By 2006, Halleck Vineyard had emerged as one of the top wineries amongst a handful of boutiques in our neighborhood. To say we were a big fish in a little pond would be overstating. We were a small fish in a small pond, but showing some bright colors.

One of the big fish in our neighborhood was a gentleman named Brice Cutrer Jones….

Similar to our approach with our Three Sons Cuvee and the Russian River Valley, we hoped to create a signature blend of vineyards to represent the Sonoma Coast. We introduced the Three Sons in 2003, but awaited until 2006 to introduce its Sonoma Coast brother.

For Hillside Cuvee, we sourced vineyards close to the Halleck Vineyard Estate,…

The Haas Vineyard is really not named, as such. It’s a modest, two acre vineyard behind an equally modest home near Glen Ellen on the eastern foot of Sonoma Mountain. It’s currently owned by Peter and Ginny Haas, but we had purchased fruit from this site through two previous owners.

I met Pete some years ago after the first harvest since he had purchased the property….

The Farm Vineyards was the first vineyard in our neighborhood from which we purchased fruit to make Pinot Noir.

In 2003, after being judged #1 Pinot in the United States, we needed to make more wine than our Estate Grown Pinot Noir could support. Greg Lafollette, our winemaker, started combing the countryside and met Ben and George,…

When we planted our Estate Vineyard in 1993, our goals were not lofty.

There had never been a vineyard planted in western Sebastopol, all the way to the coast. We were the first, and we began without a clue what we were doing. We purchased the rootstock from the Yellow Pages.

We thought it would be beautiful,…

Jennifer and I planted Halleck Vineyard in the early 90s. Legend was created when our first vintage as a wine (2001 Tandem Winery, Halleck Vineyard, Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir) earned first place in the 2002 Pinot Noir Summit. This was also Greg Lafollette’s first vintage under his new personal label, Tandem. He had recently left Flowers,…