The urge to demarcate, to set boundaries, to distinguish one piece of land from another, is hardwired into all winemakers. The notion of place is so vital – the ability to say that this hillside and only this hillside can give this particular flavour to a wine – it’s no wonder we have appellations. After all, anyone can produce Cabernet Sauvignon, but only Coonawarra can make Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon. In California, appellations – American Viticultural Areas, or AVAs – are burgeoning. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) has over 200 on the approved list, and one of the most recent is Moon Mountain in southern Sonoma.
Unique region
This ten-mile stretch of the western slopes of the Mayacamas Mountains, with Napa’s Mount Veeder appellation on its eastern boundary and the town of Sonoma to the south, may be the newest AVA (it was officially passed in October 2013), but it is steeped in history. Some of California’s oldest vineyards are here, as well as some of the best-known names in California wine. At the southern end is Hanzell Vineyards, which has the oldest Pinot Noir in America; just north is the legendary Monte Rosso Vineyard, a rocky hilltop planted in the 1880s. It is listed by the Historic Vineyard Society as producing “some of the oldest Cabernet Sauvignon in North America”; Morgan Twain-Peterson, who makes Zinfandel and Semillon from here, considers it “a wonder of viticulture in the nineteenth century…”. Count Haraszthy, one of the fathers of California wine, was in this part of the world, as was General William Tecumseh Sherman, who founded Bedrock Vineyard in 1854, which lies just outside the appellation.
This part of Sonoma is a magnet to serious winemakers. Soils are arid, red volcanic, making it easy to see how Monte Rosso got its name, while exposure and night-time heat are ideal for Cabernet Sauvignon and the Rhône grape varieties. Wines from here are compact and intense. “They are concentrated and darkly fruited, but also earthy and very structured. There is a deep, gravelly, brooding mineral character to the Cabernet,” says Courtney Humiston, wine director at Charlie Palmer’s Dry Creek Kitchen in Healdsburg.
The region is unique, says veteran viticulturist Phil Coturri, who has a hand in just about every vineyard in the appellation and is widely regarded as one of the most experienced grape farmers in California. “There are all these incredible microclimates.” The appellation is deeply scored by canyons, which run north east to south west. An aerial view of the vineyards shows how they cluster round these aquifer-carrying ravines. Warm air rolls up the hillsides bringing cooler air with it; grapes benefit from long hot days and warm nights, but with the simultaneous cooling effect of the winds. The southern reaches – where Hanzell’s Pinot and Chardonnay vineyards sit – are cooled by ocean breezes from the Petaluma Gap to the west, as well as by proximity to San Francisco Bay.
From scratch
Moon Mountain’s wineries are owned and exploited by an eclectic mix of renegades, millionaires, wealthy financiers, rock stars, internet entrepreneurs – and very serious winemakers like Steve Kistler. whose Chardonnays are world-renowned; Morgan Twain-Peterson, son of Joel Peterson of Ravenswood; Michael McNeill at Hanzell, who took over from the late, legendary Bob Sessions; and Jeff Baker, formerly of Mayacamas and Repris and now working closely with Coturri. Robert Kamen, who made his money writing screenplays for such blockbusters as the Karate Kid franchise – he is working on the script for the official Judgment of Paris movie – has 280 acres of some of the most highly-regarded terroir in the appellation. Michael Birch, the founder of Bebo, is making wine here, while financier George Hamel recently bought Nun’s Canyon Vineyard, another jewel, and has land on the valley floor once owned by the Hearst family. Boz Scaggs has land in the area, as does Kirk Hammett of Metallica.
These winemakers and owners consider themselves blessed, not least because they have an opportunity to create an appellation from scratch. Repris winery, a compact huddle of turreted buildings in the bowl of an exquisite micro-valley, is an example. It has passed through numerous owners from Diageo to a hippy commune, and is now run and owned by investment analyst Jim Momtazee, venture capitalist Christian Borcher, and winemaker Erich Bradley.
For many years the Repris vineyards were not managed well in terms of general husbandry of the vines, proper trellising systems and so forth. This is true for much of the appellation – Coturri says the whole region “needs serious attention” – and at Repris, a serendipitous but devastating event helped things along, when in 1996 a fire razed most of the vines. This has allowed the current team to “press the reset button”, as Bradley puts it. He reckons himself a custodian of the land for future generations, and stresses the experimental nature of the Repris project, with its plantings of multiple varietals from Bordeaux grapes, several different Cabernet clones on different exposures, Rhône varietals, Zinfandel and Mourvèdre. “My role is to put things in place for the next generation. I’m not going to pare down varietals – that’s for the next winemaker to think about.”
Coturri agrees. “Moon Mountain allows us to experiment within a defined region,” he says. It was natural that the next step should be to make that definition official.
Different attempts over the last 20 years to register Moon Mountain as an AVA have not come to fruition. The impetus this time came from Borcher, who had bought seven acres above Repris and became frustrated by the rules of the AVA he fell under, Sonoma Valley.
“I had a vineyard at 2,000 feet, and thought it’s a little odd to have a vineyard on top of a mountain, with all the expense and hard work that entails, and then to have to put valley on the bottle. This is mountain wine from mountain-grown grapes.”
Moon Mountain is a small community, and Borcher became friends with Kamen and Coturri, who had been thinking of the viability of an AVA for years. They decided to give it a go. Applying to the TTB for an AVA is a complex, bureaucratic business, and Borcher gave some thought to the problems other districts had had to overcome.
“We recognised some of the challenges that have derailed other efforts. The important thing is to get the money up front, find a name that won’t be disputed, meet in person to work with those who have vested interest,” he says.
Borcher refutes any suggestion that an AVA is simply a rich man’s folly – that with enough money, and enough expensive consultants, anything can be pushed through. For a start, the whole enterprise cost a surprisingly modest $40,000.00, raised by asking the twenty-odd wineries within the proposed boundaries to contribute between $1,000.00 and $2,000.00, depending on acreage.
“We spent very little money and we did all the work ourselves,” Borcher says. “We’re a small group of people with great passion. Yes, we had professionals helping us, but it’s not the case that you can buy an AVA if you want one. The regulatory requirements are significant and they can’t be overcome with money.”
For those who have seen the bureaucratic morass that other applications have fallen into – Stags Leap District in Napa, with its wrangles over names and who should be included comes to mind – Moon Mountain appears to have been plain sailing.
“It’s a testament to what was already here,” Borcher says. “Not for decades, but for over a century. The approval is based on an assessment of the terroir and the history and distinctiveness of the area, so being able to point to some of the oldest vineyards in California was a great help.”
There also seems to have been very little argument over inclusion. The 400-ft lower boundary excludes some historic vineyards, notably Bedrock. Was there a lot of lobbying by those who fell just outside the 400-ft line?
Not really, Borcher says. “I think people understood that what is distinct here is that we are growing grapes in the mountains. Above a certain elevation all the things that make distinct terroir change: the soils, the inversion layer of the fog, for example.”
George Hamel, half of whose land lies at 200ft, is not bothered. “The valley floor has superb land. This spot has grown grapes for 200 years,” he says. In any case, those that are outside the appellation are still very much a part of it: Hamel now owns Nun’s Canyon, and Peterson has short-term leases on a considerable acreage of Monte Rosso.
Though delineated, Moon Mountain seems a broad and accommodating church. Coturri suggests new blocks of land could be brought within the AVA. “Four hundred feet is not a magical number. I see the borders of the AVA as being as organic as the grapes I’m growing. We can make adjustments.”
Borders
But if the borders are so elastic, what is the point of demarcation? Surely it all makes things so much more complicated, a criticism that is frequently levelled at the AVA system – particularly in Sonoma. Moon Mountain AVA, for example, is a sub-district of Sonoma Valley AVA, it’s adjacent to Sonoma Mountain AVA, and all of them are part of the vast Sonoma County AVA.
“The appellation system in Sonoma is very confusing for most consumers,” Humiston says. “Having a mountain appellation as a sub-appellation of a valley, especially makes no sense.”
Others would perhaps agree. While wholly in support of the AVA, Hanzell will remain Sonoma Valley, and not put Moon Mountain on its labels. “We’re a conservative bunch,” says winemaker Michael McNeill. That doesn’t worry Borcher, who recognises that Hanzell “are seeing how it evolves before they start changing branding and packaging that has worked for many decades.”
Creating an AVA is a branding exercise, Borcher says, “and from a marketing standpoint, Moon Mountain District sounds better.” He also stresses, as all brand-builders do, that they are in it for the long term, and are at the very beginning of that journey. “It’s impossible to measure success – we are nowhere near that stage yet.”
Wine regions the world over understand that one’s unique selling proposition is one’s terroir. It’s doubtful Moon Mountain will ever be as recognised as its parent region Sonoma Valley, but it now has solidity, and official
status. And, as Humiston adds, “It’s a cool name, and the wines are good, and that is what consumers care about.”
