History
Brounstein, a Los Angeles pharmaceutical distributor, bought the Diamond Mountain ranch in 1967 and planted from 1968, reportedly with budwood collected from Bordeaux first growths. His decision never to blend the sections together created America's first true single-block Cabernet program. The Lake bottling became California's first hundred-dollar Cabernet. The Brounstein family continues the estate today.
The Site
The ranch covers about 79 acres above Diamond Mountain Road, with roughly 20 to 25 acres of vines in four named vineyards around the creek amphitheater. The soils change across a footpath: volcanic ash on one flank, iron-rich red clay on the other, fluvial gravel on the bench between.
Vines and Blocks
All Cabernet Sauvignon with small amounts of blending varieties. Volcanic Hill, about 8 acres marketed and the largest kingdom, faces south across the creek on pale ash and tufa from ancient Mount St. Helena eruptions; it yields the longest-lived, most brooding wine. Red Rock Terrace faces north on iron-red clay, dropping steeply toward the creek, and gives the most supple expression. Gravelly Meadow, the smallest of the three principal sections, sits on a flat prehistoric creek bed of stony, fast-draining gravel. Lake, three quarters of an acre beside the small pond at the western edge, is the coldest spot on the ranch and is bottled alone only in exceptional years.
The Wines
Four Cabernets from one small ranch, tasted side by side since 1972, remain California's clearest demonstration that soil, not cellar, writes the differences: ash-grown austerity, clay-grown suppleness, gravel-grown structure, and the rare cold-vintage grace of Lake.