Each year nature gifts us another chance to make wine. In our Estate paradigm, as the cycle repeats, this opportunity plays out continually on the same piece of ground — we harvest from the same vines that we have for decades and the fermentations take place in the same building, with institutional memory held in the minds of long-term, artisan staff and family members. This consistency buffers our work from the pressures an individual season may bring, allowing us to capitalize on the best each year has to offer.
Every year we aim to create wines incrementally better than those of the year before. As we seek to steadily learn from experience, our wines prove how craftsmanship builds on itself over time.
Fifty years on Vine Hill Road has given us the opportunity to identify the variation in our soils, and find the sections of ground that produce the most flavorful grapes for the most compelling wines. We’ve learned to match the land with the right grape variety, to explore clones, to refine care of the grapevine through canopy management and trellising. We’ve honed our fermentation and cellaring techniques, with properly aged wines in traditional cooperage, bottled unfiltered. A slow craft that unfolds on the order of decades takes multiple lifetimes of discovery to work out all the details, and we are off to a good start.
With half a century of experience to draw from, the best wines we have made, we are making now: The critically acclaimed wines we are releasing this fall from the 2022 and 2023 vintages demonstrate the compounding results of 50 years of our pursuits. 2022 was a low-rain fall year with limited yields, factors that lead to earlier ripening of the grapes — ideal for the later-maturing Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. It was also a year made more precious to me by the birth of my daughter Mina, marking the beginning of a new lifetime.
The 2023 vintage was a later, cooler year, with peak ripening occurring slowly as the days grew shorter — drawing out layers of flavor in the cool climate varieties of Chardonnay and Pinot noir, which show particular verve and intensity in this vintage. Early reactions suggest a classic.
Thank you for coming on this journey with us, vintage after vintage. Join us in celebrating what we have achieved together by sharing in these wonderful wines.
We have made them for you.