GFV Fruit Included in Wine Enthusiast's No. 13 Best Wine of 2023

Way back in 2021, we were fortunate enough to rejoin forces with Dan Kosta, of Kosta Browne fame, our first buyers. As the co-founder of Kosta Browne Winery, he is one of Sonoma’s most decorated vintners. Dan continues to show his commitment to crafting world-class Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the world’s finest appellations in his latest wine endeavor, Convene by Dan Kosta.

His and winemaker Shane Finley’s efforts were proven when his 2021 Convene Pinot Noir from Russian River Valley—which includes fruit from Gantz Family Vineyards—was chosen by Wine Enthusiast as no. 13 of the Best Wines of 2023. The wine is absolutely luscious and shows off not only our fruit and the beauty of Russian River Valley Pinot Noir but also the talent of Shane, who has worked with Dan since the early days of Kosta Browne. 

Dan was also able to put to use our problem child: our Calera Pinot Noir clone. It is eminently popular but incredibly fussy, so in 2022, we converted our fields of Calera to a beautiful Mt. Eden Chardonnay. The heavy frost the RRV got hit with in 2022 unfortunately reduced the amount of fruit we could give to Dan. But the Calera went out on a high note: It was selected for inclusion in Dan’s DK-Grail bottling which, as we understand it, represents the best four barrels of Pinot Noir from the vintage.

The switch-over cost us a year in crop yields for half our vineyard, but we are excited to say that in 2023, the new Chardonnay plants are acting like they’ve lived here forever! We’re expecting great things from the new kids on the block. The 2023 harvest was late but bountiful, thanks to the massive amounts of rain and the frost protection system we’ve installed.

So here we are, beginning 2024 and making plans with Shane and our talented, hardworking vineyard manager, Jim Pratt of Cornerstone Vineyard Management, for another great, hopefully award-winning year. We simply could not have done all this without Jim and his hardworking, amazing managers, supervisors, and crews. 

Dan Kosta with Celeste and Clay Gantz at Gantz Family Vineyards

Harvest 2019 at Gantz Family Vineyards

After a bit of a roller coaster of a year, we wrapped up harvest 2019 on Friday, September 27.

Since 2013, we’d been selling our Russian River Valley Pinot Noir fruit to Michael Browne and Dan Kosta of Kosta Browne Wineries and felt honored and lucky to be part of their vision. However, Dan and Mike sold the winery last year and after the large harvests of 2018 and the spring flooding at the Kosta Browne facility in the Barlow, we were told by the new owners that they couldn’t accept our grapes.

While the timing wasn’t great, it did give us a much needed opportunity to reimagine how we wanted to move forward, and we are very happy to have found a new home with Lynmar Estate and Lombardi Wines, both producers of fine Pinot Noir we always have admired.

Working with new winemakers has proven to be a gratifying challenge. Together, we revisited some of our assumptions about farming best practices and we are poised to make changes that will, we think, take our vineyard up a notch. Our goal has, first and foremost, always been to produce the finest quality Pinot Noir and we feel that we are taking another step in that direction.

Harvest this year happened three times.

On Tuesday, September 17, a nine-person, majority-woman crew from Cornerstone Certified Vineyard showed up at 6:30 a.m. to harvest blocks 4 and 5 of our 4.5-acre vineyard. We were fortunate to be joined by our kids, Angelina M. Lopez and Michael Lopez, who got to take part in their first harvest at the vineyard. They finally had a full sense of all the work we do as they joined in the days preceding untying the bird nets, lifting the bird and drape netting, and leafing; and then, on the day, helping haul and picking out leaves and detritus from the dumped trays.

Our son, Michael Lopez, with Celeste and Clay Gantz

Don't forget about Jake!

Our daughter, Angelina M. Lopez, with Clay and Jose from Cornerstone Certified Vineyards

A majority-women picking crew

We were also joined by winemaker Cabell Coursey. We worked with Cabell when he was the viticulturist over at Kosta Browne, and now are glad to be working with him again as the custom crush winemaker for Tony and Christine Lombardi’s label, Lombardi Wines. Cabell got in there on Tuesday -- hauling the bandejas or trays to dump them in the bins so the crew could keep picking – so Clay, Michael, and Celeste got in there, too. Angelina went and ordered pizza.

Winemaker Cabell Coursey with Celeste and Clay

The majority of the rest of the fruit was picked Tuesday, September 24. An 18-person crew showed up at 3 a.m. to pick blocks 1-3. This was a more typical harvest for us, a large crew beginning early in the morning. Sadly, Angelina had returned home, but fortunately Michael was around to lend a hand. We had a great crew and a very efficient pick, and about ten tons of beautiful Pinot Noir was to the two wineries by 6:30 am!

The balance of our fruit will be picked earlier Saturday morning. We will be joined by our good friend Jim Barnes, who said he is looking for a “peak harvest experience.” That sounds good to us.

Once harvest is over, we look forward to a period of relaxation and catching up on lost sleep. There is equipment to service, farming plans to be drawn up, and a lunch or two to thank our team. Also, there is time for reflection and introspection. Every year, after harvest, we challenge ourselves to up our game. This year will be particularly exciting as we have the opportunity to sit with our new partner wineries, and discuss how to achieve our shared objective of producing the best Pinot Noir possible.

Gantz Family Vineyards Pinot Noir Fruit

Our Pinot Noir fruit from 2018.

In 2013, we sold our first harvest to Michael Browne and Dan Kosta of Kosta Browne Winery. We felt fortunate to have this tremendous start. During the next six harvests, we were made to feel that we were part of a family telling an important story about Russian River Valley Pinot Noir.

Last year, Michael and Dan moved on. Although we were told by the new owners that we would have a contract for 2019, both the abundance of fruit in 2018 and the March 2019 flood of the Barlow-located winery put them in a position where they could not accept our grapes.

Now, late in the game, we find ourselves hoping to sell our 2019 fruit. We’ll be fine if we don’t. We know how lucky we are to be in that position. But we’d hate to see this beautiful fruit go to waste.

Professional winemakers, don’t hesitate to contact us if you’d like to discuss purchasing our Pinot Noir this year or in future years. You can find more info here and throughout the website. And please help us spread the word.

We’re looking forward to the next chapter.

Gantz Family Vineyards

Harvest 2017 at Gantz Family Vineyards

Gantz Family Vineyards measures itself on quality and not quantity, but after last week's harvest, we were pleased with the results. As a relatively young and small vineyard experiencing only its fifth harvest, the main thing we want to see is improvement year over year. We were pleased to see growth in 2017, with an abundant amount of Pinot Noir fruit harvested and delivered to winemaker Kosta Browne Winery.

As it goes with farming, it was down to the last minute before we were absolutely confirmed on the picking date/time. It was supposed to be at 2 a.m., Wednesday morning (September 13), so Celeste figured she had time to rehearse with her a cappella group Tuesday evening, come home for a nap, and start fresh. No such luck! Our vineyard manager, Jim Pratt of Cornerstone Certified Vineyard, announced that picking would start at 10 p.m., Tuesday night (September 12). So Celeste left rehearsal early and hit the ground running! We like to provide lots of "fortifications" for the crew; Clay made sure the crew knew where the snacks were and proceeded to make pot after pot of coffee.  

Delivery of the bins

So many bins

Even though Kosta Browne had delivered more bins than ever, we still needed to supply 2 of our own!

Pulling up the bird netting

Both of us help with the "sweep" harvest, picking up the grapes that the crews drop or miss. But later in the evening, it became apparent that because of our new leafing strategy, it was hard for the guys to find and pick the fruit, particularly in the Pommard and Calera blocks. So Celeste decided to go out and pull leaves away, just ahead of the crews; it's a task she's planning on taking on again next year. She can't do it all, but it certainly helps.  

Vineyard workers

We're very fortunate to be working with Jim Pratt and his crew from Cornerstone Certified Vineyard

A lot of leafs

Our new leafing strategy kept our fruit from getting sunburnt but also made it difficult to pick.

Clay

Clay and Celeste followed the workers, getting at the fruit that they missed.

The crew started at 10 p.m. and finished at 6 a.m., working through the mild, 61-degree night. Just as the last crew member emptied his tub into the bin, a few raindrops began to fall. As the last bin was fork-lifted onto the truck, the rain started to pour in earnest, complete with lightning and thunder. We couldn't believe our luck! The crew started at 10 p.m. and finished at 6 a.m., working through the mild, 61-degree night. Just as the last crew member emptied his tub into the bin, a few raindrops began to fall.

Delivery at Kosta Browne Winery

The Mariafeld 23 clone, which we introduced into the vineyard last year, performed better than expected and Sam Ausburn, Kosta Browne's viticulturist, was pleased about the quality. It was a nice result, especially because deciding to replace some of our Calera with the 23 wasn't an easy decision. We do feel like the results validate (at least initially) some of the steps we took for the first time this year:

• The fourth cane in the Calera calmed the vines and resulted in better set.

• A new leafing strategy helped protect the grapes when we had the Labor Day heat spike.

• The grapes seemed to respond well to a regulated deficit irrigation strategy.

Because it is farming, we have to give a big nod of thanks to Lady Luck. Our row orientation (E-W) combined with our leafing strategy helped to protect the clusters from the hot weather. An E-W row orientation is unorthodox, but we picked it (with counsel from our former vineyard manager Ulises Valdez and Kris Lowe) because of the way our site was laid out and because, in our spot in the Russian River Valley, we were not too worried about sunburn. This year was not ideal for growers by any stretch -- with heat spikes, wide temp fluctuations and rain during harvest -- so we feel like we were very fortunate.

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