Vineyards

Our 80-acre ranch in the Adelaida Hills west of Paso Robles has an elevation range from 1200 to 1400 feet and is about 7 miles from the Pacific Ocean.

Our Chardonnay is planted at the highest elevation on the property. Because of the steep mountainsides, some parts of this vineyard are terraced to accommodate tractor work. Our lean, calcareous, rocky limestone soils along with the afternoon ocean influence make this an ideal location to grow grapes for our Burgundian style Chardonnay. 

Our Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and the new plantings of Syrah are planted at an elevation of 1200 feet. This lower area on the ranch has a slightly warmer microclimate allowing these varieties to ripen fully. The limestone soils continue to keep yields low producing wines of rich, complex flavors.

The new Zinfandel vines are dry-farmed and head pruned.  We expect highly concentrated wines from this low yielding style of farming with the first vintage planned for 2001.
 

Vineyard Management:

We spend a lot of our time in our vineyards as our focus is on growing the best possible fruit we can in any vintage year. Starting in early winter the vineyards are hand pruned and the right canes and spurs are selected for the new growing season.  In the spring we employ shoot thinning and labor intensive “leaf pulling” to bring in more sunlight. This produces more ripe, jammy flavors in the wine and also helps encourage air circulation through the vines. In most years our crops size is reduced by hand thinning the clusters so that the vineyards achieve balance and the resulting wines will show their full Character or Terroir of the land. Our philosophy is to use the lowest amount of chemical input into the vineyards. We use minimal fertilizing, if any and only with the final wine quality in mind. 
 

The Winery:

Robert Dunning started making wine in the limestone cellar under the Vintage House in the 1980’s.  It served well for a few years but when the estate vines began bearing fruit in 1993, the 1200sq. foot barn next to the residence was bonded and converted into the new winery building. Since then we have built and now process wines in our new winery (pictures to follow!).
 

Winemaking

Our Philosophy in the winery is to let the Character or Terroir of the vineyards show through by minimal handling of the grapes and grape must.

Our Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot wines are produced in the classic Bordeaux style. The grapes are hand harvested and are brought into the winery in small lug boxes and put directly into the crusher - destemmer. The grape must falls into small ½ to 1-ton open top fermentors and the selected yeast is added.  We feel the close skin to juice ratio in these small fermentors add to the wonderful extraction in our red wines. The fermenting grape must is then gently hand punched down 2 to 5 times a day.   In about 14 days the wine is pressed off and racked into French barrels of which 35% are new.  The wine is racked 2-3 times during the 20-month aging period to promote clarity and brilliance.  The finished wine is bottled unfined and unfiltered.

Our Zinfandel is produced in the same manner as the Bordeaux varieties with gentle handling and small lot fermentations. We use both French and American oak in the aging regime with slightly less new oak so the wonderful fruitfulness of the Zinfandel grape is showcased.

Our Chardonnay is produced in the Burgundian style.  Harvest begins in the early morning hours keeping the grapes cool. The hand-harvested grapes are brought into the winery and put directly into our small bladder press. After gentle pressing the juice is settled overnight and racked to small French oak barrels of which 35% are new. We also put the wine through malo-lactic fermentation, which helps soften the wine and give a nice creamy texture. After 9 months in barrel the wine is bottled and given an additional 3 months of bottled aging before release.