BRYANT ESTATE

Napa, California

Bryant Estate reflects the vision of proprietors Don and Bettina Bryant. After purchasing land on Pritchard Hill nearly 30 years ago, Don replanted the estate with 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, employing modern viticulture practices and nurturing a team of local and international masters of their craft. His efforts quickly established one of California’s premier First Growth wines, the Bryant Family Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, now among Napa Valley’s most acclaimed labels. Bryant Estate wines are currently harvested, blended and produced entirely by hand from grapes planted and grown on the original 13-acre estate, as well as on neighboring vineyards on Howell Mountain, Las Posadas and Madrona. The wines are also bottled, labeled, wrapped and packed by hand on the estate, then shipped directly to customers.

Spanning nearly 20 miles from the San Francisco Bay to the foot of Mount St. Helena, Napa Valley—with its many microclimates, rich soils, diverse geological features and deep traditions—is the ideal setting for producing some of the world’s finest wines. The Bryant Estate property overlooks Lake Hennessy on the western slope of Pritchard Hill, a discreet enclave situated in the Vaca Mountains between Oakville, Howell Mountain, Rutherford and Chiles Valley. Perched above the fog line at a 900-foot elevation, the steepness, undulating shape, light and ventilation make Pritchard Hill one of the most dynamic sites in winemaking.

Scientists have traced the origins of Napa Valley soils back 145 million years. Accumulated in shallow waters beneath the young Sierra Nevada Mountains, sandstone and shale deposits formed the rocks of the Great Valley Sequence. Petrifying in the subaquatic depression, the rocks ground and twisted under the colliding tectonic plates. Over the course of 25 million years, these tectonic plates shifted and collided, resulting in volcanoes that rained lava and volcanic ash over the valley. Eventually, volcanic deposits along with sandstone and shale were forced upward, forming the Vaca Mountain Range, where Bryant Estate currently sits. Vast areas of eroded sandstone and shale blanket the area just below the winery.

At its boundaries, the terrain becomes rocky—the basalts and andesitic rocks a testament to the massive lava flows of the Sonoma Volcanic Era. To develop the vineyard, numerous volcanic boulders were removed. The remaining rock formations provide deep fissures where foraging grapevine roots find moisture and nutrient-rich minerals. Since the end of the Ice Age, intense weathering caused by heavy rainfall in the area pulled potassium and silicate minerals off the surface and left behind rich brown clay loam. The predominant vineyard soils are known as Hambright, Guenoc and Sobrante.These geologically young soils are intensely mineral-rich, thereby producing extraordinarily powerful wines.

We use no pre-emergent herbicides and embrace the biodiversity of our cover crops, relying wholly on elemental forces, such as fire, to coordinate the vegetative growth alongside our vines. As we proceed along an organic/biodynamic trajectory, we have introduced chickens to the vineyard to provide natural fertilizer to our rocky hillside vineyard, natural pest control to our riparian blocks and healthy eggs to our team.

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