2020, 2021, and 2022 are three very different vintages in Northern California, each with unique challenges. And yet Luc Morlet, an inventor at heart, has managed to avoid their pitfalls. Armed with considerable experience and his signature ingenuity, he’s produced a hattrick of three highly recommended sets of vintage releases. I also tasted the forthcoming 10-years-on library releases, offering four beautifully evolved Napa 2014 Cabernets that are delicious to drink now.

Hattrick

Luc Morlet grew up in Champagne. His family has been grape growers for four generations, so it’s no surprise that he studied viticulture and winemaking at university. What was surprising was that he left France in 1996. But it was for the best possible reason—to join his American wife Jodie in Napa, California. A decade later, he and Jodie founded their own label: Morlet Family Vineyards. In the beginning, they purchased fruit from well-known growers such as Andy Beckstoffer. Today, Luc and Jodie own three vineyards, all planted to Bordeaux varieties—one in Sonoma and two in Napa Valley. They also maintain lease agreements with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir sites in Sonoma.

“Mon Chevalier was the first vineyard that we bought,” said Luc, referring to their seven-acre site in Knights Valley, Sonoma. “We planted this to Bordeaux varieties in 2008. The vines are at around 500-600 feet elevation, facing Peter Michael. This is the most Bordeaux-like of our vineyards.”

In 2010, Luc and Jodie were able to buy their family house, winery, and small vineyard of just a few acres in Saint Helena, off the Saint Helena Highway and very close to Colgin’s Tychson Hill vineyard. This Morlet Estate vineyard was planted to Cabernet Sauvignon in 2007, half to a proprietary clone from Grace Family (said to originate from Chateau Margaux) and half to Clone 4. The first vintage was 2010. Here, they renovated their beautiful 19th-century stone winery, modernizing it into a gravity-fed production facility.

Until 2018, the core of Morlet’s Napa offerings came from Beckstoffer’s To Kalon vineyard in Oakville. Purchasing fruit from this jewel of Napa wasn’t cheap, but Luc wanted the best. Still, he couldn’t help but envision owning a unique piece of Oakville one day. When a parcel of land across Highway 29 from To Kalon and a little further south came up for sale, he jumped at the chance.

“The little profit we’d made at Morlet Family Vineyards went into buying our vineyard in Oakville,” said Luc. “We called it Coeur de Vallée—Heart of the Valley. We bought that in 2015 and planted it the same year. It is mostly Cabernet Sauvignon, but a third of the property is planted to Cabernet Franc.”

Coeur de Vallée is 24 acres, allowing Morlet Family Vineyards a significant presence in Napa. Production from this site came online in 2018, and from that year, they became 100% Estate-grown for the Cabernets. “As you know, Cabernet is very serious for us,” Luc commented. “I have loved Bordeaux from the beginning and have done two internships there.”

Devoting a third of this vineyard to Cabernet Franc has as much to do with Luc’s passion for this grape as having a unique vision for crafting what is right up there with the world’s finest examples of this variety. “Cabernet Franc does very well on the clay-loam soil we have at Coeur de Vallée,” he mentioned. “We have planted Clone 1 here, which I love.”

Apart from the Bordeaux varieties wines (which includes a gorgeous Pessac-Léognan-inspired dry white called “La Proportion Dorée”), Luc makes an impressive collection of Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs from leased vineyards in Sonoma.

Morlet’s Sonoma Chardonnays

“Ma Douce is in Fort Ross-Seaview, close to Annapolis and Marcassin Vineyard, with its back to the ocean,” Luc explained. “It comes from the coolest part of this vineyard, so it has an extended ripening period. It’s mainly Old Wente clone selection. When I started, I thought the wine would be quite austere. But we are above the fog line here. At 1600 feet, we are surrounded by fog. We get a lot of UV light, although you get a cool breeze from the ocean.”

Ma Princesse comes from Ritchie Vineyard in the Russian River Valley. “It is covered in fog in the mornings,” said Luc. “We farm 2.5 acres on a front-facing section and another half-acre since 2017. It’s all old vines there—more than 35 years old.”

Coup de Coeur is a barrel selection containing a fair amount of Ritchie Vineyard with some Ma Douce vineyard. “This is more an exercise in crafting the best of the vintage,” Luc explained.

Morlet’s Sonoma Pinot Noirs

All the Morlet Pinot Noirs come from the same Nobles Ranch site as Ma Douce, located in the Fort Ross-Seaview AVA. “Coteaux Nobles is purely the site,” said Luc. “This wine comes from 27-year-old vines planted at the Nobles Ranch vineyard, just below the Ma Douce blocks. My very first pick is the bottom of the block, but then the rest is my last pick. This is Pinot Fin clone, which behaves a little bit like Old Wente. These berries must be watched to make sure they don’t fry.”

En Famille comes from a single block of this vineyard, facing southeast, closer to the Gualala River canyon. This is fermented entirely in used puncheons.

Joli Coeur comes from the same ranch, from a block facing east. “This comes from the sweet spot within the Coteaux Nobles and En Famille vineyards in Fort Ross-Seaview AVA,” said Morlet. “The topsoil is very thin here, and the clusters and berries are always smaller, meaning that the wine tends to be more intense.”

“With the three Pinots, we don’t pick three times; we pick 6 to 8 times.”

A shout-out is also necessary for Morlet’s Syrah creation—Bouquet Garni. This is 100% Syrah made from three clones planted in a 20+-year-old vineyard in Sonoma’s Bennett Valley. “This comes from three different blocks,” said Luc. “1.5 acres each. I pick them all at once and do a co-ferment. It’s my last pick almost every year. It’s a La Landonne style—I like to work just with Syrah. It’s all destemmed.”

As for this upcoming trio of vintage releases, Morlet said, “2020 was a very, very small bottling. We were meticulous in our approach—blowing the leaves, blowing the berries, and hand washing. We did it like Christian Moueix. I felt really strongly about releasing this. There’s no fining and no filtration.”

2021 was the drought period, but the advantage is that it never got too hot. I really enjoyed 2021. We had very small berries and loose clusters, which allowed for great intensity and concentration with wonderful acidic structure. It was a little like 2015, but not as hot. The ripeness was beautiful. These 2021s were bottled in February last year, so they have been in bottles for almost a year.

2022 was another year of drought. Our yields were small—a third down on average. We needed to be able to harvest within 24 hours, especially for Pinot. We picked at night and trucked the fruit to the winery in a refrigerated truck, which acts as a cold room.”

Morlet Family Vineyards also has a library release program. This autumn, they will re-release four of the Bordeaux varieties red wines from the 2014 vintage: Mon Chevalier, Coeur de Vallée, Morlet Estate, and Passionnément (a barrel selection). A great vintage in Napa Valley, the 2014s are now hitting their strides.