About Us
Jus Soli Philosophy
We believe that the concept of terroir applies to people in addition to wine and, relatedly, we think of our wines as an expression of home. We believe in maximizing value while minimizing environmental impact. We like Galileo’s quote that “wine is a compound of light and humor”. We don’t take kindly to wine culture snootiness but oddly enough, usually agree with beer snobbery. We don’t yet own our facility or vineyards or have a tasting room. We realize that makes us pretty hard to find so many thanks for helping us spread the word. And lastly, while we acknowledge that the Latin name thing is a bit obscure, who out there wants to argue with toasting a glass of wine with the phrase “Sanitas Bona”? More good mental health to us all...
Mike, Jesse and Tom
The Jus Soli Winery Philosophical Staff
Winemaker – Tom Garrett, a man so important to us that he gets his very own page. Some have called him a “young Turk” but we still just call him Tom.
Jesse Wurtzel – Jesse thought long and hard about an appropriate title for himself. He recently came up with Winemonger, since that describes what he does for much of the year. Mong wine. He is also our assistant winemaker and might try out some paperwork this year. And did you know that Wurtzel means “root” in German?
Mike O’Donnell – General Manager, which means he is usually sequestered in a small office in his garage running day to day operations at incredibly high efficiency. If your order takes too long, that’s undoubtedly the shipping company to blame and if no one answers your e-mail promptly, well clearly the whole internet is down. Mike also maintains this website with his cohort Jeremy Britton and is an expert at cheerful-yet-ever-so-slightly-menacing letters to delinquent accounts.
Would you like to read more about this mysterious Jeremy? Really? Here you go...
The Ties and Knots That Bind Us
Tom and Mike grew up next door to each other in Santa Rosa back when kids roamed the streets freely and enjoyed many an afternoon catching scorpions in the old barn at Tom’s family vineyard in Oakville. Mike is married to Jesse’s sister Cory. Then Jesse married Mike’s sister Judy. It’s all perfectly legal. Jesse has also assisted Tom with his family label, Detert Family Vineyards, and various other consulting projects. Detert produces ridiculously good Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon from grapes grown on the aforementioned Oakville property. In keeping with the changing mood of the times, Tom, Mike and Jesse’s kids are prohibited from catching scorpions.
History As recorded by Mike on May 1st, 2009
As I've been helping my kids with their five paragraph essays lately, this is the brief history of Jus Soli Winery in precisely that format. If I come up with a few more general sentences, this introduction can count as one of the paragraphs, can't it? The rule is at least four sentences for a reasonable paragraph. Five sentences is even better, as it shows that you care about doing more than just the minimum. Six or more sentences makes for top grade material. The kids and I have learned that it's pretty easy to pad our sentence count.
Jus Soli was founded in 2002 when a friend's family had a few extra tons of Pinot Noir from their Mendocino County vineyard and offered it to us in exchange for some of the finished wine. We decided to go for it and made the wine at Copain in Santa Rosa as our winemaker Tom Garrett was already making his Detert Family Vineyards brand there. We absolutely hated the wine for 15 months, convinced that we'd soon be pouring it down the drain. Then one day, lo and behold, it became downright tasty and we were in business. Not exactly the Chateau Montelena story but still might make for a fun movie if anyone is interested.
We settled on an obscure Latin legal name meaning "Law of the Soil" for our project just to give ourselves the handicap of zero name recollection outside our partnership group. We pronounce it, Juss Solee, in case you were wondering. That sometimes leads to debates from students of Latin who say it should be,
Juss Sol-eye (long i), but we always get them to pipe down by saying that we prefer the Ecclesiastical pronunciation. Some lawyerly types also say that Jus Soli should really be translated as "Right of the Territory" but we just tell them to stop nitpicking and drink some wine already. Lawyers will debate anything, even if Black's Law Dictionary backs us up.
In 2003, we added Zinfandel to our portfolio and in 2004, Syrah. We made a Rhone-ish blend called Roots Red in 2006 and our first white, Sauvignon Blanc, in 2007. Also in 2007, we expanded to 2 different Syrahs and in 2008, 3 different Zinfandels. We'll be getting back into Pinot again shortly after moving on from our original grape source. We've only entered a couple competitions thus far and have medaled with every wine entered including Best of Class, Double Gold and many Golds. In case you were wondering, the Sonoma County Harvest Fair actually gives engraved gold medals but mostly you just get crumpled ribbons or a plaque.
We hope to display all that competition swag in a tasting room somewhere in the Kenwood area in the Sonoma Valley by 2010. A view of Hood Mountain from the front door tops our wish list. In conclusion, many thanks to all who have helped us spread the word and we look forward to many more harvests and five paragraph essays to come. In further conclusion since we seem to be a sentence short, we offer the traditional Latin toast, Sanitas Bona!