Fitzpatrick Style

Even though Fitzpatrick Winery, established in 1980, is Fair Play’s oldest, winemaker Brian Fitzpatrick’s passion for crafting wines of utmost quality and expressive of Fair Play’s regional characteristics is stronger now than ever. As Fitzpatrick rounded his 20th Crush, he embarked on an aggressive plan to take the quality of Fitzpatrick wines to a higher level during their third decade of winemaking. The foundation of the quality of Fitzpatrick wines is their certified organically grown estate vineyards planted on the most unique hilltop in Fair Play. Masterfully applying his knowledge gained from farming organically over three decades and a degree in Soil and Water Science from UCDavis, winemaker Brian Fitzpatrick is also the viticulturalist whose hands on approach in every aspect of vineyard operations include his personal pruning of near every vine – more than 10,000. Brian knows that only the highest quality fruit will make great wines.

But the best quality of grapes is no assurance to making great wines. So the other part of Fitzpatrick’s aggressive plan to take the quality of Fitzpatrick wines to a higher level continues in the winery with new state of the art Italian destemmer crusher, a new wine-friendly Italian peristaltic pump, new select French and American oak cooperage,  new hoses, fittings and a complete critique of winemaking operations. Master winemaker Mark Foster has been retained as wine consultant  for almost 10 years now and helps Brian reach his lofty goals of creating Fair Play wines with an altitude.

Brian boasts in one breath that he’s been making wine commercially for 30 years. Chiding with the next breath he explains that means he’s made wine 30 times. Both are true although 30 years sounds much more of an accomplishment. 30 times is an understatement with almost 20 different wines and multiple fermentations of the same varieties from several pickings of the same variety from different blocks that simple number of 30 times becomes over 500 lots of wine. And still Brian is humble enough to state that he knows what he knows and knows there’s much more to learn every year, thus his ongoing relationship with the wine consultant.

Brian’s job as a winemaker, as an Organic winemaker, is very challenging. Its challenging to keep it simple. No synthetic additives, processing aids, flavors, chemical agents, etc. (of which there are over 500 TTB approved for commercial winemaking) can be used in organic wine production. Our bag of remedies and tricks are minimal and all natural and have been around for decades, if not centuries. Fitzpatrick wines even meet the strict criteria of Vegans and if only I was Jewish – Kosher. That means winemaking truly captures the vintage, some better than others, some spectacular but always pure and true, not manipulated to ‘Designer wine’ specs.

Humble wines, healthy wines, happy you, living life to its fullest. If you’re discovering Fitzpatrick wines for the first time you’re in for a treat and a value unsurpassed anywhere.