Ladera Vineyards
http://www.laderavineyards.com

Ladera: hillside, slope; Ladear: Lean, tilt, incline.

Ladera Vineyard’s story begins with one family’s honored farming traditions and a passion for wine grown from hillside vineyards. Originally Montana cattle ranchers, Proprietors Pat and Anne Stotesbery and their four children relocated to Napa Valley in 1997, and have now been respected wine growers for more than a decade.  In 2000, after tackling the art of making finewine from mountain fruit with a vineyard on Lone Canyon, the Stotesberys acquired a historic per-Prohibition “ghost winery” built in 1886 and 185 acres of Howell Mountain land with 81 acres planted to vines. Keeping their farming roots close to heart, the Stotesberys soon replaced their ranching years with days spent working in the vineyards and restoring the historic winery.

Immediately drawn to the intensity and finesse of Cabernet Sauvignon mountain fruit, the Stotesbery’s focus at Ladera has always been on hillside vineyards. With a commitment to a hands-on approach, the entire family is involved in all winery work: racking the wines, making blending decisions, packing wine club shipments, giving winery tours and selling the wines in top restaurants and wine shops around the country. The result is wines that reflect the family’s dedication to the winery and stewardship of their land.

After producing the first release of Ladera’s Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon, it was clear that their work had paid off: the wine’s refined European style harmonized with Napa’s bold mountain fruit, balanced by smooth tannins.

Although the Stotesberys have kept their core identity as a quiet family farm in the hills in line with their Montana ranching days, they now are known and respected for producing some of California’s highest quality Cabernet Sauvignon. Laying the foundation as the next generation of Napa Valley pioneers, the Stotesberys strive to produce the absolute best wines through expressing the unique terroir of mountain Cabernet. They remember that their name, Ladera, stands to remind them of the nature of their vineyards and wines: hillside, intense, distinct.

The Winery

In 2000, when Pat and Anne Stotesbery purchased the historic pre-Prohibition winery, which was built in 1886, they were determined to preserve both the craftsmanship of the stonemasons, as well as the intention of its original winemakers. Listed in the official book Ghost Wineries of the Napa Valley, the building is no ghost. It’s one of the very few such structures that has not only been restored, but also returned to its former glory as a fully functional gravity flow winery.

In 1886, when Jean Brun and W.J. Chaix completed a three-story winery building on Howell Mountain the St. Helena Star reported, “Messrs. Brun and Chaix, whose reputation as viticulturists is well known in your valley, have just completed the erection of one of the most convenient and commodious wine cellars in the country.” Made with stone from a quarry near Angwin Creek on Howell Mountain, the winery’s thirty-inch thick walls were built under the direction of Italian stonemason Frank Guiugni by Chinese railway workers. Since each floor had its own ground level entrance, grapes were brought by wagon to the top level for crushing, then flowed by gravity to the middle level for fermenting, and finally to the bottom floor for barrel storage.

During the winery’s restoration, state-of-the-art technologies were added, including New World crushing techniques that allow each bin of fruit to be hand sorted. The restoration also included nearly 18,000 square feet of underground caves dug into the rock, connecting two portals, one of which was built in 1886. All wines are aged for approximately two years in French oak barrels, tucked away safely in the caves. The caves maintain a constant temperature of approximately
61 degrees without need for artificial cooling, and with a high relative humidity, less wine is lost to evaporation. Finally, the earth surrounding the caves buffers the wines from vibrations, allowing the lees to settle out, leaving the wine naturally clear.

 The Gardens

Each season, the gardens at Ladera change color. In summer, lavender sweeps the fields; in autumn, sedum makes the grounds blush a dark rosy pink; in winter, the lawns are manicured and green; and spring is ushered in by blue delphinium. Under the tutelage of her grandmother in Montana, Anne Stotesbery planted her first green beans at the age of six. Now an accomplished gardener, Anne designed Ladera’s expansive grounds, choosing indigenous plants to enhance the beauty of the old stone winery. Lush, yet minimalist, the driveway is flanked by two large meadows filled with native grasses, and the entrance to the winery is dotted with Sycamore trees. To give the property weight and balance, Anne created a berm of four-80 year-old olive trees, reclaimed from an abandoned orchard. For color, she lined the winding walkway leading towards the winery with red and white bell-shaped Penstemen, purple Nepeta, yellow Rudbeckia and multi-colored Day Lilies.  In addition to texture and color, another important factor in the selection process was that the plants be able to work with the rocky, mountain terroir. They needed to be resistant to both deer and drought. To conserve water, 95 percent of the gardens are drip irrigated, making Ladera’s garden not only beautiful but also ecologically sound.

 The Howell Mountain Vineyard

Look northeast from the town of St. Helena, and you’ll see the west facing slopes of Howell Mountain rising high above the Napa Valley floor along the eastern side of the Silverado Trail.  Ladera’s Howell Mountain vineyard sits across the broad summit of the mountain’s ridge. In spite of altitudes ranging from 1,600 to 1,800 feet, the terrain is rolling and gentle. The sweeping and elegant curves of these slopes bring to mind the contours of wine bottles and glasses, especially during harvest when the perfume of grapes gives the imagination a nudge.   The volcanic soils are evident in the deep red color of the land that is part of the magic of Howell Mountain.  The valley fog doesn’t reach these elevations. In spite of full days of sunlight, temperatures at this altitude are cooler than those on the valley floor.  While fruit development lags behind the valley in the early part of the growing season, Howell Mountain catches up in ripeness later in the year when it is bathed in sunlight, and the valley floor is still covered in Pacific fog. In 1983, Howell Mountain was officially designated as California’s first sub-appellation within Napa Valley.  By that time, it had been recognized as a unique site for prized and prestigious vineyards for more than a century.   The Stotesbery family purchased what would become the home of Ladera Vineyards in August of 2000. The Chardonnay vines on the property were nearly 20 years old and were not resistant to phylloxera.  The family immediately replanted the vineyards with Cabernet-based Bordeaux varietals, primarily Cabernet Sauvignon. With the need for a major replanting effort, they had an unparalleled opportunity to evaluate the soils and microclimates (exposure, fog, wind, frost, daily high and low temperatures) and plant accordingly.  Preparation of the soil, type of rootstock and clone, row orientation, vine and row spacing and type of trellis were all designed to optimize growing conditions for specific vines.  Diversity is very important in adding to the complexity of the resulting wine. Ladera’s Howell Mountain Vineyard property consists of 185 acres, of which 81 are currently planted.  The vineyards themselves are divided into 13 individual main blocks.  Each of these is further divided into as many as six sub-blocks.  This sub-block layout allows the team to not only match the rootstock and the clone to the proper soil conditions, but also to micro-irrigate each sub-block.  This management provides for the proper level of stress to each vine and the optimal hang time to produce the most intense fruit.  While this also helps in more uniform ripening, it sometimes becomes necessary to pick fruit in very small quantities and in very small sections of blocks or sub-blocks. In extreme circumstances, the picking crew will have picked the sunny side of vines one day and the other side several days later.   This care is demonstrated in the intensity, finesse and elegance of Ladera’s Howell Mountain wines. Their California mountain origins give them their deep dark cherry flavors and rich character, while their European style is apparent in the refined, balanced and classical harmony. The smoothly structured tannins promise long ageability.  These wines could throw their weight around, but with a pedigree of well-bred power like theirs, that would hardly be necessary.

About Ladera Vineyards

Ladera Vineyards is located at 150 White Cottage Road South, Angwin, Calif. The focus is on the hillside estate Cabernet Sauvignons. Annually the winery produces approximately 9,000 cases total. Tours and tastings cost $25 per person and are available Monday through Saturday at 10:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. Tastings without tours cost $15 per person and are available Monday through Friday 11:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. Please note that all tours and tastings are available by appointment only and the winery is closed on Sundays. For additional information, call 707.965.2445 or visit www.laderavineyards.com.

 

 

Daniel Stotesbery

National Sales Manager/Family Representative

As a young boy, Daniel spent hours with his father, Pat, organizing the wine cellar, learning about different varietals, regions and vintages. The summer before starting college, Dan spent his days working in Ladera’s vineyards learning about irrigation and planting some of the vines. After graduating from DePauw University, Dan worked at the Chicago Board of Trade trading soybean futures. InApril 2006, his passion for wine and the desire to work with his family led him back to Ladera Vineyards. When noton the road working with top accounts, Dan can most often be found in the vineyards with his father.