History
Tom and Martha May bought a house near Oakville in 1963 that came with a two-year-old twelve-acre vineyard, since grown to thirty-four acres, and Joe Heitz began buying its fruit soon after. The 1966 Heitz Martha's Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon is the landmark early Napa vineyard designate, and the arrangement that produced it ran for six decades: the Mays grew the fruit, Heitz Cellar made and named the wine. In September 2025 Esther Mobley reported in the San Francisco Chronicle that for the first time in sixty years Heitz would not take the vineyard's entire crop, and that other wineries would buy its Cabernet from the 2025 harvest. Laura May Everett, who owns the vineyard, and Carlton McCoy of Lawrence Wine Estates, which owns Heitz, both confirmed the change.
The Site
Thirty-four acres lying flat on the western Oakville bench, hard against the base of the Mayacamas, on deep gravelly Bale loam. The mountain wall throws its shadow across the rows in the early afternoon, which lengthens the ripening season and holds acidity. The parcel sits immediately next to Beckstoffer To Kalon and a short distance south of the MacDonald family plot, in the most contested block of vineyard ground in the valley.
Vines and Blocks
A single low-yielding proprietary selection of Clone 4 Cabernet Sauvignon runs through the planting. The tall eucalyptus growing around the vineyard is the usual explanation for the menthol and bay leaf note that tasters have called Martha's mint since the late 1960s, though the connection has always been argued rather than proven.
The Wines
Heitz Cellar's Martha's Vineyard Cabernet is one of the reference bottlings of postwar California, built on lower alcohol, large neutral casks and long acidity rather than extraction. From 2025 it is no longer the only wine made from this ground.