Primus Vineyards Part 1.

Primus Vineyards is an enigma. It is at once one of the most sought after wines in El Dorado County, yet not much is known about it outside of the Primus Wine Society and those lucky ones who have had a chance to taste the wines. I say lucky because the wines tend to sell out within three weeks of release, so they can be hard to find. A bottle of the Primus 2005 Merlot recently sold for $1700 at a charity auction!

I recently sat down with owner/founder Tom Brown. He had allowed me a great privilege, to be the first wine writer to ever write about his wines! I am doing something Mike Dunn or even Robert Parker have never done! I was honored and overwhelmed, because his wines deserve to be showcased and if this is the only time a writer will ever get to review the wines, the reviewer should be stellar!

Tom is an engaging man. He is intense and driven by excellence, yet you feel comfortable sitting across the table with him just chatting about wine. He is also one of the hardest working winemakers I know! On this day we sat down, he was taking a break in doing "yard" work, which means planting dozens of shrubs, cutting acres of grass and finishing up a stone retaining wall which he has laid stone by stone! He is working the grounds of his amphitheatre for an outdoor wedding the following day. No expense has been spared, which is a theme at Primus.

When Tom opened Primus over 5 years ago, he had but one word in mind - quality. His standards of quality were intentionally high, and required the attitude that money would not be a hindrance to the quality of his wines. So no detail is overlooked in the entire production of the wines. For example, all his barrels are French Oak, new French Oak! Although more expensive than American Oak barrels, he prefers the lighter oak nuances that are imparted by these barrels. The barrels are only used twice, and always only for the same varietal, Merlot will never touch a zinfandel barrel. His wines are also always 100% single varietal, so this makes getting the flavor profiles he is seeking in the wines just that much more challenging! Instead of adding 2% of this variety or 6% of that variety, his winemaker must achieve perfection with the fruit he has to work with. For example, it is common for winemakers to add some Petite Sirah to their zinfandel to get a slight pepper nose or taste on the palette. Usually in quantities smaller than 5%, the wine consumer will never know that this was part of the production of that wine. The result of this "spare no expense" philosophy has been this. Primus Vineyards first two vintage years sold out in just three weeks! This meant Tom had his tasting room doors closed for an awfully long time each year! Now, he has ramped up production and held some vintages back on order to have a little more to offer in the tasting room, yet his production will never exceed 3000 cases. Boutique winery size, and perfect for a "cult wine" which Primus has certainly achieved. Considering that Primus wines have never entered a wine competition, nor has he ever advertised his wines in any publication, how did Primus achieve this amazing status?

Tom says it is his quality. Sure, there are a some very high quality wines being produced in the Sierra Foothills, and i have written about many of them here, but the Primus phenomenon is different. No other winery I know of outside of Napa or Santa Barbara enjoys the status of Primus. I recently had a conversation with another local winemaker who took a bottle of that 2005 Merlot to a dinner, along with two other high quality wines, including the Napa Silver Oak which sells for $100 a bottle and his own bottle. He said that the Primus Merlot was the best bottle they drank that night, hands down. The 2005 Primus Vineyards Merlot sells for $52, which is another exception to the Sierra Foothills. Price.

Primus has four of its six current releases priced at over $40 a bottle, with the highly sought after 2005 Cabernet Franc going for $62 a bottle. In a region where wine sells for $12 to $26 a bottle with the exception of a dozen or so wines at over $30 a bottle how is this possible? Again, Tom goes back to quality and the cost of production. His wines cost more to produce, and they sell out because people realize the quality when they uncork the bottle, so there is really no thought to the cost when someone buys a bottle of Primus Vineyards wine. It is the same thought process when you compare a high end domestic auto to a BMW or Mercedes. If you have made the decision that the BMW or Mercedes is more to your standards, then you buy it. I think what Tom Brown has done at Primus Vineyards is important to the Sierra Foothills region, because it shows that we are capable of producing very high quality wines and pricing them in line with other better known wine growing regions. Of course every winery is not going to be a Primus Vineyards here in the foothills. But there is a perception that wines priced at over $35 a bottle may not sell here in the foothills. I say if the wine is outstanding, sell it for what it is worth! Van Der Vijver Estate has a bottle of dessert wine that is over 8 years old and sells for $65, because it was only made once, and because once it is gone, it is gone forever! Did I mention it is OUTSTANDING! OK, back to Primus Vineyards!

So Primus Vineyards has achieved this status by word of mouth only. People like my winemaker friend try the wine and then tell people about it. They try the wine and then tell people about it too! Word of mouth was so successful, and the mystique about the wines so intense before Tom ever sold his first bottle that the first vintage sold out in three weeks, as I mentioned before! That is an amazing feat for a new winery. Now, his wines are offered to his very exclusive Primus Wine Society members first, and then what is left is sold out of the tasting room. His wine society members are a who's who of celebrities, athletes and politicians, none of which he would name, but if you want to find out for yourself, you have to join. He treats his wine society members like royalty, and the events hosted for them are nothing short of Hollywood caliber! He has flown in bands and singers to entertain the guests, since many of them fly in to attend these ultra-private events! Primus Wine Society members live all over the United States and the world, and he ships them their wine when it is released.

Tom has worked so hard to cultivate this loyal following, and to keep the Primus Vineyards label something extravagant, limited and in a way, not very well known outside of the Primus circle. He risked his entire livelihood on this theory that if he was to produce truly world class wines not worrying about the cost of bottles (gold leaf silk screened!) or barrels or even his very talented winemaker Brian, the wine would sell itself, and it has. The Primus Vineyards brand speaks to ultra premium quality which does sell itself, no matter the cost of the bottle. But what would happen if all of a sudden, the brand Primus Vineyards disappeared? What impact would that have on the Sierra Foothills? We will explore that in Primus Vineyards, Part 2.