Meeting of the Minds

It’s not an official name, it’s just how they refer to themselves in the light-hearted, locker-room ethos that marks true professionals. Neither is it a reference to the James Garner Western character, the “Top Gun” fighter pilot played by that nutty short guy or the big wave surfers who visit California each year near Half Moon Bay.

“This is really a good group of people, who’ve worked together in the past and felt we could work well together again,” says Phil Hurst, spokesman for the Mavericks, an all-star cast that includes organic/biodynamic doyen Paul Dolan; venture capital wizard Bill Hambrecht; finance minister Mark DeMeulenaere; marketing professionals Woody Hambrecht, Sylvia Hurst and Barrie Graham; and intuitively inventive winemaker Ginny Lambrix. (How, exactly, does one find a winemaker with a winegrape sugar measurement term—brix—right there in her name?)

“It’s an interesting group as well,” continues Hurst with a confidence born of experience. “We, each of us independently, had this notion of working with three of California’s finest appellations: Russian River Valley for Pinot Noir, Dry Creek Valley for a Zinfandel/Petite Sirah blend, and Napa Valley for Cabernet Sauvignon.”

Hence the winegrowing portfolio that’s been assembled by Team Maverick (the official company name is H.D.D. LLC): VML (Russian River; so-named for Virginia Marie Lambrix), Truett Hurst (Dry Creek; Truett is a Dolan family name from the generation of his family that was involved in founding Italian-Swiss Colony Winery at Asti more than a century ago) and Stonegate Winery (established just south of Calistoga in 1973). [There’s also Sauvignon Republic, Dolan and DeMeulenaere’s paean to Mendocino and other great Sauvignon Blanc appellations.] The group’s early success is impressive, increasing from 60,000 cases in 2010 to more than 150,000 cases last year.

“The big thing,” says Hurst, “is that it’s the right people at the right time with the right focus. Paul’s part is the commitment to responsible farming, the notion that the ground has to be cared for in a socially and biologically responsible manner. Bill brings his strategic and global perspective—not to mention his established vineyards and brands [Bradford Mountain] to the mix. My part is my direct marketing experience with The Wine Exchange that will let us bring what we see as regionally expressive wines to market in a way that will speak to the new buying trends: direct to consumer, direct to retailer and to a reenergized three-tier system.”

Coming together

The road that brought Hurst and his cohorts to this juncture is an intriguing one. He grew up on a 1,000-acre ranch on the eastern edge of the city of Napa, “out on Coombsville Road, if you know where that is. My family raised cattle, horses and sheep, and that’s where I got the agriculture bug. I’ll admit it, I still take pride in the Reserve Grand Champion steer I raised to show at the Napa Town and Country Fair back in the day.”

Hurst’s summer jobs through high school included working at wineries, but when he headed off to college at UC Davis, it was veterinary school that he had in mind. “As it turned out, all the biology classes I took in preparation for vet school just happened to work for enology and viticulture,” he says with a laugh. “My mom was really into wine, and I got to be involved in a number of private tastings she set up, covering a whole range of imported wines. The first wine that really sparked my interest was a Spanish red from Ribera del Duero. I can’t remember which estate, but it was really good…and the price was great. Mom also took me to Opus One and began collecting fine wines for me. She bought 12 acres along the Silverado Trail with a future winery in mind, but eventually sold that parcel [before we could develop a winery there].”

A summer internship working as a crew chief at Domaine Chandon sealed the deal. Hurst had already switched majors to fermentation science and, when he graduated in 1985, he was ready for a job in the wine business. “It came pretty quickly,” he recalls. “A girl I knew was dating a guy who worked at Fetzer. Steve [Dorfman] convinced me to come up and meet Paul Dolan and [winemaker] Dennis Martin. I had a white polo shirt on and had spilled iced tea on it before we made it to Ukiah, but Paul saw through that and offered me a job. We’ve skied together and raised our families together and Paul has been super supportive of my career, so it’s no surprise that, in 2007, when Paul began thinking of this project, we ended up getting back together.”

Hurst notes that many of his contacts from The Wine Exchange—the company he formed in 1999 to source, develop and produce private labels and national brands of wine, beer and spirits—have been helpful in getting Truett Hurst and its ensuing companion ventures off the ground. “When we found that the former Martin Family Vineyard estate in Dry Creek Valley was available, it was an easy call to make it the first property in our portfolio. The thing I like about Truett Hurst is it’s a comfortable, casual, popular place. The whole environment is aspirational and associational. By that, I mean that the place feels like home, with the wooden floor, the wooden bar. It’s homey, but professional. I could sit on the outdoor patio for hours and look at the garden, the lawn, the vineyards. It’s a neat environment, with the goats and the sheep out there in the field. It just melts the hearts of our customers.”

Making wine

Virginia Marie “Ginny” Lambrix, the winemaker Maverick, is much appreciated by her partners. “She’s amazing,” gushes Hurst. “She’s freakin’ brilliant. She was a psych major with a very high IQ who happened to find science and viticulture. She really learned her way around Pinot Noir and Chardonnay by working with mentor Greg Lafollette, and she has a marvelous understanding of how to farm a vineyard for flavor. She’s meticulous and unwavering in terms of quality—you can see the tears in her eyes when it rains during harvest—and we made her an equity partner within a year’s time. We want her to be with us for a long time.”

Lambrix was born in Grand Forks, North Dakota. A military brat, her family was often on the move. “Both my mom and my dad were in the Air Force,” she says. “We even lived in Greece for a time. I spent my high school years in upstate New York and Rome.” She graduated from Colgate in 1995 with a degree in psychology, but with enough credits to have had an additional major in art. “Dad talked me out of a career in art, saying I’d starve to death. But I’m a Virgo and, as it turns out, a lot of winemakers are Virgos. It must be the attention to detail, the focus on sanitation. But, somehow, the artistic aesthetic snuck in there, too. I have a great appreciation for something that’s well-crafted, something that’s beautiful, unique. I did work as a sculptor for a couple of years in Boulder, Colo., but my dad was right. It was hard to make a living…and there was no health insurance.”

So she went back to school. “I decided to study something involving plants,” she recalls. “I had no biology in high school—I was squeamish and didn’t want to dissect frogs so I went to the University of Colorado at Boulder for chemistry and biology, spent some time in Germany, then came to California for UC Davis. I worked as a researcher in Germany with the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology. The two months of field work was fascinating, but the 10 months of white-coat lab work was not so interesting. But I got to taste the wines of Germany and South Africa, and that was interesting. I understood what people were talking about.”

Thus the master’s degree from UC Davis, which led to a job with Concha y Toro in Chile. “That was a great experience. The people were incredible, so forward-thinking. They were already farming some of their properties biodynamically. They weren’t content to sit on their laurels, and I really applauded them when they bought Fetzer from Brown-Forman.”

With that in mind, she returned north to work at Lynmar and DeLoach, where she was able to work with both Greg LaFollette (DeLoach) and Hugh Chappelle (Lynmar). “Greg was brilliant and taught me the importance of the intuitive side of winemaking—that you can shut down your heart with the intellect if you’re not careful, that if you’re only making wine ‘by the book’ you’ll hate yourself in the end. Hugh taught me the importance of the scientific side of things, the importance of being methodical, of using trials to test your theories. He looks at wine from the perspective of balance, and for seeking out flavor brightness, that ‘kiss,’ that ‘sweet spot’ that can utterly define a wine.”

Lambrix appreciates the opportunity to work with varieties as diverse as Pinot Noir and Zinfandel, in particular. “Pinot Noir is so light and delicate; Zinfandel, on the other hand, is so blatantly hedonistic, so high octane, so over-the-top. Then when you get to Cabernet Sauvignon, of course, you begin to talk about how you’re going to blend the wine, what other elements you’re going to bring to the table. Working with Greg taught me to take a closer look at the blending process. I remember tasting with him early on, and my blends were always lesser wines than his. He demonstrated that I was making the mistake of only putting the ‘pretty’ wines into my blends, whereas he was always adding little of what we called the ‘doggy’ wines, those wines that, when you add just a pinch to the blend, add a base note, a bit of background depth that really rounds out the wine. Amazing.”

In terms of the Mavericks, she applauds the H.D.D. LLC group’s decision to bring Bill Hambrecht on board early last year. “Not only does he bring extensive, organically farmed vineyards [including Floodgate and Grist Vineyard] and his Bradford Mountain label to the partnership, he also brings the kind of real-world, international experience and expertise that you can’t put a price on.”

On the personal side, Lambrix is a single mom whose 2-year-old son is the absolute highlight of her life. “James is a love. I just arrange my whole life around him. Pre-James, I loved horses, but I don’t have much time to ride anymore. I still have my horse, but he’s pretty old and seems to be enjoying retirement. He’s a Gaspar, a meld of thoroughbred and quarter horse. They have speed and stamina.”

Well blended

The Mavericks seem to be a good blend of speed and stamina as well. “We’re doing pretty good out of the gate, but I think we’re going to be around for a long time,” assesses finance man Mark DeMeulenaere, who also acts as general manager for the Truett Hurst property. “Maverick is kind of an in-house name we use that references the diversity of models that we’re working with and the flexibility that our varied experiences lets us bring to the table.”

Born in Moline, Ill., DeMeulenaere grew up an agricultural hotbed along the Mississippi River. “I went to high school in Cleveland and college at Trinity in Hartford, Conn., where I played football and lacrosse. After school, I took off with some friends to visit California…and just stayed! I got my MBA from Santa Clara and took a job with Masonite [wood products] in Ukiah. I quickly grew to love the area, and though I’m a finance guy, I really enjoyed getting involved in other aspects of the business, from sales and marketing to inventory and operations. It’s probably why they thought I’d fit in here.”

He notes that Truett Hurst was an easy fit to the portfolio. “The Martin Family Winery had some vineyards, but had pulled them out. There was a little winery and a home on the property and, when we took it over, we hit the ground running. We improved the winery, got it licensed for 40,000 cases, planted 14 acres of biodynamically farmed Zinfandel and Petite Sirah in 2008 and landscaped the tasting room area to where it’s a comfortable and beautiful setting, sitting as it does along a salmon-habitat creek. You sit down in one of our Adirondack chairs and you feel like you’re right at home.”

DeMeulenaere, who loves to bicycle and kayak, says the team is what it’s all about, and that the Mavericks have set up a solid vine-to-shelf and direct-to-customer model that will serve the team well. “All of us have worked with Paul Dolan at one time or another, and it’s his commitment to sustainable farming that lies at the core of what we’re about. It’s all interconnected. Paul hired Phil. Phil, at one time, had hired Heath Dolan [Paul’s son, a winemaker]. Bill’s grandson, Woody, a marketing specialist, is also involved. We all look at this whole thing as a legacy project, something that will sustain our children and their children well into the future. What could be better than that?”

Mavericks Team Wines

Healdsburg Ranches Chardonnay 2010 Russian River Valley, Appellation Series: Delicate white peach that spreads out elegantly along the palate. Yummy, and just the thing for a spring picnic.

VML Chardonnay 2010 Russian River: Fuji apple aromas that turn sappy and succulent in the mouth, rounding out nicely. Rich enough for veal, crisp enough for filet of sole or tuna tartar.

Healdsburg Ranches Pinot Noir 2010 Russian River: Black cherry and red cherry fruit that’s bright and alluring, with a hint of forest floor mushroom that really seals the deal. T-bone with butter-sautéed mushrooms.

VML Pinot Noir 2010 Russian River: Ripe black cherry and pomegranate, with a saucy kiss of bacon-toast French oak—just enough to know that it’s there. Round and sulky-silky in texture. Prime rib, dripping in blood.

VML Pinot Noir 2010 Russian River, Ivywood Vineyard: Thick Santa Rosa plum and rich black cherry, with sandalwood spiciness that brings this wine alive. Filet mignon.

VML Pinot Noir 2010 Russian River, Boudreaux Vineyard: Voluptuous and full-bodied with mushroom and blackberry fruit. Any mushroom-slathered meat dish.

Bradford Mountain Zinfandel 2007 Dry Creek Valley: Ripe raspberry and cranberry; tart and crisp on the palate. A pastrami sandwich from the picnic basket.

Truett Hurst 2009 Zinfandel, Dry Creek Valley, Old Vine, Rattler Rock: Strawberry and plum, with a nice anise seed bite. Salisbury steak.

Truett Hurst 2010 Zinfandel, Dry Creek Valley, Old Vine, Red Rooster: Dense blackberry and pomegranate, with the slightest hint of rosemary spiciness, which makes it just the thing for that barbecued Tri-tip you’ve been hankering for.