Five days into 2015, I joined Andrew Murray at a table under gnarled oak trees outside his new tasting room at the former Curtis Winery on Foxen Canyon Road.
The day was warm, and the winery’s semi-feral cat, christened “Curtis” by Murray and his staff, lounged at our feet, soaking up the winter sun.
One year has passed since Murray and his wife, Kristin, finalized a lease agreement with the Firestone family, one that would give the Murrays responsibility for the 100-acre Curtis estate vineyard, winery and the adjacent tasting room, all on Foxen Canyon Road.
The original tasting room for Murray’s wine label, Andrew Murray Vineyards, is located in downtown Los Olivos, and the Murrays are “absolutely keeping” that site as well, he said.
After selling its Firestone Vineyard brand and 300-acre estate vineyard to Foley Wine Estates in 2007, the Firestone family kept Firestone Walker Brewing Company and the Buellton restaurant Rock Hollow Vineyard on Ballard Canyon Road and Curtis Winery, named after Brooks Firestone’s mother, Polly Curtis Firestone.
By 2013, with the beer label consuming most of the family’s time and energy, Adam Firestone approached Murray with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — the chance to lease the vineyard, winery and tasting room.
As part of the deal, Murray would be responsible for the tasting room, and overseeing the production of both the Curtis and Jarhead labels for the Firestone family. He could use the vineyard’s various Rhône grape varietals for his Andrew Murray Vineyards’ label, and the other grapes would go toward wines for the Jarhead and Curtis labels.
In January 2014, I emailed Murray to arrange an interview about the transaction, but between our schedule conflicts and his desire to let the dust settle in the wake of the lease, an entire year passed.
So early this year, under the oaks, Murray reflected on how 2014 was the year of transition, with command gradually shifting from the Firestone family and Curtis, and its employees, to Andrew Murray Vineyards and his staff.
“Last year, we worked to manage the vineyard alongside Coastal Vineyard Care Associates,” for more than five years the company the Firestones used to farm the site, Murray said.
Chuck Carlson, general manager of Curtis Winery and a Firestone winemaking employee since 1993, “was the point person” during the 2014 transition, Murray noted. Ernst Storm, Curtis’ winemaker since the 2011 vintage, left in early 2014 to focus on his own wine labels, Storm and Notary Public.
“This year, we’ll manage everything — we’ll take over the day-to-day management” of the vineyard, and with that added responsibility will come a bit more freedom to “be a little more exploratory” with the Firestone family, Murray said.
He likened his plans for the Curtis vineyard to “a tuning, of sorts, by acre.” Taking the reins at an established vineyard requires researching the yield rate per block or acre, the optimal percentage of shoot and grape cluster thinning, and looking for any restrictions or disease risks facing particular vines.
Experimentation with the vines, water and soil is key to overall vineyard management and day-to-day farming, and Murray is no stranger to hands-on cultivation of vines.
When he launched Andrew Murray Vineyards in 1990, he made wine from grapes grown on his family’s estate on Foxen Canyon Road, which now belongs to Demetria Estate Wines.
In 2005, Murray’s parents, looking to retire, sold that vineyard, and Murray began sourcing grapes from other vineyards in the Santa Ynez Valley and on the Central Coast.
He continued to focus on his passion: Rhône grape varietals, and in particular, syrah. Today, Murray said, he sources grapes from Alisos Vineyard, Watch Hill Vineyard, Oak Savannah, all of the available syrah from Great Oaks and a few tons from Tierra Alta.
While he describes the Firestones as “hands off” as far as Murray’s direction for the vineyard, the weight of the responsibility he’s shouldered is not lost on him: “Our relationship assumes a lot of trust,” and he brought “tremendous humility” to the table when lease negotiations started in 2013.
Murray voiced his admiration for the Firestone family’s longtime dedication to red and white Rhône grape varietals at Curtis Vineyard.
“The vineyard has older roots, and it’s a proven location” for the Rhône staples of syrah, viognier and mourvedre.
In that respect, slowly making vineyard improvements will be similar to “turning the Titantic,” since he expects he’ll need three full years “to really be able to track vines and get results,” Murray noted.
Early this month, one year into the lease, Murray described himself as “just as excited, exhausted, scared and energetic as I was during my first years in the wine business 25 years ago.”
To honor his quarter-century making Andrew Murray Vineyards’ wines, Murray this year will release two new 2013 red blends from the Curtis estate grapes. Both will have proprietary names (“we’re still deciding”), and both will be comprised of mostly Rhône grapes with a percentage of another varietal, he said.
Jarhead Wines are the brainchild of Adam Firestone, eldest son of Brooks and Kate Firestone and a former Marine captain. Proceeds from the sale of Jarhead Wines benefit the Marine Corps Scholarship Fund, which provides for the children of fallen soldiers. Adam Firestone’s son, Nick, is also a Marine and currently stationed in Afghanistan, Murray said.
“Nick wants to be involved in the 2015 vintage, and he’ll be home around October. He has an awesome energy level, and we’re so proud to be involved” with the Jarhead project, he said.
The Jarhead label consists of Jarhead Chard, Jarhead Red and Jarhead Reserve, a red blend, and annual production is between 1,500 and 2,500 cases, Murray noted.
His own Andrew Murray Vineyards label comprises nearly 16,000 cases, plus “a few thousand cases sold as bulk wine,” he said. Nearly 10,000 cases of that total represent his award-winning signature Tous les Jours Syrah, sourced from the Santa Ynez Valley and Paso Robles, he added.
The current Andrew Murray Vineyards’ releases include a viognier, a rosé, a white blend, a red blend, single varietals of cinsault, mourvedre and grenache, the Tous les Jours and three single-vineyard syrahs. However, all but the viognier, red blend, white blend and grenache are already sold out, according to the company website.
And then, there’s the Murray’s newest wine project, “This is E11even Wines,” the winemaker’s nod to the cult film This is Spinal Tap, which he saw as a high school sophomore in 1988.
Why E11even? In “Spinal Tap,” all things that were awesome became an ‘11’ — just one better than a ’10.’” In other words, saying “turning it up to 11” reflects taking something to an extreme.
Take a listen to Murray explaining how he created “This is E11even Wines” by clicking here.
Under “This is E11even Wines,” Murray has a 2011 Pinot Noir sourced from a Santa Maria Valley vineyard he leases; and two 2012 vintages, both already sold out — a white blend and the “Big Bottom” Cabernet. Total case produce of “E11even” is just “a couple thousand,” he said.
While he has no plans to consolidate the downtown Los Olivos and the Foxen Canyon Road tasting rooms, Murray said he’s leaning toward eventually making “This is E11even Wines” the focus of the downtown site.
Murray spent most of last year familiarizing himself with the Curtis Estate Vineyard, and updating and remodeling the tasting room. He relocated his label from Area 51, the production facility located behind Firestone Vineyard, to the former Curtis winery, just steps from the tasting room. By his admission, he spent part of every single day either at the winery, in the tasting room or in the vineyard.
“When the power went out on Christmas Day, I came out,” he said.
Murray expanded Curtis’ original tasting room into a portion of the adjacent winery’s barrel room, creating a “Members’ Lounge” with both lounge-style seating and a bar, as well as a glass-wall enclosed “Educational Room.” Outside lies the oak-shaded “Members’ Terrace,” as well as additional outdoor seating that features Figueroa Mountain in the distance.
With the additional rooms and seating, and Kristin Murray working fulltime on the “hospitality side of things,” the two hope to put the additional space to use for special events, he said.
— Laurie Jervis blogs about wine at www.centralcoastwinepress.com, tweets at @lauriejervis and can be reached via winecountrywriter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are her own.