Vineyards

This wine hails from a very old vineyard located on the eastern foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains at a vineyard known as Lion Oaks. The old-timers in the region know it as the Carter Ranch, named for the family that has farmed this vineyard since early 1900's, and they were not the first... Well over a century-old, the gnarly vines of Lion Oaks are dry-farmed, head-trained, and cane-pruned – the “real thing.” Comprised of sandy, meager soils, the vineyard floor is divided into two roughly equal halves by a small creek which meanders north to south leaving each parcel with a sloping southeastern exposure. In spite of rather large individual berry size, the vineyard typically yields less than 3/4 tons per acre of intensely flavored grapes filled with vibrant esters of blackberry, and olallieberry.