History
The ranch on Bohan Dillon Road belonged for decades to Hellmuth Seefeldt, a German immigrant who ran sheep here for twenty-four years and famously kept his savings buried in a crock on the property. In 1942 he was murdered by a ranch hand and his companion who had come looking for the money, a crime that reached the California Court of Appeal the following year. The Martinellis, whose Blue Slide Ridge and Charles Ranch holdings flank this stretch of road, took on the property in 2009 and planted Pinot Noir in 2010.
The Site
The vineyard is planted between Three Sisters Vineyard and Blue Slide Ridge, on the 160 acre ranch at 26633 Bohan Dillon Road inside the Fort Ross-Seaview appellation. The 2023 state crop survey maps roughly 28 acres of vines in six blocks scattered across the ranch's clearings, ground that carries the heaviest vineyard assessment on this stretch of the road. Wild thyme grows between the rows, which gave the family both the name and, by their own admission, the pun.
Vines and Blocks
Pinot Noir planted in 2010 on 420A and 3309 rootstock, budded to clone 943 and Pommard selections.
The Wines
Martinelli bottles Wild Thyme as a single-vineyard Fort Ross-Seaview Pinot Noir, a young-vine counterpart to the family's neighboring Blue Slide Ridge fruit: coastal, savory, and herb-tinged in a way the name makes literal.