History
Ardzrooni is a fourth-generation Anderson Valley grower whose company manages vineyards across the valley, and Wendling is his own site. The ground was open pasture when he brought it to Littorai in 2009; a soils study was run over the whole parcel before anything went in, and Littorai, which helped direct the work, took first choice of blocks. Planting followed in 2010, and Littorai added its Block E designation in 2016. The name is older than the vines: Navarro was called Wendling into the mid-1910s, after George X. Wendling, whose shingle mill built the town in the first years of the twentieth century, and the vineyard returns the town's original name to the deep end. The vineyard drew notice in 2023 for its all-female crew, led by foreperson Romelia Fernandez, whose work the client wineries credit for the consistency of the fruit.
The Site
The mapped vineyard runs 27.25 acres; published planted figures range from 20 to 25, with Littorai's own accounting at 22, and every vine is Pinot Noir. The rows climb from 335 to 500 feet on a steep, rocky slope facing southwest, the block Littorai chose turned due south. Soils are the Bearwallow-Wolfey complex with Ornbaun material: red to brown, well drained and shallow, six to twelve inches of topsoil over sandstone and shale. This is the deep end at its deepest, across Highway 128 from Kiser Vineyard at the western limit of plantable ground, with one of the coolest growing seasons, counted in degree days, on the West Coast. Farming has used organic materials and biodynamic methods from the first season, without certification.
Vines and Blocks
Pinot Noir only, in lettered blocks. Littorai chose more than fourteen clone and rootstock combinations for its section, eleven clonal selections in all, most of the budwood cut from its own vineyards; the published list runs Pommard, Dijon 115, 667, 943, a faux 828 and a massale selection said to trace to La Tache, on 1103P, 420A and 3309 rootstocks. Block E is Littorai's 5.5 acres; a further acre across Blocks C and G goes into its Les Larmes appellation blend. Yields average about 2.2 tons to the acre.
The Wines
Littorai, FEL, Cobb, Drew, Auteur, Reeve and Failla all bottle a Wendling designate; Copain did in earlier vintages, and Dupuis, Texture and Westwood have also drawn from the rows. For a vineyard planted in 2010 that is a fast ascent, and it reflects both Ardzrooni's standing as a grower and the scarcity of good ground this far west. The style is the surprise: the address promises pale, high-acid, red-fruited wine, and most bottlings carry that acidity, but the fruit runs darker and the structure denser than the cold end usually gives. Littorai places Block E at the richer end of its own range.