Dynamite Hill (Advance Tasting Program wine)
Vineyard
First RIDGE Dynamite Hill: 1997 (First Ridge Petite Sirah York Creek: 1971)
Location: Spring Mountain, western edge of Napa County.
Soils: Gravelly loam
Vines: 8- to 72-year-old
petite sirah, 9 acres
Training: Head trained, spur pruned.
Yields: 2-3 tons per
acre
History
In 1968, Fritz Maytag purchased the Herbert Hummel ranch on Spring Mountain, west of St. Helena in Napa Valley. This beautiful property rises from 1250' to over 2000', and its climate is cooler than that of the valley below. Most of the land is forested and wild—the watershed of its namesake, York Creek. There are several petite sirah blocks on the ranch. Planted in the early years of the last century, the Devil's Hill vines are the oldest. In 1971, Ridge used their fruit to make its first Petite Sirah York Creek. The story of how this came about starts in 1967, when Fritz and Paul Draper—friends, at Stanford—set up a winery in Chile's coast range. When Paul returned to California, joining Ridge as winemaker in August of 1969 it made sense for Fritz to send Paul these amazing grapes. By 1980 Ridge was also taking the grapes from Dynamite Hill planted in 1973 with old Devil's Hill cuttings. Dynamite Hill, now thirty-three years old, dominates our York Creek petite sirah bottlings.
