Our Vineyard
We are located in Adelaida, about 3/4 mile east of Adelaida Road, on Chimney Rock Road. At the time we purchased the ranch in the Spring of 2004, it had about 75 acres of walnut trees and 1 1/2 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon. The property is mostly hilly with most of the hills oriented to the north. We replaced 27 acres of walnuts for 16 acres of grapes and 8 acres of olives. The areas that we've cleared have mainly west and south slopes. About a third of the area is sloping north.
The vineyard is dry farmed, and it is our plan to farm it organically. All of the vines (Mourvedre, Grenache, Counoise, and Zinfandel), with the exception of Syrah, will be head pruned. We're going to attempt to train it on a six foot vertical stake. Our experience has been that Syrah is unbelieveably vigorous, so it will be interesting to see what kind of challenge we're about to face.
Our 16 acres were planted in January 2006. We will start harvesting small quantities of grapes by the 2008 harvest and will likely be making estate wines from 2009 harvest year going forward.