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Our first vineyard was hand
planted in Cabernet Sauvignon in 1987 by Squire and Suzy on a steep,
west-facing hillside and was the first quadrilateral-cordon, vertically-trellised
vineyard in Sonoma Valley. The Fridells made their first wines from
these early harvests but most of those early Cabernet crops were
sold to Laurel Glen, Wellington and Ravenswood Wineries for their
wines.
Early in Spring of 2002, the entire Cabernet vineyard
was grafted over to Syrah (Rhone Clone #877) and the vines are also
trained in quad cordon, the same system as their "parent"
vines. Award winning Cabernet had been produced in the vineyard
site, so we were often asked: "Why convert it to Syrah?"
Good question ... And a couple of equally good answers:
The first reason is the timing of the harvest.
Syrah historically is brought in earlier than Cabernet Sauvignon
and because the vineyard is west-facing and at the lowest elevation
on the Estate, we often were forced to harvest the Cabernet fruit
in November. At that time of year, cold weather has started to
set in and the rain makes harvest time a little scary.
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The second reason is that the lower elevation
of this vineyard produces different Syrah flavors than the fruit
produced in the upper vineyard. Syrah in warmer locations tends
to produce fruity, rich, red-raspberry flavors and the cooler location
fruit lends itself to blackberry flavors with a touch of pepper
and a hint of bacon. We have the option to bottle each wine separately
or create a blend using grapes from the two distinct vineyards.
We did have the option of ripping out the old Cab vineyard and
replacing the plants with Syrah vines, but we didn't have the
heart to tear out 1,112 old friends. That's why we grafted. So
now we have Syrah growing out of Cabernet Sauvignon growing out
of 5C rootstock. Go figure.
In 1997, the second, five-acre vineyard at GlenLyon
was also planted in Syrah (Aussie K1 Clone on 110R rootstock for
any Viticulturalist-Nerds who might happen to be reading this).
It starts at the top of the property and runs the length of three
football fields south toward Sonoma Mountain. These vines are
cane pruned and vertically trellised.
All aerial photography
on this page is by Chuck
Feil ©2003
There's a spot we call our "Wedding Overlook"
at the top of our upper Syrah vineyard where we've been blessed
to have five weddings for friends. (Almost all of the five have
been successful, so we’re way ahead of the National average....)
Rings, vows of love, tears of happiness and a few glasses of sparkling
wine have been exchanged on this site. Both Diarmid O'Duibthne
and Dionysos say that it's a blessed place.
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