Paradise Hills

Everyday, with the morning mist still hanging over the Napa Valley, I make my way to the Mayacamas Hills of Yountville, through the archway of Domaine Chandon and onto the dirt frontage road that leads to Paradise Hills Vineyard, the home of Blankiet Estate. The track wends west, and follows the Dominus property line aquaduct back into the hills. The sloped vineyard here is planted entirely to Cabernet sauvignon and Merlot grapes - the winery produces no white wines. The Cab is planted on the north slopes, on steep ash soils covered with gravelly loam. The Merlot plantations to the south don't reach quite as high in elevation and their volcanic soils form a basin around the winery site before curving out of sight around the hill topped by the Blankiet home.

I was fortunate to be invited along on a recent pre-harvest vineyard walkthough with Jon Wetlaufer, the viticulturist who planned the plantings here, and Jaime Avina, the vineyard manager. We walked the rows, choosing different aspects of all of the various blocks. While Jon's wife, Helen Turley, was conducting a baseline sampling for sugar (brix) levels and acidity (pH), we surveyed the vines for signs of stress, vigor, defficencies. The general idea is to allow the vine just enough growth to ripen just enough fruit - around 3lb. per vine in this case. This can be achieved through fertilization, irrigation, canopy management and a variety of other methods. The best and least laborious method, is to choose the right vine with the right rootstock planted in the right spot. This may sound simplisticly obvious, but we are still sorting out how to do this consistently. Much relies on vine spacing - Paradise Hills is planted 1m (3ft) between vines and 2m (6ft)between rows. The close-planted Abel block at Escarpment was more like 1mx1.2m and most of the tractor-farmed Sauvignon blanc in NZ is 2mx3m.

We expect the first fruit will cross the sorting table of our virgin destemming line sometime at the end of this week. Then we'll find out if we've forgotten anything while setting up this brand new winery. I'm looking forward to getting my mitts on my first Bordeaux varietals. And getting to the job of making some wine.