History
Ted and Heidi Lemon bought and planted The Haven in 2001. It was Littorai's first estate vineyard after more than a decade of leasing and buying fruit, and remains one of its two owned properties; the home farm on Gold Ridge Road in Sebastopol is separate land.
The Site
Twelve hundred feet up on an east-west ridge between Occidental and the Pacific, on a south-facing slope with a view of the ocean. Soils split between Hugo-Josephine loams under the Pinot Noir and a Yorkville clay loam section, about a foot of dark clay loam over sandstone. It is one of the latest-ripening and last-harvested sites Littorai works. The vineyard falls inside the Freestone-Occidental part of the West Sonoma Coast AVA created in 2022, but the wines are labelled Sonoma Coast.
Vines and Blocks
Four acres of Pinot Noir planted to twelve separate clonal selections, and half an acre of Chenin Blanc in ENTAV clone 982 brought from the Loire, which is an unusual thing to plant on a cold Sonoma ridge and is the site's signature oddity.
The Wines
Littorai is the sole producer. The Haven Pinot Noir is the estate wine, and the Chenin Blanc is made in tiny quantity from that half acre.