Vine Hill Ranch

Vine Hill Ranch is a seven-block Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard on the wooded slopes of the Mayacamas Mountains in Oakville, Napa Valley, farmed since 1884. Bruce Kelham bought the ranch in the late 1950s, and from 1978 his family, led by Alex and Bob Phillips, built it into a vineyard of renown, growing grapes for a number of leading Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon producers. In 2011 the Phillips family received the Napa Valley Grower of the Year award, the first given to a family rather than an individual.

VHR is the family's own estate Cabernet Sauvignon. The higher blocks, on gravelly slopes, give concentrated black fruit; the lower benchland, with deep loam, gives brighter fruit and fine tannins. Winemaker Françoise Peschon, formerly winemaker at Araujo Estate, joined in 2008 and vinifies the blocks separately with native yeast and new French oak, and Michael Wolf has managed the vineyard since 1998. The label's ledger-style listing of blocks, vine counts and harvest dates honours the ranch's hand-written grower records.