Manchester Ridge

I don’t know why I end up working with vineyards that are far away from my home. When I began working with Hirsch vineyard I thought it was an impossibly long drive, but this one is even more remote: First, drive up to the Anderson Valley, which is a long drive from almost anywhere. Then, take a torturously narrow and winding road from Boonville out towards the coast. Fourteen miles down this road, turn onto a rutted dirt road and drive another eight and a half miles up and down ridges, out to the vineyard. From my house this takes about three hours. Manchester Ridge is the name of the first ridge in from the coastal plain to the northeast of Point Arena, and it is also the name of the vineyard. From the edge of the vineyard you can see down to the beach, which as the crow flies, is about three and a half miles away and 2000 feet down. Somewhat mysteriously, there is a giant swing set made from telephone poles, painted blue, perched on the edge of the cliff. The seats are locked to prevent the unsupervised from launching themselves into the void, so I have not yet ridden this swing.

I found this vineyard through my friend Martin Mochizuki, who has been working in vineyard management for about as long as I have been a winemaker. When I asked him about it, he warned me that it was a long way out in the middle of nowhere, but that it was a pretty interesting site: high elevation, for coastal California, but close to the ocean. Because it is on the top of a ridge, the soil is pretty weathered, and well drained. Like the Sonoma Coast, the climate at Manchester is less dominated by the marine influence, despite its proximity to the ocean, than the valleys further inland, because it is often above the fog. So there is a lot of sunlight, but because it is close to the ocean it is not too hot. The season seems to be compressed up there, starting later but moving faster during the middle of the summer so that by the end of the season it has “caught up,” with harvest coming around the end of September. Also like the Sonoma Coast, it is difficult to set a large crop up there because spring weather is more extreme than down in the valleys, so yields are naturally low. The combination of cool climate and high elevation (and my friend Martin) is what drew me out here, but what keeps me coming back is the vibrancy of the wine. It is delicate and intense at the same time. It has purity and grace.

2007 Manchester Ridge Pinot Noir
2006 Manchester Ridge Pinot Noir

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