History
Ted Klopp began planting Thorn Ridge in 1995, on a steep, east-facing slope. He farms it with his daughter Lauren Klopp Williams, and also farms the older Klopp Ranch and the much younger H. Klopp, three separate family sites that are regularly confused with one another. The vineyard sells fruit rather than making wine.
The Site
A steep, eastward-sloping hillside property of about twenty-seven acres on fine Goldridge sandy loam, in the Sebastopol Hills. It is dry-farmed. Producers split on the appellation: most bottlings read Sonoma Coast, but at least one current label uses Russian River Valley, so this is a genuine two-AVA site rather than a settled one.
Vines and Blocks
Pinot Noir from the mid-1990s plantings, in a wider clonal spread than the Pommard and Dijon 115 pairing usually quoted for it.
The Wines
Kosta Browne, LaRue and Gary Farrell bottle Thorn Ridge designates; Freeman has used the fruit in blends such as Akiko's Cuvée, and Claypool Cellars bottles it as the Pachyderm Thorn Ridge Vineyard Pinot Noir.