NorthBay biz heads to Healdsburg to profile Limerick Lane Cellars and its proprietor, Michael Collins.
The blue eyes and florid cheeks are a clue to the Irish heritage of Michael Francis Collins, proprietor of Healdsburg’s Limerick Lane Cellars. “My mother’s parents came to this country from County Cork,” he says with a quick and hearty laugh, “which is kind of appropriate for a winegrower, don’t you think?”
But there was nothing of the luck of the Irish about the founding of this small but well-focused winery. Instead, grit, hard work and no small amount of fortitude shifted the San Francisco born and bred former realtor from grape grower to winegrower. The obstacles were daunting; the effort was unrelenting. “When we found this property, it was an utter disaster,” remembers Collins. “The vineyard was completely trashed, there were broken down chicken coops and hippies were living in a beat-up old bus over in the far corner.”
We’re chatting over a glass of peppered raspberry Zinfandel, looking out the bay door on the back side of the winery cellar onto a small plot of head-trained vines that will celebrate their centennial next year. The vines are gnarly and closely pruned, and they reach to the sky as if entreating the sun to favor them over other vines in the production of wine. Each one is a miniature winemaker. Each one may produce a glass of darkly colored, intensely flavored red wine…and that’s what this place is about: red wine. (You know what the French say: “The first duty of a wine is to be red.”)
The Irish, traditionally favored as they are to Guinness, wild wakes and tortured jokes, have never been much for the vine. The Concannons of Livermore came to California winemaking from the old country in 1883. It was only recently that others of the old sod have joined the ranks.
Collins grew up in San Francisco, a city flush with old time Irish, from police and fire departments to the highest echelons of local politics. “I was born on November 2, 1950, at the old Mary’s Help Hospital in San Francisco,” says Collins. “Went to Riordan High School—named for some old archbishop, I suppose. My grandfather worked for the S.F. Water Department, so we became something of an old Irish San Francisco family.”
He started at San Francisco City College, then finished at the University of Massachusetts. “I wanted to see a little something of the rest of the country,” he says almost under his breath. “I started college in pre-med, wanting to become a dentist, but that never quite worked out. During my college years, I worked for the railroad in New Jersey, but California was just too much in my blood, so I came back and studied at UC Davis, still considering dental school while I was working in real estate.”
After visiting Healdsburg in 1977, Collins bought a 10-acre piece of property with his friend, Ted Markoczy. Collins still lives there today, and it’s now part of the estate vineyards. “My brother Tom and I bought the old Del Fava place in 1978—though the Del Fava family had sold it to another party in 1972. It’s 20 acres, and ‘decrepit’ doesn’t begin to describe it back then. The vines were in such bad shape, we had to pull most of the vineyard and replant. Fortunately, we were able to salvage the oldest block, our nearly century-old plot of Zinfandel. The place had been on the market for a year at $175,000. We ended up buying it for $147,000. Our new neighbors all told us, ‘You paid too much, you’ll be broke in a year.’ Yet I’m still here.”
His brother, sadly, is not. “Tom was a wonderful guy,” says Michael wistfully. “He and I put everything we had into improving this place. We pulled out all the prune trees and, as I mentioned, most of the vineyard. It was mostly Zinfandel, with some Sauvignon Blanc. We did make a little Sauvignon Blanc for a time, but there was plenty of phylloxera [a devastating plant louse] so we finally had to pull it out and replant.
“Though we’re technically in the northeastern corner of the Russian River Valley appellation, in many respects, we’re more akin to Dry Creek Valley. Still, [Dry Creek] is routinely 10 degrees warmer than we are, which is why our recent [five acre] planting of Pinot Noir makes sense. It also explains why Syrah does so well here, in that cool climate vein that seems to be so much the rage these days.”
Though Limerick’s initial foray into Pinot Noir came from the Orsi Vineyard, which is in the Russian River Valley, Collins says since then, “We pride ourselves on producing wines solely from our own estate. That’s why we planted that block of Pinot Noir here—it really does make a nice wine. We were very happy with the Orsi fruit, but now that we have our own, it’s better for us.”
Collins is now looking to branch out with signature food-and-wine pairing events with famed chef Lisa Hemenway. Collins observes that most of his sales used to be to customers outside of California, “but then we’d get into a situation where we had no wine to sell for two or three months. We’re not a big winery—4,000 to 5,000 cases—so we’ve turned that around so that two-thirds of our sales are direct-to-consumer. When you’re relying on your Wine Club, you must have more than one or two ‘flavors,’ which is why we expanded our identity from solely Zinfandel—though there’s one club member in Ireland who loves our Zinfandel so much that he buys five or 10 cases every year—to include Syrah, Pinot Noir, and our unique wine, Furmint.”
It’s not often someone uses the word “unique” and it actually means what it’s supposed to mean. “We’re the only winery in the United States, so far as I know, that produces Furmint,” says Collins. “It’s a Hungarian variety, kind of Muscat-like, and similar in some ways to Tokaji. Ted Markoczy, who was Hungarian, helped me make contacts to obtain the cuttings. Ted was from a noble Hungarian family—or so he used to say. Maybe he was just a pretender, but he was really a good guy.”
Collins has had to bear up under more than his fair share of travail. Not only did Markoczy take his own life in 1992, but he lost his beloved brother Tom to a far greater tragedy. “In 1993, our father, in a fit of rage, killed Tom and then turned the gun on himself,” Collins recounts.
“You have to understand, Tom was a key part of this project. You see the pool over there [pointing to the wine bottle-shaped swimming pool immediately west of the cellar]? That was Tom’s idea. The fire department came when we were building the cellar and told us we needed a 10,000-gallon water tank to store water sufficient to put out a fire here. Tom—he’d been a fireman in San Francisco—didn’t like the idea of an ugly plastic water tank, so he put forth the notion of a lap pool. Then added the whimsy of having it shaped like a wine bottle! Pretty clever, eh?”
The vineyard that the Collins brothers carved out on Limerick Lane today serves Michael as therapy. “I get up at five in the morning and get on the tractor,” he says soberly. “I love to farm. Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved to watch plants grow. That’s why I love the term ‘winegrower.’ It implies that continuum from the earth to the bottle.” He’s also a lover of travel and of reading. “Italy,” he says without equivocation. “France is pretty good, too, but Italy is special. As to books, let me recommend Traitor to His Class about Franklin D. Roosevelt. It’s a good read.”
There will be reds
Collins has always had a hand in crafting all Limerick Lane’s wines. But with the 2009 harvest, he’ll play an even larger role. Richard Oberlin has come on board as associate winemaker, but Collins, who, before the winery was built in 1993, trained alongside his brother with winemaker Gary Farrell for a few years, has always seen himself more as a winegrower than a winemaker. “The vineyard part is always the most important,” he says fervently. “I see myself more as a farmer-turned-winemaker. It’s all about the estate—the vineyards, the soil.”
We looked at his estate, out the back door of the cellar, as we tasted the wines.
Pinot Noir 2007 Orsi Vineyard. Red cherry and filet mignon meatiness in both nose and entry—coupled with its delicate texture and hint of black pepper spiciness—makes for a wine of intrigue and interest. “It’s so feminine and so alluring that I can drink a bottle and a half of this, instead of just one,” boasts Collins, half pulling my leg. “The vineyard is half Pommard clone and half Dijon 115, and we sell most of it here at the winery.”
Pinot Noir 2007 Collins Vineyard. Taut, tight red cherry and plenty of crisp natural acidity, with a little strawberry fruit and vanillin from the oak. “Our Pinot Noir planting here at the winery is still rather young at eight years,” he says, “but we do have high expectations for it. We use French oak only, and just under half of that is new oak. Low pH [and its correspondingly high acidity] is both a blessing and a curse, but we don’t adjust the acidity. We’re Old World in our farming practices: just a little sulphur dusting to control mildew. We don’t even own a spray rig! Our soils are well-drained, and our crop levels come in at just two to three tons to the acre, which accounts for our excellent fruit intensity and the natural balance and elegance that seems to be built into the wines.”
Zinfandel 2005 Collins Vineyard. Peppercorn spiciness resonates throughout this wine, but there’s also lively tannin, a solid bite of blueberry fruit and a hint of oak toastiness in the finish. Nicely balanced, which is no small trick because Zinfandel ripens more unevenly than any other variety. “We have to spend a lot of time in the vineyard to make sure we pick the ripe fruit as evenly as possible,” says Collins. “We see this as being on the ‘food style’ side of the spectrum, and the writer Matt Kramer seems to agree with us. He’s deemed this wine to be ‘Pinotesque,’ if there is such a word.” Even if there isn’t, you clearly get the idea when you taste the elegance of this wine.
“Deco” Zin 2007. Pomegranate fruit that’s rich and jammy, with a marvelously fleshy texture that just seems to go on and on. “You want wine to be a nice experience,” says Collins. “You give this wine four, five, seven years in the bottle, and it definitely becomes a nice experience. The fruit, ,which was planted in 1934 after Prohibition, is still forward, but it’s softened in such a way as to become more like an old Bordeaux than what we traditionally think of as California Zinfandel. ‘Complexity’ is probably the word I’m looking for here.”
Zinfandel 2006 “Old Vine.” Blackberry and pomegranate fruit, with toasty, bacon-like oak and a subtle peppercorn spice that almost sneaks up on you, but remains in the background from first sip to final aftertaste. “This is made solely from our central block of Zinfandel, which was planted when William H. Taft was President of the United States,” says Collins, “so we’re going to be able to call them ‘century vines’ next year. It’s pretty amazing, when you think about it, that these old vines have been giving it up that long. We’re only able to make about 150 cases of this wine each year, and you can see the power and the character of the fruit. It is something.”
“CER” 2007 Collins Estate Reserve. Cassis and blackberry fruit is there from first whiff, solid through the mid-palate and lingers in the aftertaste like a relished memory. “This is our estate blend,” says Collins. “It’s about half Cabernet Sauvignon and about a quarter each Zinfandel and Syrah. The Cabernet is planted in the [northeast] corner of the vineyard. Compared to Zinfandel, Cabernet is easy to grow—it’s a piece of cake! Zinfandel is so difficult in the vineyard. You have to be patient. You’re out there one day, and it looks so dreadful, and then you come back a week later and it’s perfectly fine. We really like the Syrah that we grow here; it makes a superb wine and it’s easy to produce. But, for some strange reason, it’s a slow sell. Sure works well in this wine, though.”
“1023” 2007. Toasty, near bacon-like oak surrounds a full expression of strawberry and raspberry, with hints of milk chocolate. “This blend of Zinfandel and Syrah just seems to soak up the oak,” says Collins. “The name of the wine—1023—is our street address, the only place this wine is made. It’s unique, we think.”
Syrah 2007 Collins Vineyard. This is a wonderfully fleshy wine—the texture simply envelops your tongue—with plum and strawberry fruit that comes right at you, and then stays there within easy reach. “These 20-year-old vines are set in a southwest exposure,” says Collins. “It’s a French clone of Syrah that yields a little over two tons to the acre, but the vines themselves are quite vigorous. Syrah here gives you wine that has much more powerful fruit than it does in France, but it’s not that overripe style like you sometimes get from Australia.
Furmint Late Harvest (non vintage). Made like a Tokaji from Hungary, this wine is deeply copper in color, with a Muscat-like floral nose, a bit of honey, with plenty of orange peel fruit in the finish. “My late business partner Ted helped me make the contact to acquire Furmint cuttings of what everyone calls the ‘suitcase clone’—which means I brought the cuttings of this grape back from a trip there in 1977. We started out with just half an acre—nine rows—back in 1993, and have since budded over a little more a few years ago. It’s still a small item, but people love it.”
Tasting the wines, it’s clear Michael Collins is doing a most effective job reconciling the once separate notions of winegrowing and winemaking. He is, indeed as he would wish it, a winegrower.
