Harlan Estate: Secrets behind its vine-by-vine approach

The horseshoe-shaped Harlan Estate encompasses two steep hillside ridge lines in the shadow of the Mayacamas mountains in California‘s Napa Valley. Facing east, the landscape reveals a great panorama of the Oakville AVA, with Rutherford and St Helena to the north and Yountville to the south.

Peering across a deep valley cut by a fault line, the western benches come into view between black, blue and valley oaks. To the southwest, the Harlan family home sits atop a high bluff keeping watch over it all.

Vines planted on the western benches are on sandstone soils flecked with quartz and feldspar. Looping south around the toe of the horseshoe, weathered volcanic pebbles and cobbles appear, leading to more Napa Valley volcanics along the branch of the eastern knoll.

In total, 97ha of conifer, oak woodlands, olive trees, trails, streams and a lake all form the fingerprint of Harlan Estate. Only 16ha are planted to vine.

From these hallowed vines, 60% to 65% of the fruit produces the flagship Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. Another 20% to 25% produces The Maiden, a wine strictly for those on Harlan’s mailing list.

The younger vines, typically under 12 years of age, contribute to the final blend for The Mascot, which includes some young-vine fruit from Harlan’s other properties, Bond and Promontory. Finally, there’s always a bit of declassified wine sold to the bulk market.

Cory Empting, director of winegrowing, tells me that nearly 70% of the vines at Harlan are dry farmed, possible because of property’s unique geology.

‘Not only is dry farming right for us, but we also have to farm vine to vine,’ Empting explains. Yes, every vine. By rough estimates, factoring in vine densities, there could be 80,000 vines planted at Harlan Estate today.

Vine by vine

Each one is carefully monitored and tended to by the entire vineyard team, while specific blocks are tended to by a ‘vine master’. There are seven vine masters, who each farm their own dedicated block year after year.

But the obsessive nature of farming at Harlan goes back to the first plantings.

On a trip to Alsace, Empting was surprised to learn from growers that they don’t plant cover crops (usually used to reduce the need for herbicides) – they leave it up to nature.

That flipped a switch for Empting, who, in time, would realise that focusing on soil health would naturally lead to a more diverse cover crop. ‘In the older-vine blocks, we haven’t actively planted cover crops for years,’ he says.

Today, he’s less concerned with what precise crop emerges; it’s the patchy spots with very little growth he’s looking for. ‘It’s a way of letting the soil tell you what’s going on – almost an x-ray of what’s happening underground,’ he explains.

And given the steep hillsides, which have at most two metres of soil before hitting bedrock, the farming is no-till so as not to disrupt biomass build-up.

The importance of dry farming

The cover crops at Harlan remain through summer to keep both the soil on the hill and moisture in the soil. The crops act like a sponge, collecting dew in the morning which soaks into the soil, delivering stable carbon. Through photosynthesis, the cover crops deliver stable carbon into the ground.

For every percent increase in soil carbon, ‘you gain 14,000 litres per hectare of water holding capacity’, says Empting. ‘So, when all this is spread out over a hectare, it’s about making these incremental differences, so you can increase your supply of water.’

They rarely mow and rarely spray. Empting points to a block on the far side of the vineyard and notes it ‘hasn’t been sprayed for mildew for nine years’. He says they realised that the pathogen for powdery mildew doesn’t arrive until flowering.

‘If we can get lignification [when tender shoots become woody] because of dry farming within a couple of months, our window for susceptibility is really, really short.’

For the most part, dry farming has hastened the life cycle of the vines at Harlan Estate. The dry-farmed vines began to realise that resources were becoming depleted earlier and started ripening earlier. Lignification happens earlier too.

This ultimately impacts the time between budbreak and harvest – and it varies a lot from year to year. Despite being unable to predict the exact timing of harvest, ‘the overall health of the vineyard is better today than it has ever been’.

Empting adds that as new vines are brought to life in an environment of dry farming, ‘they will adapt to the stresses and be more adaptive themselves during periods of intense rain and intense drought’.

Density matters

Looking west up at the terraces surrounding the winery, Empting motions to the vines on our left. He points out the differences in vine density. At 2,000 vines per hectare, the old-vine section was among the highest-density vineyard planted at the time in Napa in the mid-to-late 1980s. Conversely, the new plantings are closer to 8,000 vines per hectare.

With vine spacing so tight amid the younger vines, more watering is not necessary early on. Empting says this is because of their canopy management. ‘If you properly shade the ground, the canopy acts as a solar panel. This keeps the temperature of the ground lower, so you evaporate less water.’

Empting also notes that there are more vines growing fewer clusters per vine. An old vine might need 20 clusters per vine to yield just 20 hl/ha but, says Empting ‘with six to eight clusters per vine, we are getting 32 hl/ha.’ Cory says there is no ‘sweet spot’ for Harlan Estate.

Grafting not replanting

Francisco Gonzales is the vine master for one block. He alone prunes, does canopy management and irrigates if needed. At the end of the year, the winemaking team tastes his wines and he receives a report card for how his block fared.

It’s less about getting As and Bs and more about understanding how each vine master’s grapes contribute to the wine. That forms the basis of the philosophical and strategic conversations Empting has with each vine master.

When a vine underperforms and needs to be replaced, grafting in a dry-farmed environment is all about patience. Looking down a row near some older plantings, they’ve added new vines in various stages of development that have doubled the density of the blocks.

It’s a laborious process of four to five years per vine, and means rows aren’t perfectly uniform, but that’s ok; Harlan has the time. The ultimate goal is for its 200-year plan play out.

It also means that while other Napa Valley producers might rip up entire swaths of vines, Harlan does not. Its vine-by-vine approach means it takes the pressure off of making a huge transition that could impact the final representation of the wine.

Harlan has developed a geo-location-based data bank. They catalogue every vine, making it possible to run a report detailing its unique viticultural history. So Empting knows, for example, how many times a vine has produced grapes for the final blend.

It helps put emphasis on the value of each vine, with the hope that they will not all just survive for 50 years, but thrive, limiting a replant to twice a century, or less. A massive savings in terms of capital investment.

A human touch

Above all, Empting insists, it will highlight the human value and ‘the immense care that each vine master puts into extending the lifetime of his vines’. Which, in turn, allows Harlan Estate to continue investing in that human element.

‘You need to have a human being touching the plants and having a relationship with the plants on an individual basis. And we think a very small amount of wineries will be able to commit to that human element in the future. But we’re committed.’

Ultimately, every decision at the vine level focuses on capturing that quintessential Harlan style. ‘It’s hard for us to definitively say what Harlan is. It’s easy for us to understand what it isn’t,’ Empting says flatly.

‘Our job is to try to understand over generations what this place has to say and how we play our part in delivering that message. And it’s not just a message about the vines and the wines. It’s a message about the whole property and the harmonics of this place – it reflects back on what you put into it,’ he adds.

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