By TIM TESCONI
SAVOR WINE COUNTRY

Jack Florence watches the seasons pass from the back door of his home, perched 400 feet above Lake Sonoma. He never tires of the changing scenery — even when winter envelops him in a silent world of gray.

"There are days when the stealthy grayness fills the valley, rolling over the redwoods, moving into the folds of Rockpile Ridge," says the 73-year-old grape grower. "As I watch the fog moving everywhere around me, I wonder how can so much be happening and yet, there is no sound."

The sounds of silence are the sounds of struggle here in the heart of Rockpile, one of Wine Country’s most distinct appellations and a curiosity to those unaccustomed to such an unromantic label.

No other wine region may be as ruggedly real as Rockpile, a rock-strewn mountaintop where grapes and people work against an unforgiving landscape. The soils are spare and demanding. Summer temperatures are sometimes sweltering. Snow occasionally dusts the mountaintop in winter in this northwest corner of Sonoma County.

"The name Rockpile says it all," says Clay Mauritson, 29, who makes wine from Rockpile grapes at Mauritson Family Winery in the Dry Creek Valley. Mauritson’s father, Thomas Mauritson, grows grapes on Rockpile land that has been in the family since 1875.

"At Rockpile the water is scarce, rocks are everywhere and the soils are very shallow," says Clay Mauritson. "The inhospitable conditions stress the grapes, and we love it."

What emerges from the vines is an amazing fruit, producing wines of deep, dark, intense flavor.

"Rockpile is my absolute favorite wine-growing region, a special place that gives me my best grapes every year," says celebrated winemaker Carol Shelton of Healdsburg, who makes only Zinfandel wines from select vineyards in California.

It’s the viticultural equivalent of the starving artist syndrome, where suffering and deprivation leads to artistic expression and, ultimately, great works.

Winemakers love nothing more than to watch grapes bravely struggle against the harsh elements, a process that severely limits yields but concentrates flavors.

Shelton says Rockpile’s tough environment yields grapes of character that produce sweepstakes-winning wines like her "Rocky Reserve" Zinfandel from the Florence Ranch in Rockpile.

Dan Barwick, winemaker at Santa Rosa’s Paradise Ridge Winery, also admits a passionate love affair with Rockpile and its grapes. A romantic, he compares Rockpile grapes to a woman of classic beauty and enduring grace. He and other winemakers are as protective of their Rockpile grapes as old Italians are of a favorite mushroom-hunting site.

Rockpile encompasses 15,400 acres in the hills and valleys spreading northwest of Lake Sonoma and above famed Dry Creek Valley, meandering to the Mendocino County border.

There are only 150 acres of vineyards planted in this sprawling region, where neighbors live miles apart and there are no stores, wineries or bed-and-breakfast inns. Coyotes and wild pigs outnumber people, with some hardy souls living in areas so remote they don’t have electricity or telephones.

The vast, rocky landscape becomes even more austere in winter, when vineyards are dormant and grayness settles over the land. Picture one of Ansel Adams’ black-and-white photographs of Northern California and Rockpile will come into focus.

It’s a different scene during the summer and fall when grapes are ripening on the vine. Because the terrain rises to 2,000 feet above sea level, Rockpile summers are warm and windy with less fog than the Dry Creek Valley that unfolds below.

"Though cooled by coastal breezes, Rockpile remains above the evening fog layer," Florence says. "The extra sun exposure ripens red grape varieties to peerless perfection."

Rockpile’s special qualities convinced Florence and other growers to petition the Tax and Trade Bureau to approve it as a viticultural area — grape-growing regions with distinct microclimates, soils and terrain. It’s a combination of viticultural circumstances the French call terroir.

"Rockpile’s boundaries and viticultural conditions were obvious from the moment we moved to Rockpile in 1995," says Florence, one of the area’s leading grape growers who, with wife Fran and son Jack Florence Jr., also grows grapes in the Dry Creek Valley.

But it took two years to impress Washington, D.C., that this was an area of distinction. Baffled bureaucrats heard the name Rockpile and perhaps thought it better described a gravel quarry or downscale RV park.

"We convinced them we weren’t pulling their leg," says the senior Florence. "The name Rockpile is a curiosity to be sure but, after all, it’s what this area is called and it does create an image."

There are neither wineries nor other places to visit in Rockpile, but a drive along Rockpile Road, the appellation’s main artery, reveals Sonoma County’s rougher edge. Named for the historic Rockpile Ranch, once an 18,000-acre spread with 3,000 head of sheep, Rockpile extends over undulating rangeland. Most of the sheep are gone now, and red grape varietals like Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah and Zinfandel are putting down roots in the rocky soil.

Winter is a time of reflection, with the fall harvest complete and grape growers, like expectant parents, already anticipating next year’s crop. Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon harvested from here are tucked away in cellars throughout Northern California where winemakers groom their finds.

Barwick buys Cabernet Sauvignon grapes from Roderic and Cathy Park’s Rockpile Vineyard. Their 800 acres includes the old Rockpile Ranch headquarters and farmhouse.

Although mission grapes were planted in the Rockpile area as early as 1872, most of the first vineyards were gone by the early 1900s. Grapes would not return for 80 years, when the quest for quality brought viticultural pioneers like the Parks to the steep slopes of Rockpile.

The Parks, who both had long careers at UC Berkeley, planted the first modern-era vines in the Rockpile area in 1992. Old-timers told them they were crazy for even considering growing wine grapes on land best suited for deer and pig hunting.

The Parks politely thanked their neighbors and plunged ahead with Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Merlot. They have settled into life as farmers while enjoying strong demand for their grapes because of the gold medals and acclaim won by the wineries that use their fruit.

"Growing grapes has a rhythm and challenge that requires the successful farmer to listen to nature in the same way that a professor listens to students," says Rod Park, 73, who before Rockpile was a biochemistry professor and the vice chancellor at UC Berkeley.

There’s no chance Rockpile, traditionally used for livestock grazing, will ever be planted fence-to-fence with grapevines. Growers estimate only 100 to 200 more acres can be planted in the 15,400-acre region because of the steep slopes, many rock outcroppings and scarce water.

Grape growers, determined to sink vines in Rockpile, carve out small vineyard plantings, sometimes only one to two acres, between the rocks that jut like headstones from the hillsides.

The Mauritson family has the longest history of any of the present-day grape growers in Rockpile. Clay Mauritson’s great-great-great-grandfather S.P. Hall-engren, a Swedish immigrant, planted grapes in the Rockpile region in 1884, shipping every ounce of his wine back to Sweden.

Much of the Mauritson family’s 4,000-acre ranch in Rockpile was taken by the Army Corps of Engineers in the early 1960s and is now covered by Lake Sonoma. The Mauritsons were left with 700 acres on the ridgetop. That land was divided between brothers Thomas and Chris Mauritson, who in 2000 each established vineyards on their Rockpile parcels, planting grapes in plots named for ranch landmarks like Jack’s Cabin and The Cemetery.

Now Clay Mauritson, sixth-generation member of the family, is again making wines from Rockpile grapes. "Our Rockpile vineyards echo to the past," says Mauritson, "yet represent the future of our family’s wine business."

Tennessee Carter Bishop: A local legend
Rockpile is named for Sonoma County’s historic Rockpile Ranch, which once spread over 18,000 acres and was one of the largest, most profitable sheep ranches in California.

Local legend has it that the Rockpile Ranch got its name in the 1850s by way of a colorful Sonoma County sheriff named Tennessee Carter Bishop. When not chasing Black Bart or locking up bad guys in the Sonoma County Jail, Bishop, also a rancher and businessman, directed his considerable energies to building a road from Healdsburg to his ranch high above the Dry Creek Valley.

Because labor was scarce, Bishop used prisoners from the county jail to carve more than 15 miles of road over the rugged, rocky mountains to the front door of his ranch house. When asked what he was doing with the prison gang, Sheriff Bishop would answer, "They’re working on the Rockpile." It became the name of his ranch.

Defining Rockpile
Rockpile was established as an American Viticultural Area in 2002. Viticultural areas are grape-growing regions with distinct microclimates, soils and terrain — characteristics that influence the flavor and character of the grapes and, ultimately, the wine. The conditions at Rockpile produce grapes with such intense flavors that the resulting wines are rich, deep in color and loaded with character. There are no white grapes planted; the soil and climate are perfect for Bordeaux-style red-wine grapes. Most famous for yielding spicy, award-winning Zinfandels, they also produce some superior Cabernet Sauvignons and Syrahs.