New Friends at Spring Hill Vineyard

Finding Pinot Noir is extremely difficult these days given the popularity of the variety and the paucity of really high-class sites. I was lucky enough to get a lead on a wife and husband team growing beautiful Pinot Noir on Spring Hill Vineyard, 20 acres just 7 miles west of the Petaluma Gap in the Sonoma Coast appellation.

Karen and Chris London are pretty amazing (I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Chris yet, but did meet Karen). Not only are they farming their vineyard themselves, but they have young children and are raising cattle and vegetables for local restaurants to boot.

Hoping for a couple of tons of fruit in the 2009 harvest year, I called Karen to see if Tom Stutz and I could take a look at her vineyard on the way through to the La Cruz vineyard about 8 miles further East. Karen, who is very energetic and justifiably proud of her site, indicated that she might even have a couple tons of fruit from one of her blocks available THIS year.

After walking the site with her and making plans for getting picking bins to Sonoma, we left her with a couple bottles of La Rochelle. She, in turn, gave us a couple pounds of beef from Silver Bell, a cow from her Scottish Highland stock. That night...one of the best hamburgers I ever had. Harvest from this site should be in the third week of September. Look below to see the crazy-looking cows the London's raise.