Wine in the Sky
Make high quality wines at the base of the Teton Mountains in Jackson Wyoming? It sounded like a pie in the sky idea to me, and at first it probably was for Tony Schroth as well. But Schroth pursued the idea anyway. I tasted his wines last week. They are excellent, and the winery is a growing success.
Tony Schroth grew up on a farm a few miles south of the city of Jackson, Wyoming, playing baseball and raising 4H livestock in his dad’s barn. His love of baseball brought him to Sonoma State University, which recruited him to play ball for them. A shoulder injury sidelined his baseball career, and a winemaking course taken on a lark set him off in another direction. Schroth graduated in 2006 with a double major in marketing and wine business, and started working at wineries in Sonoma. In 2007, he took over management of a struggling vineyard and returned it to quality fruit production within a few years.
Schroth first thought of making wine in his home town during a school internship at the O’Brian Family Vineyards in Napa. He noticed that the O’Brian facilities were similar to those of his father’s farm (minus the grapes). He went so far as to prepare a business plan for a winery in Jackson as a school assignment (though looking back on it, he realizes how little he knew at the time).
In 2009, Schroth made the dream a reality.
The climate in Jackson does not support grape growing. Not only is it hard to keep vines alive during the cold winter months, but hard frosts in mid-summer are not uncommon. Schroth believes, however, that fermentation and aging at high altitude (the Jackson property is at 6200 feet elevation) yields distinctive results, and he has a ready source of fruit from the vineyard he manages in Sonoma. So Schroth harvests grapes early in the morning in Sonoma, packs them with dry ice, and drives them to Jackson, where they arrive late the same day.
Schroth bottled his first vintage in 2011, and I tasted wines produced from the 2016 and 2017 vintages. His current lineup includes a Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, each produced with Russian River Valley fruit, and a Viognier, a Zinfandel and a variety of Bordeaux blends (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and even Malbec in some years).
The facilities at Jackson Hole Winery are all located on the farm Schroth grew up on. The one-hundred-year old barn that used to house his 4H livestock has been converted into a tasting room. It is still somewhat rustic (the only heat was from a space heater behind the bar), but it fits the ambiance of Jackson Hole perfectly. Several outbuildings on the farm have been built or converted into fermentation and aging cellars.
When we visited last week, Schroth and his crew of friends were bottling a recent vintage of Pinot Noir in one of these converted work spaces. The entire operation was done by hand, and Toni and I even completed a bottle or two. We each fit a bottle onto the filler (which only holds four bottles at a time), removed the bottle from the filler and placed it in the corking machine, plunged the cork into the bottle, placed a foil capsule over the top of the bottle, fed the bottle into a spinner that tightened the capsule, and then placed the bottle into a labeler that labels one bottle at a time.
Schroth faces some unique marketing challenges because he produces wines from California fruit in a state that is not adjacent to California. As a result, his labels cannot indicate the variety of the grape, the appellation of origin of the fruit, or the vintage year. As a result, most of his wines are sold under a trade name (e.g., Catch & Release, The Outlaw) and can only indicate that they are “American red (or white) wine.” His labels also indicate a “lot number” (e.g., “Lot 16”) which corresponds to the vintage year. He is able to include variety, appellation and vintage if the initial fermentation occurs in California, which he does with his Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Viognier.
Balancing these marketing challenges, Schroth has a ready local market in Jackson and nearby Teton Village, which have numerous fine restaurants (one of the reasons we love to visit the area), and he has a loyal following in the area. Indeed, the wine director at the Four Seasons in Teton Village works closely with Schroth at the winery.
Schroth has built his business slowly, starting with 200 cases in 2011 and moving up to 3600 cases this year. He has never extended beyond his ability to clear a profit and has been pleased that each step up has gone smoothly. His next step is to invest in a mechanized bottling process. That won’t be as much fun for visitors, but will be much less tedious for those who have to do it all day!
And the wines? They were remarkably good. Each of Schroth’s wines were classic in presentation. The Chardonnay harmoniously balanced oak and fruit; the Zinfandel was spicy with just enough raisin quality to mark it as Zinfandel; the classic orchard fruit of Viognier jumped out of the glass; and the Bordeaux blends were complex, layered, and structured to last for years. Each of the wines, even the notoriously low-acid viognier, was bright and crisp, and the tannins on the reds were all pronounced but fine grained and well-integrated.
Schroth pointed to the various awards his wines had won, as anyone marketing wine must do. Perhaps more telling, though, was his story of Fred Dame’s recent visit. Some of you may know Fred Dame from the movie Somm – in short, Dame is something of a dean of Master Sommeliers. Schroth said that after Dame had tasted several glasses at Jackson Hole Winery, he apologized for the preconceptions he had brought to the tasting. Dame had thought that high altitude wines were just a marketing gimmick, but after tasting them he liked them so well he came back the next day for more.
And as for me, I broke the rule I had set for this trip of buying only a bottle or two at each winery I visit (space is limited in the RV). I had a half case sent home, in addition to the bottle we took with us.
You can learn more about Jackson Hole Winery at their web site, here.