The Environment

The soil is a rocky loam consisting of poorly sorted, volcanic debris, stones, boulders, sand and clay layers with about 20 inches of topsoil underlain with more rocks and boulders and eventually volcanic andesite. This is not your typical garden soil but when properly managed lean rocky, hillside soils like this produce wine grapes with unusually great flavors.

The climate is temperate with dry warm summer days with cool nights and a long frost-free growing season. Cool nights are necessary during ripening to preserve the correct fruit acid levels as the grapes gradually increase in sugar. The generally dry, low humidity climate is very helpful in preventing diseases.

The ranch consists of fifty hillside acres in Sonoma County`s Valley of the Moon. The soil is a rocky loam consisting of poorly sorted, volcanic debris, stones, boulders, sand and clay layers with about 19 to 22 inches of topsoil. The subsoil is unsorted alluvial debris underlain with volcanic andesite.

This is not your typical garden soil but when properly managed lean rocky soils like this can produce wine grapes with unusually great flavors. Our Sauvignon Blanc is planted on gentle north facing slopes. The Zinfandel and Merlot are planted on a gently sloping old erosion surface high above the valley floor.

To Grow Quality Grapes

There are many parameters to growing unusually high quality wine grapes. These include climate and soils. There are only a few areas of the world where you can grow grapes of unique quality.

The climate is temperate with warm days and cool nights and a long frost free growing season. Grapes generally bud out in early April and harvest continues until mid to late October. Cool nights are necessary during ripening to preserve the correct fruit acid levels as the grapes gradually increase in sugar. A generally dry climate with low humidity is helpful in preventing diseases.

Lean shallow soils are generally associated with quality wine grapes. These grapes do best when the vines are stressed and have to struggle to produce their crops. In many areas of the world the best grapes are produced from hillside vineyards. This is probably because hillside soils are generally more shallow and less fertile. The Valley of the Moon climate, the hillside location and the lean rocky soils make for an ideal site for Indian Springs Ranch vineyards.

The Grapes

Two basic decisions have to be made before the vineyard is planted. The first is what rootstock and the second is the variety of wine grape. All wine grapes are grafted on basically a wild grape. However there are hundreds of possibilities to choose from. You have to pick one that will do well in the soil conditions of your vineyard.

We picked one identified as 110R and another known as St George. Both are suited to lean, dry, rocky soils. Selecting the variety for our vineyard depended on market demand, and compatibility with our soils, exposure, and disease resistance.

We picked Zinfandel, Sauvignon Blanc, and Merlot. One of the considerations at Indian Springs was that we wanted to have varieties that would be unique to our site and enable us to grow grapes of special quality and that we could develop unique and specialized cultural skills.

Over the years we have indeed developed special skills specially tailored to these varieties. New grape vines are grown to order. You pick the rootstock for your vineyard and the variety you want grafted on it and the nursery custom grows your vines for you. The normal lead time for this is eighteen months. After the vines are planted it takes another three years before you have any appreciable harvest and four years before a commercial harvest.

Altogether we have planted 15,000 vines on our ranch.