Suppliers
USA
The Americans still dominate the Chardonnay/Cabernet business for good reasons. They continue to apply their confidence with everything else, especially Merlot, Syrah, Pinot Noir and Sparkling wine. They are very knowledgeable, service oriented and reliable suppliers and partners for us. There are additional single vineyards selections on our fine wine website. If you require further supplier or product information, please contact your local RWM office.
It was love at first sight when Jim and Mary Dierberg, laid eyes on the Star Lane Ranch, now planted to some 230 acres of vines. “We had looked around Napa and Bordeaux for a property early on”, Jim recalls. But Napa and the Old World were getting a little crowded. “We wanted open space and big sky.” They found it during a business trip not far from Santa Barbara in a beautiful valley called Happy Canyon. Bankers by profession, Jim and Mary are no newcomers to wine. They’ve owned one of America’s oldest wineries, Hermannhof, since 1974. It’s located in their home state of Missouri, where Jim was raised in a farming tradition. (At age 11, he won the St. Louis County Fair with his champion pig, Buster.) The wines at Hermannhof are good, but the Missouri climate is not conducive to growing the European varietals that have made France and California famous. They purchased Star Lane in 1996. “All the local farmers knew this was one of the warmest spots in the area,” Jim recalls. After consultation with renowned Central Coast grower Dale Hampton and soil scientist Paul Skinner, the Dierbergs realized that the land was best suited to growing Cabernet and its related varietals. They started with 100 acres. Later in 1996, they bought a cooler vineyard site better suited to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay a bit farther north in Santa Maria. And in January of 2004, they added a new property in the Santa Rita Hills, also suitable for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. These two vineyards are called, fittingly, Dierberg. Currently, the winemaking couple are constructing their dream winery on the Star Lane property. It’s dug into the hillside for efficient use of energy and will host some 26,000 square feet of caves for barrel aging. Already the wines of Dierberg and Star Lane are turning heads in the wine community.
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Available across Western Canada.
Find out more at dierbergvineyard.com