Happy New
Year. Here at Nicholson Ranch, we were
blessed with a wonderful 2025. Thank you
for your continued appreciation for the wine we craft for you. We are honored
to be a part of your table and your celebrations. Cheers to a wonderful 2026!
All the wine from
2025 is resting peacefully in barrels in our cellars, at the culmination of the
journey that began in our vineyard. The grape growing season starts in March
when the new buds emerge, followed by growth of verdant branches that bear flowers
and fruit in June. The heat of summer
days and the cool fall nights create sweetness and flavor. The idyllic seasonal journey picks up pace
with harvest, as we pick the grapes off the vine and send them on a
transformative journey from grapes to wine.
The most delicate
leg of the journey begins when natural yeast resident on the skins of the
grapes and in the ambient air of the tank room begin transforming grape sugar
and natural compounds to make alcohol and flavor and texture components. The journey can be fraught with risk as
bacteria compete with yeast to get to treasured sugar. We protect the grapes from bacteria by
keeping the fermentation vats chilled (like refrigerating food) and by
blanketing grapes with carbon dioxide (like vacuum sealing).
We taste and test
the fermenting wine every day monitoring the gestating wine for infections. If
bad bacteria get a big bite into our precious grapes, we would get cheesy,
sour, and musty aromas in our wine. By
coddling and protecting grapes and yeast we guide the floral wine safely to its
secure destination in barrels. Second
only to harvest, getting the wine into barrels is the most significant
accomplishment for a winemaker. We had
much to celebrate at the end of 2025 as we successfully guided the wine to
their new barrel home.
Your wine
shipment includes delicious wines from the 2022 and the 2020 vintage proudly
representing their unique annual journey.
Happy Thanksgiving. We are excited to share your November Wine Club Relase, featuring three wonderful holiday wines – The 2022 Dry Farmed Pinot Noir, the 2020 Cuvee Natalie Chardonnay and the 2019 Sonoma Valley Pinot Noir. All are perfect companions for your holiday table.
We also have a special announcement to make – a new member of our wine family has arrived.. Nancy and I, and the Nicholson Ranch family are proud to announce Priya Rosé. Rosé has always been one of Nancy’s favorites and 2024 turned out to be the perfect year to make it.
Our new Pinot Noir vines, carefully nurtured over the past few years, yielded a small but beautiful crop in 2024. Bright and youthful, the harvest offered flavorful grapes that inspired this vibrant and refreshingly dry Rosé. Notes of ruby red grapefruit and dried strawberries, accented by a subtle herbaceous hint, make this wine a welcome addition to your holiday celebrations.
I named our Rosé, Priya, meaining “beloved” in Hindi, in honor of my wife, the inspiration (and instigator) behind this wine.
We are delighted to offer the inaugural Rosé as a three-bottle addition to your wine club package. This exclusive offer, available only to our wine club members through this email, allows you to add these bottles to your club shipment at a special price of $120 with no additional shipping cost. To add this to your shipment please click ADD ROSE THREE-PACK and send us your name in the reply.
In other exciting news, the 2025 Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes harvests are complete! Cuvee Natalie Chardonnay was the first pick of the season, grown on a steep south-west facing hillside that gives it such distinctive character. Pinot Noir from the young vines – including the block planted by club members – came soon after. Our mature reserve Pinot vines were harvested just before the early autumn rains.
The 2025 wines are now resting in barrel and promise to be another exceptional Nicholson Ranch vintage.
We have much to be thankful for this year, and we’re especially grateful for you — our wine club members. Your continued support and passion for our wines inspire us every day. Thank you for being part of our family.
Summer is winding down, with the sun rising later
and setting earlier. Our summer weather
in Sonoma has arrived late, with the first days of 90-degree weather now in
August. June and July were an extension
of Spring, with highs in the 70s and low 80s.
How does this impact this year’s grapes?
For sure, it will push back the first day of harvest to late September
or early October, about two to four weeks later than usual, extending the time
the grapes are on the vines. From a
winemaker’s perspective, the extended hang-time is a good thing. Sunlight and UV radiation trigger the
formation of many of the compounds that result in flavor and tannins. More days
of sunlight result in darker berries with more flavor compounds and more
tannins. The result is a more complex
wine with a rounder mouthfeel, and a richer, more intense flavor profile.
From a farmer’s perspective, the longer time in
the vineyard carries more risk. As we
get into October, the chance of rain increases.
Usually in October, the rain is a small sprinkle that does not do any
harm. Occasionally, it may rain more
heavily and precipitate an inch or more.
Rain on ripe grapes promotes the formation of mold. Moldy grapes do not make good wine. The last time this happened was in 2015 – we
discarded all the moldy fruit first before going back to harvest pristine
grapes the next day. This incident was a stark reminder of the unpredictable
nature of winemaking, but it also showed us the resilience of our team and the
quality of our grapes. The resulting
wine turned out great, but we had far less wine.
Here is hoping we continue to have the sun in our
face and the wind on our backs for the rest of the year.
Summer is also the culmination of the winemaking
cycle when we finally get our wine into bottles. We successfully bottled our 2023 vintage
Pinot Noirs and the 2022 NIRVANA and Syrah in early August. Bottling is the most stressful time for any
winemaker because there invariably is some problem. While all our wine is grown here and aged
here at Nicholson Ranch under our constant eyes (and nose), the bottles, corks,
labels, and capsules all come from many sources from several countries. Bottles are from Mexico or France, Corks from
Portugal, labels (the paper) from Canada, and capsules from France or
Spain. All the distance leads to many a
slip. We order months in advance, anticipating
logistical challenges. We measure not
just twice but three times. Finally, the
bottling day arrives when it all comes together – the wine flows from barrel to
tanks to a modern assembly line of machines that fill each bottle perfectly,
cork it, apply the capsule, and stick the label. After a hopeful start, despite a few start-up
hiccups, the line flows smoothly, and we package great wine into nice new,
shiny bottles.
Your current wine club release has several great
wines in nice bottles from the 2019 to 2022 vintages. We deeply appreciate your
continued support and thank you for being a Nicholson Ranch club member.
Welcome to Spring. The
hills are green and the wildflowers are blooming, benefitting from a winter of
good rainfall. Spring is special, with
yellow, blue, and orange wildflowers heralding renewal of this vintage. The grapevines are awakened by the warm
spring days, with new shoots emerging from their winter hibernation. The first shoots that sprout are on the
eastern part of our vineyard, appropriately named Spring Hill.
Spring Hill has Chardonnay grapes and the new release
showcases the 2020 Spring Hill Chardonnay and the 2020 Sonoma Coast
Chardonnay. The NIRVANA 2021 is the
premier Pinot in your package. For our
members who receive only Pinots the package includes the 2020 and 2021 Sonoma
Coast Pinot Noir; for members who receive our reds a 2018 Merlot is in your
shipment.
We tasted these wines and have detailed notes to share with
you below. The common threads that run
through are aroma, flavor, texture, and balance, woven together to create wines
that leave a memorable impression on your palate. Each of the components is a result of choices
we make in the vineyard, during fermentation and in the cellar. Aroma and flavor are greatly influenced by
the terroir – the weather and soil at Nicholson Ranch – and fine-tuned by the
date we harvest the grapes off the vine.
Texture and balance are created by patient aging in oak barrels. What type of oak and how long the wine ages
in the barrel determines how all the components are woven together.
All Nicholson Ranch wines are aged in French oak barrels for
two years or three years. French oak
trees used for barrels grow in specific forests in the center and east of
France. The forests are owned by the
government and historically the oak was used to build ships because of their
water-tight quality. Today independent
saw mills purchase whole logs that are cut into smaller staves. Coopers purchase staves from sawmills – each
cooper sourcing the wood from a selection of forests, selecting the staves for
the quality of the grain. The cooper
ages the wood for two to three years to make the wood denser and
water-tight. The barrels are crafted from
staves held together with metal hoops. The signature element of each cooper is
how they toast the barrels – how hot is the toasting fire and for how long each
barrel is toasted. The forest, the
grain, the toasting, all hand selected and crafted by the cooper, gives each
barrel a distinctive quality.
The Spring Hill and the Sonoma Coast Chardonnay are fermented
in a selection of French oak barrels and then aged for two years. The full-bodied creamy texture of the
Chardonnays are a direct result of barrel fermentation and aging.
Barrel selection and aging distinguishes NIRVANA. NIRVANA is aged for three years in French oak
barrels a year more than Cactus Hill.
The extra year in the barrel makes NIRVANA concentrated and full-bodied,
creating a distinctive wine.
Enjoy the wines in your wine club package. Thank you for being a Nicholson Ranch wine
club member.
Happy New Year. I
hope you had a joyful holiday season with your family and friends. It is a wonderful time here at the winery and
at my home. We had grand celebrations
with my family – all my kids, sister, and her husband were there for Christmas
dinner. I prepared roast duck (or ducks,
I should say – my kids can eat a lot) with a bourbon cherry sauce. I paired the meal with Cactus Hill Pinot Noir
and the Gulrajani Sanjaya, primarily made of Sangiovese. I feel grateful to connect regularly with my
family over holidays and meals. Our wine
accompanies our dinner and conversations, a universal tradition strengthening
our family ties.
The end of the
year and the start of the new one is also a time to close out the previous
vintage and get ready for the new one.
The harvest season in 2024 ended with a heat wave in early October. As the grapes get close to perfect, they also
get fragile. Excess heat can turn them
into raisins very quickly. As a
winemaker you are faced with a tough choice – you can pick early, but you will
have less flavor, or you can risk the heat to get better flavor but lose some
grapes. For me flavor is everything – so
it was an easy choice. The 2024 wines
from Nicholson Ranch are among the most exceptional I have seen in five
years. The 2024 vintage is undoubtedly a
winemaker’s year – the harvest decision each winemaker made will matter
immensely for the quality of the final wine.
All the wine from
2024 is now safely in barrels in our cellars. Over the next few years, it will
rest and evolve from a fruity young wine to an aromatic, luxurious, and
sensuous wine.
In the vineyard,
we are eagerly preparing for 2025. The
winter rains have been generous, providing our soil with a full reserve of
water for the entire year. Soon, we will
start pruning the vines to structure them for the new vintage. This process
requires individual attention to each vine, selecting and retaining two to four
branches while cutting off the rest.
Each branch has six to ten buds spaced three inches apart along the
length of the branch. In the spring, the
buds will open, revealing young shoots that will grow through the year and bear
fruit. This marks the beginning of the new vintage and the rhythm and
anticipation of what nature will bring.
I am thrilled to
share the wines from our 2018, 2019 and 2021 vintages with you in your wine
club package. I hope they bring you as much joy as they have brought us in
crafting them.
Thank you, dear
friends, for your unwavering support. Your encouragement and love for our wines
mean the world to us. Cheers to you and to the wonderful year ahead!
A picture is worth a thousand words. The images above are the high point of Harvest 2024. That is me with Pinot Noir grapes from the new Wine Club block. On the right is the Rosé we make from the latest Pinot Noir. On the left is the harvest of the Natalie Chardonnay vineyard.
As you know, we have been working on replanting for a few years. The summary version – in 2022 we asked a local nursery to grow the baby vines in a greenhouse before planting them (with wine club members’ help) in the Nicholson Ranch vineyard in April 2023. This year, their third year, the young vines bore a small number of grapes. Grapes from young vines are generally more fruit-forward and have a softer texture – perfect for making a Pinot Noir rose. I am thrilled to taste the new vineyard’s grapes and wines. I look forward to sharing these with you next year.
The new vines were harvested in the first half of September. The grapes on mature vines take a little longer to ripen—these grapes that make the reserve Pinot Noirs were harvested by the first week in October. The weather in September and October was challenging, fluctuating from a few days of heat with highs in the mid-90s to 100s to a few days moderating to the 70s and 80s. The hot days ripen the grapes faster and require quick decisions on harvesting.
The Nicholson Ranch vineyard is divided into many blocks. Its slope and type of soil define each block. Are the vines on top of the hill, or a slope, or on the valley floor? Is the soil clay, volcanic, or sandy? Each combination of slope and soil will produce distinct flavor grapes. Each block ripens at a different time, some taking a week or two longer to attain the best flavors. When I taste the grapes, I am sensitive to each block individually. The hot days required me to use all my experience in the vineyard to harvest each block when each had the best flavor.
Each block is then fermented and aged separately. After two years of aging, the differences between the wines for each block are more pronounced. The different blocks make a wonderful selection of Nicholson Ranch wines, each different from the other but distinctly Nicholson Ranch.
This upcoming wine club release features the 2021 Dry Farmed Pinot Noir and the 2019 Cuvee Natalie Chardonnay, each from its own unique block. These wines, with their distinct flavors and characteristics, truly embody the magic of the Nicholson Ranch vineyard. I can’t wait for you to experience them.
We hope you had a great Summer and continue to enjoy the next few weeks of wonderful weather. August in Sonoma is very pleasant with highs in the 80s and lows in the 50s, great weather for the grapes to ripen. June and especially July were significantly warmer than last year, with July likely having some of the warmest weather I have seen in a long time. At this stage, the grapes are dark green and tough and able to handle the heat. The grapes started ripening in late July and over time will start softening up and develop sweet flavors. The cooler August has come at the right time for optimal ripening.
As some of you have noticed I write more often about the weather as we get closer to harvest. The weather from now to September greatly influences the color, flavor, and texture of the wine. Either my son Zander or I go through the vineyard regularly to assess the progress of the vines. Soon we will sample the grapes and taste the juice. The sampling is methodical, going through each row in order, picking a grape from every tenth vine, some from the top of the cluster, some from the middle and some from the bottom. Zander collects the grapes and brings them to the winery. We press the juice and let it soak for an hour before tasting it in a wine glass. We assess the juice with the same acute attention as we would a fine wine. We look at the color, the aroma and taste. Does the Pinot Noir juice have the right shade of red, do the aromas evoke flowers, red berries and is it reminiscent of freshly brewed black tea. For Nicholson Ranch Pinot, tea is a key aroma to assess the ripeness. When we sip the juice does it have balance between the sweetness and acidity. All these sensory facets translate to the final wine, so getting it right for harvest is essential.
On a parallel track I pay close attention to the short-term weather forecast. Cooler weather in the 70s will allow us to wait a few days before harvest. A sudden heat spike in the 90s or an unseasonal rainstorm will need a quicker decision. The harvest decision is the most significant decision a winemaker can make. In a vintage where we are blessed with cooler weather a winemaker has more leeway. When conditions are less than perfect the winemaker’s decision will make the difference from good to great.
The 2021 Cactus Hill is the first wine from the 2021 vintage. The weather in 2021 had all the drama of a tougher vintage with a hot spell in early September followed by two, fortunately, small rainstorms. 2021 may have had some drama but this story has a Hollywood ending – a Cactus Hill that is as good if not better than any prior vintage we have produced.
Before I end this note, I have a small ask – please refer the Nicholson Ranch wine club to friends and family. As a thank-you, for each new member you sign up you receive a $200 credit that you can use to pay for a wine club shipment or for purchasing additional wine. New members can sign up online on our website www.nicholsonranch.com. Just send us an email with the name of the new member and how you would like to use your credit. If you sign up more than one member, you receive additional $200 credits for each member you refer. A gift that keeps on giving.
Spring is here! After an interminable number of rainy days, we finally have had a week (or more) of sunshine daily. We surely need the rain in California, and I am very grateful to get a typical wet season. But I miss the sunshine, and it could not have come at a better time. The rain is excellent; it soaks into the soil, sustaining the thirsty vines throughout the year. Sunshine in March, following the wet winter, is ideal, just as the young vines are waking up from their winter dormancy. All in all, a great start to 2024.
Spring is also when we focus on bottling the wines from earlier vintages. This year, we will be bottling many Pinot Noirs from 2022 and NIRVANA from 2021. All the big reds to be bottled, Nicholson Ranch Merlot and Syrah, and Gulrajani Super-Tuscans and Cabernets are from 2021. Two parallel tracks are essential for bottling. The first is what is in the bottle, the wine itself, which is both a sensory and an immersive experience. The second, much more mundane and prosaic, is the glass bottle and the packaging.
Let us get to the wine. I taste every barrel to ensure the quality of each barrel and to select barrels to reserve for NIRVANA. Tasting wine from barrels is one of the favorite parts of my role as a winemaker. Besides the wine tasting great, the work completely absorbs my attention, letting me forget about all other concerns. Going from barrel to barrel, I am so grateful for what each barrel does to the wine. The barrel, as you know, adds aroma and flavor and, more subtly, adds texture and body. A wine not aged in a barrel can have great fruit and floral aromas. A wine flavored with oak (essence, powder, or oak chips) will show vanilla, toast, and spice. However, only true barrel aging will transform the texture and integrate the fruit and oak flavors to create a sensory experience of smell, taste, and texture, from the bouquet to the mouthfeel to the finish. Only patient barrel aging can make a great wine that will go beyond the sensory experience and spark emotions of joy, contentment, and nostalgia.
Now for the nuts and bolts of getting the wine into bottles and planning the bottling. After ordering the bottles, foils, labels, and corks, I ensure the bottling truck has been reserved and confirmed well in advance. I measure and check order quantities not just twice but three times. Fortunately, the agony and stress of supply-chain problems are mostly behind us. Getting ready for bottling is stressful enough. Better planning leads to bottling the wine without heat and oxygen exposure, which would diminish the quality. I aim to open a freshly bottled wine and feel the same emotions of joy and contentment that I get tasting the wine from barrels.
This wine release includes the 2020 NIRVANA, a wine aged for three years in French oak barrels, and sure to evoke strong emotions with the first whiff of its aromas. A detailed description is below.
Happy New Year! We are delighted to have had a great 2023 and look forward to a beautiful 2024. The weather in 2023 was cooler than our average year, extending our harvest to November. The wines are now in barrels after completing the primary fermentation and the secondary malolactic fermentation. They will now age for two to three years in our underground cellars undisturbed, gradually transforming flavors and textures.
At present, aboveground, the winter rains are making our surrounding hillsides green again. The wind and rain clear the air, so the days following the rain are sparklingly clear. It is a bit nippy (by California standards) out there, but the sunlight invites one to rejoice in the shades of green lit up by the angled winter sunshine. When it does rain, our waterfall wakes up and, for a couple of days, gushes exuberantly, transforming our view to one you may see serendipitously on a remote hike in the hills. For us, it is front and center, framed perfectly from the window of our tasting room.
I invite you to visit our colorful California winter wonderland, rain or shine – no snow but a beautiful season. As a travel note for many of our members from out of state, now through the end of March, hotel rates and airfares are less than half the price than in summer. Restaurant and winery reservations are more accessible. Make Nicholson Ranch your anchor visit and explore Wine Country this winter. Please feel free to email me directly at [email protected] or [email protected] for suggestions. I love traveling to other wine countries, and I would love to share my favorite places in our Wine Country with you.
While you are here, you will notice that while the grass is green, the grapevines are not. The grapevines drop their leaves around Christmas, going into three months of restful dormancy. The dormant plants store all their sap in their roots to protect the plants from cold, frosty nights, leaving dry leafless branches above. The main activity in the vineyard is to prune the dry branches to prepare for the new season. A crew of about fifteen people prune each vine by hand going from one vine to the next. The pruner gauges the health of the vine by the thickness of the branches, called canes, and may keep three or four canes for a vigorous vine and maybe just one cane on a weaker vine. All the remaining canes are cut off and dropped between the rows to be mulched and returned to the soil. Each grapevine is now perfectly structured to sprout new branches and bear fruit for the 2024 vintage.
Please visit and witness the start of the vintage. The centerpiece of your visit is, of course, a tasting of Nicholson Ranch wines. This winter, we have added two Gulrajani heartier reds to the menu for you to enjoy. I look forward to your visit.
I am writing this letter a month earlier than expected. We had a wet winter, a late spring, a mild summer, and a somewhat early fall. All combined result in what may be one of the latest harvests in my memory. To be picking Pinot Noir in October is unusual. That said, the longer the grapes hang in the vineyard, the more flavor they develop. It also means I will be swamped in October, the expected time I would write to you, so I am using my found time to reflect on past vintages and weather.
Two common questions I hear are a) When is the best time to drink Nicholson Ranch wine, and b) What are the best vintages for our wines?
When we send your wine club wines to you, they will have already been aging for at least three years and very often for five years since harvest. As you know, we barrel our wine for two years and let it age in the bottle a bit longer. Our younger wines will show more sweet fruit – pear, apple, and apricots for the Chardonnay and strawberry, raspberry, and cherry for Pinot Noir. They will also offer more texture as the young tannins make an impression on your palate. As the wines age and are five to eight years from harvest, they show more complexity. All that means is that each fruit is less individually discernable as the flavors have now melded together through time. As they age, the wines will also have spice and mineral or earthy flavors. The texture makes a more subtle but lingering impression, like a well-worn piece of clothing. At ages nine and ten, the reserve wines show a nice balance of fruit and spice. Beyond ten years, we see a drop in fruit flavors, making the wine more earthy and “old world” in style.
Aging the wine beyond ten years depends on the vintage. Four factors inherent in the grapes align with aging – sugar, acidity, flavor, and tannins. Most years, the weather allows us to get three of the four lined up. Some years, by the grace of nature, all four factors are in harmony. There is a fifth factor, time itself, that melds the components together in magical ways, such that, the wine can be a wonderful surprise even in years where you may not expect it.
Before I get to the vintage-by-vintage assessment, I would recommend you enjoy vintages 2015 and earlier now. You can keep a bottle if you want to see how they age. Vintages from 2016 to 2020 can be enjoyed now or held longer.
I will highlight the past vintages from 2009 to 2020. The 2009 vintage was considered the best year ever, especially for Pinot Noir. However, many reviewers consider 2019 to be an even better vintage. In tasting Nicholson Ranch wines, both are at an equal level of sophistication. What about the intervening years?
2011 saw early rain that forced winemakers to pick fruit before they were deemed ready. 2013 to 2016 was one of the most prolonged periods of drought we have experienced in California. 2017 had excessive heat, and post-harvest fires that remain seared in my memory. 2018 and 2019 were two years after 2012 when winemakers could sit back and wait for the stars to align. 2020 is still fresh in the memories of many here in California – vast swaths of smoke engulfed vineyards as forest fires burned for weeks.
Vintages all factors were great – 2009, 2012, 2018, 2019
Vintages where the magic has worked – 2010, 2017, 2020
Vintages where the drought helped – 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016
Vintage 2011 – Good for Chardonnay. not great for Pinot
Here are my thoughts on tasting past vintages.
Pinot Noir – Cactus Hill
Vintages 2018, 2019, and 2020 – Fruit forward and rounded textures. Drink or hold.
Vintage 2016, 2017 – Spice and earth flavors augment the fruit. Drink.
Vintage 2013, 2014, and 2015 – more concentrated flavors – wines are excellent. Enjoy now.
Vintage 2011, 2012 – Most old-world style with spice and earth aromas – past its prime.
Vintage 2009, 2010 – Fruit forward with spice and earthy notes. Both years are excellent. Enjoy now.
(NIRVANA, Dry Farmed and 777 vintages are similar to Cactus. Sonoma Valley and Sonoma Coast will not age as long – drink vintages 2015 and earlier)
Chardonnay – Cuvee Natalie
Vintages 2018, 2019 – Most aromatic, fruit forward (2020 vintage not yet released). Drink or Hold
Vintages 2016, 2017 – Integrated, softer texture. Delicious. Drink or hold.r te
Vintages 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 – These are drinking very well. Great balance. Mineral notes. Excellent
Vintages 2009, 2010, 2011 – Showing aged character of caramel and honey. Interesting wines.
(Spring Hill and La Colina vintages are like Natalie. Sonoma Valley and Sonoma Coast will not age as long – drink vintages 2015 and earlier)
I have seen considerable fluctuations in weather from year to year, but Nicholson Ranch wines are consistent year after year. The consistency comes from farming my vineyards, making the wine yearly, and cellaring them in our underground caves. I have tended the vineyard since 1995, allowing me to get the best from the grapes. I have been a full-time winemaker since 2009, creating a consistent palate for each wine. The wines have aged in the same cellars, enhancing the flavor and texture. In good years, like 2018 and 2019, most wines from across the Sonoma Coast appellation are good. In other years, like 2017 and 2020, good producers will always make great wines.
Enjoy the 2020 Cactus Hill, 2017 Cuvee Natalie and the 2017 Sonoma Valley Pinot in your wine club shipment.
