Vineyards

Kistler has farmed the McCrea vineyard since the 1980s and the individual blocks represent two distinct soil profiles. While much of the vineyard has silica based, lighter soils, the Sonoma Mountain blocks reside in a redder set of volcanic, higher organic material, soils that bring more fruit forwardness and broader shoulders to the Sonoma Mountain bottling.

 Vintages Notes:

 All indicators point to the 2024 vintage being quite simply, in a word, classic. Traditional timing for budbreak early in the spring, a warm summer with our first major pulses of heat coming right on time to encourage the vines to abandon their vegetative growing cycle and begin ripening the fruit, good yields deftly thinned, and a warm, timely, smooth harvest with commensurately smooth fermentations led to a classic set of wines. They hold the strongest characters and best qualities of what our region can produce, intense, full flavor profiles, noted structure buoyed by lively acids, and a balanced sense of being weighted, without being heavy. 2024 was a welcomed growing season, with familiar timings and outcomes, yet the type of wines that we might have made twenty years ago if we knew then what we know now.

 Appellation:
Sonoma Mountain Vineyards: McCrea Vineyard Clones: Proprietary Heritage Selection Soil: Sonoma Volcanics Vinification: Whole cluster pressed, barrel fermented with native yeasts, 10 months in French oak, 38% new, bottled unfined, unfiltered