since 1971
Our Story
A family farm that happens to make very good wine.
From Twelve Rows
How a hillside became an estate
In 1971 Walter Brandt bought a neglected hillside with twelve rows of dry-farmed vines and a stone shed. He kept the vines, rebuilt the shed into a crush pad, and made his first hundred cases in borrowed barrels. Neighbours thought he was stubborn. They were right.
His daughter Elena took over the cellar in the nineties, added the terrace whites and the slow oak program the estate is known for, and — against all advice — began distilling the small-batch spirits that now round out the cellar. Today the third generation prunes alongside the crew each winter.
We still farm all eleven parcels ourselves, still pick by hand, and still ferment each lot separately. Scale was never the goal; the goal was always this hillside, telling the truth in a glass.
1971
first vintage
11
estate parcels
9
varietals grown
3
generations
From Vine to Bottle
Four unhurried steps, every year
-
01
Prune
Winter cane-pruning by hand, vine by vine, setting the crop months before budbreak.
-
02
Pick
Dawn picks into small lugs, sorted twice — once in the row, once at the pad.
-
03
Crush
Open-vat ferments with twice-daily punch-downs, pressed gently in the basket press.
-
04
Rest
Fourteen months in French oak, tasted weekly, bottled only when the wine says so.
Farmed Like It Matters
Because it does
Cover crops between the rows, compost from the farm, chickens on pest patrol, and no irrigation on the old vines. Our terraces are dry-farmed the way Walter started them — roots go deep, berries stay small, flavours concentrate.
The cellar runs on gravity, the tasting hall on sunlight, and the whole estate on the belief that good farming makes the winemaking almost easy.