‘I’m beginning to think that Syrah is our best grape on Red Mountain’. Bold but exciting words from Jim Holmes, owner of the revered Ciel du Cheval Vineyard and a pioneer grape grower in what is now the Red Mountain AVA.

Jim grew up near the Napa Valley in California. In his family wine was a part of the daily routine… ‘simple wines, you know, like Hearty Burgundy: as kids we stole as much as we could!’ After college in 1959, Jim was hired as an engineer at Hanford. By the time he retired in 1994, he managed an entire research and development team of 200 people. In those early days, he acquired a zeal for wine and made a habit of hunting for ‘real wines’ in tiny shops in Seattle.

‘At the time, there was nothing on the shelves but strange, awful-tasting wines, but Associated Vintners (Columbia Winery) had a great Bordeaux-style blend from Washington State’. By the mid-60s, Jim began to hear of wine grapes being grown experimentally in Washington. Then in the middle 1970s,Walter Clore, the father of the Washington wine industry, wrote a paper saying that you could successfully grow Vinifera to maturity in southcentral Washington State.

At the time, a friend’s father-in-law was selling an 80-acre piece of land on what is now Red Mountain for the ridiculously expensive sum of $200/acre (recent sales on Red Mountain have topped $40,000/acre) and Jim and his friend (John Williams of Kiona Winery) found themselves ‘planting a little vineyard’.

By 1977, they sold their first grapes to Preston Winery and the winemaker said ‘hey, this stuff’s really good!’ Others planted vineyards next to Jim but lost interest, so in 1991, John and Jim bought their land, which included 50 acres of grape vines. In 1993, Jim took Ciel du Cheval in a new direction, replanting his vineyard with a greater emphasis on red wine grapes and clonal selections.

Today, Jim farms 120 acres of wine grapes, including 40 acres grown in partnership with Quilceda Creek and DeLille wineries. The Syrah block for AlmaTerra is unusual in that it is planted in deep, droughty, very sandy soils and is trained to a fan system. Ciel du Cheval is among the warmer vineyard sites in the whole state, with intense sun exposure and intense wind. Jim believes the fan is perfect for protecting the fruit from too much sun, wind, and heat, although it is much more labor intensive than a bilateral cordon.

Notes on the AlmaTerra block of Syrah at Ciel du Cheval

Planted: 2001
Clones: Entav 174, Tablas Creek clone 99
Crop level: 4.5 tons per acre
Irrigation: 13” added to an average of 5” annual rainfall
Training: Fan (9’ x 8’ spacing)
Elevation: 685 feet
Slope: 2%
Aspect: Southwest
Soils: Hezel loamy sand formed in excessively well-drained wind blown sand over sandy flood deposits with a rooting depth of more than 60 inches
Climate: total precipitation in 2006 was 3.8 inches; mean summer temperature 73°F
Growing Degree Days in 2006: 3078