Vino Amour

Written by Mike Stepanovich

Two such wineries underscored for me how passion, commitment, focus, and great grape sources combine to make fabulous wine. Surh Luchtel Cellars and Selene Wines exemplify what happens when those qualities converge.

Surh Luchtel is a partnership of Don Surh and Gary Luchtel. The two met in college and became fast friends. They then discovered a mutual love of all things wine. Luchtel and his wife, Ellen, also have their own label, Fortunati.

Selene Wines is the creation of Mia Klein, a Napa Valley veteran who’s been making wine there for more than 30 years. She has been a consulting winemaker for some of Napa’s most famous labels, including Dalla Valle, Spottswoode, Viader, Araujo Estate, and Chappellet.

Here’s a closer look at two small wineries whose wines are a very big hit.

SUHR LUCHTEL CELLARS

Gary Luchtel set out for San Francisco back in the 1970s from Iowa in a Volkswagen Bug that guzzled more oil than gas. “I’d pull into a gas station and say, ‘Fill the oil and check the gas,’ ” he said. After arriving on the West Coast, he enrolled at San Francisco State University, where he met Don Suhr. The two shared a house and a love of wine. They began as home winemakers, and eventually started making wine together in 1992 using grapes they obtained from various North Coast vineyards. Their first commercial vintage for Suhr Luchtel was in 1999.

Luchtel is a larger than life character. He’s big, burly, and gregarious. His salt-and-pepper hair is evidence of a few spins around the block. He’s funny; the life of the party, as attendees at a recent tasting in Bakersfield can attest.

He and his wife, Ellen, poured wines paired with some of Valentien’s incredible edibles. Their passion for what they do was evident in their enthusiasm and in the glass.

The couple met 27 years ago. “I knew nothing about wine,” said Ellen, originally from San Diego. “Gary would pick up a bottle of wine, leave it in the bag, then open it and ask me to identify it. We’re still enjoying wine 27 years later.” Their Fortunati label is a play on Gary’s nickname. “Fortunati means ‘Lucky’ in Italian,” Ellen said. “Gary’s nickname is Lucky.”

The wines they poured in Bakersfield included the Fortunati 2010 Syrah Rosé ($16 suggested retail), 2010 Viognier ($27), 2007 Pinot Noir ($36), the Surh Luchtel 2007 Mosaique meritage blend ($32), and 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon ($45).

Gary said he hadn’t planned to make a rosé, but that was before Ellen “traveled to Australia and fell in love with dry rosé. She came home and said, ‘Honey, can you make me some dry rosé?’ ” He did, and it’s delightful.

Their viognier is also an achievement, a wine light on the palate with subtle, delicate flavors of tropical fruits. The grapes are from the Luchtels’ estate vineyard in Napa valley. The grapes weren’t particularly attractive when harvested. “The grapes looked bad, but I knew they would make good wine,” Gary said.

The Pinot Noir is a complex wine with three different clones of grapes in the blend. Its classic aromas, good structure, and forward flavors make it a fine choice.

I also enjoyed the mosaique and cabernet. The mosaique is a blend of 45 percent merlot, 25 percent cabernet sauvignon, 20 percent cabernet Franc and 10 percent malbec. The cabernet is sourced from Mount Veeder, the valley floor, and Calistoga. Both were rich, bold expressions of California’s most famous wine region.

Check Suhr Luchtel out at www.suhrluchtel.com.

SELENE WINES

Mia Klein became aware of the symbiotic relationship between food and wine at a young age growing up in Manhattan Beach in Southern California. “I had a job as a cook in a fish restaurant, and during that time discovered wine,” she said at the recent Yosemite Vintners’ Holidays. “I got the leftovers,” bottles left behind by patrons. “That got my wheels turning.”

When her family moved to San Francisco her senior year in high school, she landed a job in a retail wine shop that intensified her desire to learn more about wine. She enrolled at the University of California, Davis where she graduated with an enology degree in 1983, and just hoped to land a job.

She did, signing on as assistant winemaker at Chappellet, working for renowned winemaker Cathy Corison, who today owns her own winery. It was about that time that she also met winemaker Tony Soter, with whom, some years later, she partnered in a highly sought-after consulting firm.

From Corison and Soter, she said, she learned a couple of important things:

• “You need to get it right in the vineyard,” she said. The relationship between the vines, the soil, and the microclimate is critical to producing good fruit.

• “It’s about consistency. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an eight-dollar wine or an eighty-dollar wine, when you find a nice one, wow! That’s an epiphany...wine is art. It’s about communication.”

During the early stages of her career, she developed a keen interest in two varietals: merlot and sauvignon blanc. “Merlot, cabernet franc, and sauvignon blanc interested me a lot,” she said. “I worked with merlot at Chappellet, and when I was at Robert Pepi Winery, I made sauvignon blanc at a time when not much sauvignon blanc was being made.”

In 1991, she decided that “in order to have absolute creative freedom,” she needed to start her own brand, so she launched Selene. “I got access to a really good merlot vineyard; I had some money saved up so I bought some grapes. The next year, I was offered some sauvignon blanc from the Hyde Vineyard, and I bought that.”

Klein likes the varietals because both have a wide range of styles.

“Sauvignon blanc can be a rich Bordeaux or a lean Sancerre,” she said, referring to the regions in France best known for their expressions of sauvignon blanc.

Perhaps because of the 1991 60 Minutes segment “The French Paradox,” that attributed the significantly lower rate of heart disease among the French to their regular consumption of red wine, merlot styles have been all over the board as vintners in the early ‘90s rushed to get an easy-to-say, easy-to-drink red wine to market. Klein focuses on a stylish, consistent merlot with both power and finesse.

Full suggested retail price for these two wines is $35 for the Selene Merlot and $28 for the Selene Sauvignon Blanc (her highest priced wine is $50).

While those are her signature wines, she’s also added a cabernet sauvignon and a Bordeaux blend to her portfolio. The cabernet is from selected Napa Valley vineyards, while the cabernet Franc-based blend is called “Chesler,” a tribute to Klein’s mother, Eileen Chesler, and features a picture of her mother waterskiing in the late 1940s.

In all her wines, Klein said, “I always ask what the wine wants.” In other words, she doesn’t try to force something that isn’t there.

The result is handcrafted wines that are elegant and delicious. “The thing that makes me the happiest is when someone calls to say how incredible our wine was, and how it made a difference for an anniversary or other occasion.”

Check Selene out at www.selenewines.com.

Photos courtesy Suhr Luchtel Cellars & Selene Wines

Article appeared in our 28-2 Issue - June 2011