Michael Mara Vineyard

The Michael Mara Vineyard is small and situated on flat rocky soil just west of the Sonoma town square along the Sonoma Mountain range. The vines greet you from the road and as you pull into the driveway you can almost reach out and touch them. Many aspects of the vineyard are special from the modest acreage to the soil itself, which is composed of rocky lobe and red soil created from a cataclysmic landslide that tossed volcanic soil and rocks down to the valley. It’s a unique site for growing Chardonnay in California with the fruit absorbing lots of the marine air along with minerality from the rocky soil. Clone 4 Chardonnay works particularly well with the site. Its exposure to the rocky terrain gives it a lift of acid, a unique expression of the grape. The vineyard was planted in 2006 by Steve Matthiasson and the Idell family and has always been farmed organically. We are very grateful to work with Michael Mara for more than a decade now and to be one of only a few wineries that work with these special vines.