History
Paul Masson, who left Burgundy for California in 1878, planted the high ground above Saratoga in the early 1900s. Martin Ray owned Masson's winery and sold it to Seagram in 1943, having bought 160 acres higher up the hill the year before. He planted Pinot Noir and Chardonnay there in 1945 from Masson budwood and Cabernet in the late 1940s from La Questa cuttings. The partners he brought in during the 1960s to fund expansion later sued him and won. Peter Martin Ray kept parcels of his own, and first-hand accounts call him Martin Ray's adopted son while Mount Eden calls him a stepson. A retired botany professor, he revived the Martin Ray label with partners after his father's death in 1976, went bankrupt in 1986, then sold the name in 1990 and kept the land, selling grapes ever since. He replanted the vineyard himself, in a year given as 1979, 1982 or simply the early eighties. Retired to Alaska, he was as of 2018 still coming down in April to work and again in late August for harvest. Frederic Ballario has managed the farming since 2015, with Rick Anzalone.
The Site
The thirteen planted acres lie in the northeastern corner of the appellation, looking down over Silicon Valley, with perhaps ten more that could be planted. Arnot-Roberts gives the elevation as 1,400 feet and Ceritas as 1,800; either puts the vines above the fog line. The soil is Franciscan shale, which Ceritas describes as carrying no measurable topsoil and the buyers here call rocky and depleted. Farming is dry and organic, and yields stay small because the ground allows nothing else. Picking runs Pinot Noir in late August, Chardonnay in early September, Cabernet at the end of September or into October.
Vines and Blocks
Roughly six acres are Chardonnay, four Cabernet Sauvignon and three Pinot Noir. No internal blocks are named, though the Cabernet spreads across several expositions and Sandar and Hem takes its fruit from a west-facing part. The Chardonnay and the Pinot Noir are both the Mount Eden selection, traced to the Burgundian material Masson brought to Saratoga, and the Pinot on this hill descends from among the earliest such plantings in California, which supplied budwood widely. The Cabernet is the Rixford selection, out of Emmett Rixford's La Questa vineyard in Woodside, planted in the 1890s with cuttings obtained from Chateau Margaux, and Ceritas dates part of the Cabernet here to the 1920s. The vines are basket-pruned and individually staked at ten feet by ten, a wide old-fashioned spacing rarely seen in new plantings.
The Wines
Ceritas bottled the Chardonnay from 2011 through 2021 and has made the Cabernet since 2012, picking the white near 21.5 Brix, early by California measure. Arnot-Roberts makes the Pinot Noir whole cluster with native yeast, basket pressed into neutral French oak and running around 13 percent alcohol in recent vintages. Birichino began with the Cabernet in 2017 and bottles the Chardonnay as well, while both Jaimee Motley and Sandar and Hem make Cabernet here. All of it carries the Santa Cruz Mountains appellation. The wines are lean, high in acid and slow to open, which is what dry-farmed shale at this elevation gives.