Hundred Acre Ark Vineyard

The single estate vineyard ARK is located just outside St. Helena, California at the base of Howell Mountain. It was originally planted in the 1880s, but was sadly lost to Prohibition. It took us five years to rebuild; she is our pride and joy.

The ARK is comprised of nine different blocks of Cabernet Sauvignon, planted meter by meter in nine different volcanic soil strata. The vineyard stretches through a sixty-million-year time sequence: three ancient beach fronts, a prehistoric weapons quarry, and spans a 180-degree arc of the sun over its half-mile length.

Winemaker notes

2016: This is an amazingly deep, rich, blueberry, blackberry and mulberry scented and flavored wine with skyscraper-like texture, remarkable intensity, great purity, and the new oak is completely concealed by the lavish and extravagant amounts of fruit. The 2016 stands out for its combination of power, purity, sweetness of fruit and tannin, lavish concentration and impeccable harmony.

2016

Wine Advocate 98: The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Ark Vineyard has a deep garnet color, exploding from the glass with bombastic scents of blueberry preserves, prunes and fruitcake, plus hints of dark chocolate, cinnamon stick, iris and bouquet garni. The full-bodied palate is an exercise in luxuriousness, featuring silken-textured, fine-grained tannins and seamless freshness, finishing with epic length and loads of earthy accents.

Jeb Dunnuck 100: The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon ARK Vineyard is largely cut from the same cloth and reveals a purple/ruby hue as well as a deep, profound bouquet of blue fruits, cassis, dried violets, Asian spices, vanilla-laced coffee, and a whiff of new leather. Complex, full-bodied, and magically textured, it packs loads of fruit and opulence yet stays flawlessly balanced, has silky tannins, no hard edges and a majestic, singular personality. As with the 2015, drink this thrilling wine any time over the coming 30+ years.

2017

Wine Advocate 98: Deep garnet-black colored, the 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Ark Vineyard unfurls sensuously from the glass with provocative scents of baked black cherries, plum preserves and crème de cassis, with emerging suggestions of fragrant earth, black truffles, Chinese five spice and dusty soil. Full-bodied, rich and oh-so-spicy on the palate, it has a rock-solid backbone of grainy tannins and lively acidity supporting the opulent fruit, finishing very long and exotic. This is a surprisingly decadent and powerful expression of 2017!

2018

Wine Advocate 97: The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Ark Vineyard comes from a site on Howell Mountain that's planted in nine blocks, each of which is planted on two different rootstocks. Each parcel is picked, fermented and barreled separately, yielding at least 18 different lots from a vineyard that's only 15 acres in size. On the nose, it reveals a hint of mint, followed by deep, earthy loam notes and black fruit, all underscored by vanilla and cigar box. Full-bodied, plush and expansive, this generous, open wine finishes with serious length.

2019

Wine Advocate 99: The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Ark Vineyard features beguiling scents of Montreal-style smoked meat backed by waves of black cherries and cassis. It's full-bodied, rich, plush and expansive on the palate, captivating for its mix of savory and fruity flavors. Offering tons of fun in the glass, this finishes long and tannic but also smoothly silky. It's a complete wine by any measure.

Lisa Perrotti-Brown 100: The 2019 Ark Vineyard is deep garnet-purple in color. It needs a swirl or two before it strolls out with notes of creme de cassis, black cherries, and mulberries leading to hints of crushed rocks, iron ore, and underbrush plus tapenade and lavender. The full-bodied palate is concentrated, with minerals, earth, and bags of black fruits, perfectly ripe, grainy tannins and seamless freshness, finishing long and earthy.

Decanter 100: An outstanding and profoundly layered 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from Jayson Woodbridge. I had hoped to include his Hundred Acre wines in my 2019 Napa Cabernet vintage report, but they weren’t available at the time. Had they been, they would have swept in for top honours. The reasons are many, and here, exhibited in this medium- to full-bodied Ark vineyard Cabernet are several exceptional reasons, which begin with complex aromatics of pure black cherry, blackberry, and blueberry skin, layered with nuances of cigar box, sandalwood, and vanillin. Finely-knit firm tannins build exemplary structure, balanced by crisp, blood-orange acid tension. It is a wine of very real intention to showcase the remarkable mineral superstructure beneath the ground of Ark, which is like a vertical layer cake of ancient beachfronts of red soils, black obsidian rock, and volcanic pebbles. ‘It’s a hundred million years of time sequences’, says Woodbridge, and the wine displays itself in equally complex layers of minerality, and the lingering effect is mesmerising and just draws you into the glass.