Nick Goldschmidt owner and winemaker of Goldschmidt Vineyards is our guest on California Wine Country with Steve Jaxon and Dan Berger today. The last time Nick Goldschmidt was on California Wine Country was this episode in May of 2018.

Goldschmidt Vineyards is active on Instagram and maintains this YouTube channel, where Nick posts updates about his winemaking activities for his own production and for his clients in six countries in the northern and southern hemispheres.

The first tasting is a 2018 Singing Tree Russian River Valley Chardonnay. The vines were planted in 1982 so per Nick this qualifies as old vines. Nick describes the vineyard's origins and says it retails for about $18. Dan Berger says there is hardly any oak, it is crisp because it's Russian River and very rich in mid-palette. It was served at room temperature. If you served it cooler, Dan says it would be flavorless, so its richness comes out if it's warmer. Dan calls it a baby right now, it would need two years.

Nick remembers being 26 years old in France, working for a famous winemaker, when he was given a taste from a tank of Chablis. He said he thought it had oak flavors and the guy almost chased him out of the winery because Chablis does not use oak.

Trig Point Chardonnay is another of Nick's wines. They also taste a red blend called Fidelity, Nick tells a good story about the name Fidelity.

After that, a Katherine Goldschmidt 2018 Stone Mason Hill Cabernet Sauvignon is next. Dan says that this one is comparatively more aggressive in the tannins and that it could bear 20 years in the bottle or at least decanting for a couple of hours. They will also taste the 2016 vintage of the same wine. In both cases the acidity is carrying it and it will go for 7-10 years, according to Dan. Nick has been making wine from this vineyard for 30 years. You don't get an opportunity to work with a vineyard for that long.

His labels are named after his daughters. Hillary, Katherine, Chelsea, each of whom have different tastes.

He has just opened his tasting room on Dry Creek Road, called the Pour House, shared with two other small wineries. They are doing all outside tastings right now. They also have 6 pic nic tables out back. They are not pouring wines that are freely available in the restaurants, but rather the tasting room specializes in their rarer and smaller vintages, so it is a unique tasting experience. Call for reservations.

Dan is impressed with the 2016 here. The acid is listed at 6.5 and Dan thinks maybe it's a bit higher. It would go well with red meat. Normally Nick takes pride in having vineyards that face east because the morning sun is less damaging than the afternoon. The 2016 Yeoman is an old terraced vineyard, that goes from East to South-East. So, it's a cool site. Nick explains that from Alexander Valley he gets more flavors like red fruit, red cherry, blueberry, black cherry with more acidity. Because it's cooler he gets a little more black fruit cherry and plum. Dan Berger says he detects a little bit of wild thyme in it.