Jimsomare
Vineyard
First RIDGE Jimsomare Zinfandel: 1968
Location: Monte Bello Ridge, in northern California's
Santa Cruz Mountains, overlooking the San Francisco peninsula.
Soil: Decomposing Franciscan
rock mixed with clay, laid over fractured limestone.
Vines: 5 acres planted
1900, 1.25 acres planted 1996.
Training: Head-trained,
spur-pruned
Irrigation: Non-irrigated.
Yield: Up to 1 ton/acre
Climate: Cool, mountainous — between
the Mediterranean and Maritime Zones.
Exposure: Principally
south/southeast
History
The five-hundred-acre Jimsomare Ranch, located between 1300' and 2000' on Monte Bello Ridge, is one of Ridge's earliest grape sources. First cultivated in the late eighteen-hundreds by the Alsatian Pierre Klein, this prime viticultural land has been in San Francisco's Schwabacher family for seventy years; Ridge took over farming in 1996 under the terms of a thirty-year lease. We were initially drawn to the site by its small block of nineteenth-century zinfandel vines, which have produced many intense, distinctive wines - most recently this fine 2002.
