Roots

Good Dirt

It was not until 2006 when Mike, his wife Marnie, and his daughters Kelsye and Aisling, were vacationing and visiting relatives in Italy that Mike started to think of a vineyard.

“It occurred to me as we traveled through the country that wherever I traveled in the world, the soil that grew the best wine came from the most abject soil—rocky, loam soil that you probably couldn’t give to a regular farmer.”

The following year, while visiting a vineyard and winery in southern France, Mike realized after a stroll through the vines that the soil stuck to his feet following a light rain. “They had the same soil as our famous South Dakota Gumbo!” Mike decided that once he returned to his home on the range, he would have the soil tested.

After sending several samples for analysis, Mike learned that the dirt at his ranch had a 60-inch subsoil of calcareous clay loam, containing high proportions of calcium carbonate in the form of calcite or aragonite. As it turned out, this calcareous soil was the same general type of soil found in the Bordeaux region of France, where such great wines as Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cab Franc, and Petit Verdot are found, as well as in the Langhe Valley of Italy, home of the three B’s: Barbera, Barolo, and Barbaresca.

“The soil was, of course, about all we had in common with these great grape growing areas of the world, but it was enough for me to keep studying the idea of possibly putting in a vineyard.”