Sonoma County · Est. 1974
Wine that remembers the last light of the day.
Small-lot, estate-grown vintages from a single hillside vineyard, poured the way they were made — slowly.
The current release
Featured vintages
Cabernet Sauvignon
Hillside Reserve
Black cherry, cedar, graphite
$68
Chardonnay
Morning Block
Meyer lemon, almond, flint
$42
Rosé of Grenache
Vesper
Wild strawberry, rose, sea salt
$34
Pinot Noir
North Slope
Bing cherry, clove, forest floor
$56
Wine finder
Not sure what to pick? Answer four questions.
Sixty seconds, no wrong answers. We’ll point you at the bottle we’d open in your shoes.
We’d open
The vintage chart
Six harvests, read left to right.
This is Elena Marchetti’s honest grade of each year — the season as it actually happened on the hillside, and when the wine will be at its best. No vintage is rounded up.
2019
Warm
Steady heat, small berries, tannin to spare.
Drink 2025 – 2037
2020
Dry
A thin crop picked early; leaner than most.
Drink 2023 – 2030
2021
Cool
Slow, mild summer; bright acidity and fine fruit.
Drink 2025 – 2035
Current release
2022
Even
No surprises from bud to bin; balanced and quietly deep.
Drink 2026 – 2038
2023
Late
Harvest ran into November; fresh, floral, still knitting.
Drink 2027 – 2040
2024
Wet
A soaked spring, then a dry finish; open and early-drinking.
Drink 2026 – 2032
Elena in the barrel room — add a portrait
The curator
Chosen by the person who made them.
I have made every vintage on this hillside since 2009. Each March I taste every barrel in the cellar blind — no labels, no block names, just a number chalked on the head — and I write down what the year actually gave us, not what I hoped it would.
A wine is listed on this site only when I would open it at my own table. Nothing here is bought in, and there is no “house style” to keep up beyond being honest to the year. Some vintages are fuller, some are leaner; you will taste the difference, and that is the point.
“If I wouldn’t pour it for my father, it doesn’t get a label.”
Elena Marchetti · Head Winemaker, third generation
From the table
What people say after the second glass.
4.9
/ 5
★★★★★
312 verified reviews · 98% would order again
★★★★★
“We opened the Morning Block with a roast chicken on a Sunday and the flint note is real — it tastes like the wet stone smells. Two more bottles are on the way.”
— Marta K., Oakland
Verified buyer · Morning Block 2023
★★★★★
“Our August shipment arrived cold-packed, which we did not expect in a heat wave. The note inside was written by hand, not printed, and it named the block each bottle came from.”
— Daniel & Priya, Seattle
Verified buyer · Vesper Society, Reserve tier
★★★★★
“Bought the Hillside Reserve for my father’s seventieth. He opened it that night, which he never does, and asked where the hillside was.”
— Tomás R., Sacramento
Verified buyer · Hillside Reserve 2021
How we ship
Wine travels badly. Ours doesn’t.
A hot truck ruins more bottles than a bad vintage ever did, so we pack and ship the way we farm — slowly, and paying attention.
Temperature-safe packing
Bottles ride in molded pulp, not foam. From June through September every box carries cold packs, and when the forecast on the route tops 85°F we hold the shipment until it cools.
Corked or broken, replaced
Write to us within 14 days of delivery and a replacement leaves with the next run. No forms, no photographs, no arguing.
Secure checkout
Your card details never touch our servers. We take Visa, Mastercard, American Express and PayPal.
Farmed and certified
A certified organic vineyard since 2019. The upper terraces are dry-farmed; the vines find their own water.
As seen in
The Cellar Ledger
·
Slope & Vine Quarterly
·
The Coastal Table
Guides
Learn a little, drink better.
Pairing
Weeknight pairings that don’t need a recipe
Roast chicken and Chardonnay, tacos and rosé, mushroom pasta and Pinot — three matches that work without planning.
6 min read
Choosing
How to choose a Cabernet you’ll actually drink
Hillside versus valley floor, how much oak is too much, and what a drink window really tells you.
7 min read
Serving
Serving temperatures, explained in one table
Why most reds are poured too warm and most whites too cold — and the ten-minute fix for each.
4 min read
Membership
Join the Vesper Society
Three shipments a year, first access to library vintages, and a standing invitation to the harvest table. No commitment beyond the next bottle.