Style Wine Alongside the San Andreas Fault Line

There’s not a lot better in life, so far as I’ve found, than sitting outdoors on a deck over the water at one of many renovated fishermen’s shacks at Nick’s Cove, an inn and restaurant on Northern California’s Tomales Bay, notably proper because the solar is setting, with a glass of rosé and a dozen uncooked oysters. The view over the bay turns golden, with darkness simply starting to the touch the hills throughout the water, and all you hear is the sunshine slapping of waves in opposition to the piers beneath you.

The place is so peaceable that you just’d hardly guess that the San Andreas Fault, that tumultuous collision of two huge tectonic plates, runs instantly underneath the water in entrance of you. It bisects Tomales Bay, miles beneath the floor. Have one other oyster, one other sip of rosé. Then head to the restaurant, as I did, and order a few of Nick’s Cove’s glorious cioppino — the signature seafood stew of San Francisco, as standard now because it was again in 1906, when the San Andreas kind of flattened your complete metropolis.

The San Andreas has been accountable for earthquakes (somewhat too usually) and strings of erupting volcanoes (within the very distant previous), but in addition in some ways it has fashioned the distinctive character of a few of California’s greatest wine areas (to not point out your complete California coast). That affect is why I’d determined to take a highway journey down a superb portion of its size. We have a tendency to think about wine journey as heading to a area — the Napa Valley, Tuscany, Bordeaux — and staying put there. However I’d began to surprise if it is likely to be much more fascinating to observe a distinct sort of itinerary. Why not dive into historical past and geology and construct a visit visiting wineries alongside the San Andreas? 

The Sonoma coast

I began off my journey on the Harbor Home Inn, in Elk, the place 2019 F&W Greatest New Chef Matthew Kammerer works magic with hyperlocal elements in a redwood house initially inbuilt 1916 for a timber firm. Harbor Home is instantly on the coast, and from the inn’s deck, you possibly can look out to the place the San Andreas runs underneath the water. (It comes onto land just a few miles south, close to Level Area.) Kammerer harvests seaweed offshore for a few of his dishes, however most of his produce comes from a small farm that he purchased proper on the fault line.

“It’s all basalt up at Harbor Home,” he informed me after I took a go to there, “however right here, it’s sandy loam, with this wealthy black soil on prime — for farming, that’s excellent. I name it carrot soil. The carrots develop good and straight all the way in which down.”

After waking up the following morning to a breakfast of Kammerer’s shirred eggs and foraged mushrooms, I headed south, chopping inland off Freeway 1 close to The Sea Ranch towards Peay Vineyards. I adopted the twists and turns of Annapolis Street via evergreen forests for a number of miles, and at one level I crossed a small bridge over the dry and not-very-mighty Gualala River: At that time, Andy Peay had informed me, I might be instantly above the San Andreas.

I acquired out and walked over to the center of the bridge, regarded up and down the scruffy, tree-bordered riverbed, and thought, mainly, that for such a mind-blowing geological function, this view was fairly unimpressive. I used to be standing in the course of the highway on a bridge, fascinated about rocks.

In my protection, in case you care about wine, you actually ought to suppose from time to time about rocks (simply not whereas standing in the course of a highway). Local weather happens aboveground; it’s straightforward to examine its results. The exact reduce of the Pinot Noirs from brothers Andy and Nick Peay and winemaker Vanessa Wong — “density however not heaviness,” Andy mentioned — owes lots to the cooling impact of the Pacific Ocean, 4 miles west. However vines have roots, and roots develop down, into the soil and the stone.

Andy mentioned about his and Nick’s impetus to discovered their winery again in 1996, “We needed extra of that florality and tea and earth that you just weren’t discovering in California Pinot within the Nineties.” These traits come from the Sonoma Coast’s ocean-driven climate, but in addition from the consequences of the rock-tumbler, fault-derived jumble of geology that lies underneath vineyards right here. “The large elements for all of us out listed here are the local weather, after which geology and geography. And the geology and geography are pushed by the fault.”

Hirsch Vineyards is just about 10 miles from Peay, however it took me an hour to drive there. The western Sonoma coast shouldn’t be a spot for followers of straight roads. However it’s stunningly dramatic in its magnificence, stuffed with dense redwood forests, windswept ridges, and hidden vineyards — totally in contrast to the manicured prettiness of someplace like Napa Valley. (Though the very best place to attempt Hirsch wines is at their cozy tasting room in Healdsburg, as a result of the vineyard shouldn’t be open to the general public.)

It was a sunny day, so relatively than style indoors, winemaker Jasmine Hirsch and I took a number of bottles to the highest of Block 16, a small amphitheater of vines mendacity on the western fringe of the property. “The land right here is folded,” she defined. “It’s like in case you unfold out a thick blanket on the ground and mushed all of it collectively. Nothing’s flat. We have now each single side, each single publicity. And the place the fog will get to, and the place it doesn’t, and the rationale we get a lot rain right here, that’s all tied to the topography. And the topography was produced by the seismic exercise of the fault.”

For that cause, Hirsch’s flagship Pinot cuvée is known as San Andreas Fault. “My dad at all times likes to say that our property was outlined by the fault, in order that’s what he named it,” Jasmine defined. Hirsch Vineyards was established in 1980 by her father, David, on the location of an previous sheep ranch, and it’s inarguably certainly one of California’s biggest Pinot Noir vineyards; Jasmine now makes the wine, whereas David oversees the viticulture.

The San Andreas Fault cuvée is a mix of various blocks from the property’s 72 acres of vines, brilliant with purple berry fruit, layered, and complicated. “It’s your complete winery in a single glass,” Jasmine mentioned as we regarded out throughout the vines. The solar flamed in my glass as I took one other sip. Previous the rows of vines, the land dropped proper right down to the fault line, then climbed to the following ridge. Then, nothing however the Pacific. “On a transparent day from right here you possibly can see whitecaps,” she mentioned.

David Hirsch has usually mentioned that “the terroir of Hirsch is earthquake terroir,” and whereas Hirsch Pinots usually have a particular, brambly, raspberry character (one thing I discover within the Peay Pinots, too), it’s necessary to not oversimplify what makes a wine style the way in which it does. You’ll be able to’t actually say that Pinot Noirs made on the west facet of the San Andreas all style like raspberries and people on the east facet like black cherries, for instance; there’s no one-to-one correspondence. When a wine has character — actual character, not ersatz, industrial, made-in-the-millions-of-cases character — the sources of that character are at all times complicated. However in regard to the fault, one thing Andy Peay mentioned about his wines appears apt: “Possibly it’s simply that there’s a sort of normal power. There are these two big plates, the North American and the Pacific, preventing one another, just a few miles underneath our ft. Should you get too particular, positive, that’s when what you’re saying hits the bullshit button. However there should be one thing there.”

The Santa Cruz Mountains

From Hirsch, I adopted the road of the fault to Tomales Bay and the waterside inn and restaurant Nick’s Cove, then on down via San Francisco to the Santa Cruz Mountains. There, I finished for the night time in Los Gatos. That was principally, I admit, in order that I might make a breakfast pilgrimage to Manresa Bread, the supply of the crunchiest, butteriest kouign-amann pastries wherever. (Battle me — head baker Avery Ruzicka is a genius, and I stand by that.)

However Los Gatos was additionally the place, again in 1989, my aunt Amy was residing when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit and tossed her home down the facet of a mountain. (Should you consider the San Andreas Fault as an enormous river operating north to south, then the Loma Prieta fault is certainly one of its minor tributaries.) She’d gone grocery purchasing and was within the driveway, simply getting out of her automobile when this occurred. My aunt was unhurt, and she or he had earthquake insurance coverage, however it’s value noting that afterward she moved to Bodega Bay and lived the remainder of her life on the water.

My vacation spot was Thomas Fogarty Vineyard, simply previous the Windy Hill Open Area Protect, and after I acquired there, I requested proprietor Tommy Fogarty Jr. if he remembered the Loma Prieta quake. “Completely. I wasn’t right here myself, however we discovered fairly rapidly the quake positive was,” he informed me. “Our winemaker was driving right down to Santa Cruz, and buildings began touchdown on the highway on Freeway 17.”

Even so, and even with my aunt’s story in thoughts, mass destruction was onerous to examine as we stood there on the vineyard’s redwood-railed deck, surrounded by tables of weekend wine tasters, all cheerfully chatting whereas sipping Fogarty wines. Bay Space residents reside with the prospect of earthquakes the identical method everybody I knew rising up in Houston lived with the thought of hurricanes: They occur typically, no query, however on a day-to-day foundation, you simply get on together with your life.

Under us, the Fogarty vineyards stairstepped down the slope: Portola Springs at 1,920 ft, Rapley Path at 1,650 ft, Razorback Winery at 1,400 ft. The fault itself lay buried on the backside, underneath loads of multimillion-dollar Silicon Valley houses. I sipped one of many Fogarty Chardonnays within the glass I held. It tasted like white wine, not like homes falling onto a freeway.

Once I left Fogarty, I headed south, crossing the backbone of the mountains to the Santa Cruz facet. Exterior Corralitos, Sante Arcangeli Household Wines winemaker and proprietor John Benedetti and I clambered up a rickety ladder to face on the roof of an previous barn at his Break up Rail Winery. An unparalleled view over forests and vineyards towards the Pacific unfold out earlier than us, making me much less aware of the truth that I used to be standing on a sloping unrailed roof with a 40-foot drop to the bottom beneath.

“We’re standing on an uplifted piece of the Pacific Plate — previous lake backside from the Pliocene, Purisima sandstone,” Benedetti mentioned. “You’ll discover fossilized shells right here.” He pointed towards the following ridgeline, towards the ocean. “However that mountain is usually Franciscan clay. And behind us,” he mentioned, turning, “the east facet of the appellation over there, on the North American plate, that’s a wholly totally different world. In different phrases, it’s San Andreas Fault all the way in which round us.”

That night, I met Benedetti for dinner at House restaurant in Soquel, a do-not-miss spot the place chef Brad Briske depends on coastal California elements for quirky, sensible dishes like squid-ink orecchiette with clams and pork stomach in a cider-chile-miso broth. Eating at one of many picnic tables within the expansive yard on a heat night time can’t be beat.

Benedetti and I poured his Break up Rail Winery Pinot in opposition to his Lester Household Winery Pinot, the previous spicier, darker-flavored, the latter lighter, extra red-fruited. Soil? Geology? The age of the vines, the course the rows face, totally different microclimates, totally different harvest dates? Laborious to pinpoint, although loads of enjoyable for a pair of wine geeks to debate, which we proceeded to do late into the night time.

The Cienega Valley

I wasn’t going to observe the San Andreas all the way in which to the place it petered out close to Southern California’s Salton Sea, however the closing leg of my fault jaunt did take me to completely totally different terrain. The Cienega Valley is dry and scorching, 22 miles from the ocean and about 10 miles south of Hollister. It’s house to loads of farmland, but in addition Eden Rift Vineyards, an oasis of vines embraced on three sides by hills coated in oaks. No evergreens right here. Once I took the flip off Cienega Street to Eden Rift, I handed the previous Almaden vineyard, constructed within the Fifties. The fault runs instantly underneath it, and its partitions now not contact in locations as a result of seismic exercise. 

Proprietor Christian Pillsbury named his vineyard Eden Rift each as a nod to John Steinbeck’s East of Eden and as a reference to the rift — the fault — that runs proper via it. Vines have grown right here since 1849, when a Frenchman named Theophile Vaché planted some Mission grapes, making this the oldest constantly planted winery in California.

Pillsbury mentioned, “It wasn’t like Vache checked out this place again within the mid-1800s and mentioned, ‘Nicely, there’s this tectonic motion right here that’s superb, so clearly it’s an ideal place for wine grapes.’ However that’s kind of why it’s.” Topology and topography: the slant of the hillside terraces, the bowl of the valley, the earth and rock. “The soil right here is all shattered granite and limestone,” Pillsbury mentioned. A lot limestone, the truth is, a lot ocean flooring hurled violently upward greater than a millennium in the past, that the roads threading the property are brilliant white within the solar.

Eden Rift is distant, as wineries go, however well worth the time it takes to get there. I sat outdoors, tasting Pinots at a picnic desk outdoors the Dickinson Home, a beautiful instance of early-Twentieth-century Prairie Faculty structure, constructed for that period’s proprietor. Pillsbury’s wines have been glorious; I used to be impressed each by them and by the property’s profound silence. As I sipped, a hawk soared far overhead and disappeared into the empty sky. Then nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. Miles beneath me, huge continental plates have been grinding slowly in opposition to one another, maybe constructing cataclysmic pressures within the course of. However there was no proof of that in the meanwhile, besides, maybe, within the specific exact stress of the flavors in my glass of wine.

Take a San Andreas wine journey

Harbor Home Inn

2019 F&W Greatest New Chef Matthew Kammerer does magical issues with native elements (tempura maitake mushrooms with lace lichen, black cod smoked over bay laurel, marigold ice cream) at Harbor Home Inn on the coast close to Elk. Begin a San Andreas journey at this luxury inn and restaurant with a glass of Champagne on the porch overlooking the Pacific; the fault runs underneath the ocean within the distance.

Peay Vineyards

Within the far north of the Sonoma Coast appellation, Andy Peay, Nick Peay, and Vanessa Wong make stellar Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Syrah from their beautiful organically farmed property. Andy Peay says, “We weren’t essentially searching for a spot that was stunning, however we acquired tremendous fortunate.” Tastings at Peay Vineyards are by appointment.

The On line casino Bar & Grill

Cease on the historic On line casino Bar & Grill in Bodega for something from a can of Bud to a glass of Arnot-Roberts rosé. It’s as old-fashioned as old-fashioned will get, with wallpaper from 1939 and a pair of pool tables which can be nearly as venerable.

Nick’s Cove

This almost 100-year-old lodge and restaurant on Tomales Bay began as a herring smokehouse, and Nick’s Cove nonetheless smokes fish for the chic smoked black cod dip on the menu. (Immediately, it’s finished over Pinot Noir barrel shavings.) Additionally, don’t miss the wonderful cioppino. Keep in one of many cottages sitting over the water — a non-public deck is a superb place to ponder the geology of the fault, which runs straight down the bay.

Thomas Fogarty Vineyard

From its perch atop Skyline Boulevard close to Woodside, the Thomas Fogarty Vineyard makes terrific single-vineyard Pinots and Chardonnays, due to the abilities of proprietor Thomas Fogarty Jr. and longtime winemaker Nathan Kandler. It’s a well-liked weekend vacation spot for Silicon Valley locals.

Manresa Bread

Manresa Bread is an important morning pit cease in Los Gatos earlier than visiting wineries. Get the delicately crunchy kouign-amann, although additionally don’t miss the flaky almond “escargot” or the luscious whole-wheat chocolate chip cookies. And choose up a loaf of levain for later.

Lodge Los Gatos

As a house base for visiting Santa Cruz Mountains wineries, you’ll be hard-pressed to do higher than Lodge Los Gatos.

House

Chef Brad Briske serves a number of the greatest meals on both facet of the Santa Cruz Mountains at House in Soquel, counting on coastal California elements for formidable (however by no means fussy) dishes like Marin Miyagi oysters with habanero-apple granita. His housemade charcuterie can be stellar.

Sante Arcangeli Household Wines

At Sante Arcangeli Household Wines on the mountainside in Pescadero, winemaker-owner John Benedetti pours his top-notch, terroir-driven Pinots and Chardonnays in a 140-year-old barn at Harley Farms, a working goat farm — the cheese is to not be missed, both.

Eden Rift Vineyards

At this oasis of a vineyard, 20 miles inland from Monterey within the Cienega Valley, you possibly can sit outdoors the 1906 Dickinson Home and style the vineyard’s glorious Pinots, Chardonnays, and Syrahs (and probably its restricted, 100-year-old-vines Zinfandel). Or e book an ATV tasting and discover your complete Eden Rift property, glass in hand.