We provide family-owned, artisan wines of character, quality and distinction for those who appreciate the difference.

One place to start the Stonestreet story would be 1989, when we first began making wine here in Sonoma County's Alexander Valley. But the true starting point came much earlier, long before any human endeavor was involved. The beginning of Stonestreet can be traced back three million years when a volcano exploded and deposited a richness of rock and ash and minerals over what is now Napa and Sonoma counties. Over time, lava flow from that volcano created a mountain range between the two regions, and many earthquakes since have added the ruggedness of those mountains.

Today that mountain range is called the Mayacamas. The vineyards of our Alexander Mountain Estate are planted along the Mayacamas at elevations from 400 to 2,400 feet above sea level. These elevations help to explain why we are able to grow wine grapes which such intensity and concentration.

Graham Weerts - Winemaker

When Graham Weerts moved to Healdsburg, California in 2004 to become Stonestreet's winemaker, he migrated nearly as far around the globe as is possible. Cape Town, South Africa, from where he hails, is about 11,000 miles from Northern California.

He'd learned about the Alexander Valley and Stonestreet's Alexander Mountain Estate when he spent the 1999 harvest working at nearby Verite Winery. That year he became acquainted with the Mayacamas mountain range and its potential for growing world-class wine grapes, especially Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. After that season, he returned to South Africa where he worked as a winemaker for a few, smaller new wineries before Bellingham Winery recruited him in 2001. He stayed at Bellingham until 2004, when he joined Stonestreet.

It was perhaps inevitable that Graham would pursue winemaking. It's a career that draws upon his agricultural heritage and his intense love of the outdoors, while also offering creative outlets and intellectual challenge. To him, no other product that humans make offers the complexities and artistic value of wine. It unites people of all cultures. As Graham likes to say, few wars were started over a great bottle of wine. He remembers that it was his father who first introduced him to good wine, and this affected Graham as well as his brother who became a viticulturist and nature conservationist. Graham earned a degree in viticulture, wine science and pomology from the Elsenburg Agricultural College in Stellenbosch, South Africa in 1996.

Chardonnay

This Chardonnay is a remarkable representation of Alexander Mountain terroir. A blend of our Upper Barn, Red Point and Broken Road vineyards, this wine carries a signature element from each; Red Point’s unique minerality, Broken Road’s complex and bright fruit character and Upper Barn’s majestic, balanced finish.

Gentle grape pressing was followed by a 63% mix of French oak barrel and 37% small stainless tank fermentations. Native yeast drove a portion of the fermentation giving the finished wine more complexity, texture and nutty aromatics. Malolatic fermentation was employed to further the wine’s richness and balance.

Look for fresh apples, complex mineral and creamy lemon-lime flavors on the palate. Tropical notes and ripe peach aromatics are followed by a solid, lengthy finish.

-- Graham Weerts, Winemaker

Cabernet Sauvignon

No wine better depicts the extraordinary range of Cabernet Sauvignon expression from Alexander Mountain Estate than this one. Meticulously considered block selection from all elevations is the key: the mid-mountain blocks provide floral and spice aromatics, flesh and vivid red fruit while the higher blocks offer a black mineral streak and the etched structural backbone for which this wine is so well known.

100% cabernet sauvignon, from six-year-old vines on very thin mountainside soil. Deep red-ruby. Pungent aromas of black fruits, licorice, tar and menthol suggest a rocky minerality. Dense, thick and minerally, but with a very light touch. Strong minerality and bright acidity give shape to the medicinal black cherry flavor. Finishes long, juicy and aromatic, with insidious building tannins coating the front teeth.

-- Stephen Tanzer, Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar, June 2008

Fifth Ridge

The grapes for this wine came from vineyard blocks planted along ridge tops where soils are at their leanest, and where the cooling influence of the Pacific Ocean is mostly felt. Fifth Ridge itself refers to the Mayacamas Mountain range, which is the fifth ridge east of the Pacific Ocean.

Graham Weerts blended 77% Merlot, 14% Cab Sauv, 5% Syrah, and 4% Cab Franc. Ruby-purple in color, this wine leads with notes of raspberry, chocolate and coffee on the nose, followed by a lush palate of fresh plum and cherries. Cabernet Sauvignon was blended in to provide added structure and complexity, Syrah offers a hint of spiciness, and Cabernet Franc contributes lush aromatics.

Ruby-purple in color, this wine leads with notes of raspberry, chocolate and coffee on the nose, followed by a lush palate of fresh plum and cherries. Cabernet Sauvignon was blended in to provide added structure and complexity, and Cabernet Franc contributes lush aromatics.

-- Graham Weerts, Winemaker

Legacy

This 2003 Legacy is the fourteenth release of our Bordeaux-style varietal blend. With this vintage, we selected five lots of wine from our estate vineyards in the eastern mountains and hills enclosing the southern end of the Alexander Valley. Elevation holds the key to this wine’s combination of boldness and elegance: more than 80% of the grapes used to make this wine were grown at elevations of at least 2,000 feet. Most of the Cabernet Sauvignon was chosen from selected blocks planted at 2,400 feet on Alexander Mountain Estate.

A serious Cabernet Sauvignon dominated blend from Alexander Valley. Classic, acid and tannin structure with a full dense core. Red currants, cherries, earthy dust and a dense cocoa, dark chocolate, ripe plums, blackberries, bright and pure. Balanced, full and elegant.

–- Graham Weerts, Winemaker

END OF BIN SALE!!

2002 Arrowood Reserve Speciale Cabernet Sauvignon

This 100% varietal wine is a complex blend of six of our favorite Sonoma County vineyards. Keeping vineyard lots separate, we aged them for two years in French and American oak barrels. After creating the Reserve master blend, we returned it to 100% French oak barrels for another five months of aging. Finally, we bottled it unfined and unfiltered. This aversion to over-manipulation will allow the wine to be even more pronounced in its complexity and finesse.

94 POINTS - The 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Speciale is a terrific example of Cabernet. This cuvee spends over 30 months in oak, and is one of the North Coast’s most underrated Cabernet Sauvignons. All of the fruit comes from dry farmed hillside vineyards. It boasts a dense opaque purple color along with a sweet nose of camphor, black currants, tobacco leaves, loamy soil, and subtle vanilla. This majestic, full-bodied, rich, broad offering possesses both power and elegance. Give it 3-4 more years of bottle age, and consume it over the following two decades.
- Wine Advocate

 

An Editors' Choice "An impressively endowed effort, this features a slightly lifted, floral component to its bouquet that adds to its complexity, blending seamlessly with scents of dark plum, vanilla, smoke, coffee and spice. The mouthfilling flavors frame bold fruit in firm spice, giving this wine ample structure and length. Drink now–2015".

Noble has been appointed the exclusive Florida distributor of Quinta do Noval!

One of the oldest port houses, Quinta do Noval is also arguably the greatest. The Wine Spectator, in its 1999 choice of 12 wines of the 20th century, included Quinta do Noval Nacional 1931, the only non-table wine selected. And in his 2005 book, The World’s Greatest Wine Estates, Robert Parker writes that there are many top port houses, but only three can be considered at the top, including Noval:

“Quinta do Noval is unusual among the great traditional Port houses in that it emphasizes the importance of the vineyard. It is significant that the company is named after its vineyard, that it is entirely based on the Douro Valley, and that its principal Vintage Ports, Quinta do Noval Nacional and Quinta do Noval, are both single-vineyard wines. The aim is to produce classic Vintage Ports that are harmonious and elegant expressions of Quinta do Noval’s terroir. Strict selection in the vineyard, low yields, and strict selection again in the tasting room result in a small production.”