◆ What is your role as Executive Winemaker?◆ How has A to Z evolved since you joined?◆ How do you maintain the small winery mentality?Michael Davies◆ How did A to Z start?All wines are 750ml unless otherwise specified. Prices do not include Consumption Tax.Village Cellars Wine Catalogue 2024Spring－6－Early on they thought it was going to be a brand that helped bankroll their personal wine brands. Then after 3-4 years they realized it had legs ‒ it made sense, was sustainable, and part of the evolution of the Oregon wine industry, where suddenly if they could source the fruit and/or the wine, they could put Oregon wines on restaurant tables at a glass pour price. The key word being ‘consistently’, because supply had been a little bit variable until then.―― I joined A to Z in 2006, when we were basically a negociant brand with a small nimble team of 7, with partner wineries making wine for us, or going out and buying bulk wine. We were making some wine, but we didn’t have our own winery. It was a very flexible approach, because we bought what we could sell. It was cash rich even if it was asset poor. To really grow and become financially significant and sustainable, we quickly realized we had to commit to fruit contracts, double down working with key partners ‒ and we had to buy a facility. That’s when we purchased the Rex Hill winery, vineyards and assets in the northern Willamette Valley. It gave us a physical home, a soul, where we could blend, finish and bottle the wines. And have that extra level of control. From that time on we enjoyed steady growth, from 50,000 cases in 2006 to 120,000 cases in 2010, to over 300,000 cases in 2015. When you get to that scale, suddenly different markets open up ‒ you can supply supermarkets, cruise ships, you’re in all 50 states instead of a select 8. At the same time, while Pinot had been the only game in town and the driver of growth in Oregon, around 2014, partly in response to Pinot production in New Zealand and the Central Michael Davies came from New Zealand to work a harvest in Oregon while chasing a girl. He not only married her (winemaker Anna Matzinger), but settled in Oregon, working successively at Chehalem and Archery Summit, before joining A to Z in 2006. It was a pivotal time in A to Z’s growth, as it expanded from a side business for its founders to a driving force in the Oregon wine industry, introducing Oregon wines to all fifty States, and to a wider world. In 2022, A to Z become part of the Ste. Michelle Wine Estates portfolio.―― The first vintage at A to Z was in 2001, at a time when Oregon wines were starting to be recognized for quality, but typically known as being pretty expensive, so very few people were buying them. The four founders, Deb and Bill Hatcher, Cheryl Francis and Sam Tannahill, were two married couples who had started their own personal brands, and were used to small scale winemaking. They saw an opportunity in the 2001 harvest when the yields were solid and the market a little soft, for high quality wine that people for once were happy to sell as bulk wine. They worked their connections and called friends around the country and said: “if we can put a blend together of this quantity and at this price, can you sell it?” And the right people said “absolutely.” So that is how A to Z started. CODE12527A to Z Pinot Gris 2022 (Screw cap)Varietal: Pinot Gris Alc.13.1% Residual sugar 5.6g/LRRP￥3,300Tank fermented and aged on lees, with no MLF. Tropical fruit aromas followed by full-bodied bright fruit, balanced by natural acidity. 90pts Wine EnthusiastCODE12169A to Z Riesling 2021 (Screw cap)Varietal: Riesling Alc.12.0% Residual sugar 18.8g/LCoast in California, Oregon whites started getting established, and we saw a better balance in the portfolio between red and white wines.―― It’s a big job for me, we have a team of winemakers so my job is to make sure we have the quantity and quality we need for the brand, and I work closely with our President Amy Prosenjak to achieve that. Up until late 2022 I was working in a winemaking leadership team with founders/winemakers, Cheryl Francis and Sam Tannahill, focused on quality and style. We recognized 15 years ago that while we wanted to highlight individual vintages, there has to be a familiarity from year to year, so it is working towards maintaining a certain quality and style within a vintage. A lot of my time is spent visiting vineyards and checking that wines in the cellar are tasting how we think they should be tasting.We don’t want to make a generic wine ‒ we want to make Pinot Noir that stands up against Pinots from around the world. A lot of that is knowing when to stick with winemaking traditions, but also when to bring in technology. In the time I’ve been in the industry there has been a sea-change in the quality of the fruit coming from machine harvesting. Like Japan, labour shortages have become a real issue here. We also see a lot more specialization ‒ with scale, we have people who are professional in every capacity and aspect. Back in the day it used to be the same person would do everything, from writing the invoice to emptying the barrels to spraying the vines from the tractor. We’ve been fortunate with our growth that we have been able to afford to invest in the best technology and modern conveniences of winemaking. But what we haven’t wanted to do is compromise our quality or to take shortcuts. We have a deep bench of people who have a lot of experience. At our production level and price point, with buying fruit from throughout the State we have been lucky to be able to buffer ourselves from localized challenges ‒ such as forest fires, frosts, and birds. We know by being more spread out we are not as vulnerable.―― We try not to have a formula. We are really building a wine conceptually, trying to highlight the strengths from the different areas. Our experience is to let a wine do what it does best and then have faith the blend will speak for itself. We make two Pinots, and we know that each is always going to be the sum of the parts. If we have fruit from a particular vineyard in Southern Oregon, it may be low colour with more of a stone fruit profile, with higher alcohol or lower acidity, and we have to be very sensitive to when we pick it in the context of other fruit RRP￥3,300The 2021 growing season enabled extended hang time, the grapes developed rich flavours while maintaining good acidity. 91pts Wine Enthusiast
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