Have you ever considered just how impactful a single choice can be and how it might change your life? After a chance encounter, Cara Morrison, Chardonnay Winemaker at Sonoma-Cutrer, followed a piqued interest in college that led to an illustrious career of exploring the world to learn about wine. Cara has since returned to Sonoma to ensure consistent delivery of the vibrant and rich Chardonnays at Sonoma-Cutrer. We sat down with Cara to explore her work and approach to wine and how she continues the integrity of this beloved varietal.
What Inspired Your Direction Towards Wine and Your Current Work in Chardonnay?
Like most people in the industry, I kind of fell into it. I was going to UC Davis, and it has a wine program, but I had no idea about that when I went there. It was a school that was two hours from my home, which was far enough away, but not too far. It fit what I was looking for. I was a science major; I knew I definitely wanted to do science, so I enrolled initially in pre-med. And then, at the beginning of my sophomore year, I heard about a wine program. One of my teacher's assistants for biology was in the wine program. I thought, “I’ve never heard of that. I didn’t know you could do that.” So, I went to visit the Introduction to Wine and Winemaking class the next day.
And I just fell in love with it because of its blending of both science and art. They talked about malolactic fermentation and the microbial background behind it. Then the style of the wine that it gives and how winemakers use it or don't use it. I followed the professor back to her office and changed my major that day. And I never looked back. I grew up with my dad squeezing the bag of wine to get the last drop from the bag in the box. So I didn't exactly have this background in high-end beverages. Once I changed my mind and decided I was doing it, I just totally fell in love with it.
One thing that's really wonderful about the wine industry is that if you want to become a winemaker, there's harvest every year. And at harvest, vineyards need to double, triple, quadruple their staff. So you can always get a harvest job pretty much wherever you want. I had the opportunity to harvest in many places, including Napa. Actually, my first harvest was in Sonoma, and I fell in love with the area. I knew that I definitely wanted to come back here. But first, I worked in other areas; I even went to Australia and Chile and worked in Long Island, New York.
I eventually came back to Sonoma County. The first time I ever tasted Sonoma-Cutrer Chardonnay, I tried the Russian River Ranches Chardonnay. And I said, “Wow, this is the Chardonnay I want to make.” Back in the 90s, it was all sweet, super oaky Chardonnay. It was just over-the-top Chardonnays. When I tried Cutrer, it was really balanced and had good acidity. I felt like this is totally where I wanted to go. I had to work my way towards it.
Did You Learn Anything Unique from Each of Those Different Regions and How They Approach Wine?
They all make wine a bit differently. I mean, every winery does it a bit differently even within the same region. That's why there are so many wines out there in the market because you could take the same grapes and send them to three different wineries and all three wineries can make them totally different.
While most California wineries I worked at prefer to have some 'fluffy lees' in their juice before fermentation for more mouthfeel, the winery I worked at in Australia really clarified their juice before fermentation for cleaner fruit aromas. It's a style difference and everywhere you go, you learn a new winemaking method. I’m always looking back at my work in different places with different harvests and different weather. So if something happens here with different weather or we get different kinds of grapes, I can go, “Oh, I remember what this grape or these weather conditions are.” And you kind of adapt. So you can learn a lot by traveling around; it's a great experience.
How do You Approach Each Release of Sonoma-Cutrer? What is Your Own Unique Take on Chardonnay?
One part about Sonoma-Cutrer Chardonnay is that I don't want to put too much of my own unique stamp on it because I like the style. I hope that doesn’t sound like a cop-out, but I didn't feel like I needed to go in and make major changes. They already have a great style. That's why I went there; the reason I got hired was because I respected the style.
Every harvest, Mother Nature changes up the weather conditions and so we have natural vintage to vintage differences. Since we want to maintain our consistent style of Sonoma-Cutrer, the winemaking team goes out to the vineyard to taste the grapes to decide when it is time to pick. Each year the ripe flavors come at different sugar & acidity levels, so even though we take grape samples and check the sugar and acid levels, it all comes down to the flavors for the picking decisions. My unique approach is being flexible about when to pick based on the right flavors for Sonoma-Cutrer and sticking to our style.
With some years, it's just cooler — for those grapes to ripen you just had to be patient. For example, if you typically always pick in early September and then you have to pick in late September that means you have to adjust all your schedules and all of the staff. It's very difficult to be patient, so we often just keep cleaning until the grapes come in. Typically that's how you have to adjust; you have to be really flexible. If we’re looking at a late harvest, we get more bottling and packaging materials and keep bottling production moving.
Some years you pick, it might have riper flavors with lower sugar levels; other years you have to wait longer even if the grapes are at a higher sugar level because maybe it's a hot year so it doesn't develop the flavors the same. So you have to wait a little bit that season and pick a little higher sugar than you really want to because you need the flavor development.
Are There any Specific Years that Stand Out as Challenging or Unique?
I do not like to talk about negative stuff, but one year that really stands out is 2010. We had rains right in the middle of harvest when we were only halfway picking through our grapes. While today we would love 4-5 inches of rain because we’re in a drought, when the grapes are ripe, they don’t like it. They tend to get a little moldy and mildewy. When it rains like that during harvest, you have to pick as fast as possible and get everything off the vine. Rushing against the clock to pick grapes as fast as we can is memorable, that's for sure.
I remembered working at places that had much cooler weather and it did rain during harvest. I knew there were things we could do to help the grapes: we let them settle longer and changed our process to clean them up. I used some of the lessons from Australian winemaking with less lees because we wanted the wine to be cleaner. So that's when you go back to what you learned in other places. But, I think the best harvests are the ones that are not very memorable because the weather's just nice, things keep picking nicely. My favorite vintages are where you say, “I don't remember what happened that year. Oh, yeah, because it was a nice year.”
Do You Take Opportunities to Encourage or Mentor Other People that are Growing in the Space?
I love mentoring others and sharing what I've learned. We've had people who come in for internships at harvest or who work in the lab that want to work their way up to winemaker. It's just wonderful to be able to work with them. They always want to know why things are happening. So I get to explain it, and that leads to making them a better employee because then they know what you're thinking, and then they can anticipate your decisions in the future.
I keep in touch with previous interns; it's just great to see them grow in the industry. To me, it’s like watching your own kids grow up. We tend to encourage each other. It's wonderful to mentor young people in the industry. They bring so much energy to the harvest because you can get tired at harvest working tons of hours. After about four to six weeks of non-stop harvesting, you receive this young energy and they say, “OH! That’s so exciting!” and you're like, “Oh good, I needed that little breath of fresh air.”
If Someone is New to Your Chardonnays, how do You like to Introduce Them to It? What Pairings Might You Suggest?
Our Chardonnays have a similar style where they have crisp acidity and balanced fruit and oak, but they're all slightly different. I tweak each vintage based on the vineyards and harvest. With that said, I think the most fun thing to do is also an easy thing to do. First, invite over a few friends. Then, open at least 2 different bottles of wine, such as the Les Pierres and The Cutrer Chardonnay. These 2 wines are good to compare with food since Les Pierres is much more linear, meaning it's more acidic and tight and The Cutrer has a fuller body and a little bit more oak, making it a little bit richer. Now try each wine with a couple of different cheeses, such as tasting a soft brie, blue cheese, Manchego and feta — and see how it changes the wine. It’s so much fun, and of course, educational.
One thing I found that is really cool is that the Les Pierres goes really well with a blue cheese which is kind of the opposite of what you might expect. It cuts the fat of the blue cheese with acidity. If you have The Cutrer, it pairs well with brie, which is richer and fuller. If you want to do a similar pairing, scallops with lemon sauce is really nice with Les Pierres, where The Cutrer is a bit bigger so it is beautiful with fettuccine with a light cream sauce and a little bit of fish. I think the best thing is just exploring on your own. That's the fun of wine — just seeing what works for you because everyone has a different palette.
How Does Your Background in Science and the Traditions of those Before You Marry into Your Winemaking Process?
One example could be our barrel program. We've been buying barrels from the same Cooperage since the early 90s. We developed a style with them and a bit of a tradition. But, you always have to challenge the tradition; you can't just assume it always works. So we need to set up a trial every year. We place two barrels from each Cooper and forest, because there are multiple forests that the oak comes from, and toast levels.
Now we have at least 30 different barrel style options. We put two barrels of each in the same row and then we fill them with the same juice for fermentation. And then we just taste blind, meaning we pull samples and put on a random two-digit code for each barrel sample, but we don't know which ones are which, and then we score them. By doing that scientific approach to tasting the barrels, by not knowing which cooper, forest, or toast level, is the most important thing because everybody has bias. The blind tasting allows us to truly confirm these Coopers are still providing us with what we need for our wine and they are still within our style.
Coopers can change over the years, especially when the new generation starts taking over and putting their own stamp on their barrels. So we have to taste them every year blind to make sure yes, this is the style of Cooper that we like. But, that blind process also allows throwing a new Cooper in the mix just to see what other people are doing. It also allows us to make sure we are getting the best. So it's respecting the tradition, but thinking with the scientific approach to make sure to always challenge it.
With Your Husband also Working in the Wine Industry with a Different Vineyard, do You Ever Compete or Compare Notes?
We don't compete, fortunately. Overall, winemaking is very collaborative. Out in the marketplace, it might be a little more competitive. But, as winemakers, we're very collaborative, we get together. There’s a group called Chardo-nerds where we get together and just talk about Chardonnay. And I get together with people from different wineries in Sonoma County and we love to ask questions like, “How’s the Chardonnay going? What experiments are you doing? Have you tried this new yeast or this new Cooper?”
We share experiences because nobody can get the same grapes, have the same winery, or have the same setup, so you can't copy another winemaker's wine. So we don't have that fear, it's not like the formula for soda products or specific candy makers. I’m sure they’re always competitive and secretive. Wine is so open. We have no problem letting each other tour the winery and sharing our winemaking tips.
My husband and I are the same way; we talk about wine and say, “Hey, what do you think of this one? I'm thinking about trying this? Have you ever done that?” So it's really great to have an at-home consultant. We have two kids. When the kids were younger, we barely talked about wine at all. It was more like who's picking up the kids and what's for dinner? But now, we actually get to talk about wine because they're teenagers.
Are There any Routines or Rituals that You like to Maintain as You're Working in Your Day-to-Day?
One thing about winemaking is, because it's an annual process throughout the year, I have more of an annual routine. Harvest is its own routine. And after harvest, I think, what do I do during non-harvest times? Because you get so into harvesting, you have to change your mindset and routine to get back into bottling. Then the routine moves to barrel aging, and then back to harvesting.
I do have to look back at my notes to remind myself of each part of the process. So it's more of an annual routine as our job does change throughout the year. I can't say we do the same thing every day and that's what makes it exciting. Because it's always a cycle. Just when you're getting tired of harvest, it's over and you get tired of bottling and it's over. So that's kind of great. It allows me to look forward to the next thing.
Can You Share Anything That is on the Horizon?
We made a special 40th-anniversary wine. We brought together the three white winemakers in the last 40 years to collaborate on this wine. Part of the reason we have such a consistent style at Sonoma-Cutrer is that we haven't had much turnover. So we asked the previous two winemakers that had retired to come back and collaborate with our current Director of Winemaking. We all made this 40th-anniversary blend together, tasting the different components. That was a really great experience and is out in the market now.
We've also been doing a trial market for canned wine. Right now, it is only in Florida and Colorado with Texas launching next month. That was a really exciting pandemic project for me. The process is completely different with aluminum versus glass. There were a lot of technical details to learn there and that was super interesting. Learning how to work with wine in cans sounds like it should be easy. But, cans are not made of glass, so we had to figure out how to make sure the metal didn’t change anything to the flavor or aroma of the wine.
Do You Have any Closing Thoughts?
Being as we are coming up on International Women's Day, I want to celebrate our female winemaking staff. Our Pinot Noir Winemaker, Zidanelia Arcidiacono, is incredible. There are not that many female winemakers out there; I believe the stat is 20-30% of winemakers are women. Shannon Darnell is our Director of Vineyard, which is very rare. She's the only female in the whole department and she leads it, which is awesome. We hire the best people for the jobs. But, we just happen to have a female-centric team. It's a really great team. We all get along really well and encourage each other and work together. Sonoma-Cutrer is a great place to work; it’s not just great wine that we're making, we love doing it.
Please Drink Responsibly.
Sonoma-Cutrer Vineyards, Windsor, CA
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