Muns
Vineyard
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Muns Vineyard on Facebook
Muns Vineyard Pinot Noirs win Best of Appellation Gold
Medals from AppellationAmerica.com.
After 25" of rain in November-December 2012, there has been only 5" through the first three months of this year. Bud break was on 18 March, just a few days later than normal. By the end of April, shoots were 6-18" long and most had two large flower clusters.
Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noirs:A Special Mountain
Vineyard,
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Purchase from Our Order Page
~ Experience the alchemy of bottle aging. These wines are still available and drinking beautifully
2005 180 cases produced, released in March 2007. $40
| 91 Points, Wine Enthusiast |
| Gold Medal, Appellation America 'Best of Appellation' Award |
2006 360 cases produced, released in June 2008. $40
| Gold Medal, Appellation America 'Best of Appellation' Award |
| "I was wild about the Muns Vineyard 2006 (Pinot Noir)..." - Christina Waters, in Santa Cruz Weekly, March 23, 2011, in an article about a pre-Pinot Paradise tasting. |
| 90 points, Richard Jennings, Huffington Post |
2007 150 cases produced, released in Fall 2009. $40
2008 165 cases produced, released in May 2011. $40
| 90 points, Richard Jennings, Huffington Post |
2009 242 cases produced, released November 2012. $40
| "Pleasing aromas of black cherries, red plums and roasted nuts. Delicious mid-weight flavors of dark stone fruits with a subtle riff of spice. The tannins and acidity are nicely balanced and this wine drinks seamlessly. Exceptional." - Rusty Gaffney, 'The Prince of Pinot', in PinotFile |
| A favorite of Ken Zinns, Grape Nutz, at the 2013 Pinot Paradise Grand Cruz tasting |
| "Consumers looking for a prettier style of pinot should enjoy the 2009 Muns Estate Pinot Noir ($40), with its crushed strawberry, spice and hint of vanilla.", Laurie Daniels, San Jose Mercury News, April 10, 2013, in this article about Pinot Paradise. |
2011 Native Yeast Fermentation! 80 cases produced, released November 2012. $40
2010 250 cases produced, to be released Fall 2013. $40
2011 Barrel aging, to be bottled Spring 2013 and released Fall 2014 $40
2012 Barrel aging
Sold out until the 2012 vintage is released in spring 2013
2009
66 cases produced, released September 2011.
$25
sold out
2010 120 cases produced, released October 2012. $25
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People ask us what was going on in the vineyard and the weather each vintage that affects the differences in flavor. This chart shows weather conditions and other factors for each growing season. Some seasons were wetter than others; some warmer or cooler. It is interesting to consider how these variables have influenced the wine! |
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"Pleasing aromas of black cherries, red plums and roasted nuts. Delicious mid-weight flavors of dark stone fruits with a subtle riff of spice. The tannins and acidity are nicely balanced and this wine drinks seamlessly. Exceptional." - Rusty Gaffney, 'The Prince of Pinot', about the 2009 Muns Vineyard Pinot Noir in PinotFile. See the full review from Pinot Paradise here. | ||||||
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"Consumers looking for a prettier style of pinot should enjoy the 2009 Muns Estate Pinot Noir ($40), with its crushed strawberry, spice and hint of vanilla.", Laurie Daniels, San Jose Mercury News, April 10, 2013, in this article about Pinot Paradise. | ||||||
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The 2009 Muns Vineyard Pinot Noir was a favorite of the Grape Nutz team, Ken Zinns and Al Osterheld, at the 2013 Pinot Paradise Grand Cruz tasting.
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Comments:
At 2,600-foot elevation, Muns is the highest Pinot vineyard in the area, planted
from 1998-2005 with 114, 115, 667, and 777 clones. Muns uses mostly Hungarian
oak barrels – I thought they worked better with these wines than some of the
others at the event.
See the complete article
here.
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 Ed
is interviewed by
Western Farm Press about the 2012 vintage.
Wine grape growers in the Santa
Cruz mountains are very optimistic about this year’s crop. Veteran Pinot
Noir grower Ed Muns says, “Everyone around here is reporting great fruit and
a prolific set. ... This could be one the best harvests in this region in 15
to 20 years.” Greg Northcutt,
July 25, 2012. |
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 Photos
from Muns Vineyard and an interview with Maryin this Santa Cruz Sentinel article on the 2012 harvest: On this harvest moon: Grape picking begins in what is expected to be great year for wine, Santa Cruz Sentinel, Sept. 19, 2012. "Everybody's looking forward to making some great wine from this vintage," Mary said. We're really pretty excited about it." | ||||
| Our 2007 Pinot Noir is featured by
Josie Cowden in
Good Times who finds it to be "one gorgeous Pinot," and "chock-full of
beautiful fruit and bursting with flavors of caramel, vanilla, earth and
spice." | ||||
| 90 points for Muns Vineyard's 2006 and 2008 Pinot Noirs from
Richard Jennings, wine writer and reviewer for the Huffington Post, in a
review of Pinot Paradise on his blog, rjonwine.com:
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| Profile of Ed and Mary in Los Gatos Weekly Times,
11/21/11: When it
comes time to pour wine at a local charitable event, Muns' the word | ||||
| A video interview with Ed & Mary in the vineyard on Patch.com:
Muns Vineyard is a Pinot lover's paradise! | ||||
| "I was wild about the Muns Vineyard 2006 (Pinot Noir)..." -
Christina Waters, in Santa Cruz Weekly, March 23, 2011, in an article about
a pre-Pinot Paradise tasting. | ||||
| Muns
Vineyard's 2008 Syrah is the featured 'Sip
of the Week' in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, 2/23/11. | ||||
| Muns Vineyard's 2007 Pinot Noir is the featured 'Sip
of the Week' in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, 10/6/10. "Because Pinot Noir
and fall go together. Think Thanksgiving! | ||||
| Muns Vineyard's Rosé of Pinot
Noir is featured
in the Good Times Santa Cruz, March 3, 2010.
Rosé is becoming one of reviewer Josie Cowden's favorite wines, and she
really likes the Muns Vineyard: "(The Muns Vineyard) Rosé of Pinot Noir has everything going for it— it’s light and fresh and not overly sweet. Dry and crisp, this fragrant Rosé has gorgeous flavors of cherry, watermelon and cinnamon spice. As the warmer weather comes around, this would be a perfect wine to take on a picnic, or to have with your spring and summer greens." Try it! We think you will really like this delicious Rosé. | ||||
| Muns Vineyard Pinots are featured in a
story in the Santa Cruz
Sentinel, with recipes from local vintners - including Mary's now
famous recipe for pan-roasted Brussels sprouts, that pairs deliciously with
our 2004 and 2005 Pinot Noirs. | ||||
| Ham Radio Creates a Vineyard! - Ed is quoted in the 17 October
2009 article in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times,
"Amateur
Radio Operators on Front Lines During Loma Prieta Quake". Although
Ed wasn't one of the active hams helping with that local disaster, the
article notes that the property that eventually became the current Muns
Vineyard was selected for ham radio purposes by Ed. The first day of
land clearing for the home occurred on 17 October, 1989, the day of the
destructive Loma Prieta Earthquake, whose epicenter was just five miles
south of the property. | ||||
| Read about
Muns Vineyard in the Santa Cruz Sentinel (September 12, 2009), in
an article about the 2009 harvest. It includes a number of photos of
harvest at Muns Vineyard. | ||||
| Read about
Muns Vineyard in the San Jose Mercury News. Laurie Daniel,
about Pinot Paradise:
"The 2006 Muns Vineyard Pinot Noir ($40) is dark and spicy, with black
cherry, clove, cola, a hint of sage and firm structure." | ||||
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"A consistent Muns Vineyard style is beginning to evolve with this wine which shows similarities in structure and character to the 2006 vintage. This wine exhibits admirable complexity with nicely spiced red and black fruits, herbs, forest floor and mocha. There are still tannins to shed, but these are ripe and fine and will integrate nicely with a little more bottle age. The acidity is spot on. This should prove to be a very stellar wine.
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Muns Vineyard awarded Best of Appellation Gold Medals for
our 2004, 2005 and 2006 Pinot Noirs from
AppellationAmerica.com |
We grow premium Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir with exquisite attention to quality so as to produce the very finest wine. The wines we produce reflect our high standards in the vineyard, as well as one of the best locations for growing Pinot Noir in the Santa Cruz Mountains, a prime growing region for this luscious winegrape. The first commercial vintage was in 2003 based on a half-ton harvest. Soquel Vineyards blended half of the wine into a Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir and the other half was bottled under the Muns Vineyard label. Grape tonnage increased rapidly in succeeding years:
2004: About four tons were harvested from four acres and again the wine was produced by Soquel Vineyards. 125 cases were produced as a Muns Vineyard designate under the Soquel Vineyards label and another 125 cases under the Muns Vineyard label.
2005: Almost twelve tons were harvested from six acres with five tons going into the Soquel Vineyards label as a Muns Vineyard designated wine. The other seven tons went into a Muns Vineyard designate wine on three labels produced by Silver Mountain Vineyards: Silver Mountain Vineyards, Sonnet Wine Cellars and Muns Vineyard. Tony Craig, of Dave Bruce fame, made these three wines.
2006: Nearly 24 tons were harvested from seven acres with 10 tons going to Soquel Vineyards and 14 tons crushed at Silver Mountain Vineyards for the same three labels as in 2005. This was an abnormally large yield, as it was for many California vineyards, due to abundant winter rains that produced record cluster sizes.
2007: Fruit set this season was been superb, but nature presented some challenges. Two nights in April produced 25 degree temperatures a large low area of the vineyard where over a acre of fruit and even some vines were lost. Later in the season, dehydration further reduced the crop. Over 16 tons were harvested on 4-6 September all going to Silver Mountain Vineyards for production under three labels: their own, Sonnet Wine Cellars and Muns Vineyard.
2008: This is the first year all vineyard blocks are producing--twelve acres of Pinot Noir and one acre of Syrah. Pinot Noir was harvested from 29 August to 2 September, our earliest. The yield is our lowest ever at around 1.5 ton/acre. Vineyards across the state are reporting much lower cluster weights, so while it looks like there is a lot of fruit, there really isn't. 3 tons of Syrah was harvested the third week of September.
2009: This vintage was like 2006 in terms of yield. With the entire vineyard now producing, we harvested 36+ tons of Pinot Noir and 2 tons of Syrah. We had lots of winter rain and a somewhat cooler growing season. This resulted in first irrigation in August, compared to April in 2008 following a drought winter. Harvest was the latest ever for this vineyard, during the third week of September for the Pinot Noir and the first week of October for the Syrah.
2010: The winter leading into this season was even wetter than 2009, but the rain came in measured amounts so there was minimal erosion and maximum absorption into the soil. Bud break was delayed due to consistently cool spring temperatures and no frost periods occurred after bud break, a first for this vineyard in ten years! The summer continued to be relatively cooler than normal, so the season extended to our longest yet. On 17 September we harvested 4 tons of clone 115 for sparkling Pinot Noir at 19 Brix. On 1 October we harvested 6 tons of all four clones for our estate Pinot Noir at 25 Brix. We felt the rest of the vineyard (30+ tons) could still use some more hang time to ripen the flavors even more, so we postponed harvest for another week or two. We ultimately harvested 49 tons of Pinot Noir by the end of October and after three rains. On 3 Novembe we harvested 4.2 tons of Syrah.
2011: Yet another winter with lots of rain that has extended into early June. This cool spring has stalled growth with shoots just 12-18" and bloom not started. This is probably good because heavy rains can disturb bloom and reduce fruit set. The foilage is lime-green in color, indicating the inability of the vines to take up nutrients in cool temperatures (50-60 degrees F). At this point we are 2-3 weeks behind normal development and looking for warmer weather to allow the vines to take off for the season. The season finished out relatively cool and we harvested only 19 tons of Pinot Noir on 8-10 October. The cluster weights were deceptively light so yield was about half expected. 3.5 tons of Syrah were harvested on 29 October.
2012: Bud break was the latest ever in late April, but bloom and fruit set caught up to our typical season. Assuming the season continued "typically", we expected to harvest the Pinot in mid-September and the Syrah in early October. There were a lot of Pinot Noir clusters and fruit-thinning is needed to balance the crop with the vegetative growth. 45.1 tons of Pinot Noir were harvested from 10-24 September as the blocks each reached optimum ripeness and 3.2 tons of Syrah were harvested on 1 October.
Paintings of Muns Vineyard by local artists (more in Artists Gallery) ...
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webmaster@munsvineyard.com with
questions or comments about this web site.
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Saturday,
May 18: Los Gatos Spring Wine Walk. 1:30-5:30.
Saturday,
June 22: Los Gatos Plein Air Fine
Art Exhibit & Sale, 11:00-5:00. 
