Winemaker - Ken Foster
Winemaker Ken Foster is active and full of energy in the cellar and
he is enthusiastically involved in every step of the winemaking process
from vineyard to bottle. Ken utilizes small open top fermentations,
neutral oak barrels, sur lie aging, and his own hands-on approach
in carefully crafting the Mahoney Vineyards and Fleur de California
wines.
In the Mahoney Ranch and Las Brisas Vineyards, we hold 17 specific
clones of Pinot Noir that Ken closely monitors throughout the growing
season. During harvest separate clonal blocks of fruit are hand-picked
and fermented individually to retain their individual qualities, or
co-fermented with specific clones to combine their characteristics
into a controlled field blend and fermentation.
This approach affords Ken a profusion of options when crafting final
blends for all of our wines. In most vintages he has over 30 lots
of differing Pinot Noirs to choose from in the blending process. Ken’s
keen palate, three decades of winemaking experience, and over a decade
of experience working with Mahoney Vineyards estate fruit have combined
to produce something very unique and special at Mahoney Vineyards.
Our world-class wines express the terroir of our vineyards and are
a testament to the artisanal and careful approach Ken Foster takes
to winemaking.
