Westwood Winery

NEW WORLD WINES WITH TRADITIONAL STYLE Westwood produces wines that satisfy desires for depth, structure, balance and finesse. Our wines are soil-driven and food-friendly. Westwood's Estate Vineyard is planted to Dijon and heritage clones of Pinot Noir, several clones of Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Counoise and Tannat. Starting with the 2008 vintage our wines are all Estate-produced and -bottled. We currently bottle one Estate Pinot Noir, a varietal Syrah, our proprietary redFOUR Rhône blend (Mourvedre, Grenache, Counoise, Syrah, and a hint of mystery), our 3-Part Rosé, produced as a saignée de cuve from Grenache, Counoise and Mourvedre, and finally, a small amount of varietal Tannat. Our total annual production is around 3,000 cases. A NEW WINERY WITH A LONG HISTORY The modern history of Westwood began in 2005 when the winery – founded in 1984 by Bert Urch and Betty Stoltz – was purchased by John Kelly and partners and moved to Sonoma Valley. Today we are making Westwood wines from grapes grown on our Estate Vineyard, a unique vineyard planted by the partners in 2001. A NEW PARTNERSHIP In 1998, the partnership bought an undeveloped parcel located at the northwest end of the Sonoma Valley appellation, in the "Annadel Gap" opening to the cooling influence of the Pacific Ocean, flowing over the Santa Rosa Plain–Russian River drainage basin. They immediately set about improving and planting their unique site, beginning the development of our Estate Vineyard. While the vineyard was being established the partnership approached Betty Stoltz, the owner of Westwood, with an offer to buy the winery. A deal was struck and closed in 2002, and in anticipation of working with the grapes from Westwood's Estate Vineyard the new owners determined to move the winery from its original Sierra Foothills location to the town of Sonoma. THE MOVE TO SONOMA VALLEY While waiting for the Estate vineyard to come into production, we secured contracts to buy Pinot Noir fruit from two very high quality vineyards, one in the Sonoma Valley appellation and one in the Sonoma Carneros. The partners brought Westwood to market in its new Sonoma Valley incarnation with these two Pinot Noir bottlings, along with the superb Haynes Vineyard Napa Valley Pinot Noir which Westwood produced from 1985 through 2005. Starting with the 2008 vintage, all Westwood wines are 100% Estate Bottled. We have taken full advantage of the unique combination of soils and exposures at our Estate Vineyard, planting Pinot Noir in the coolest areas. Presented with a diversity of soils and meso-climates at the site we decided to expand the range of wines offered under the Westwood label. In the warmer locations we planted an unusual selection of red Rhône varieties: Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre and Counoise. We originally planted a small amount of the inky, aptly named Tannat to give us new blending options for our unique reds, but have since found it can make a really interesting varietal wine at our site. THE FUTURE OF WESTWOOD After several vintages the wines we have produced from the Estate Vineyard have started to show a clear sense of place, a distinctive structure and minerality that will define the Westwood style going forward. Ultimately Westwood will release two Estate Pinot Noir bottlings – one vinted from modern-era Dijon clones and a second Pinot assembled from our collection of California Heritage clones. We will release four wines from our other Estate varieties: our redFOUR – a proprietary red wine blend, a dry pink wine we call our 4-Part Rosé, produced from saignée de cuve of our Grenache, Mourvedre, Counoise and Syrah grape lots, a varietal Syrah, and a small amount of varietal Tannat. Westwood has embarked a new chapter in its history – in Sonoma Valley, where we will continue to produce distinctive red wines in our iconoclastic soil-driven style – on a human scale.