History
Speizer bought 68 acres in 1994 containing the Chamisal vineyard, the valley's first commercial planting, built Domaine Alfred on it and released his first vintages in 1998. On August 28, 2008 Crimson Wine Group bought the whole operation, 131 acres with 81 under vine plus the winery and brand, and renamed it Chamisal Vineyards in honor of the pioneer planter Norman Goss; the deal carried a non-compete clause. Speizer's answer was a 120-acre property north of Chamisal, bought in December 2009 and named Morro View because six of the Seven Sisters can be seen from it. He planted vines alongside Ascolano and Taggiasca olives for oil, and seeded an experimental holly oak grove in the hope of truffles. An estate label followed, Morro View Winery, whose 2013 Grenache Blanc carried a Speizer Family Vineyard designation.
The Site
The vineyard sits among the rolling hills in the middle of the Edna Valley AVA in San Luis Obispo County, about five miles from the Pacific, on sandy loam over a clay loam subsoil. Cool, windy marine air keeps acidity high, and part of the Grenache block lies in a sheltered northern exposure that buyers credit for the lifted aromatics in the finished wines. Ten acres of vines are surrounded by roughly 110 acres of oak, brush and olive trees; the vineyard is SIP Certified Sustainable and the Grenache is farmed organically. The morros of the name, called the Seven Sisters or Nine Sisters depending on who is counting, are a chain of volcanic plugs some twenty to twenty-five million years old running northwest toward Morro Bay.
Vines and Blocks
The planting reads like nobody else's in a valley given mostly to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir: four acres of Grenache, three and a half of Nebbiolo, an acre of Grenache Blanc, and half an acre each of Merlot and Petite Sirah. The Grenache is clone 362, and it is what draws the outside winemakers; A Tribute to Grace farmed three rows of the block and called the site its first venture into truly cool-climate Grenache. Albarino, absent from the original planting account, has since appeared in bottlings from the ground, so the mix has evidently shifted. The same vines have been sold under three names: Morro View on most labels, Bee Sweet on others, and Speizer Family Vineyard on the estate's own.
The Wines
A Tribute to Grace bottled a Morro View Grenache across multiple vintages beginning in 2014; Vinous described the 2020 as the label's last from the site. Croma Vera's 2019 Grenache spent sixteen months in French oak, a quarter of it new, and ran to 93 cases; Locura draws its Grenache from the organically farmed clone 362 rows. Stereophonic's 2019 Blue Desert Albarino, Stephen Ross's 2016 Bee Sweet Grenache and Lepiane's 2014 Bee Sweet Nebbiolo complete the record, and the Nebbiolo may be the best measure of the owner: few growers in this valley would plant it at all, and Speizer gave it three and a half acres.