Vineyard - Harbison Wines

THE SOIL

Red soils have long been touted as ideal for cultivating Cabernet Sauvignon. Its minerality preserves fruit character and creates wines with great freshness and finely grained tannins. It is with this backbone that the wines of Harbison Estate are created.

The Harbison Estate vineyard was developed in 2005 and planned in small blocks to facilitate micro-framing and enable its wines to express the Estate’s varying soil types and selection of Cabernet Sauvignon clones. Rootstock 101-14 was chosen for its superiority in red, volcanic soils and soon after, a special team hand-grafted 4900 plants that make up the vineyard.

THE BLOCKS

The Trail, Pony Express and Horseshoe

The vineyard blocks include The Trail, located along the Silverado Trail near the front of the property and planted to clone 337. Pony Express is the northern-most block and named for the Pony Express stop once on the estate. It is divided between Clone 7 and 337. Horseshoe, the western facing vineyard block and fondly nicknamed for the numerous horseshoes found during development, is planted to clone 7.

THE HISTORY

Geologically, Harbison Estate is located immediately to the east of the spanning Vaca Mountain Range soaring above Oakville.

In the book The Winemaker’s Dance (University of California Press, 2004), authors Jonathan Swinchatt and David G. Howell theorize on the creation of the Vaca range and attribute it to volcanic activity nearly 150 million years ago. When the peaks became too high and the mountain too heavy, gravity took over and hundreds of feet of iron-rich, red volcanic soil came tumbling down, creating the foundations for what are now a few but critically acclaimed vineyards of legendary Eastern Oakville.

THE OAKVILLE AVA

“Oakville is distinguished by more than its terroir. Here you will find family-owned wineries tended by meticulous growers, visionary wine marketers and some of the world’s foremost winemakers, all working together to craft unique, spectacular wines.”

-OAKVILLE WINEGROWERS

Located in the heart of Napa Valley, the Oakville AVA extends to 600 feet in elevation up the base of the Vaca Mountains to the east and the Mayacamas Mountains to the west. Within this small district you will find the greatest concentration of Napa Valley’s preeminent producers of Cabernet Sauvignon. When it comes to growing Cabernet Sauvignon, Oakville isn’t too hot; isn’t too cold. It’s just right. That’s why Cabernet Sauvignon from Oakville so perfectly expresses the essential qualities of Cabernet Sauvignon in deep, complex wines with the structural integrity of acid and tannin that preserves the best wines for decades.