energy to growing, and it’s putting its energy all here – where you want it. So you can get nice, good fruit.
And what are the grapes that are most suited to here?
This is Merlot, which is one of the varieties that does very well here. It’s just a little bit cooler, in this area. Cabernet can do well here but it will take a little bit longer to get ripe. So Merlot is one of the perfect things in terms of variety here.
They are probably not quite sweet…
No, but they are delicious!
They still are good, probably about 19 to 20 I think, so probably another 3 weeks until these guys come off.
Super. And in your glass, you have got some of the two Bordeaux varieties that you think do particularly well in Napa. Can you tell us about what you are drinking?
I have Chesler 2006 and this is a wine I named after my mother’s maiden name. It’s got a cool picture of her waterskiing on the front label, it’s a Cabernet Franc and Merlot blend – 62% Cabernet Franc, 38% Merlot. It comes from Frediani vineyard up in the north end of Napa valley, Calistoga. So nice warm growing region but very, even lighter soils than we have right here. Very rocky, a lot less loam in them.
Awesome. And I’m drinking a Bordeaux variety that a lot of people forget about!
Sauvignon Blanc! Yes! And that comes from Hyde vineyard down in Carneros and it’s all Sauvignon (Musque selection) and I barrel ferment it so it has lots of tropical fruit, good acidity but nice viscosity as well.
It’s delicious. And what’s your Napa pairing for this?
Oh man… always shell fish but I have had a fresh, grilled peach salad with almonds, marcona almonds and some goats cheese – and it went very nicely with it as well!
I think that leads us to lunch time!
