Why do some sites stand out and produce exceptional wine? When we plant a new field at Navarro, we usually amend and incorporate nutrients into the upper three feet of soil but the recommended amount of nutrients always appears minuscule when spread out on the field. With our Middle Ridge field, we decided to continue adding nutrients until the field looked more like our family vegetable patch. For this compact four acre field, we ended up adding two hundred tons of compost and a hundred tons of limestone, approximately ten times the recommended addition. When we mentioned the additions to other winegrowers, our extravagance raised eyebrows and elicited chuckles. We terraced the ridge so that the rows were lined up a few degrees off North; the sun would be directly overhead in September afternoons keeping ripening fruit in the shade during the hottest time of day. We selected two Gris clones that are noted for their quality, grafted onto a low-vigor, high-quality rootstock and the vines were trained on a state-of-art trellis. The Middle Ridge is Navarro's vineyard that is the most exposed to direct ocean influence, which moderates the afternoon heat during ripening season; a big advantage in warm or early-harvest years.

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