Razorback Vineyard
This rather steep vineyard is dry farmed and gets some of the cooling fog that settles below our other Estate vineyards. The wines are always the most graceful and elegant of our Estate Single Vineyard Pinot Noirs.
Razorback Vineyard
“The Razorback Vineyard is the lowest elevation vineyard at the Winery Estate (1300-1400 ft.). It sits above the Corte Madera Creek and the upper stretch of Alpine Rd. on an east facing slope. It is the most isolated site we farm here and is a good 5-10 minute drive from the winery on a bumpy mountain road – really classic Santa Cruz Mountains stuff! The vines sit in the fog in the mornings, so the growing days are a little shorter and cooler if the marine layer is thick. We have found fossils of mussels and clams as well as veins of volcanic ash in the soils nearby. The wines from the vineyard have a really perfumed and red fruited character. There is also no power here so the vines are dry farmed. The vineyard was originally planted to Chardonnay, in 2006 it was grafted to Pinot Noir. Razorback is the only vineyard planted with Dijon Clones that we farm, though there is a good chunk of the Swan selection. David Gates, from our neighbor Ridge Vineyards, has a great grafting crew and they did the work to switch the vineyard over to Pinot. They indicated which clones were grafted where by writing the name on nursery tape at each end post. We never figured out a more permanent situation and the nursery tape faded with the weather, essentially washing away any identification. Ultimately we aren’t sure exactly where each clone is in the vineyard! In some ways this has been a godsend as we treat the vineyard as a ‘massale’ selection and co-ferment the vineyard as a whole; more popular today are mono-clonal harvests. We think this makes this a very special and unique wine.”
– Nathan Kandler
Technical Notes
Year Planted: 1986
Elevation: 1400 ft.
Size: 2 acres
Exposure: East to North-East, steep
Soils: Purisima
Clone: Swan, 115, 667, 777
Rootstock: AxR1
Vine Spacing: 6′ vines x 10′ rows
