History
McFarland studied agronomy at UC Davis, where he met the viticulturist A.J. Winkler in 1949, and he chose Burgundian varieties for this ground at a time when most of his contemporaries in Monterey were planting Bordeaux ones. He was among the largest cold-climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir growers anywhere for the next forty years. Robb Talbott, whose family made neckties and who had founded Talbott Vineyards in 1982, bought the vineyard from McFarland in 1994 and turned the winery into an entirely estate-grown operation on the strength of it. Wine Spectator gave the 1990 Sleepy Hollow Chardonnay a perfect hundred points in a retrospective published in 1997, the single result that did most for the reputation of Monterey Chardonnay. E. and J. Gallo bought Talbott in 2015 and has owned and farmed the vineyard since; the Monterey County permit record lists the three Sleepy Hollow blocks under Gallo to this day.
The Site
The vineyard sits at the windiest, northernmost stretch of the appellation, near the Salinas River and north of Garys'. Published figures for its size range from 525 acres in Gallo's own acquisition announcement to 565 on Talbott's site; the three mapped blocks total 563 acres of gross footprint, which sits at the top of that range. Soils are Arroyo Seco and Chualar gravelly loam, running to sandy loam in the south parcel and to heavier silt and clay in the west. Exposure is generally southeastern, though the parcels differ enough that published descriptions of it disagree.
Vines and Blocks
Chardonnay and Pinot Noir only, historically about two thirds Chardonnay and moving toward a sixty-forty split as Gallo's replanting shifts Pinot Noir to the upper sections. Around a hundred acres of own-rooted Chardonnay survive from the early era and are the vineyard's most prized asset. The property divides into three parcels, marketed as Sleepy Hollow North, West and South and known internally as North Crest, Hounds Hollow and Heartwood. North Crest holds the oldest plantings on a southern aspect, takes the hardest wind and is picked last; Heartwood is the warm sandy south parcel at about 400 feet, marked by a landmark oak, and comes in first; Hounds Hollow lies level against the range on heavier canyon ground. Within them, Block 23 West is the source of the Fidelity Pinot Noir and Block 48 South is a 2.4 acre parcel of clone 113 bottled on its own. Replanting has run since 2016 at thirty to sixty acres a year, lifting density from roughly 500 vines to the acre to about 1,000.
The Wines
Sleepy Hollow is Talbott's top designation, above the Logan and Kali Hart tiers, and Testarossa has bottled both a Pinot Noir and a Chardonnay from the site for the better part of two decades. The style is the opposite of the bench vineyards to the south: broad, orchard-fruited Chardonnay with the acidity the wind guarantees, and Pinot Noir that is red-fruited and comparatively restrained.