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Ironstone Vineyards
Steve Millier, winemaker
We were standing inside the largest winery in the Sierra Nevada with a winemaking legend. But we couldn’t feel more comfortable, thanks to the graciousness of the Kautz family and their staff at Ironstone Vineyards, but more so by Steve Millier, our interviewee for that afternoon.
Head winemaker at Ironstone Vineyards, Millier is also a sought-after wine consultant. He also owns Milliaire Winery and Black Sheep Winery, located on Murphys’ Main Street. To learn more about Millier and how he got started, read the listing for Milliaire Winery.
Having been with Ironstone since its inception, Millier took us
on a tour of the massive winery, including its famous wine caves. The
duel caves—some call them “caverns”—are 85-feet deep, and while we were
inside, Dahlynn had a fright; she was shooting photos (no flash) of Ken
and Millier when she was surprised by resident bats that flew just over
her head. But that didn’t stop her—she just laughed and kept shooting.
We spent nearly two hours with Millier and immensely enjoyed our personal, behind-the-scenes tour of the winery. Millier has a way about him; it’s obvious that he relishes his work and his lifestyle, and he should, having worked hard to get where he is today. We’ve heard from others in the industry that he is very giving of his time and expertise, and he has done the same for us and our book. Millier—a die-hard Neil Young fan—definitely has a “Heart of Gold.”
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Why did you choose to live here?
Murphys is a neat little community, and we moved here in 1982. My wife (Liz) and I went to work at Stevenot (Winery), and that’s when it was the only winery here. But there was kind of a “hobby winery” just off Main Street that later became Black Sheep (where Vina Moda is now located), other than that, nothing else. We wanted to start a winery and Barden Stevenot said that was okay for us. So we became the second winery—“Milliaire Winery.”
How did you become involved with Ironstone and the Kautz family?
I was working at Stevenot and knew the Kautz family
because we bought grapes from them. I tell the story—Stevenot was
single, and he was gone all the time, so we got to know the Kautz family
really, really well! And that’s how I got to move over here to help
start what became “Ironstone Vineyards” in 1989.
We haven’t been to Ironstone in a while. It’s changed a lot.
It’s a little different than what we started
working on, but it’s all been better, and it’s really transformed the
area. I mean, Murphys was always a nice little destination, but
[Ironstone] made it a serious destination. The wineries were here, but
[Ironstone] gave it a regional identity.
We were talking to someone about your
tank-style presses. Can
you explain how
they work?
Before these came along, presses were like baskets.
The grapes would be squeezed against the basket and it would cause a lot
of sedimentation that gets in the wine, then you spend two years trying
to get it back out. So when these tank-style presses came out—they’re
just a big tank laid on its side and when they go to press, they tip
upside down and there is a big balloon inside pushing down gently on the
grapes. So it’s not fighting gravity, but actually working with gravity,
putting gentle pressure on the grapes. Presses from the old days—I’ve
got one of those at my place—it operated at nine bars, nine times 15
PSI. That’s a lot of pressure. These newer machines operate at a maximum
of 30 PSI and you get better yields. What you find when you get involved
in these kinds of things is that by giving a little bit of pressure, but
not squeezing hard, you get more juice. When you really put pressure on
them, it kind of locks it in and the juice doesn’t come out as well.
It’s counter intuitive.
Where did the tank presses come from?
They were so different. They came out of research
in Germany. In Europe they have a different approach to winemaking. Here
we’re talking big-picture romance and there it’s a very precisely
defined business. They measure everything and quantify everything and
they keep records of everything. It’s through their research that they
found that working with these kinds of presses does a better job using
less pressure. They get better yields, which means more money.
So it’s made it more profitable for Ironstone?
At first we got into it for the style, but then we realized that the yields were tremendously better and the wine is better quality.
It doesn’t appear they would beat up the seeds and everything
else.
Yes, that’s the thing about winemaking, everyone
focuses on the crush, and that’s an important time, because a lot of
what you do then inadvertently, you spend trying to clean-up later. And
whether it’s a wine you turn around in 30 days or two years, that’s
always one of the goals to get rid of that stuff, those by-products of
the fermentation process.
I was up at Dobra Zemlja Winery (El Dorado
County) helping
with the crush and the winemaker was busy picking out the stems and
leaves and everything else, complaining about all the stuff the pickers
were leaving in the bins.
That’s the new frontier in winemaking to not even get it in the crushed grapes. So the work in the smaller wineries is to dump the grapes out, spread them out, and pick out the problem material. That’s what’s happening in the small wineries. Then it’s happening in the next size-up wineries, and then the next size winery. And each time what happens is they develop new equipment to help you do that on a larger scale.
Is most of your harvesting done mechanically?
Yes, it’s done by machine.
Do you tend to get more leaves and stems in with the grapes?
No, that’s the other thing, you’d think hand-harvesting would be absolutely the best, but with hand harvesting, you have a crew of six people, but one member’s job is to pick that stuff out. Most of the time they don’t do that because they want one more person picking.
How does the machine work?
The machine gets the fruit off the vine by shaking. It will either shake the whole trunk or get in the canopy and shake it up and the fruit flies off. As it goes up a conveyer belt and drops off into the gondola, air is blown through it. You can control how much of that stuff goes through just by how fast you blow the air. So when you get grapes from a machine picking, just depending on the operator, they can be some of the most beautifully picked fruit or the most horrendously picked fruit. Typically, it’s better than hand picking.
Steve Millier (L) and co-author Ken McKowen
head into Ironstone's famous caves.
Ironstone is well known for its caves. That must have been a big
and expensive job.
When I started working for the Kautz family, we had
a lot of meetings and one of the first meetings was to decide on what
kind of wine we were going to make. We wanted to make red wines—Bordeaux
red wines—because we wanted to make wines that were recognized worldwide
for high quality. So we decided to make Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet
Franc, and Merlot. Then the next thing was how were we going to age this
stuff? Aging gets to be a problem in the foothills because it gets
pretty warm and we have a dry climate. An air-conditioned room makes it
even drier and promotes evaporation. So we decided to explore caves. We
got some guys involved who had done underground work in other parts of
the world, and we went to town doing the underground work here. This was
a drill and shoot operation—the drilling part comes first—you drill a
bunch of holes and pack them with dynamite, fuse it together and set it
off—that’s the shoot part. The part they never talk about is the
mucking—that’s the tough part—you’ve got to get all that stuff out. You
clean it out then start the process over again. We could move from four
to eight feet with each shot.
You had to spray concrete to seal the rock walls and ceiling?
This is what they call “Calaveras schist” and it’s
a metamorphosed sedimentary rock that is made up of really beautiful
plates. It’s really stunning to look at, and what we wanted to do was
preserve it, just leave it the way it was instead of putting this
shotcrete concrete over it. But sedimentary rock starts to decay when
exposed to the atmosphere. We ended up having to do rock bolts to hold
the rock plates back then shoot it with the concrete.
The cave with all its side storage areas goes way back. How far?
We have two parallel portals. It goes 85 feet in. We went farther than we initially designed, so we stopped with the intention that if we ever wanted to, we could keep going.
How many barrels can you store in the caves?
We can stuff about 1800 in there. And we need more room.
Is there natural water coming in for the waterfall?
We have natural springs here and normally this time of year it would be flowing on its own, but it’s been a dry year. So what we did, we’ve got it set up with a float (the pool and waterfall) so we can keep it full of water with a pump.
What’s your temperature down here?
About 60 or 61 degrees year around. And what
happens is when you’d walk in from out there where it was 100 degrees
and you walk in here and its 60 in August, it feels nice. But after 20
minutes it really feels 60 and cold. It’s the weirdest thing; it’s
summer and you’re still wearing a sweater.
What spurred your interest in wine?
What got me involved is what we do at Milliaire.
Working at a place like Ironstone is such a different level, that it’s
challenging and exciting for all the different reasons. I have a great
life because I have a good time where ever I go. I work sometimes down
at Bear Creek Winery (Kautz’s
other winery in Lodi) and they’re even bigger than we are, so their
challenges are at a different level. It keeps me going. I don’t think
many people would do as many wineries as I do, at different sizes.
After a really hard day, what do you have to drink?
Oh, we have wine.
We’ve found that many of the younger winemakers, especially
those coming out of UC Davis, have beer.
I think that’s the beverage of choice when you’re younger and your body can handle it!
What’s your favorite wine?
Oh, right now my favorite is a Black Sheep Sauvignon Blanc, and Liz likes Chardonnay from Milliaire. Then we switch it around. We’ll have Calaveras Zinfandel—that’s real nice.
What’s the most unusual wine you have?
Here at Ironstone we make “Symphony.” It’s a really interesting wine—a California original grape. The grape was developed at UC Davis, and it is a cross between Muscat of Alexandria and Grenache Gris. And why they decided to make that kind of cross in 1948—it was patented in 1948—I don’t know, but it makes a very aromatic, fruity wine, but also it’s very complex tasting. It’s our most popular wine here at Ironstone.