History
Sherman and Hooker, both later Civil War generals, founded the vineyard in 1854. Phylloxera took it, and Senator George Hearst replanted in 1888; those replanted rows are the old vines that survive. Ownership ran through the California Wine Association in the early 1900s, then the Parducci family's Valley of the Moon Winery from 1934, then a 1953 split that left the Domenici family holding the 152 acres as Madrone Ranch, before the Peterson family bought it. Morgan Twain-Peterson MW and Chris Cottrell farm and own it now; Cottrell, an unofficial adviser from 2007, became co-owner and winemaker in 2012.
The Site
One hundred and fifty-two acres on the Sonoma Valley floor near Glen Ellen. The vineyard is certified organic and Regenerative Organic Certified, which for a planting of this age means the farming had to be rebuilt around vines that cannot simply be replaced.
Vines and Blocks
An interplanted field of many varieties rather than a set of varietal blocks, in the pre-Prohibition manner: Zinfandel at its core with mixed blacks and a scattering of white vines through the same rows. The oldest wood dates to the 1888 replanting. Newer blocks sit alongside the historic ones, including research plantings, but the identity of the site is the 1888 field.
The Wines
Bedrock Wine Co.'s Bedrock Vineyard Heritage Wine is the estate bottling and one of the reference wines for the whole old-vine field-blend movement in California: dark and spiced, carried on acidity rather than weight, and tasting of a mixed planting rather than a variety.