OUR STORY
In 1996, we traveled to the beautiful medieval hill-top Tuscan town of San Gimignano. As we toured the vineyards, we fell in love with their beauty and peacefulness and dreamed that someday we would move to the wine country, live among our own vines and produce our own world class wines. Three years later, we followed our dream and moved to Sonoma County's Russian River Valley. In 2000 we put in our vineyard and in 2003 produced our first 46 case vintage.
We chose the Russian River Valley because it has the rare balance of sunshine, cool nights and morning fog that creates the ideal terroir for Pinot Noir.
To plant and farm our vineyard, we selected Paul Sloan of Small Vines Viticulture. Paul studied fine grape growing in the Grand Cru vineyards of Burgundy and then adopted the close spacing (meter x meter) concept to fit the Russian River soil and climate, which is slightly warmer and drier than Burgundy. Paul's theory is simple "the smaller the vines, the better the wine"
Then we set out to find our winemaker. After researching his background and tasting his wines, it was an easy decision to have Anthony Austin make our wines. Anthony's mentor was Andre Tchelistcheff, considered by many experts to be the most influential California winemaker of the past century. Anthony's wines have won numerous prestigious awards, including Best in the World from the London Business Times for one of his Pinot Noirs and a Chardonnay.
We hope you will enjoy our wines as much as we love growing, producing, and sharing them with you.
Ken & Susan Churchill
