Thomas Brocker and Russell Bevan, Winemakers

Thomas is a graduate of UC Davis with a degree in Enology and Viticulture. He interned at Testarossa and became assistant winemaker to Michael Michaud. He has worked at Owl Ridge wine services, a custom crush facility in Sebastopol and recently started his own label.

As James Laube has stated, “Russell was a syndicated wine columnist, who has taken his passion for wine from the keypad to the crush pad.” When Russell decided to create Bevan Cellars in 2004 he came to us and asked for one ton of fruit, because as he put it “this amazing vineyard is like an Italian Sports car” and he wanted to flex its muscle and show its power and intensity. Well, after tasting the wines we can confirm that this is exactly what he has done.

The goal Thomas and Russell have set is to showcase the vineyards’ voice and balance while also crafting a wine that displays Oakville’s telltale black fruits and concentration. We expect that all of our long time supporters will notice an improvement. Our winemakers are confident that the vineyard will show itself in the wines. When you taste together our older vintages and future wines, it will be obvious that they are siblings.

This harvest “Team Showket”, as we’ve begun to call ourselves, takes a very hands on approach to every vintage. It starts with regular walks through the vineyard and debates on when to harvest and quickly changes to an all hands on deck approach. The first change was to identify separate blocks, divided by clone or location in the vineyard. We then harveste all of them independently and have kept them separate, treating each lot as if it were its own wine. In addition we keep some of our merlot, and for the first time, our entire cabernet franc for ourselves. Having all of these different lots will allow us to fine tune our wines and create special blends that we hope to share with you.