History
Mark Estrin, Carroll Kemp and Richard Crowell founded Red Car in 2000 with fifty cases of Syrah made in a Culver City garage. In 2004 the partners bought 125 acres in the coastal ridges of what became Fort Ross-Seaview, planting the estate in 2005. Estrin died that same year; Kemp departed in 2018 for Alma Fria, and Richard and Alison Crowell run Red Car today from Sebastopol.
The Site
The estate crowns the ridges off King Ridge Road at around 1,000 feet, a few miles from the Pacific among coastal redwoods, on blocks of fractured marine sandstone of the Ohlson Ranch Formation, with some 13.5 acres densely planted.
Vines and Blocks
Pinot Noir dominates, planted to suitcase selections and Dijon clones (the winery lists Calera, Jackson 16, 828 and Schoolhouse), alongside Chardonnay and Syrah.
The Wines
The Estate Pinot Noir and Estate Chardonnay carry the Fort Ross-Seaview designation: taut, saline coastal wines a world from the label's Culver City beginnings.