The road narrows and the switchbacks get tighter as you approach the peak. The excitement builds as the road snakes back and forth between Napa’s most lush green forest & later the long vistas out to the coastal range of Sonoma. As you near the top, almost never will you encounter a car passing the other direction. That is because nothing lies beyond. Just past the summit of Spring Mountain the 99 acre site is situated. Its virgin nature is arresting. The mountain-top topography makes for dramatic view corridors that are steep, wide & stretch to the horizon. There’s next-to-no sign of development, just the ancient oaks, madrones, redwoods and meadows of native grasses. Vineyard blocks dot the horizon. Rocky outcrops accent the property. A natural spring fed pond maintains an abundance of wildlife. There was instantly a sense that “this is the place.” It has always felt so natural and given me a sense of belonging. It was love at first sight.

With every person that I brought to the site the validation continued to unfold. Engineers, soil scientists, site-prep contractors, vineyard managers, winemakers, were all paraded through as we interviewed to build our dream team. I must’ve walked the site one-on-one with 50 or more passionate Napa based professionals from a variety of trades. It was really a joy to meet so many gifted individuals who loved their work and were so proud of their contribution to the industry. It was a joy to share in the excitement for the opportunity, both to share the beauty of the site & to imagine the possibility of the product. Many of them had spent a lifetime in their field. I’m so thankful with how eager everyone was to refer us to the right partners. Everything came together serendipitously and unfolded in a really natural way.

Would it be okay if I brought so-and-so up to see what you’re doing?... I think you’d get along great with XYZ, they do the best work in ABC. When it comes time to do X, this is a guy you should meet, here’s his number.”

Dry summer grass is transformed to a lush green. This cycle of the blossoming of cover crop is part of renewing the soil and preparing the conditions for vines to shoot up anew and bear a new fruit. While the vines are bare, it is an opportunity to bring in the sheep who have only interest in the cover crop sown below. The sheep gently press in their droppings into the wet winter soil while they chew down the grasses. This opportunity for biodynamic inputs from the sheep is part of our thoughtful stewardship of vineyard health. Interestingly, when we had the archeological survey of the properly done prior to development, special note was taken about the type of barbed wire found on the property. Together with the remains of what was thought to be a stone corral, it was guessed that the property may have once been the site of sheep farming by early settlers.

Even from a great distance you can spot the white yarrow blooming in spring and summer. There’s also an abundance of manzanita, of sagebrush & white sage. These are gifts from intelligent design and are meant to be appreciated. Someday, it is a goal to prepare medicinal products from the property to share with you. In the meantime, it is a late winter tradition to sprinkle wildflower and native medicinal plant seeds about the property. Casting out seeds is as act of love for the land. It reinforces the diversity of life around the vineyard and makes for future abundance. It is without regard to any particular reward or outcome that we engage in the act of spreading the seeds. Visiting in the summertime the blooms color up the views on the mountainside, and that is reward enough to see the beauty of nature reaching its potential.

He shared with me the story of how the previous landowner had given him permission to take a redwood sapling home with him, and how it had grown to be massive and a special part of his homestead. These are the sort of stories that abounded, connecting the tradesmen and professionals to the work done on the site in a heart-felt and meaningful way. While none of the water wells we have on the property are positively gushers, the quality of the water is most-excellent. As water flows downhill, it was no sure thing that we’d find the water needed at the top of the mountain. Fortunately, confirming the water availability meant that we could move forward to further plans for the site. Water availability was the first of the major hurdles that we cleared on the path.

Andrew Davidson, with our direction, carved this reversed image in the end grain of a block of English box wood. Then the block was rolled up in ink and transferred via hand press onto paper. The label artwork was meant to convey in symbology one way of understanding Interbeing. The interconnected & complimentary nature of the physical & spiritual dimensions are displayed by the branches and roots respectively. The being sitting at the base contemplates & understands both parts of nature. Here the formless and spiritual dimension join form and the material in our symbology. It is one of many possible keys or pointers to the teaching.

In fact, we knew that the area had a tremendous amount of diversity in composition. One scientist explained to me that the top of the Mayacamas range is like all the dinner leftovers scraped off the plate. The way the range formed; it is a mishmash of different parent material that makes up the soils at the top of the range. The variation in soil chemistry creates benefits and also challenges. The variation in soil type means a range of raw materials and thus more options in crafting a blend. The challenge is in getting consistent ripening where soil chemistry is varied. Another challenge is in matching the rootstock to the soil conditions. The study process involves digging pits for visual study and lab work. Within the vineyard blocks we developed there were 3 completely different soil types (Goulding series, Henneke series & Toomes series.) From there, plans are crafted for which amendments to apply to the soil to balance out the soil chemistry & improve soil structure. These soil reports open up as many questions as they offer answers. I found myself doing research on beneficial nematodes, trace minerals, cation exchange in soil & rootstock types and their properties. Periodically finding answers in the wine business, feels more like opening up another world of study which adds further dimension to the process of wonder and discovery.

Picking a partner and getting them involved good and early is important, as you want their full involvement in the civil planning and in supervising the development. So, we found ourselves walking the property and explaining our vision in a series of interesting conversations. The property is naturally so beautiful and special that it was easy to share in a mutual love for the land. One such farmer, David Abreu, was surprised that we had found such a site & that it had slipped by his notice that it had come briefly available on the market. We explained that our approach was to cut no corners, to do things the best possible way for the long-run quality & to farm strictly organically. The best shared that mutual ambition to reach for the highest possible expression of the site. In the end it was an easy decision to select Jim Barbour to develop and farm the site. Everything about the relationship has been easy & natural. We share an eye for detail, aesthetic perfection, a distaste for the tiniest bit of trash or litter, and a willingness to throw tremendous effort and resources to achieve the best results. The scientific approach to foliar teas, soil amendments, cover crop selection & drip system injections have really allowed us to dial in the organic chemistry and plant health. Included in the 70+ sites he manages are some of our favorites. A lifetime of stories and experience are brought with him to our project.

That was the story that heard from all the developers who we brought to interview for the job. Luckily, we had the good fortune not to encounter stubborn rock formations buried which were the size of Volkswagons. Where uniform vineyard block development and uniform ripening is the target, achieving consistent soil depth, soil chemistry & soil moisture levels is the goal. That’s more of a challenge on a mountain site than it is on the valley floor. Site prep means taking out every stone the size of a fist or bigger. It also means conditioning the soil and amending it to be chemically identical and homogenized across the entire block. That is a massive earth-moving project & is one that requires regular rechecking of the soil chemistry to be sure the results are achieved. Massive piles of rocks came out of the vineyard blocks and became our building blocks. “I’m building you some giant planter beds stuck to the side of the mountain,” one excavator operator said. He was right, we made every rock and boulder useful to shore up the blocks and surrounding vineyard avenues. The dry-season window for development on the mountainside is just April 1st -October 1st, so it took all of two years to do the develop the site and be ready for planting. Miles of subdrains were run to manage the water and be sure the blocks were well drained. Hundreds of tons of mushroom compost, gypsum & crushed lime were trucked up and worked into the blocks, and hundreds more tons of gravel were brought in for the roads and avenues.

Sam Kaplan looks like that perfect answer. He has been selective about the projects and customers that he accepts & has been careful not to out-grow his ability to be hands on with every client. All of his wines from every client reside all together in one facility, with one standard of excellence and receives daily oversight. The Arkenstone facility is one of a handful of facilities in Napa for which no expense has been spared & no improvement can be offered. There our wines will be made and aged alongside legendary vineyard sites which include the major Beckstoffer properties, Vine Hill Ranch, and other greats. In a facility like this, with a winemaker like Sam, we will reach the property’s full potential. Sam was instrumental in site prep techniques, clone & varietal selection, vineyard layout and farming technique. We believe in him enough to give Sam a wide margin to make decisions for the property and to direct the outcome. Sam is a humble, hardworking & brilliant winemaker. His team is tight and tenured and the product speaks for itself.

During this period of wine country history, it seemed that there was another major fire every year. While the fires of the previous years had been cause for a fright, this time it was a direct hit. There was little that could have been done to combat the sustained period high winds in dry conditions. The underbrush management had been non-existent. It was truly a perfect storm. The Bertolli’s who lived across the road lost their home and have not since returned. Armando who was working at the neighboring vineyard told me his story about staying to try and fight the fire. He is lucky to be alive after rolling his truck off the road and eventually being rescued. My friend Mario and I made it beyond the police barricade with some counterfeit paperwork and made it up to the property while everything was still smoldering. It would have been an easy moment to give up on the project. On the contrary, even as sad as it was to see so many hundred-year-old trees burned, there was never a moment when we thought of turning back. The ashes of one season are the nutrients for the next. Remarkably, some of the most iconic trees survived. Others which were burned to the ground resprouted vigorously from their subterranean root systems. In the fullness of time, who knows, it may be even seen as a benefit that this fire came through.

County inspectors are out on the road checking to see that straw waddles are put out and silt screening staked in to prevent erosion. If heavy equipment like dozers were still deployed, they’d be stuck in a muddy mess. Downstream from our property is the Russian River which is still an active salmon spawning ground. All care is taken to see that open construction sites don’t muddy up the water unnaturally downstream. Seed and straw are sprinkled over the property. What is hoped for is a series of light rains that get the cover crop sprouted and building a root system to hold the ground together. That first winter we received over a foot of rainfall in a weekend in early October. One neighbor’s rain gauge showed 20 inches in a week. As many of the subdrains had not been yet installed and the cover crop had not yet had a chance to sprout, the early rain overwhelmed the property. The waddles and silt screen were no match from the big early rains. I walked the property after with our engineer Paul Bartelt and with Jim Barbour. We made many in-field modifications to the sub-drain plan.

One of my friends Mario had given me some advice ahead of the development phase. He turned out to be right. While the earth is opened, just after the “ripping” phase, he said, there will be a plethora of interesting rocks and geology that you’ll be able to find. This window closes quickly though, the ground gets sealed back up & cover crop seals everything back up, never to be seen again. It was just as he described, right after the dozers started pulling the 24” wing shanks through the meadows, it all started popping up. I quickly ran down to the Steve’s hardware in St. Helena and bought a stack of a dozen 5-gallon paint buckets. There were so many diverse and interesting rocks that I wore myself out for days walking around and collecting them. Many were bordering on semi-precious with their wild coloration. I couldn’t believe all the interesting parent material existed here to make up the soil composition. It was exactly as the Paul Anamosa had described it to me years before, as though someone had scraped all the leftovers off the plate here at the top of the mountain. There were deep purple stones, red sandstones, midnight blue rocks of incredible hardness, jade green samples, black glass onyx, white quartz, granites, even some bits of wild mint green serpentine & shale that crumbled under light pressure. I eagerly collected it all and looked forward to someday studying further with a geologist and telling the complete story of the geology of the site.

Under my favorite oak trees on the property, I stacked the buckets of stone samples and figured would someday later sort them out. They buckets were near a giant mount of stones which had been fished out of block 4 by an excavator with something called a skeleton bucket. It was like a giant sieve for separating stones from the soil. Later the stones were indiscriminately thrown into the pile with the other stones and re-buried into the hillside as that pile of stones were used to build up a flat bench for parking farm equipment. It was an honest mistake that happened while I was away by an arborist hired to work on revitalizing some of the fire damaged oaks. He saw the buckets and they filled an immediate need, so he threw the stones into the giant pile nearby which was soon after buried. Now the secret of what all is within the blocks is something that will remain a secret. It would have been a pleasure to share with you all the special specimens that are hidden underground. Each one could have painted a thousand words about the special nature of these vineyard blocks. To understand it even partially, I suppose you’ll have to taste the wine.

It’s great to walk a vineyard with a man who’s been farming grapes for nearly 50 years. It’s clear that he absolutely loves every part of it, being outside, analyzing the plants, using the hands for work. It is such a blessing to have Jim Barbour shepherding these vines. This time of year, there’s a lot of grape tasting. It’s just days away from the 2025 pick. It has been a cooler vintage and it’s going to be a long fruit hang. These young vines are happy and are holding up great. Here and there you’ll see the first leaves signaling that the fall color change is not too far off. For this first significant vintage, we have just one cordon with a spur for a second to grow out and hold even more shoots the next year. Some warm dry days are on the horizon, just low to mid 80’s but it’s an improvement from the recent temps. The head-trained Syrah in block 1 and the Clone 412 Cab Sauv stand out as already showing signs of good complexity of flavor. These are my first impressions of the near-finished fruit and there’s so much that these vines have yet to tell us about the wines they’ll someday become.