Domaine RÜTZ
Founder Keith Rutz traces his ancestral roots in wine back six generations to his great-great-grandfather Fernand Lebegue. Fernand grew up in Aigne, France where he worked as a cooper, fashioning barrels from the Vosges, Nevers, Allier, and Troncais forests, which have become the standard bearers of oak in the fine wine business today.
Keith’s own deep interest in the great wines of Burgundy developed after he graduated from UC Berkeley. In the early ‘90s, he founded his wine label, RÜTZ, in Sonoma’s Russian River Valley with a focus on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay clones. He hired renowned winemaker Mike Trujillo to collaborate closely in crafting a suite of wines that deliver artistry, architecture and allure.
“Now celebrating 30 years of winemaking, our state-of-the-art facility in Sebastopol produces wines that are smooth and accessible while still having the grace and structure of the world’s greatest wines,” says Keith. “We pride ourselves on not cutting corners in bringing our ultra-premium wines to you. We hand-pick and hand-sort our grapes, and use the best winemaking techniques to produce our wine.” To preserve the integrity of the flavor and the profile of the wine, they bottled our featured Maison Grand Cru Chardonnay unfined and unfiltered. “We try not to strip out all of the mineral and limestone. We keep the content very natural, giving the wine a cloudy appearance.”
“For consistency, I source fruit from the same exceptional Sonoma vineyards every year including Hallberg Ranch, Windsor Oaks, Bacigalupi, Martinelli, and Quail Hill,” says Keith. In 2018, the excellent weather conditions led to large crops, which they managed by dropping fruit. “We’d rather have more energy going into fewer clusters of grapes than a bigger, less flavorful crop. During harvest, we carefully chose the clusters we wanted for these wines.” Premium fruit along with the selection of barrels is how Keith achieves superb balance in his wines.
“I am inspired by French Grand Cru Pinot Noir, like Bonne Mare and Clos De La Roche, which are soft and elegant and have aromas that fill the air with rose petals. Compared to the typically bigger, bolder California-style, I craft Pinots with a softer, smoother mouthfeel, with more smoke and tinderbox notes, and more minerality.” The backbone of his Pinot Noir is fruit from Hallberg Ranch Vineyard in the Russian River Valley, planted to some 15 different Pinot Noir clones in the Burgundy style by Brice Jones of Sonoma Cutrer fame.
“What I am trying to capture in my Chardonnay is the minerality that you find in Grand Crus from the steeper hills of Burgundy, specifically Mersault and Montrachet where the soils contain limestone,” says Keith. “The vineyards I select here in Russian River Valley for my Chardonnay have wet stones embedded in Goldridge soil, which is similar to the vineyards in France. The fruit we get from an old Wente clone in the Bacigalupi Vineyard (famous for supplying fruit for the winning Chardonnay at the 1976 Judgement of Paris”) is also key. It has the smallest Chardonnay clusters I have ever seen in California.
When you have tight clusters of small, intense berries, you get a lot of flavor. I barrel fermented the Chardonnay to get more roundness, suppleness, and character.” Fair warning: “Everyone who picks up this wine can’t put it down--You keep drinking it and drinking it and drinking it,” laughs Keith.
“Our goal has always been to craft small premium lots of wine that will cellar for years side by side with our French counterparts,” says Keith. Raise a glass to their success!
The fabulous wines we featured:
Sonoma Cuvée 2018 Sonoma County Pinot Noir
- Pairs with: Petaluma duck, leg of lamb
- Enjoy now or hold up to 5 years.
Tasting Notes: On the nose, aromas of rose petals. On the palate, black fruits, Bing cherries, black raspberries, minerality, and lots of cedar and tinder box. The wine is soft, smooth and elegant.
Sonoma Cuvée 2018 Sonoma County Chardonnay
- Pairs with: Wild Coho salmon, fresh salads with citrus and avocado
- Enjoy now or hold up to 5 years.
Tasting Notes: The palate boasts citrus flavors with lots of limestone minerality. It is a crisp and balanced wine, with moderate oak.
Winemaker's Notes
Sonoma Cuvée 2018 Sonoma County Pinot Noir: Fruit for the 2018 Sonoma County Pinot Noir was hand-picked from vineyards in the Russian River Valley, Sonoma-Carneros and the Sonoma coast. Clusters were carefully sorted by hand. After a 5-day cold soak, the grapes underwent whole-berry fermentation, then aged for 11 months in 100% French Oak from the Vosges and Nevers forests, 50% new and 50% one-year-old. Bottled fined and filtered.
Sonoma Cuvée 2018 Sonoma County Chardonnay: And the fruit for the 2018 Sonoma County Chardonnay was hand-picked from vineyards in the Russian River Valley, Sonoma-Carneros and the Sonoma Coast. Clusters were carefully sorted by hand. After whole-cluster pressing, the fruit was 100% barrel fermented, and underwent 100% malolactic fermentation. The wine aged for 10 months in French oak barrels from Allier and Troncais forests, one-third new, one-third a year old, and one-third two years old. Bottled fined and filtered.
Russian River Valley
Keith Rutz
Mike Trujillo