Kathleen Hill reports of her visit to Landmark:
Landmark Vineyards’ owners Mike and Mary Colhoun invited friends to learn about the conversion of their 11-acre vineyard facing Highway 12 from conventional to organic farming by the renowned organic farmer Phil Coturri.
Coturri explained how after a phylloxera invasion of 2004, they turned a negative to a positive and basically plowed deeper to bring more bugs and minerals to the surface and turned the vineyard to an angle so that the September sun would hit both sides of each vine equally.
Having suffered through much wine tasting research in France, winemakers Eric Stern and Greg Stach decided to favor southern Rhône reds like Chateau Neuf du Pape, planting mourvèdre, viognier and grenache, many of the vines arriving via Beau Castel and Tablas Creek winery in Paso Robles. The result is their Esprit du Rhône.
Mary Colhoun’s dear friend and chef, Carol Mason, prepared a lunch of pureed corn, leek and sweet potato soup served with Landmark’s prize-winning chardonnays; spice-crusted slices of pork tenderloin served with grilled asparagus and Kanzler and Kastania pinot noirs, and a Meyer lemon tea cake with strawberry compote.
