Are You A FOODIE?

Good Juice
by JR Guerra

McManis Family Vineyards were recently featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, as Winemakers to Watch. They over deliver in taste, and won’t break the bank. So they are a great way to go with any of their wines!
If 2009 marked the year of wine values, Ron and Jamie McManis were way ahead of the curve.

From the first vintage in 2000, McManis Family Vineyards labels have sold for $11 or less, a deal that’s held for a decade.

They must be doing something right, if astronomical growth is any indication. In its inaugural year, the Ripon winery’s production was 4,000 cases. In 2009, it soared to 300,000, across an array of nine varietals drawn from nine vineyards sprawled across the San Joaquin Valley.

Quality isn’t sacrificed for quantity. The 2008 McManis California Viognier landed firmly in The Chronicle’s Top 100 Wines. Other varietals – from Cabernet Sauvignon to Pinot Grigio – show a uniformly appealing style. The goal is a pleasing fruit-forward wine, with an oak influence and a rich finish.

As Ron McManis says, “There are other wines that have this focus, but they don’t have our price point.”

Though their label is barely 10 years old, the McManis family has been growing wine grapes in the Central Valley since 1938. For six decades, the family sold its grapes in bulk to other wineries.

Yet in an “a-ha” moment, Ron and Jamie hired winemaker Jeff Runquist in 1997 and a year later built their own winery. The fourth-generation farmers now operate more than 2,500 acres of wine grapes and purchase grapes from other growers to feed their burgeoning brand.

As president, Ron calls himself the big-picture guy, obsessed with maintaining a consistent product. Jamie manages the brand. The wines themselves are the work of Runquist, who now primarily consults; Mike Robustelli, who joined in 1999 and is taking over as head winemaker; and Luke Holcombe, who started as an intern in 2005 and is now assistant winemaker.

Ron McManis plays his cards close to the vest when discussing how he achieves his reliably crowd-pleasing bottles. Working in small, separate lots is key. Each tank can be treated differently with yeast, fermentation, temperature and aging time. Beyond that he and his team are mum on their techniques, though in the past they have described such cost-effective methods as using oak staves and chips to help give their wines consumer-friendly flavors.

Freshness is critical, too. The focus is on wines that are “at their highest quality when consumed young,” Ron McManis says. “We manage our inventory very carefully so our customers get the best.”

As much as their formula works, there’s always room for innovation. In 2008, the entire line of white wines was converted to a fancy new screw-top, distinctive because its threads are on the inside, resulting in a capsule with a smooth exterior finish.

“The screw-cap looks very upscale, but maybe too upscale,” Jamie McManis says. “We have customers trying to open it with a corkscrew.”

“Our focus is on three things: quality, consistency and value.” – Ron McManis

What they do: Make honest, affordable table wines that outperform the competition.

Cheers and happy sipping.