After finding that Moon Dust Vineyard in Sebastopol, formerly farmed and owned by David Bruce, was now certified regenerative organic, the first vineyard in the Russian River Valley to have done that, I was curious about the details.
SEE PHOTO: Harper’s Rest winemaker Vance Rose ON SUBSTACK
After its owners acquired a second estate vineyard, the label (formerly Jonive) is now called Harper’s Rest.
Other ROC wineries in Sonoma are located in Sonoma Valley – Bedrock and Gundlach Bundschu–both of which are ROC only on their estate vines – or in the Carneros (Ram’s Gate-estate wines only) and Donum Estate (100% ROC).
Winemaker Vance Rose answered the call in this phone interview.
We covered a lot of ground about Harper’s Rest and how they are bullish on the market for regenerative organic wine. ENJOY.
This is Part 2 of a two part series. (Read Part 1 here.)
Pam: Recently I saw that you popped up as the newest regenerative organic certified vineyard in the U.S. and so I thought I’d ask you a few questions. I did want to write a Substack post about you guys since you’re new in that certification category. I just was curious to hear a little bit about your story. It sounds like you have one vineyard that’s certified, and then you have another winery and vineyard.
Vance: Yes, we have a vineyard that we purchased in 2021 outside of Sebastopol that has been certified organic and ROC for just over a year, and then we purchased winery and vineyard and tasting room and all that in February of 2025, and we’re in the process of doing the the time thing to get that certified organic and regenerative as well, and that’ll be about 18 more months.
So, what inspired you to get into the wine business?
I have been in it for 46 years. So, and what inspired me to get into it was a great bottle of wine in 1978, when I was 18 years old, and I couldn’t believe something could taste so good. And here I am, you know, all these years later.
So you guys at Jonive were part of what company?
The company is called Young’s Holdings Company, and it’s a family-owned company, been around since 1888. Most people would know it as Young’s Market Company when they had that company, until they sold the first half in 2019 and the second half in 2022,
And why did they sell?
The distribution business was harder and harder with all of the big spirit companies controlling you and dictating your margins and giving you very short-term contracts, so it was a really hard business to invest in for the long term when you have short-term contracts with you know 50-60% of your business.
Right, the industry really morphed.
Yeah, it really has, and and all the big spirit suppliers have all the power, so it’s just really not the the best way, and they just felt like they would be better off taking their money out of that and putting in in other things.
What other things have they done?
Well, they own a number of a bunch of real estate that they have owned since they started in business in 1888, and things they’ve bought over the years. They have a wine company called Wilson Daniels, importer, national marketing company, and distributor, and they’ve owned that for over 25 years, and then they have a spirit company similar to that called Infinium Spirits, and they own probably four of the brands within that company, and then have other brands they represent. And it’s kind of the same with Wilson Daniels – they own two brands within that, but then have many brands that they represent from around the world.
But it sounds like you’re not doing those things.
I don’t do those things. My little part of the world is Harper’s Rest. Harper’s Rest is our brand with these two estate vineyards, and I manage that company and make the wine.
So, what inspired you to do that? To make wine, or right to have a vineyard and to grow and make wine.
We are still very bullish on the wine business and think there may be a downturn at the moment, but our business on the two brands that we own is up.
We’re growing, doing well, and what we wanted with Harper’s Rest is to control our own grapes, control our own production, and we have some control over our distribution with Wilson Daniels being a family, a company within our family,
And so that’s what we set out to do. And in doing that, we have always believed in farming organically and regeneratively, and we thought it was important to not just be one of those people that say, “Well, I I do it, you know, I practice it. I just don’t get certified because it’s a hassle.
We really felt like that we needed to, you know, be out front with it and and be certified,
So how did you select the first vineyard, the Moon Dust Vineyard, to purchase?
Moon Dust Vineyard came about from it was previously owned by David Bruce, who has a winery in the Santa Cruz Mountains, but he planted with Pinot Noir he brought from Burgundy in 1963. They then bought this piece of land in the Russian River, two and a half miles southwest of Sebastopol.
And I fell in love with it because it had five assets that I had not seen in one spot before.
It’s the coolest part of Russian River in the Sebastopol Hills.
It has Goldridge soil, great for growing Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. All the locals out there call that Goldridge soil Moon Dust. So we named our vineyard Moon Dust Vineyard.
It is mature vineyard. The Chardonnay was planted in 1996, and the Pinot Noir in 2007.
It has multiple clones. We have six clones of Pinot Noir and two clones of Chardonnay for me to blend together to make a more interesting wine.
And it was farmed organically before, so it was quick for me to be able to get the certification.
So that’s why we purchased that vineyard, and we love it.
And the clones? What are the clones?
Pinot Noir is Pomard, 777, 667, 115, 828, and David Bruce selection, which is cuttings from his vineyard in Santa Cruz that he brought the cuttings from Burgundy. And then in Chardonnay we have clone 95 and clone 17, also called Robert Young.
And when did you purchase Moon Dust?
In March of 2021.
And how much wine are you making?
We make, between the two vineyards, about 6,500 cases of wine. About 2,800 of those go into the Harper’s Rest label, and the rest goes into this other label that we own called Routestock.
And what is Routestock?
Routestock has four wines in it: Napa Valley Cabernet, Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc, Sonoma Coast Chardonnay and Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir. It’s about 16, 17-year-old, brand. We do about 55,000 cases this year.
Oh, so you buy grapes for that?
We buy grapes for that, but all of the you know the excess Pinot Noir and Chardonnay go into that, and then we purchase grapes for the rest of it.
Right, and then how much wine are you making from your most recently acquired vineyard, and how many acres is that? The one that’s in transition.
Yeah, it is on Westside Road in the Middle Reach of Russian River. It’s a 34 acre property, but only eight acres are planted – seven acres of Pinot Noir and one acre of Chardonnay.
And that was not David Bruce, correct?
That was not. No, that was Arista Winery. We bought that property in the end of February of 2025. So I have another 18 months to to go before it can be certified,
So are you keeping the two properties separate in vinification?
Yes. We keep the properties separate, the blocks and the clones separate, and then blend them together. We have done some blending between the two properties for a Russian River Chardonnay and Russian River Pinot Noir, and then separate individual pieces with the best stuff from each property.
So, what are you finding from the Moon Dust Vineyard as opposed to your other vineyard?
Vance: Moon Dust is about seven degrees cooler every day during the summer, so it has more of those cool climate things. It’s also that Goldridge soil – it kind of produces a wine that is not high in alcohol, not heavy, but light on its feet...but still dark, and has a real black tea, black cardamom, bay laurel kind of of flavors, and I love that, love that cool climate.
And then in the Middle Reach at Harper’s Rest Vineyard, it’s that more typical Russian River, warmer, a little bit bigger style of wine.
We still produce it in the kind of mid 13% alcohol range. We don’t get too high up there with our alcohols.
So you’re making the you had to make the wine somewhere else, right? Originally from Moon Dust…
Originally yes, and then now for the last two vintages in our facility there on Westside Road.
So what was your first vintage?
2021. We did two vintages, 2021 and 2022, under a different label. And then when we bought the facility on the Westside Road, that name didn’t carry over to it because…it wasn’t in that same land grant, so we needed to come up with a new name. So we named it after a gentleman that owned the property from 1850 to 1857, and grew hops there, sold them right up the road at Hop Kiln Winery, or what we now call Hop Kiln Winery.
He died in 1857, and he’s buried in our front vineyard there, gravestone and all. His name was Reuben Harper.
That’s one of the stories. There’s also another story for the name is that I have a six-year-old granddaughter named Harper, and I told her I named the winery after her. So if you see her, you have to tell that story only, please. Otherwise, I’ll be a very bad grandfather.
And you have a lovely accent. Where is it from?
Austin, Texas. I’m a redneck Texan by birth.
So I am an employee here. I run a company called Chaos Vineyards, which is wholly owned by Young’s Holdings, which is owned by Chris Underwood and his wife and Chris’s brother.
So, what is Chaos?
The two brothers that own the company have five kids, and their first initials of their first names are C H A O and S. So they’re not in that birth order, but somebody figured that out and named my little company Chaos Vineyards.
And what does Chaos do?
Chaos is truly just producing Harper’s Rest wine, and we produce Routestock as well for Wilson Daniels.
How much does Routestock retail for?
Routestock retails for Napa Cab is $25 retail. The Sonoma Coast Pinot is $24, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc are $19.99.
It’s about two thirds an on premise brand, which is pretty much what Wilson Daniels is as a company.
So it’s not a supermarket wine...
No, it is not.
Where does the other third go?
The Wilson Daniels owns just their own distributors in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In those markets, you don’t sell in grocery stores. They’re all independent retailers, and so the vast majority of our retail businesses is in those three states. New York is our largest state, and New Jersey is our second largest state for the brand.
So the Harper’s Rest brand did the owners decide they want to be regenerative, organic, or was it really your decision?
I have only farmed that way, and so when we got together, they knew my philosophy. I’ve been making Routestock since 2014 for them, and so we shared the same sensibilities on environmentalism, organic agriculture, and regenerative farming.
Right, but Routestock is not those things.
Routestock is not those things. It is harder at that scale to get growers to do what we want to do, and so that’s why we wanted to do Harper’s Rest, where we could control it and control our own grape growing and our own making. Our building is certified CCOF organic as well.
Are you going to be bottle labeling any of that?
Yes, we will have a CCOF and ROC logos on our labels as soon as we are legally able to.
Oh, great! So, is it going to be at the Made with Organic Grape standard?
Yes. 100%
Because you don’t have to do that standard, but I guess you got your winery certified, so that is usually people’s attention.
So that we could do that exactly.
Great. And why are you so bullish on organic and regenerative?
Well, I don’t want to drink synthetic herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides.
I’ve tested over 400 wines in my career for residual synthetic herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides, and they were in all 400 of those wines. And so I just don’t want to drink it.
I don’t want to expose my employees to it, have them put on a hazmat suit to go spray, and and that really is the biggest thing.
The soil health is so much greater with organic and regenerative, being even no organic herbicide and no tilling. So I am a huge proponent of it.
The Heat Factor | ROC Is Cooler
One of the things came into focus in the 2022 vintage for us when it was so hot – 10 days of huge heat. It got to 113 degrees in our Moon Dust vineyard.
On that day, at 113 degrees, we tested our soil at four inches depth, and tested a neighbor’s soil (who tills), and our soil was 33 degrees cooler than their soil, and that drives the point home that no tilling is great.
Not to mention that when you till, you’re breaking up the microbe chains that are helping feed your vine. So I just I would not farm any other way, because I don’t want to drink wine with those chemicals in it.
So when you say you tested it, did you have a lab or you had it tested at a lab.
Had it tested at a lab. There’s a lab in Fresno that can test for residual herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides.
And do many people do that?
No, not many people do that. It’s not cheap, but I had just wanted to know what is in this stuff that we’re drinking, and I found out. So I don’t use any of those things [at Harper’s Rest].
But do you mainly buy Sonoma sustainable grapes then for the other, the big label?
Yes, we have 11 different growers with between the four wines for Routestock. One of those is certified organic. The others are not, and I encourage them as often as I see them to transition to that. But we do have them where they’re using no glyphosate and have not been using glyphosate for over five years.
Well, that’s impressive. Yeah, for Sonoma growers.
I think they got tired of hearing me complain, so they gave it up.
Any incentives at all?
We do, yes.
What incentives do you offer them?
Financial… we pay more. We’ll pay more if they become certified, and if they just don’t use glyphosate. That was just me bending their ear hard enough where they finally gave it up.
And how’s that going?
They are now happy as heck with it.
Why is that?
Number one, it [glyphosate herbicide] costs some money.
Number two, they felt like kind of the standard of vineyards in the United States was to have a row of dirt underneath your vine, so nothing could grow there. So they would spray glyphosate there, and that kills everything that can grow there.
Well, that also kills the microbes in the soil, which are feeding your grapes.
So your grapes aren’t as good [if you use herbicide], and so I think they see that having growth underneath their vine is not ugly. It’s very beautiful, and it can make them grow a better grape. And they’re not having to buy that stuff, and they’re not having to put on hazmat suits and have their people spray.
Who’s doing your farming?
Matt Stornetta and his company is called Stornetta Made. He’s a guy who grew up in Sonoma, where I live. Known him since he was 15. His mother is a grape grower, and I wouldn’t farm a grape without him.
----
See more on Instagram where you can see videos that feature Vance and others at Harper’s Rest.
No comments:
Post a Comment