Foillard making gamay in California!

[Jenise]

A heads up to Foillard fans, just received this note from my friend Chaz:

Jean Foillard has lent his technical and winemaking advice to produce gamay in California with Arnot-Roberts as the winemakers.
They source the fruit from two vineyards in El Dorado County, near Lake Tahoe. Whole cluster, crushing by foot. Native yeast only, carbonic, unflitered, blah, blah, - I guess Foillard gave them the recipe. They bottle under the label RPM, and the wine is RPM Gamay El Dorado.

Steve Edmunds, I hope they're not stealing your grapes!

[David M. Bueker]

Two bottles of their inaugural vintage are resting in my cellar.

[Jenise]

Lucky boy.

They've been using second-crop from Witters and Barsotti, with my blessing, and this year their own block at Barsotti will come into production. I tasted the '11 they made, and thought it was quite artfully done. It's nice to feel like my idea, back in 1999, of planting Gamay at high elevation in the foothills (not all that close to Tahoe, really), and producing light, delicious wines, has turned into something that makes people jolly enough to want to do it, too! Maybe I'm not as crazy as some folks thought I was. Or even crazier!

[David M. Bueker]

Steve Edmunds-trendsetter!

Steve Edmunds-trendsetter!

Or escapee from Napa State hospital. Note: Some of the people I admire the most are not seen as friends of the establishment.