The Vineyards

The Pinot noirs from Jim Ball Vineyards stand apart from many others, even prize-winning cult wines, for a number of reasons. Perhaps the most compelling is that they consist exclusively of Estate Fruit. Fruit that is grown on the land we own. Fruit that, from bud break to harvest, is farmed exclusively by our in-house team of local vineyard experts. Rather than hope to find fruit that meets our exacting standards purchased from outsiders who often farm to their own standards, or purchase fruit that someone grows soley to make a profit, we raise the wine ourselves from the ground up, from choosing the clone to the pruning to the way the vine and the sun and the earth make the grape. Sustainably.

A very expensive proposition to own the land and the equipment and pay the experts to raise the wine and wait years until the vines are ready to make world class wine. We think it was worth it.

I bought Middleridge Ranch in 2000. It was undeveloped and rangy, off the grid and hard to reach, but without doubt perfect for growing world class Pinot noir. Its Goldridge soils were the most sought-after and elusive in the Western Hemisphere. Its winds and cool, foggy micro-climate meant late Fall harvest and ideal acid to sugar ratios. Its high elevation and ridgeline topography meant the grapes would struggle to the ultimate glory of the wine. It smacked me hard between the eyes. After searching for years, I had finally found Premier Cru terroir outside the Cote de Nuits. It was stunning, unforgettable, untamed, begging to be shaped and molded and trained and loved and nourished.

An assembled team did just that. We began during a tasting on a February night in Chicago. Twenty-some bottles, each containing a different, single clone fermentation of Pinot noir were brought to the City by Merry Edwards. At a long farm table in a South Side Chicago wine geek’s townhouse, we blended, back and forth, tasting, debating, reblending, tasting again, making notes of how much of what clone went into each experimental glass, trying different clonal combinations of tannin and acid and fruit and animale and forest floor and leather, until we fell upon a formula for my vision of a perfect glass of Pinot. It was arresting.

We made a final record of how much of each clone went into that single spectacular glass, confirmed with the experts that the clones were a good match for the conditions at Middleridge, and sent a corresponding vine order to the nursery. We would plant a field blend whose parentage was developed that night in Chicago.

In 2002 the first 10 acres were started, followed by another 16 in 2006. Eight different heritage clones, many old French ones, on three different rootstocks. Most winemakers make wine from fruit grown the third year; we dropped it all to the ground that year, and waited til the fourth leaf. To strengthen the root structure and improve the wine.

We propose to you that this vineyard and the wine it makes rivals anything else made anywhere in the world. And we think you will agree.