Our Vineyards


WINE CREEK VINEYARD

The average age of the vines planted in the Wine Creek Vineyard is more than forty years. They produce bright raspberry and blackberry flavors, good structure and mature tannins.
Our winery estate includes a beautiful, quintessential Dry Creek Zinfandel vineyard, with gnarly old head-pruned vines, on a hillside just north of the winery tasting room. The average age of the vines is more than forty years. The east-facing, red clay hillsides yield fruit with Dry Creek Valley character: bright raspberry and blackberry flavors, good structure and mature tannins.

Varietals planted: Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre, and Viognier.

Protected from the afternoon sun, these vines ripen late, giving the grapes rich, jammy character and juicy berry flavors. Although always sustainably farmed, in 2002 we began farming this estate following Biodynamic principals and received our Demeter certifications as a Biodynamic and organic vineyard in August 2005.

FIG TREE VINEYARD

Quivira's "Fig Tree Vineyard" is the sole source of our famed Sauvignon Blanc. Although this is a single vineyard bottling, the Fig Tree Vineyard is actually comprised of five distinct sub-blocks, all contiguous to the winery.

Sauvignon Blanc has an amazing ability to change both its aromatic as well as flavor profile based on the inherent character of the site, as well as, the "cultural practices" of the wine grower. Probably the single greatest area of influence the grower has is the management of the foliage or "canopy" of the vines. As a general observation, the fuller the canopy and the more shaded the fruit, the more grapefruit, gooseberry and herbal quality is found in the finished wine. Conversely, more direct sun brings out fig, melon and tropical flavors. There are of course some very subjective calls to be made in what direction we would like to move toward style wise, but as always our first goal is to find the natural balance that each block desires, based on its age, soil type and clone/rootstock combination.

According to winemaker Steven Canter, "The advantage of working with five different sub-blocks of varying age and different trellising systems, is that by varying the canopy management in each block, there are literally dozens of distinctly different wine lots I can use to create the final blend. The down side is there are dozens of different wine lots, all with added levels of complexity brought in during harvest."