The Vineyard

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The vineyard is located in the Sonoma Coast appellation which helped moderate the heat in the summer. Deep clay soil allow the plants to root deeply and give the wine a nice richness.

The  soils  here  are  extremely  rocky,  dry,  and  poor,  quite  similar  to  Pritchard  Hill  to  the  north,  studded  with  fractured  andesite  rock  and  boulders.  The  proximity  to  the  San  Pablo  Bay  brings  persistent  winds  which—along  with  the  heat  and  arid  soil,  cause  the  set  of  very  small  berries  and  loose  bunches,  and  consistently  delay  ripening  each  year.  Dry  farming  is  not  possible  here,  and  the  vines  are  watered  for  brief  stretches  to  optimize  ripening.  “It’s  a  pile  of  rocks,”  says  Philippe.  “The  vines  suffer.”

Philippe,  a  master  viticulturist,  works  this  hill  with  the  help  of  one  vineyard  worker,  meticulously  training  the  vines.  Green  harvesting  is  not  necessary,  because  the  vineyard’s  natural  parsimony  yields  only  2  tons  per  acre  (30  hl/ha)  in  a  good  year.  Yields  this  low  make  truly  memorable  wine  possible.