Spring Mountain winery celebrates 25th anniversary

Calistoga’s Stephen Hawks is like a mole — he likes digging in the dirt. He’s one of two brothers who make up Hawks & Hawks Wine Caves. Currently, his crew has spent the past three months digging a wine cave for Hal and Fiona Barnett, founders of Barnett Vineyards in St. Helena.

 The Barnetts, who are celebrating the winery’s 25th anniversary this year, bought a piece of forest land on Spring Mountain in 1983 and planted it with cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot vines. Fifteen acres of the 40-acre parcel are planted in vineyards.

On Tuesday, Hal Barnett commented that “it was kind of amazing” that they’re celebrating their 25th anniversary. He said there are plans under way to mark the anniversary with a harvest party, but those plans and the party is still in the talking stages.

 The 3,500 feet of wine caves, which should be finished by Sept. 1, will be used for barrel storage, Barnett said, who added the winery now produces about 7,000 cases of wine a year.

“We didn’t built the winery with enough barrel storage when we started,” he said. “This is the last part to be done.” He added the winery has always been a “work in progress.”

 Hawks, who runs the Calistoga company with his brother, Edward, said digging the cave has been hard, because of the “very difficult ground” that is under the Rattlesnake Hill Vineyard.

“The caves will have a fabulous view over the valley floor. It will be a $1 million view and it’s going to greatly reduce their energy consumption,” Hawks said.

 Hawks & Hawks Wine Caves have been in business for eight years and have dug eight caves. “We’ve been fortunate to hire the best guy in the business, Dale Wondergem, who retired from Alf Burtleson Construction, whose been advising us,” Hawks said.

 Both passionate about the world of food and wine, the Barnetts created the winery with the intention of producing small amounts of hand-crafted cabernet sauvignon wines from their estate and have done exactly this over the last quarter century.

Today, Barnett Vineyards specializes in single vineyard and appellation designated wines, producing chardonnay, pinot noir, merlot and, primarily, cabernet sauvignon. Most of these wines, utilizing both estate and sourced grapes, are at a production of fewer than 500 cases.

 The rocky, volcanic soil on the Barnett estate, as well as the stressful hillside conditions, produces fruit of great intensity as well as complexity. This detail and nuance does come at a price: The 1.25 average tons per acre is only about a third of the valley floor level. This mountain fruit, along with carefully sourced fruit from select vineyards in Sonoma and Mendocino, is used to produce 10 different wines annually, but totaling only 6,000 cases.

 Winemaker David Tate agrees with the Barnetts on the importance of vineyard character.

“We make several different vineyard-specific wines to express a range of unique terroirs, but there is nothing like Spring Mountain soil for cabernet sauvignon,” said Tate.