Promontory | FINE+RARE

About the producer

Promontory is fast becoming one of the Napa Valley’s most important estates. The property was purchased by Bill Harlan (founder of Harlan Estate) in 2008, with the first vintage – 2009 – released in 2015.

Promontory lies in the western hills of Napa’s Oakville district, in a remote canyon entirely cut off from the rest of Napa. Apart from the small vineyard plots dotted along the canyon, the landscape is rugged and untamed. In total, just 10% of the Promontory estate is planted to vines, representing 34 hectares of the property. Bill Harlan literally stumbled across the site while hiking back in the 1980s. Although his interest in the land spans over 30 years, the opportunity to buy the property only arose in 2008. At first, the family thought the vineyards might be used for Bond or Harlan – but the character of the fruit was so fundamentally different that they decided to make Promontory its own project.

Today the estate is managed by Will Harlan (Bill’s son) with Cory Empting – who also makes the Harlan wines – installed as winemaker. The property only produces one wine, a Cabernet Sauvignon; available in extremely limited volumes, and it is one of the most eagerly awaited releases in the region.

In the vineyard

The first vines were planted in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, with a mixture of varieties, but the team started replanting in 2011, focusing entirely on Cabernet Sauvignon – the grape that they feel best expresses the place. The fruit from the young vines is used for a separate wine (The Mascot) that isn’t part of Promontory. The older vines are dry-farmed, and the plan is for everything to be long term – with just a little irrigation being used to establish the young vines.

The vineyards have two distinct fault lines running through them, roughly demarcating the boundaries between volcanic, sedimentary and metamorphic soils. This diverse geology is a unique facet that distinguishes the Promontory vineyards from the rest of Napa, giving the wine its distinct mineral backbone and tension.

The vineyards are mainly on the valley’s cooler east-facing slopes (with an average gradient of 38%), sitting at between 150 and 340 metres above sea-level. The fog that settles in the valley brings much-needed moisture to the vines, as well as moderating the temperature and allowing the team to produce cooler-toned and fragrant Cabernet Sauvignon.

In the winery

Due to the varying expositions and diverse geology, each vineyard block is independently assessed during the run up to harvest, and the grapes picked in multiple passes through the vineyards to ensure optimum ripeness. Each batch is fermented separately, meaning there are often over 30 different ferments. Following gentle extraction of tannins and colour, the separate batches are aged in barrels for a year, before being blended and returned to large Stockinger oak barrels for further ageing. They use large Stockinger barrels (the first in the US to do so, from 2012), having realised the wine’s tight but fine tannins needed time to evolve, while preserving the wine’s natural aromatics and purity. The wine is only released five and a half years after harvest, with two and a half to three years of that normally in oak.

About the producer