History
Premier Pacific Vineyards developed the site from 2002 as part of a CalPERS investment portfolio, planting through 2005. Bill Price bought it in late 2012, remarking that Sonoma vineyard land had crossed the hundred-thousand-dollar-an-acre threshold with the deal, and folded it into the Three Sticks estate stable alongside Durell. Sojourn made one of the first designates in 2007; more than twenty wineries now buy the fruit, Kosta Browne's bottling the flagship among them.
The Site
The ranch spans 400-plus acres rising from about 310 to 840 feet on the mountain's wind-exposed western slope, on Goulding cobbly clay loams and Raynor clay. Marine air accelerating through the Gap thickens skins and cuts yields block by block up the hill.
Vines and Blocks
About 133 planted acres: 105 of Pinot Noir in Swan, Rochioli, 114, 115, 667, 777 and 828, and 27 of Chardonnay in 76, 124, 95 and 96, banded up the slope on 3309 and 420A rootstocks.
The Wines
Gap's Crown Pinot Noir pairs dark, dense fruit with the structure of wind-grown skins, among the fullest-bodied wines of the true coastal appellations, with Three Sticks, Kosta Browne, Patz and Hall and Sojourn leading the roster.