[Noozhawk’s note: One of an occasional series profiling local winemakers.]
Gretchen “Gretch” Voelcker has mixed a lifelong enthusiasm for the outdoors, botany and wine history into her career as a tender of grapevines and maker of wine.
Over the course of three interviews this year — one via email and two in person — Voelcker shared the story of how time in Europe helped shape her life and career.
Voelcker was raised on her grandparents’ Pennsylvania horse farm, where both of her parents and her aunt and uncle had built homes. Her grandparents bought the farm following her parents’marriage, she recalled.
“It was my grandfather’s lifelong dream to own a horse farm,” she said.
In 2006, her mother accepted a job that would later change the entire family’s lifestyle and ignite in Voelcker a passion for the history of wine and viticulture.
“My mother worked in information technology at Lukens Steel in Coatesville when my brother (nine years Voelcker’s senior) was growing up, and when I was very young,” Voelcker explained. “When the steel mill started to decline, my mother started working at Vanguard Investments as an officer.
“It was this position that took us to Brussels in 2006, when she was asked to head their European offices for five years.”
While overseas with her family, Voelcker got her first exposure to wine’s historical culture.
“Between moving to Europe and my parents’ new interest in wine, it was contagious,” she recalled. “They started going to winetasting classes and invited me along whenever possible. It was our family trip to Bordeaux the summer after my first year at Georgetown University that really piqued my interest.
“I really saw that wine was a way that craft and creativity was combined with history, especially in Europe, and science. My mother had organized (the trip) through a high-end tour company that included a half-day class exposing us to vintage Bordeaux wines from the 1980s, and visits to many amazing wineries, including Chateau Lynch-Bages.”
That was the catalyst for her.
“From that day on, I started to smell and taste everything — no matter how odd — that I could get my hands on,” she said. “Funny how it is often a moment of challenge to leads us to delve into something that becomes passion. Later that summer, my mother and I visited Champagne, where we got to see the amazing chalk caves of Moet and Ruinart, which further intrigued me.”
While living in Brussels, Voelcker attended the International School of Brussels from 2006 to 2007, then returned to the United States to attend the business school at Georgetown through 2009. That year, she moved to Columbia College in Sonora for a semester to “get acclimated to California” and pursue some science credits.
Voelcker then attended the Sierra Institute via California State University, Humboldt for a semester in 2010, where she backpacked and studied botany and natural history in the northern region of Patagonia.
She finished her college education at UC Santa Cruz, graduating in 2012 with a degree in plant sciences with a focus in natural medicine.
It was at UCSC that Voelcker said she found her passion for plant physiology, one that set her on the path to Santa Barbara County.
Her first job in the industry was as a harvest lab tech at Solvang’s Rideau Vineyard.
“At the end of the vintage, an office assistant was leaving for maternity leave, and they offered me her position temporarily in conjunction with a few days a week in the tasting room,” she said. “I also took a job at Deep Sea’s tasting room in Santa Barbara.
“This all helped me to get a better feel for other aspects of the industry, and reconnect with customers and test my knowledge in the tasting rooms.”
Over the following months, Voelcker met Ryan Roark, owner and winemaker of Roark Wines in Buellton and the vineyard manager for smaller vineyards scattered throughout Santa Barbara County. She worked with him throughout the summer, honing her viticulture skills.
With a new harvest approaching, Rideau reconnected and offered Voelcker a temporary enologist position. While working that vintage, Voelcker decided to broaden her horizons and pursue a harvest internship.
In Central Otago, New Zealand, she was introduced to that region’s diverse pinot noirs, and “fell in love” with grüner veltliner and riesling as well as pinot gris, pinot blanc and orange wines.
When the New Zealand harvest gig ended, Rideau’s winemaker, Adrienne St. John, offered Voelcker a full-time job as assistant winemaker. She remained with Rideau until June of this year, when she accepted a job at Martian Ranch & Vineyard in the Los Alamos Valley.
Martian Ranch afforded Voelcker a title that suits her: winegrower.
“It’s really a vigneron position,” she said, “not just a winemaker.”
Martian produces about 2,500 cases annually from grapes planted on 20 acres, all farmed biodynamically, located on a south-facing hillside above the tasting room.
During her Rideau years, Voelcker continued to work alongside Roark, who in 2014 had begun to manage more and more vineyard properties.
“He hired me to help him with that work,” she said. “This was my first real experience in hands-on vineyard work, and I learned and continue to learn so much from him.”
It was Roark who exposed Voelcker to the “Garagiste” winemaking trend, and in February of this year, she participated in the popular Solvang Garagiste winetasting for the first time. That’s where we met, and where I first sampled her Luna Hart Wines.
Before her work with Roark, “I didn’t really know that such small-scale and handcrafted wines existed,” Voelcker said. “That first year, he offered me a ton of fruit from Faith Vineyard, the vineyard I helped him work on, as a work trade, and that was the beginning of Luna Hart Wines.”
Today, Luna Hart is three single varietals: grüner veltliner sourced from Fiddlestix Vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills, sauvignon blanc from Vincent Wine Co., and cabernet franc, sourced most recently from Martian Ranch & Vineyard.
The fourth wine, Aurora White, comprises four varietals: 40 percent sauvignon blanc (Coquelicot Estate Vineyard), 20 percent viognier (McGinley Vineyard), and 20 percent each semillon and roussanne, both from Refugio Ranch Vineyard.
For the 2016 Aurora White, “I picked all the varietals at once, in one day, and foot stomped the grapes, left them on their skins and pressed them on their skins,” Voelcker said. “And I also co-fermented them.”
She utilized “very” neutral oak and produced just 48 cases, Voelcker noted.
“Rhones really need to breathe in order to develop,” she said. “Their tropical notes stem from their time on the lees until the very end. This wine was unfined and unfiltered, but racked clear. To me, it tastes savory, then tropical.”
Voelcker said she prefers all neutral French oak barrels, and utilizes native fermentation for her wines. She prefers to leave some grapes on their skins before pressing; the sauvignon blanc enjoyed 24 hours on skins and the Aurora White about six, she recalled.
“I tend to like a bit of longer time on the skins if the wine holds up to it,” she said.
A technique she’s employed at least twice involves dividing the grüner grapes into two lots — one aged in stainless steel and one in neutral oak before blending them, she noted.
Voelcker poured me all four wines in April when she still shared cellar space with Roark in Buellton. The Aurora White is a match made in heaven for anything spicy, or ceviche.
The 2017 grüner veltliner, not yet bottled (it was by early summer), showed great minerality, golden hue and lots of tannins.
“It is very true to the varietal with riper characteristics of lime peel, too,” she said. “I’m very happy with how it came out!”
The 2016 sauvignon blanc equaled just one barrel, or 24 cases, and showed a floral finish on the end and some friendly petrol midpalate, along with the typical “grass” notes.
Voelcker’s 2016 cabernet franc, made with grapes from Camp 4 Vineyard, yielded just two barrels, was 10 percent whole cluster and fermented on the skins for six weeks.
Her favorite pairings for this wine?
“Smelly goat cheese with basil on crostini,” she said. “Or something with several types of mushrooms. Or a steak. Or duck, or venison. Or anything Italian, because of the pyrazines.”
The 2017 cabernet franc vintage yielded 120 cases, and the grapes hailed from Rock Hollow, Brick Barn and Star Lane vineyards.
— 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.