Dan Gatlin: Clones and Concentration. A Different Philosophy From Terroir-Based Explanations of Wine Quality.

andychalk
Jun 10
38 min read

by Andrew Chalk

“The most important thing the Texas Wine Industry must do immediately is to establish clear metrics for the production of fine wine, connecting the exact number of clusters per vine to concentration of flavor, and then to price. Failure to do this, coupled with the ongoing over production of vines hurting Texas wine quality, will result in the collapse of the Industry and make disinterest in Texas wine permanent for a generation.” - Dan Gatlin

Dan Gatlin is in his fifth decade of winemaking. The entirety spent at the winery he founded, Inwood Estates Vineyards. Through that winery, and other labels (referenced herein), he makes around 3,000 cases/year using 100% Texas grapes.

He makes the most expensive wines in Texas, and he sells out every year. He sells only to a select group of the human race who have signed up for his mailing list. The only restaurants who can order the wine are those who did when he started out. He has reached that nirvana for a small winery - 100% direct-to-consumer..

In a world where it is unfashionable to be elitist, everything about Inwood Estates is elitist. But the metric of that elitism is meritocracy, excellence. The objective is simply to make the best wine in the world. The evidence of that is that Gatlin has completely revised his winemaking philosophy more than once in his life. I have written how, in multiple feats of intellectual humility, he abandoned other approaches: hiring the experts from California, or vineyard altitude as the source of great grapes.

For more than a decade now, he has practised winemaking based on what I call concentration and clones. In this extended interview he sets this out and demonstrates it with a spectacular non-blind tasting that I had with him just two hours after a group of Masters of Wine and other luminaries had tasted the same wines.

I have interviewed Gatlin several times in the last 14 years. This is the most important. Never before were his views so completely formed and supported by his one winemaking work. And never before did I have as much space as the freedom of my own website affords me. His views deserve this space. Only one thing is left out, and that is my fault. I think up questions on the fly, and I did not question him as to how his theories apply to white wines given, especially, their different aging regimens from reds.

I will let him talk discursively to explain his fascinating views on winemaking. They are revolutionary compared to the prevailing wisdom that attributes quality to terroir.

In the interview below, square brackets (viz: []) are editorial annotations. The ‘Steve’ referred to is a photographer friend and wine lover who was present and participated.

THE DAN GATLIN INTERVIEW 2025

Inwood Estates Vineyards, Fredericksburg

I arrive at Dan Gatlin’s Inwood Estate Vineyards facility on US-290 near Fredericksburg on an early Sunday afternoon. He just spent the previous day judging 100s of wines in the Texas International Wine Competition in Austin. Just minutes before our arrival he hosted the other judges (among them Masters of Wine and three or four winemakers) to a tasting of his wines. Fortunately, the wines are still set up on a large table and he is able to bring us up to date on the happenings at his busy winery by means of a tasting. There is no better way for a winemaker to answer the question “What have you been doing?” than by presenting a selection of his wines. And Gatlin, now a spritely septuagenarian, is as innovative and active as ever.

Most of the wine world adheres to the view that it is where you grow your grapes. Dan, and a smaller group, like Professor of Viticulture Mark A. Matthews at UC Davis, adhere to the view that the importance of terroir is overstated. Move outside the few square miles of earth that God designated as Perfect for Viticulture and you can still make great wine.

That is because other things matter. To Dan, the two key variables in Texas are yields and clones. His typical grape yield is a bank balance-defying less than one-and-a-half tons per acre. This focuses the energies in the vine to produce stellar grapes. More typical yields are 4-6 tons per acre.

Tempranillo, at three tons per acre. That's 30 clusters, by the way. One and a half tons, 15 clusters, and 0.2 tons/acre being two clusters per vine, and the phenolic concentrations were 500 milligrams/litre for the three ton, went up to 700 milligrams/litre for the one and a half ton, and then went up to over 1100 milligrams/litre for the two clusters per vine.

The analyst at ETS told me he had never seen Tempranillo reach that kind of concentration because, and this gets into another topic, but swerving into the genetic issue again, he says Tempranillo is genetically inferior to Cabernet, so generally the only wines that can get to 1100 are Cabernets.

For clonal selection, Dan registers for the latest Bordeaux clones as soon as they are released from US quarantine. The list of wineries vying for the limited supply of the first release must be interesting. Ten California superstars and Inwood Estates Vineyards of Fredericksburg, Texas. Distinguished company.

The wines to taste are arranged in a line, there is a set order to our tasting and each wine illustrates something about the two metrics: clone and concentration. I am with a colleague who, like many readers, is enthusiastic about wine but not a winemaker, so Dan’s explanations for his benefit actually help in the commentary below.

CABERNET SAUVIGNON CLONES: THE OENTREPID PROJECT

Dan: So starting at that end, down there, we have two wines from the Oentrepid project. The Oentrepid project is the multi-clone Cabernet project, so what that means is that we grow nine different clones of Cabernet. The nine different clones are genetically different, and they have different flavor profiles. We grow one for its scent of rose petal, one for its scent of orchid, one for its pepper spice, one for blackberry, one for raspberry. The list goes on, so they all have a different, what we call, phenolic profile. The Oentrepid project was basically us being able to farm all these things, sit down at a table and say, okay, I want just this much rose petal, and just this much pepper, and just this much blackberry, and then it's almost like perfume making. It's where you assemble the wine that you want, and all the components of the wine that you want, in the proportions that you envision.

So the clones are clones of Cabernet that are genetic mutations, they're natural mutations, they're not like GMO or anything like that. A lot of the most valuable clones are controlled by the French, and clones generally only come out of the very oldest vineyards, because vines don't usually mutate until their DNA destabilizes past age 40. What happens is, once they start mutating, then people will isolate the mutations, They'll determine whether they have special characteristics for winemaking, whatever that may be, and the French government then will actually classify the clones as A grade, B grade, C grade, D grade, that kind of thing. Most of the genetic material that has been available to American wine producers over history has been mostly only C and D grade vines.

Grade A vines have been very hard to come by, and most have only really recently become available in the U.S., and only then a tiny handful, which means that there may be, who knows, how many more premium clones that are still available in France that are proprietary. And they're not willing to share, which they don't have to if they don't want to, but if they do, they want money. So that's how it works. So, and I'll talk more about this when we get to the other end of the table, but the multi-clone Cabernet [Oenspire] is what we'll taste first.

The other big thing that really affects the flavor of your wine is how many clusters per vine a vine produces, more clusters makes wine that's thinner and, and more watery and less concentrated.

A lower number of clusters makes wine that's richer and denser and, generally, much more concentrated and more valuable, but it's going to be more expensive because you have a lot less wine to sell, so that means you have to farm a lot more acres to be able to get the same amount of wine. Your tons per acre are really, really low.

Me [commentary]: Our first wine is 2022 OenSpire (second label to Oentrepid). The points Dan made above are summarised on the tech. descriptor for the wine (below).

Note the three clones, and grape yield of one ton/acre. This wine will be released in November 2025. When we tasted it was very young and closed, but also intense on the palate.

CONCENTRATION

…a friend makes wine in Calistoga. Once, we were tasting wine, and he said, wow, it's great. You're getting great concentration, taste, you're getting our kinds of concentration but, he says, you're doing it by reducing your yield so much. He says, it really sucks for you because you're not getting all your fruit, and I said, no, it sucks for you because you're paying $500,000 an acre for farmland. So, I said, at the end of the day we can both make really good wine. Neither of us can do it cheaply. That's the answer. It'd be great if there was some kind of a straight line to economic success where you're making world-class wine for $20 a bottle. That's not going to happen.

Dan: So, Spencer and I just gave a presentation to TWGGA (Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association), at the State Wine Growers Convention. Basically, we had a PowerPoint presentation, and we talked about global standards for clusters per vine. The global standard of fine wine being three tons or less. Table wines being 12 tons, 10 tons, that kind of thing. The metrics that we put up on the PowerPoint were that no Texas vineyard anywhere should ever be over three tons per acre.

Me: That is the absolute? Wow, and you escaped alive?

Dan: Basically, three tons would be the absolute highest that any Texas vineyard should ever produce and the reason for that is because, in a shorter growing season, you have less days on vine in order to accumulate polyphenols. A hundred percent of the flavor in your wine is made in the leaves, so none of it is made in the soil and climate. Everything is made in the leaves. It's all photosynthesized from the sun. The number of days that the sun comes up and goes down contributes to the amount of phenolic chemistry that makes flavor in your grapes. That's half of the equation, so the good part is if you have longer time, then you have more phenolic chemistry.

That's all great, but the other half of the equation is how many clusters are you feeding?

So, in other words, if you have x amount of phenolic chemistry made during the growing season, and then you have 80 clusters, each one's going to get one 80th of what's there. If you have only eight clusters, then you're going to have 10 times the flavor concentration, and so it's an elastic equation. It goes both ways.

You know, a friend makes wine in Calistoga. Once, we were tasting wine, and he said, wow, it's great. You're getting great concentration, taste, you're getting our kinds of concentration but, he says, you're doing it by reducing your yield so much. He says, it really sucks for you because you're not getting all your fruit, and I said, no, it sucks for you because you're paying $500,000 an acre for farmland. So, I said, at the end of the day we can both make really good wine. Neither of us can do it cheaply. That's the answer. It'd be great if there was some kind of a straight line to economic success where you're making world-class wine for $20 a bottle. That's not going to happen, so that's the end of the argument

Another metric I laid down was that whatever you produce in the High Plains at, say, three tons per acre, you should produce here [in the Texas Hill Country] at two because of the shorter growing season, so less number of days on vine here means that, that it's about a three to two ratio for whatever you can, the quality and concentration you'll achieve at three tons there, you'll achieve at two tons here. If you're doing one and a half tons there, same thing, one ton here applies, so that's how it works.

Me: And everything you're saying is based on your own empirical evidence?

Dan: It is, but not only that. During the presentation, we presented phenolic analysis from ETS (ETS is the gold standard laboratory for wine in the U.S.). So, they measure phenolic concentration in milligrams per liter, and we presented three wines.

Tempranillo, at three tons per acre. That's 30 clusters, by the way. One and a half tons, 15 clusters, and 0.2 tons/acre being two clusters per vine, and the phenolic concentrations were 500 milligrams for the three ton, went up to 700 milligrams for the one and a half ton, and then went up to over 1100 milligrams for the two clusters per vine.

So getting to that point of concentration was something that even the people at ETS were impressed with. He said that must have been a gigantic wine, and I said well, actually it was.

Me: It’s not economically feasible to have acreage planted in just getting two clusters per vine.

Dan: I don't know, I mean, it's expensive but I just saw that it's going to be way up there in cost. I mean, I sell a dozen bottles every week at $300 a bottle, so that's low production. Maybe we make 30 or 40 cases when we do it, but we don't do it every year.

Me: Frequently, on social media, when I've said something or written an article about you, Dan, I'll get somebody who comments and says “But the wines are so expensive”, and I will have a standard reply, which is, “But he sells out of every bottle every year”. Well, these are not overpriced. These are exactly where the market is at.

Dan: Yeah, I just had five international wine judges buy a bottle each because they said it's the best Tempranillo they've ever had in their life, all worldwide. These people are from all over.

Okay. So, am I a lunatic? No. Do other people do this? Yes, they do.

I don't know everyone's production rate, but there are a number of famous producers working at very low clusters like Beckstoffer, Hundred Acre and notably Termanthia, since we are talking Tempranillo , plus I understand their vines to be over 100 years old. And they're about $250 a bottle, and totally worth it I might add. So maybe, I'm a bargain, in jest, of course

You'll be able to taste 15 clusters per vine, Cornelius, and then there's the two clusters per vine. Magnus has two clusters per vine, but it's Tempranillo and Cabernet. So that is more of a Ribera style. So there’s the Toro style [Cornelius], and there's the Ribera style.

For the record, I do not do a Rioja style and I'm adamantly opposed to Rhône Valley grapes.

CLONES

Magdalena and Château Marie La Rose appear to be the same on paper. They look like they're the same. They're left bank Bordeaux blends, but Magdalena is made from heritage clones. And the Château Marie La Rose contains the fancy French clones. All of these are classified as A grade by the French government. Every single one of them.

Me: I remember when Dan was first growing these, Steve. He drove me in his truck down to his experimental vineyard.

Dan: I did. Right.

Me: It was hard for an outsider to envisage what this long-term venture would become. I was actually there at the genesis of something that would lead to international wine judges buying the wine. And I don’t think that is the end. There are Texas winemakers, younger generations, who will follow this superclone route.

Dan: We've been doing this for a number of years and, and yeah, this is a good wine [pointing to Château Marie La Rose]. It’s a much better wine or a much more authentic wine in terms of if you're familiar with Bordeaux, if you really like French wine. The last wine on the table is fantastic (2022 The “Initiate”, Gatlin Family Wines, Texas).

This was the preferred wine from the group today [pointing to the Initiate]. This is, if you're not familiar with what Merlot 181 is, this is one of the most fantastic grapes that have come out of the French ENTAV program and released into the U.S. Merlot 181 is the only A grade Merlot ever available in the United States. And it's only been with us for about maybe nine or 10 years.

Me: So it's fantastic. It's an amazing grape. Well on there, it says ENTAV. Does that imply that it's grade A or is that just the body?

Dan: That's the body. We say it's the French version of the USDA. And so, if a proprietary owner of a vine that is genetically unique to them decides, and most of them don't decide, most of them are still proprietary. But if they happen to decide that they want to put it in international distribution, they would tender that to ENTAV, who then would pass it to the USDA for, in the case of America at least, pass it to the USDA. The USDA would give it to a FPS, which is Foundation Plant Services. And it would be quarantined there for 10 years to ensure that it's certified disease free. There's no pathogens that could destroy the grape industry.

Me: Can you reclone those vines? And if you could, would that be legal?

Dan: There's no, recloning. That would be the wrong term. But the question is, could you replicate them? Yes. And it would be illegal. Because, when we sign on with a contract to buy these, we also sign a non-propagation agreement. That's the function of ENTAV, to make sure that doesn't happen.

This is not GMO though. These are natural mutations that occur in French vineyards. And interestingly, grape vines generally do not mutate younger than 40 years old.

And so that word clone is kind of misused, but they mutate and then somebody will take cuttings. And then once new vines are made from those cuttings, you're right. Then as a young vine, then they typically will have another 40 years or so before they will mutate again.

Me: So they'll graft that cutting onto other rootstock or will they start a new vine?

Dan: They can or not. That's an irrelevant question. The rootstock doesn't change the genetics of the vine.

So if they choose to use a rootstock, that would be a choice that a grower would make given a number of things. Most of the time it is for disease resistance or something like that. But then there's lots of vines on their own roots.

Vines that are grafted, if you want some Native American rootstock, a lot of times people do choose that because they can usually get their vineyard in production one year sooner with it. So that's a big issue financially. And then if you choose an ENTAV clone, then you're going to pay the royalty on top of that. That is the way it works.

Me: So this is how they found a way, basically, to protect these clone enhancements, these super clone creations. So that's good because it means there's an incentive to preserve them.

Question. So, tell me about your optical sorter. You made the commitment. Has it turned out to be fantastic?

Dan: It's like unfreaking believably great.

Steve: And what qualities does it sort for?

Dan: I'll get to that in just a second. Let me finish with this one. So this is, Merlot 181 and Merlot 181 is incredibly fragrant. You remember when Miles [in Sideways] said, I will not drink blankety-blank Merlot [Ed: Miles stole from his mother. He may have killed the Merlot market, but he stole from his mother.]. So basically, when he said that, he was kind of correct because, in the 1990s, the only clones of Merlot available in America were France's worst. I mean, I'm sorry, but that's really the truth. And American Merlot was never something that people really clung to and liked that much because we didn't really have good material. This is good material. And so that's a different, it's a different world. And I love this clone. It's fantastic. This [The “Initiate”] is the right bank blend. It's 97% Merlot 181 and only 3% Cab Franc.

Me: Why the trace amount of Cabernet Franc?

Dan: You know, I think just to give it just a little extra pepper, just to give it a little bit of pepperiness. In our blends, we found that a 1% differential in Cab Franc made a big difference. Even a difference between 4% or 5%, 1% is noticeable.

Me: Wow. You sound like the kind of guy who would be growing Carménère next.

Dan: Well, you know, we've gotten Carménère from Narra [Narra Vineyard] when we were doing that, we have Carménère. I have three barrels of it in my cellar here and we produce it as one of our low level wines, and it's okay. As I've gotten older, the basic economic equation is the fact that it costs just as much to grow one vine as it does many types, you start to wonder why grow any inferior vines? Why not just grow all the good stuff? And if you operate a wine club like we do, and it's pretty large, then a lot of times people want to see, see new things. They don't want to get the same wines over and over. But that's the only reason. As far as cost, it doesn't make any sense you might as well just grow hundred dollar bottles of Cabernet. No reason to grow $30 bottles of something else.

Me: Right.

Dan: So we'll taste Oentrepid in a moment and I'm gonna get some glassware. We'll start at that end. We'll just work our way down then you can see the contrast. With the first two wines, just so you know, there's a second label and a first label.

The gold is the first label. That's the star performer for us, that's a six clone blend.

And then the black label, there are years when we don't get all six clones in real good condition. We'll harvest two or three clones and then it'll rain. And then the last two or three clones are not as great. And so a lot of times what we'll do is we'll just discard the last clones and we'll take the good ones that were in good condition and we'll just make a lesser wine out of it. And that's what the black designates.

So this is the second label, Oenspire. Now, to be fair, this wine just got bottled and it will be released in November, but I wanted the group to see the second label versus the first label.

Me: Dan, this nose is jumping out of the glass.

Dan: Yeah.

Me:. Even though you say this is your second label.

Dan: Yeah. I mean, it's a good wine. It's not as good as the Gold label, but it's a good wine. And we have a level of our membership called the Proprietor Club. Our Proprietor Club, both these wines are Proprietor wines. And they get sold in packages. So in other words, people subscribe and these wines (Ch. Marie) are Proprietor wines too. These are two that we'll taste again. They'll get a package of two bottles or three bottles or something like that. It's usually around 300 bucks. Now, if it's the Gold label, they'll probably get two bottles, but if it's the Black label, they'll probably get three or four. So that's what it basically goes down to.

Me: The intensity of the fruit, the complexity in the mouth. This is the first one.

Dan: Yeah. There's no thin wine here. That's the low yields.

Me: So, tell me about your optical sorter. You made the commitment. Has it turned out to be fantastic?

Dan: It's like unfreaking believably great.

Me: This is just absolutely massive, absolutely massive and complex. It's not just a block. It's not full-square.

Dan: This is more like what you would expect in California, you know? And that's good.

That's what we're aiming for. We can compete. We just have to convince growers to stop flooding the market with 10 tons per acre and putting it in every Chevron and every Shell, I mean, it's just flooded the market to a point where that's the only thing people think Texas wine is, cause it's everywhere.

Me: Plus I would say that, and another thing is that I find people who have that low opinion of Texas wines. And when I ask them what wine, it turns out what they've been drinking is a wine that was not a Texas wine. But it was marketed to look like a Texas wine. It didn't, as your t-shirt says, say Texas on it.

Dan: Yeah, Central Valley wine or something? Yeah. Get some bulk wine from Modesto.

Me: I'm getting blackberries from this [Oenspire].

Dan: Yeah. This is, this is real dark, real dark wine. But it's really, I forget what the clones are. I think it's four, six and eight. Is that what that sign says? I can't remember.

Me: Eight, four, and 412.

Dan: Oh okay. 412 brings in a little bit of pyrazine. So in other words, it's got a little spiciness to it. 412 is real peppery. I have found that you can kind of only use a certain amount of 412. We've cut back on how much we make of it, we still make it, but I'm not making as much of it as I did just because it's just so peppery.

Me: The tannins are very smooth, but very powerful. This is going to last a long time, isn't it?

Dan: Well, the other thing is, you know, bear in mind, this release is in November. So it just got bottled two weeks ago. So, the good news about that is that it's got plenty of time in the bottle. We're, all of our proprietor wines are things that we bottle way out ahead of time.

The Chateau Marie LaRose we always give them one full year in the bottle, which is pretty remarkable because you don't usually get that.

Wineries usually just throw wine out into the marketplace, you know. The Chateau Marie LaRose gets a year, the Oentrepids don't get quite a year, they'll usually get half a year, but still that's a pretty good differential.

RELEASE WHEN READY?

Me: Yeah. And, have you ever thought about doing something like the following: take a wine that you've made, or that Bordeaux has made, then when it's released, it's got a certain character, people taste it and so-called experts try and give it a score.

Eventually, the wine reaches a point where experts will generally agree it's ready to drink. There may be minor disagreements. But at that point, the ordinary consumer who may have bought it, or has not bought it, or bought it and drank it early thinks, I wish I had some.

Have you ever thought about coming out with the same wine, same label, but like a, I don't know how you do it, maybe a gold band that says “Winemaker’s Late Release”. That's it. And that would become synonymous with the winemaker saying, “In my opinion, this is at or close to its peak”.

Dan: You know, that's a good question. And the answer is no, because of cash flow issues. Because of the interest rate. Because of the money.

Me: Right. Exactly. My thinking is the price appreciation at least offsets that for high-end wine.

Dan: But it's not that it's not a great idea. And, and you know, Latour does that. That's so, but even still like most of the Bordelaise don't, they just release it to a négoçiant and say, here, come get it.

Me: And that's a surprise to me. It almost makes me think, from an entrepreneur standpoint, a third party could come in and buy at the négoçiant’s price and then basically keep some reliable top ones.

Dan: Anyway, this wine [Oentrepid], you'll see is the first label and you can see it's a lot more fruit forward and more complex. It's six clones and based on 169 and 7. So this guy has got a lot of fruit and perfume.

Me: Yeah, it's jumping out of the glass and I completely believe you that it's even more forceful.

Dan: This is a little bit of a Margaux-ish kind of wine. It has got more perfume and less tannin. When we released this wine, they got two bottles for $300. So it was at $150 a piece.

Me: Well, that was a bargain.

Dan: And that was, let's see, that was a year and a half ago that this came out and I still have a few cases, but I don't have a whole lot of it.

Me: There is that perfumy quality that you mentioned. There's cedar in there as well.

Dan: Yeah.I like this wine. I really do.

Me: It's a brilliant combination.

Dan. Yeah. But now this is a case where we do still have proprietor members that come back and buy lots. My deal with them is that they get to buy at the original lot price for as long as there's inventory. So in other words, if somebody got two bottles for 300, they could come back a year and a half later. If I still have some, they still have a right to buy it at two bottles for 300.

Me: That's great. And these tannins are even more powerful than the first one.

Dan: This wine has a real high level ripeness.

Me: An invidious question, Dan, but when do you think this will be at its peak?

Dan: One of the ways we kind of gauge that is how long do we have to open it in advance for a wine tasting? And all these wines were opened yesterday. And so they've been open now almost right about 24 hours. They're not showing any sign of oxidation. So that means that they've probably got some pretty good time left.

Me: And the Masters of Wine were drinking them four hours ago.

Dan: Exactly.

Me: Yeah. And this also has, I don't know, I call it orange peel in the back of the mouth.

Dan: Some Cabernet does have that. And it does just have almost a little bit of citrus.

Steve: What is the image on the label? Is that a mountain range?

Dan: It is, and it's kind of meant to symbolize, the Oentrepid project. it was all about trying to explore everything we could do with the clones. And so it's kind of like the intrepid winemakers doing something that other people are not doing.

Me: Dan, I should tell Steve that in all the Hill Country, you won't find anybody who is as fastidious about clones as Dan. He's done more work with them and more research.

Dan: We do a lot with clones. And it's great because there's clones of Cabernet that are mind-blowing. And then there's some that are pretty pedestrian. If you really want to know the truth, they're not that great.

HOW TO RECOGNIZE, SELECT, AND PROPAGATE SUPERCLONES

Steve: How do they know which they're buying? How do they know first, if it's mutated? Is the fruit tested genetically every year?

Dan: So that's a really good question.

I know how they do it now because we have better technology as far as DNA goes. Now, how they did it 10 years ago, I'm not exactly sure, to be honest. But I know that they relied a lot on leaf structure and cluster sizes and things like that where some Cabernet clusters are this long and some are the size of my fist. So that's a pretty good clue.

Steve: And then part B to the question is, once you know it's a mutation, how do you determine what benefits?

Dan: Yeah, you have to make the wine. That's what you have to do. And to be fair, grapes don't mutate because they want to make better wine for the humans. Grapes mutate in response to a pathology that is usually a disease resistance kind of an issue. So they mutate for survival most of the time. And the answer is that not all mutations are valuable for winemaking.

Steve: You'd have to have a quantity of these mutations. You'd have to reproduce the mutation.

Dan: This is an example I use sometimes. I say imagine 150 years ago and you're the winemaker at a first growth Chateau and you've got 300 acres of vineyards all over. And you're watching all the Cabernet come through on horse-drawn wagons. And you're seeing how they're turning out each batch from each vineyard block and stuff. And all of a sudden you get one that's, wow, this is way greater than anything I have! This is my best block. What's going on with that?

So what you do then is you tell your vineyard manager: you say, next time you need vines for a new vineyard block, go get the cuttings from that. You see what I mean? Selection. And it's a kind of natural selection with human assistance. And if you multiply that process times for centuries, you get that very special First-Growth wine. . I'm sorry, but that's what you get. And the idea that, oh, the soil and climate is different on this side of the fence. I mean, that's ridiculous.

That's completely absurd. But if you do that kind of assiduous vineyard management and it's under one continuous operation, that's very important. Then all of a sudden you get things that no one else has.

Me: No. Dan, when you spoke to TWGGA, did you tell them about the importance of clones?

Dan: I did, but I didn't have much time. I was really limited on time so I was driving the point home about production levels and I was really trying to get my point across. And because I had a lot of growers in the room and it was really important to make that point. But the answer is, I touched on it, but I didn't get to really spend a lot of time on it.

What I did though, was I got my point across to the growers that it's really important not to waste your vineyard space and your money on varieties that are going to bring $20 in the marketplace. You know what I mean? What's $20? You can grow this stuff if you want, why not grow this? Everyone could grow this (points to higher end products). There's nothing special about us. Anyone can do this.

Steve: It's trying to memorize that nose. That's amazing.

Dan: I can give you another glass if you want. It's not a problem.

TEMPRANILLO

Dan: So we're into Tempranillo now.

So this, Cornelius, is Tempranillo at 15 clusters per vine. It's got a really nice, bright strawberry kind of aromatic, very different from the Tempranillo at two clusters, which you'll get next.

THE CLONES AND CONCENTRATION THEORY

Me: Wow. Just before you go onto that, Steve, what you're hearing, this philosophy of tiny yields clones, and clonal selection over time, as producing sort of super clones and super vines.

Dan and Professor Mark Matthews at UC Davis are the two main exponents of this. I can't think of anybody else by name who's done this. It's a total rejection of the conventional view that terroir is what determines grape quality because what Dan is saying is something like the following example.

Right next to Château Latour is Château Andrew Chalk. You've never heard of it and you shouldn't be bothered because the wines are terrible. How can terroir be important if Château Andrew Chalk, right next to Château Latour, is so bad and Château Latour is world-class? The answer is, it's not location, it's not terroir, it's not climate, it's not the soil. It's something else. Dan has got the name for something else: It's clones and concentration.

You are tasting the results of profoundly different thinking.

Dan: So one of the things that I cited in my presentation at TWGGA. There was a study that was done and it said that in the production of a wine, from the time pruning starts at the very beginning, all the way till it's in the bottle three years later, there's something like 600 decisions in the decision tree. Okay, that's a lot. It's a massive amount.

And my suggestion to the audience was that the table of variables is so huge that almost everything that you smell and taste in that wine can be traced to somewhere in that decision tree. It's so complicated that you read Wine Spectator and they say, oh, well, it's terroir. Because it's a sound bite. It's a percolated-down message, but it's not accurate. It's not.

I'll give another example.

These are just like examples. I say the closer you look at a problem, the closer you look at something, the more detail you see. It's kind of like a hundred years of physics.

We started with molecules. Then we find atoms. Then we find electrons. Then we find quarks. And it's like, the more you look at it, it's like the Russian doll theory. It's a doll in a doll. It's one inside another, inside another, inside another. That's how knowledge grows.

The concept of terroir is like that molecule that's a blob.

As a concept, it’s got all this stuff stuck into it. All these random facts that make no sense, but they're just amalgamated together into this big molecule. But if you break that molecule open, the first two things that fall out are great genetics and great physiology. Now you're talking about a different thing because those are very specific areas of study. Now we're talking about things that we can actually learn from, that we can actually intellectualize, that we can define, and that we can put into good use by developing metrics.

And so that's where the great genetics comes in with the clones, great physiology comes in with the way they're farmed, trying to channel all of your phenolic chemistry into a smaller number of clusters. So those are your two areas that we first focus on. Now, I mean, I can talk for days on genetics just because the more you look, the more you're going to find.

It's just the same thing, and the same thing on the physiology side. The more you look, the more you're going to find.

Steve: So, if I'm hearing you correctly, the terroir, which everybody's talked about ever since I've had my first glass of wine, hardly matters at all.

Dan: Maybe none, if it’s managed correctly by the humans.

Steve: Because, and I picked up when you said that 100% of phenolic compounds come from what happens in the leaves. So when you talk about wines from Graves as opposed to, you know, Medoc or whatever, there's got to be some effect on the different pH of the water that comes into those roots and some other things, no?

Dan: No, there isn't, actually.

So, again, analyze it from the same standpoint. Your friends in Graves, are they growing the same clones as they are in Pauillac? Do you know? No, because you're assuming that. So you don't know. So that's a big issue. Are they growing the same clones of Cabernet Franc? Are they growing the same clones of Petite Verdot? I mean, we don't know. Nobody ever tells you, do they?

RIPENESS

The other issue is the level of ripeness. And that's where the great physiology comes in. How many clusters are they producing? How ripe are they getting? At a lower number of clusters per vine, guess what? All that gravelly taste that you're supposed to get in a Grave goes away. Because you're not going to get that anymore. Because now you're going to get a higher level of ripeness and all of a sudden that French wine is going to start to seem a little more Americanized because our levels of ripeness are quite a lot higher than they are in France. So there's a ton of variables in this. Just a huge amount.

But ultimately, if you're growing the same clone and you're getting the same level of ripeness, I don't care where in the world you are, the wine's going to taste the same.

Steve: So basically, terroir is not the big deal that all these people said mattered so much.

Dan: It's like I say, terroir is like that concept that's just amalgamated. It's a big blob of thinking, you know. It's just a big blob of all these facts just thrown together in a cardboard box, but I think the easiest way to visualize it is say, okay, let's talk about the terroir concept just a little bit and let's just think about the two main things that make it up, which is genetics and physiology. If we just go with those items, just those things, and just say, okay, terroir is like all that stuff just mixed together and, you know, hard to define one thing from another.

Let's just forget all that. Now let's talk specifically about genetics, let's talk about physiology, let's talk, you know, apples to apples. And that's the beginning of finding the truth.

That's the pathway to finding the truth. It really is. Otherwise, it's just like, I don't know, I mean, terroir is more kind of like opinions. Everyone has one and, you know, but now, science is different. Now you talk about genetics and physiology.

Steve: Well, that's why I mentioned the pH because, you know, just chemically, you know, obviously, if the rain percolates down through chalky limestone, it's going to have a different character when it gets to the roots than rain that's percolated down through granite.

Actually, the truth is that it doesn't matter. It doesn't because actually all the minerals in the soil and things that you're trying to pin into the wine are filtered out through the vine itself. Actually, none of it.

Those things are like vitamins for your vine. They're a little bit like fertilizer, but they're more like vitamins. And the vine uses them to its own advantage.

Steve: So the plant is only going to send to the grapes what it's going to send to the grapes, regardless of where the roots get the water.

Dan: The plant's basically only going to send water to the yeah, the pH is going to be a function pretty much of the length of your growing season. And it's going to go up faster if the length of your growing season is shorter. The only thing different in the climate really is the length of the growing season, the number of days on vine is the only thing that separates one from the other.

2020 Colos

Dan: Two clusters per vine. 100% Tempranillo. Providing 100% of your max concentration of fruit.

Me: Oh, yeah, dark.

Dan: Really dark.

Me: So Termanthia is three to five clusters per vine?

Dan: I have emailed with them, but it would be up to them to share that information if they choose. My understanding is that the vineyard's over 100 years old, so it's going to be making a real low amount.

Me: So, they're really sharing your philosophy in the sense that they…

Dan: I believe they are. . Right.

Me: It's the clone, and it's the yield.

Dan: Yeah, I really like this wine, though. There's a lot of concentration here. And, I think, of the wines we've made, this is one of our best examples of what we have.

Steve: I just can't get over the two clusters per vine, the minimum- How precious those two clusters must be per vine, which is reflected, obviously, in the wine price. And in the quality of what's in the glass.

Dan: Yeah, this wine's super velvety.

Me: Yeah, so velvety, and yet so powerful. Because the concentration of the fruit is just immense.

Dan: But it's not all tannin. I mean, it's a lot of tannin, but it's not all tannin. You know, so, I mean, it's got good fruit, and good aromatics.

Steve: And longevity-wise, you mentioned these have been open for 24 hours. Yes. There's no real change from oxidation.

Dan: No, actually, I mean, when you open them, they're reductive. There is a change, but it's from reductive to normal. Not normal to oxidative.

Steve: So newly opened, these bottles

Dan: Yeah, they would need some time.

Steve: They would be a lot chewier. A lot tougher on the palate.

OAK

Me: Given your philosophy, Dan, where does the choice of the type and amount of wood come in? Because I know that you also only go with French oak.

Dan: That's right, and that's a fantastic question. And you see a lot of new wood behind you.

[We are in the Inwood Estates Barrel Room and a wall of barrels, many new, is behind us. Their ends are a walk of fame of French coopers]

You know, all the logoed barrels are things we add every year. We add about 10 to 15 new barrels every year, which is a lot considering we only make about 60 barrels a year. So, interestingly, we have grown to, as we look at this, mostly we were all medium [toast], and we're all in medium plus.

You know, these were things like, this is a medium, but there's some medium pluses around here. And so last year, I had a whole bunch of barrels outside that had just emptied, and they couldn't fit their barrels right away.

We experimented with heavy toast last year. We didn't like it. And a lot of it's very subjective, you know? It's like certain, you know, winemakers like certain things, you know?

Me: Colos. There's a perfumey character to it as well.

Dan: It's got some good phenolics. It really does.

TEMPRANILLO AND CABERNET BLENDS

Take the same wine, two clusters per vine and make a Ribera style. And this, Magnus, is a Tempranillo and Cabernet. And so, if Termanthia was the competitor for the first one, then this would be a Vega Sicilia competitor. This is another really nice one, I like this wine again, too.

It's got some thickness, but it's also got a lot of perfume. I make less of this wine, and yet it's actually a little bit less expensive, so it's a really popular wine. It's not on any wine list, I don't put it for sale, I don't taste it on a regular basis, so we make no effort to sell this wine whatsoever. It's just only occasionally, by request. I kind of hoard it a little bit, because it's good for my presentations. I need wines that I can educate with. So for me, this is kind of one of those that I educate with.

Me: Yeah and I got some woodiness, some cedar coming through. Plus dark fruit.

Dan: There's a little bit of black there. I was gonna say, there's some black currant in this.

We had some, we had at the last flight of the competition, we had to judge some fruit wines, and some black currant wine was actually kind of interesting. It was a good education.

But there is definitely some black currant in this wine.

Me: Yes. And this has the chewiest tannins yet, I think.

BORDEAUX LEFT BANK BLENDS

Dan: So this wine, Magdalena.

Me: Yes. And right now, this is very unyielding. This is closed in.

Dan: And it's been open for quite a long time. Now, to be fair, they drank another bottle, and then this bottle didn't get tapped, I mean, didn't get poured at all, so this is the first pour of it, but they were both open.

Me: Massive.

Dan: So this bottle's been breathing, but it hasn't been breathing a whole lot.

Me: Yeah. This is incredible.

Dan: So these, Magdalena and Chateau Marie LaRose, appear, on paper, to be the same wine, but they're not the same wine because Magdalena is from heritage clones, and Ch. Marie is made from the fancy clones.

So anyway, this is your chance to kind of see the difference between them. And, you know, Magdalena is a long time staple for us and very popular with our membership. So I always framed it as a Saint-Julien Margaux style, you know, something that's a little riper than the Magellan which is Paulliac-style. So anyway, that's, and like I say, not a bad wine. I'm not trying to talk it down, but, not as good as the French clones. I mean, the French clones are really stellar.

Me: I was around and a fan back when you introduced the first vintage of Magdalena. And you had another one that was the same year.

Dan: Magellan, there was Magellan and Magdalena. Magellan was more the Paulliac or Graves style, you know, and we still do it. We did a 21 Magellan, we did a 17 Magellan, and there was a 06 and 08. So those were the four Magellans in our history, there's only been four. And the Magdalenas, now there's been quite a few Magdalenas. Magdalena is that kind of medium ripeness level. We see a lot of good fruit that is high quality and qualifies for Magdalena. And heritage clones, you know, like seven, eight, and what is that, Cab Franc, clone four, PV2, those are like less valuable clones than this list. You know, the 169, and 412, and 214 and all that kind of stuff. Those are the fancy ones. And like I say, Magdalena's not a bad wine. It's just not as good as the Chateau Marie LaRose.

Me: Yeah. So if I went to Neal Newsom's Vineyard, is he in here?

Dan: Yeah, these are a combination of vineyards. That's why we had to put Texas Red Wine on it. Because the seven came from Tivydale, the eight came from Narra, the four and the Cab Franc and PV, Cab Franc four and PV2 are both Narra wines. So anyway, it's kind of a combination.

GETTING AWAY FROM VINEYARDS WITH NORTH-SOUTH ROWS. THE OPTICAL SORTER DOES NOT LIE

I'm really trying to get away from all North-South rows. And the North-South rows are an eternal problem. The fruit on the East side is underripe and the fruit on the West side is burned up in the sun. And so on the East side, you've got fruit that's vegetal. On the West side, you've got fruit that's pruney. So it's like having prune juice with celery sticks in it.

[Laughter]

You know two wrongs don't make a right. So I've actually heard other winemakers, I'm not going to say who, but I've actually heard other winemakers say, oh no, it's fine. You just put them together and it averages out.

Well, it doesn't average out because, like I said, it's prune juice with celery sticks in it. So that's not, it's not actually grapes. So we're trying to get rid of all of the North-South rows and go only to East-West as would be my preference.

Me: Quick question. What is the, quote, conventional wisdom about row planting?

Dan: Yeah, East-West in a hot climate, absolutely hands down. Now the reason they do it in North-South in West Texas is because that's the way the wind blows. And, so as a functional solution I can understand the temptation to do that. But the wine that comes out, the growers don't ever have to deal with the wine that comes out, they just sell the grapes and then it's out of sight out of mind, you know.

Steve: If you were really paying attention though, couldn't you solve that problem with harvesting one side later than the other?

Dan: You can't, not with a machine. Machines take everything. Machines take it all.

Steve: And it's cost prohibitive to hand harvest.

Dan: Good luck finding people.

Steve: Well, I know some of the folks out here, they have like harvesting parties for small batches. Obviously they get people to go out.

Dan: Not on this level. And not in West Texas, where there's 200 people in a county (cynically speaking).

Anyway, there's a couple of hand harvest crews that were working last year. And I hand harvested a little bit last year. But man, it's a beat down.

Steve: Well, if you, if you plant East West, then your North side's really not going to get ripe, right? Because it's never going to get direct sun.

Dan: Not necessarily. No, if you plant East West, the sun's basically overhead in the summer.

So East West, your sun is basically overhead. With East West rows, we have much, much more even ripening. And, almost all of the new vineyards planted in Napa now are going East West.

Steve: Just in the summer when it comes up, it's going to be North of the equator. So you'll get morning sun on the North side and in the afternoon, you'll get afternoon sun.

Dan: The key is you really want as much indirect light on your fruit as possible, but no direct sunlight. So, you want the canopy to filter all the sunlight and you don't want any sunlight really on your fruit, but you want the canopy level above the fruit line so that your fruit line is getting indirect sun from all sides.

Me: That was going to be my question. Somebody like Richard Smart [a famous viticulturist who has extensively studied canopy management], would he say that you can deal with all that through canopy management?

Dan: You can, you can. Good canopy management. I told some people this the other day. In previous years, we have received a lot of fruit that was very unevenly ripened from vines planted on North South rows. The optical sorter takes pictures of every berry. If there's a speck on it that's pink or green and not completely purple an air jet ejects it. That's what that machine does. And so the rejection rate on that fruit was averaging 30 to 35%.

Me: Wow.

Dan: That sucked. I mean, that was no good.

Me: I'm going to put that in print because that's amazing.

Dan: That was no good. Right. And, you know, in 2024, in 18 weeks I made 15 trips to West Texas, and personally watched the canopy management and we got it much, much better in 2024. My rejection rate was five to 7%.

Me: That's huge.

Dan: It's a huge difference. Huge financial impact for us. So the optical sorter doesn't lie.

The filter is whatever you set it to. And we used the same filter both years. But the key was that we just had to get our fruit more evenly, ripe

Okay, two wines to go and then you're, you've survived the gauntlet.

Me: This was a gauntlet? I'd do a take again. You've got a moral hazard problem.

Dan: It's not bad. It's not too bad. Now this is a really interesting wine and clearly much more French style. And these are, and you can take a picture of the list of the clones, you know, and you can see what it is. [The picture of the clones is for 2022 Ch. Marie LaRose. It is a picture of all “A” Grade ENTAV clones: Cabs 4, 412, 169, Cab Franc 214, Petit Verdot 400.]

This wine, to be fair too, it also says on the sheet that this wine is one year away from release.

So this, you've got a full year in the bottle to go. And I think you'll be able to see what the difference is very easily. Much more pronounced fruit. Completely different style of wine. Much more, much more authentically Bordeaux.

Me: Oh, the fragrance, the perfume fragrance. It's like rose petals.

Dan: We're talking just a whole different, whole different world. Much more effusive is a good word, I think. And different genetics. I mean, on paper, it looks like the same wine, but it's clearly not the same wine.

Me: And it's, the odd thing is that it's not yet released. It tastes more resolved than the 2020s.

Dan: Exactly.

Me: Even though I understand there's a blend difference.

Dan: Yeah, those clones are just amazing though, they really are. I mean, they're absolutely beautiful.

GROWING INTEREST IN CLONES

Me: Steve doesn't know, when you told me about the fact these would take 10 years in quarantine and stuff, you had to be on a list to get them. And how many wineries were on that list?

Dan: You know, ironically, not that many at the time, because I think, honestly, I think the attitude in California was more like, our Cabernet is just fine, we don't need any help, thank you. You know, I think initially that was the attitude. And I think now you're seeing more awakening toward the ideas of different clones. BV has done really interesting work with individual clones.

Me: They're back?

Dan: Yeah. So they've done some really good work with that. I know that they've got a 169, a 412, different kinds of things I think they have a clone for. So, it's a good way to learn about them.

Me: That's, and then in Texas, you were the only original purchaser?

Dan: I don't know the answer to that. I'm not positive. Now, see, we're getting them, I'm not farming Tivydale anymore. So we're getting them now from Rowland Taylor. I'm not sure exactly how old those vines are, exactly. But once I discovered that Rowand Taylor had them, and then I was good after that. Honestly, at age 70, I really don't have any business riding tractors anymore. I mean, I'm sorry, but I really don't. And so I'm probably more inclined to have an accident than I am anything else.

So, you see a difference, right?

Me: Yeah, I do. This would stand out in this tasting. I'd pick it out. As recently as five years ago I could have described this wine as feminine without being accused of being a misogynist, a nazi, and having bad underarm hygiene. It’s a beautiful wine.

Dan: Beautiful wine. Very, very perfumed. A year from now, when this is released in March of 2026, that'll be a spectacular release.

Me: Yeah, and you don't put your wines forward for competitions or, you know, somebody's gonna score it. They basically have to buy it surreptitiously.

Dan: Yeah, if someone wants to make an appointment with me and sit down and if it's somebody from a magazine or something and they want to come for a tasting, I'm fine to host them. But I don't know. It's just, we never really get a fair shot. The thing is, too, these wines have all been open for 24 hours. If someone just buys one and pops it open and then scores it, it's not gonna score as high. And I can tell you that it'll be a much, much different wine 24 hours later.

Me: And the thing is that this wine is just as much a racehorse type of temperament.

Dan: It is. These are thoroughbreds. They're not, pick one off the shelf and a factory wine and stuff like that.

So the last wine [The Initiate] is really cool. This was the crowd favorite of the group that was here earlier. I don't have any of this at all for sale. So I had a lot of people who wanted to buy it, but I didn't have any. All the bottles I have are already spoken for.

You know, in a way, this is kind of a cool wine because it's a wine that's been around for a long time.

Me: Dan Gatlin: many thanks for your time. That was very illuminating.

Dan: Thank you.