History
The family of a seafarer named Pleasant Ashley Stevens planted the vineyard in 1905. Bill Moore, a retired orthodontist who bought the property in the 1980s, owns it today, and Mike and Molly Hendry farm it. Robert Biale bottles it, and Turley made it for years under the name Moore Earthquake Vineyard. UC Davis selected the site for the Zinfandel Heritage Vineyard Project: cuttings from the oldest vines were cleaned and propagated and entered the registry as Zinfandel FPS 25 and 25.1.
The Site
Just over ten acres lying flat along Hagen Road in the middle of the Coombsville basin, beside Sarco Creek with Mount George immediately east. Coombsville draws the cold maritime wind and fog off San Pablo Bay, and the fog here refuses to burn off until late in the day, which slows sugar accumulation and holds acidity high. Soils are Coombs gravelly loam over a bedrock of white volcanic ash and tufa from the collapse of Mount George.
Vines and Blocks
One unified field parcel rather than a modern grid. The 1905 vines are head-trained so low that the clusters hang barely above the ground, close enough to take back the day's radiated heat on cold nights, which is a deliberate survival technique in a site this cool. The planting is about ninety-seven per cent Zinfandel, with small amounts of Carignane, Petite Sirah and the rare Cabernet Pfeffer, also called Mourtaou, mixed through the rows. Everything is dry-farmed on St. George rootstock.
The Wines
The Zinfandel here is medium-bodied and high-acid: crunchy raspberry and tart cherry with black pepper, graphite and dried brush, nothing like the opulent upvalley style.