2011 Wine and Food Festival Featured Winemaker Is Windsor Oaks Vineyards

A Sensory Experience

Windsor Oaks’ Artisanal Winemaker Tunes In As She Fine-Tunes The Wine

Winemaker Julie Hagler Lumgair leads with her nose.
“I do 95 percent of my work with my nose,” she says. “It’s very hands-on.”

That method has served Lumgair well as the creator of artisan wines for Windsor Oaks Vineyards & Winery in California’s Sonoma County. Since 2006, Windsor Oak’s wines have been garnering awards at competitions in California, Texas, Florida and Colorado. For the past two years, Lumgair has claimed the National Women’s Wine Competition “Women Winemaker’s Challenge, Judges’ Choice Award” for her Chalk Hill Super Tuscan, a blend of Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.

“The best way to make an exceptional wine is to be in tune with it,” she says. “Every wine in its barrel is in its own world.”

Lumgair will be using all of her sensory talents this month as she plans wine pairings for the Local Chefs Showcase at Inside Columbia’s Wine & Food Festival. The winemaker will team up with four Columbia chefs for a five-course wine dinner on May 18.

She approaches the wine pairing with an appreciation of local foods, born of a life spent growing up on the family farm.

“I come from a fifth-generation family farm in eastern Tennessee,” Lumgair says. “Using local foods and local produce — what that really says is ‘top of the line.’ Diners are in for a big treat that night.”

Lumgair plans to offer a wide range of Windsor Oaks varietals at the Local Chefs Showcase, matching wines to the chefs’ choices. The evening’s wine list will include a Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and late-harvest Zinfandel.

All Windsor Oaks wines are produced on the 700-acre estate near Windsor, California. Lumgair lives on the estate with her husband Douglas, general manager of Windsor Oaks Vineyards. The vineyards produce 17 grape varietals on 230 acres in the Russian River Valley and Chalk Hill appellations. Windsor Oaks sells 95 percent of its 700-ton crop to more than 35 other artisanal wineries, reserving the top 5 percent for the 2,000 cases of wine Lumgair crafts at the winery. The wines sell directly from the cellar door and through its wine club at www.windsoroakvineyards.com.

Douglas Lumgair has been managing the vineyards since 1991 when general partner Bob Stein acquired the property. Lumgair set out to transform the estate, replanting the vines in more than 50 distinct blocks to take advantage of the varying microclimates within the vineyard terroir. The redesign includes a 350-acre nature preserve.

Julie Lumgair, who married Douglas six years ago, has been winemaker for Windsor Oaks since 2005.

A former executive in brand management for Proctor & Gamble, Bush Brothers and Del Monte, Lumgair moved to California when her work with Del Monte led her to the Golden State.

“I moved into food mergers and then became more interested in the culinary side of the business,” she says.

Training with the winemakers who bought the vineyard’s grapes, Lumgair became a Certified Specialist of Wine and is an active member of the Society of Wine Educators and a professional wine judge.

“My goal is to make something that makes people say ‘Wow! I got my money’s worth,’ ” she says.     “I want people smiling.”

As for the wines that make her smile, “It all depends on what’s for dinner,” she says. “In winter, I favor the big reds, and when it’s hot I reach for whites, a dry Rosé or Pinot Noir. My preferences move with the seasons.”

She just follows her nose.