Langley Hill
The vineyard’s fractured sandstone over Lambert shale yields Chardonnay that is steely and structured with persistent citrus and mineral flavors.
Langley Hill Vineyard
This is actually called the “Metal Vineyard”. It was the second vineyard my dad and his group planted, but it was right on the heels of Damiana, and this was the first one I was really involved in. I think I was ten or eleven when we cleared the field. Back then Damiana and Langley Hill were one big contiguous thicket of a native Chaparral we have here that we call “greasewood”. Someone (I don’t remember who) just took the old 1954 Caterpillar D-4 (we still have it and use it) and cleared the whole eight acres that became the two vineyards. When that was done Jim Beauregard (who at that time had a winery called “Felton Empire”) and a crew surveyed the vineyards and marked where to put the end posts and stakes. At that age I was not too excited about getting up at 6am or whatever it was, but that is what my dad wanted me to do, so I did it. I can remember it being VERY cold in the mornings but it would warm up quickly. That leads me to believe it was in May or June. At first it was supposed to be my job to carry the metal stakes out and put them in the holes dug by the crew, but I didn’t have gloves and they were heavy for a little kid. I really couldn’t keep up. In the end it became my job to hold the stake straight while the crew drove the stakes into the ground. It was pretty humbling but a lot of fun. Thinking back it strikes me how “grass roots” everything was. It was a bunch of friends, many of whom were, or became, fixtures in the Santa Cruz Mountains viticulture community. Michael (Martella), my dad, Jim Beauregard… Jim and Bob Varner and Jeffrey Patterson were around at different times during planting too.”
– Tom Fogarty, Jr.
Technical Notes
Year Planted: 1980
Elevation: 2,050 ft.
Size: 5.25 acres
Exposure: Southeastern, steep
Soils: Lambert Shale
Clone: Wente 4
Rootstock: AxR1
Vine Spacing: 6′ vines x 10′ rows
