Winemaker wants to showcase cabernet franc, syrah from Santa Cruz Mountains

Rolling with Mother Nature’s punches may be what makes a good winemaker, but wasn’t what Brent Harrison had in mind when he enrolled in a vine to wine class at Southern Illinois University on his way to a career as a licensed marriage and family therapist.

“I needed an elective, and honestly, I just wanted to drink,” admits Harrison. “But it turned out to be the best thing ever.”

From that class, Harrison went on to work for Blue Sky Vineyard in Makanda, Ill. The winery, located on the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail, grew chardonnay and cabernet franc, and Harrison fell in love with the latter varietal during his first ever harvest.

In 2014, he moved to California for grad school, pursuing a master’s degree in holistic counseling psychology. While waiting for his student loans to be approved, he was camping in Sanborn Park when he got his first vineyard job with Cooper Garrod in Saratoga. The winery has a longstanding reputation for its 5-acre cabernet franc vineyard. Here, Harrison got to work with Jan Garrod and the legendary vineyard team headed up by the now-retired Luis Trejo. During his third harvest, Harrison says, Jan Garrod got a call to bring his crew to Peter Martin Ray Vineyard to pick.

“I pride myself on being a fast harvester,” says Harrison. That caught the attention of vineyard consultant Ken Swegles, who subsequently put him to work during harvest at dozens of small sites throughout the mountains. This led to Harrison’s meeting Marty Mathis of Kathryn Kennedy Winery in Saratoga, who was looking for help with harvest 2017. Mathis immediately saw the breadth of this eager young man’s capabilities and put him to work installing godello at the Guichard Vineyard in Saratoga, and then planting sauvignon blanc and gamay noir at Imperial Vineyard by Lexington Reservoir.

While serving as assistant winemaker for Mathis, Harrison made his first cabernet franc from Camel Hill Vineyard on Bear Creek Road in 2021, and his first syrah from Littlehale Vineyard in Saratoga in 2022. Also in 2022, Harrison got his first cabernet franc fruit from Ascona Vineyard, a vineyard off Skyline Boulevard between Black and Gist roads, then managed by Swegles and his partner in Madson Wines, Cole Thomas.

Harrison also made an awesome 2023 cabernet franc from Cooper Garrod’s Francville Vineyard, but that might be the last fruit he obtains from there, given the popularity of the new Cooper Garrod Cabernet Franc Rosé from Jan Garrod’s winemaker son, Trevor.

Harrison bottles his wines, which include a red blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cabernet franc from a toasty creekside vineyard in the Santa Clara Valley, under his label, From Brent Wine Co. Each bottle is a love letter from Brent himself, and also from the vineyard.

Tasting each wine gives you a clear sense of the surrounding vegetation. Both the 2022 Ascona Cabernet Franc and the 2025 barrel sample are redolent of exotic spice, pine forest, wild blackberries, red currant and green peppercorn, carrying onto the acid-driven palate of brisk cranberry and pomegranate. The vineyard is the site of a Christmas tree farm, and tends to be crisp and brisk, like the resulting wines. Harrison foot-treads his wines, and this vineyard produces fruit so cold it hurts his feet.

The 2023 Littlehale Syrah is done with 50% carbonic fermentation and 50% whole cluster with foot-treading. Stepping on stems is attention-getting, but the result is a wine that echoes the chaparral of the hillsides surrounding the vineyard.

“The Santa Cruz Mountains are really underappreciated for syrah,” says Harrison, drawing barrel samples of the 2024 Littlehale syrah, to which a tiny bit of sulfur had been added. He tries to keep the wines as fresh and natural as possible, fermenting only with native yeast in largely used barrels.

The floral and warm forest floor aromatics complemented the tangy red, blue and black fruits, among them damson plum, through which runs a vein of Herbs de Provence. This is serious, potent stuff.

We barrel-sampled a 2024 sulfur-free version of the same wine, called “Supernatural,” and it presented all the same notes as the prior wine, but with distinctively amped up aromatics of green pine, pristine red and blue fruit and a pronounced emphasis on cracked peppercorn.

Harrison, his wife and new baby live at Garrod Farms in Saratoga, where he makes his wines in the Cooper Garrod cellar while continuing to help maintain the vineyards there. He also makes wine with Mathis at Kathryn Kennedy, and continues his family therapy practice, with an office in Los Gatos.

But it’s being in the vineyards and making new wines each year that fuels him and gives him a sense of pride. He’s going to make Guichard godello for the first time this harvest, as well as cabernet sauvignon from Peter Martin Ray, syrah from Littlehale and cab franc from Ascona.

Harrison currently has four wines available for purchase at https://www.frombrentwineco.com: 2021 Camel Hill Cabernet Franc, 2023 Red Blend, 2023 Littlehale Syrah, and one remaining case of 2022 Ascona Cabernet Franc.

“How lucky am I that I get to make wine with Marty, one of the best guys around, plant a new vineyard by Lexington Reservoir and work with fruit from some of the most exciting vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains,” says Harrison. “I’d like nothing better than to use cabernet franc and syrah as a vehicle to show what a fabulous area this is to express these varieties. As much as I love pinot noir and chardonnay, I really feel the area needs to focus on how amazing Santa Cruz Mountains syrah can be.”