Vineyards

All of our wines — both of them — are estate grown. We control the farming each-and-every year and our goal is consistently superior expressions of the vineyards and vintages through our wines. Each year we learn more about these wonderful vineyards. The wines just keep getting better and better!

Butterdragon Hill

Butterdragon Hill comprises seven acres farmed by Jim Barbour and the experts at Barbour Vineyards. Give these guys and gals a piece of Napa Valley hillside and they'll plant it with an extremely narrow 3x5 spacing and then stingily give it water by the teaspoonful until the grapes seem to cry out for relief. The grapes may not be "happy" but those droopy faces provide sophisticated flavors from lush, succulent wines.

In 2003 and 2004, this vineyard also provided the grapes for a premium, single vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon made by Nickel & Nickel. These specialists in recognizing the potential of vineyard sites and expressing that sense of "place" in a single vineyard wine will be releasing their own "Match Vineyard" Cabernet Sauvignon in 2006.

Butterdragon Hill is located on the western side of the Napa Valley above Highway 29, just a couple of miles north of St. Helena. This vineyard was planted in 2000 with green bench grafts of Cabernet Sauvignon clones 337, 7, and 15 plus a small amount of Merlot. Its first vintage, the 2002 was released in Spring 2005.

Baconbrook

There's just no soil or water up there. That's the way to describe the location of Baconbrook. This 2 ¾ acre Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard is located on a lower ridge of Spring Mountain overlooking the town of St. Helena in the Napa Valley. The soil, what little there is, is made up of broken chunks of ancient volcanic rock. Honestly, during the hot Napa Valley summers, the boys at Piña Vineyard Management would like to get more water on the vines, but it's just not available. As a result, this "forced" deficit irrigation produces small berries of intense, dark color with incredibly strong flavors and sweet tannins that make Baconbrook wines long-term agers. We're never going to have much of this mountain fruit from this miserly vineyard but oh, how we are excited about the little bit we do get.

Baconbrook, our home ranch, was planted in 2001. Its inaugural vintage, the 2004 Match Baconbrook Cabernet Sauvignon is scheduled to be released in Fall 2007.

If you'd like to read how these vineyards got their names, check out our story in the Vintner's Journal.