In 1999, Brice Cutrer Jones sold Sonoma-Cutrer Vineyards, the winery he founded 26 years earlier, to Brown-Forman Corporation. Two months later, Brice and his team of six long-term employees and six long-time investors, closed on the purchase of Don and Marcia Hallberg’s prime apple orchard in the heart of the Russian River Valley. The 115–acre parcel, the Hallberg Ranch, is located two miles north of Sebastopol, on both sides of the Gravenstein Highway and directly on the Gold Ridge—the ten-mile long ridge that bears the name of the predominate soils of the area.
When Prohibition was enacted, there were 40,000 acres of wine grapes and 256 wineries in Sonoma County, 26 of which were within a five–mile radius of the Hallberg Ranch. Even then, the combination of the cool climate, the rolling hills, and the deep, well-drained Gold Ridge soils of the area produced a large portion of Sonoma County’s most desirable wine grapes. With Prohibition came the removal of most of the area’s vineyards with apples and prunes taking their place. Sebastopol became widely recognized as the capital of America’s finest apple production. Several processing plants sprang up in the area and Don and Marcia Hallberg processed their own apples in a huge barn on the property. By 1999, vineyards had largely supplanted apples as the highest and best use of the county’s finest orchard land. Accordingly, Don and Marcia decided to retire, and the Emeritus Team drew the winning hand to put the Hallberg Ranch back into vineyards after 85 years.
After acquiring the Hallberg property in 1999, Emeritus cleared the land over a three-year period and established a Pinot Noir vineyard with rootstocks and clones specifically chosen for the soils and orientation. The first few harvests were sold to various wineries in the area while Emeritus experimented with small lots of Pinot, and began to outfit the Hallberg barn with fermentation vats, barrels, and environmental controls. Then, in 2004, Brice finally convinced longtime Pinotphile, Burgundy–trained winemaker Don Blackburn to join the company. Don came aboard the day before the first harvest of the William Wesley Vineyard and established the hallmark style of Emeritus—that of elegance and charm. We lost Don to a brief but serious illness after the 08 harvest, but his protégé, Nicolas Cantacuzene, stepped into Don’s shoes and continues the quest: to produce a noble wine of great distinction, one that represents its vineyard heritage, a wine of great balance, elegance and charm.
