Stefania Wine - Vineyard Management and Consultation for Santa Cruz Mountains

Through our vineyard management company we manage or consult on vineyard projects in the Santa Cruz Mountains and Santa Clara Valley. We’ve also consulted on vineyards as far away as San Diego and El Dorado County. We always thought that getting our hands on the vine would be the most valuable experience in making wine.

Vineyards we manage:

Home Vineyard (Haut Tubee, for the hot tub in the back yard) – Located at our home in San Jose, this was our first experiment with vines. We started with 25 Syrah and 25 Grenache vines planted in the front and back yards. We’ve since added Mourvedre and Zinfandel. The grapes are used at our annual harvest party for our friends to smash with their feet. The resulting yield is about 150 bottles that we send out to guests from that party.
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Elandrich Vineyard, Portola Valley, Santa Cruz Mountains AVA – Located on an East facing hillside in Portola Valley. The planted area is two acres and slopes dramatically down 150 feet at grades up to 20%. The majority of the vineyard is Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, with patches of Zinfandel, Syrah, and Cab Franc. The Cabernets and Merlot go into our Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet blend. Depending on the year, the Zinfandel is either used in the Haut Tubee cuvee or made as a single barrel.
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Llama Vineyard, Bonny Doon, Santa Cruz Mountains AVA – Located on Ben Lomand mountain East of Bonny Doon and across from a Llama farm. The small vineyard is planted to Merlot on sandy clay soils that slope a gentle 5%. The grapes are used in our Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet blend.
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Crimson and Clover Vineyard, Morgan Hill, Santa Clara Valley AVA – Located in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, outside the town of Morgan Hill. It is planted with 1 1/2 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon. Named for the bright red Crimson Clover used as a cover crop. We will begin to get grapes from this vineyard in 2008.

Harrison Vineyard, Los Altos Hills, Santa Cruz Mountains AVA – Located near the old Page Mill Road winery. In 2007, we're outfitting the small one acre vineyard with Syrah.

Chaine d'Or Estate Vineyard, Santa Cruz Mountains AVA – Located at 1200 feet above the town of Woodside in the heart of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The vineyard was planted in 1987 by Anne and Jerry Anderson with Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. The small winery was completed in 1992 with the finest equipment available. Paul began working at Chaine d'Or with the 2005 harvest. In the summer of 2007 we took over operations in the winery and vineyard and moved our production into Chaine d'Or. The vineyard is named for the phrase Paul Masson used to describe the Santa Cruz Mountains "Chain of Gold".

Woodruff Family Vineyard, Santa Cruz Mountains AVA – Located on a steep hillside outside of the town of Corralitos in the southern Santa Cruz Mountains. The vineyard was planted in 1978 with 8+ acres of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay by the Matteson family. Barbara and Peter Woodruff purchased the vineyard and began the difficult process of restoring it and converting the trellis system to VSP several years ago. In January 2008 they asked us to assume management of the vineyard on a long term basis.

Vineyards where we consult and use the grapes.

Ottigurr Vineyard, San Jose, Santa Clara Valley AVA – Located in an unincorporated area between San Jose and Los Gatos it is planted with Syrah and Zinfandel. The Zinfandel will be used with the Elandrich vineyard Zin up to 15%. The area was home to the original Blossom Hill winery.

Reed’s Vineyard, Mount Madonna, Santa Cruz Mountains AVA – Located at the summit of Mount Madonna above the fog line at 2400 feet. The vineyard is planted primarily with Tempranillo and Syrah. Grapes will be available to us starting in 2007 from this dramatic new 10 acre vineyard.
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Vineyards we love:

We use other vineyards to make wine as well. Our basic criteria is we look for vineyards in sites that offer the potential for getting grapes ripe and maintaining sound acidity. We want to make wines that will fit in with the style of wines coming from our own vineyards. Most important though we look for grape growers who are, well, borderline insane. We’ll only work with grape growers who are just as crazy as we are about growing the best grapes.

Eaglepoint Ranch, Mendocino County - The ranch is located at 1800 feet and has attracted winemakers like Sean Thackery and Wells Guthrie of Copain. Tasting Wells Guthrie’s Eaglepoint Ranch Syrah convinced us we needed to make a wine from this vineyard. It had the combination of fruit and structure of great California Syrah. At Eaglepoint they focus on growing Syrah that will make complex wines with great fruit, balance and an earthy edge. You'll never get this wine confused with a cheap sweet Syrah.

Uvas Creek Vineyard, San Martin, Santa Clara Valley AVA - Located on the west side of Uvas Creek in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The creek is the dividing line between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Santa Clara Valley AVA’s. Bill and Ted grow Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petite Verdot with amazing attention to detail. Bill uses tweezers to remove bad grapes and builds his own trellis hardware from a machine shop on the property because “I can’t order stuff I like”. Ted only lets family members harvest the grapes. No crews are allowed to touch their hard work.

Harvest Moon Vineyard / Martin Ranch, Gilroy, Santa Cruz Mountains AVA - Located in Redwood Retreat in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Dan and Terese Martin grow Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc with passion and detail. They are just about the nicest people we've met in the wine business and we feel lucky they let us purchase grapes from this famous Santa Cruz Mountains Vineyard for our Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet-Merlot blend.