Learn more about the beauty and history of van der Kamp Vineyard
The winding, 1,500-ft. ascent up Sonoma Mountain provokes the senses. Foremost is the recognition of sheer natural beauty broadcast by the forested and open hills, undulating and opening vistas folding unto themselves. This is the stage; all else is the theater of nature and human history.
Marine fog plays a big role, emanating from the Petaluma Gap and the Bay, pushing from separate directions. Their silent, silver breaths travel upward along stream cuts and through gaps in the hills to converge, joust, and dictate the mountain’s climate, rarely shrouding, mostly visiting long enough to kiss and cool its volcanic slopes before giving way to the sun.
Natives recognized the mountain’s attributes and their history traces back thousands of years. From their settlements along the Russian River came the Pomos with their baskets; from the coast came the Miwoks, the area’s hunter-gatherers, so too did the Hupas arrive from the north with their penchant for baking, carving, and sweat lodge ceremonies. They were joined by small groups of Wappo, fierce and proud hunters from what is now the Napa Valley, and Patwin, who hunted, sowed seeds and were considered supreme spiritual myth keepers.
The tribes came to trade and ritualistically express their spirits and the land upon which they had enacted these rituals is the 60-plus acre bench of land Martin and Dixie van der Kamp first farmed in the late 60s and then purchased in 1989. They raised six children here as well as countless hens and roosters surrounded by gardens and orchards and cultural icons. Buddhist prayer flags fly over the entrance to the property and across the road is the Sonoma Mountain Zen Center. On the property itself stands a sweat lodge erected at the request of tribesmen who still gather on the land.
Ulysses directs the harvest
Spirituality is the core of the place and Martin and Dixie van der Kamp, along with their son Ulysses, have assumed the proprietorship of a belief system that has bound this ground for thousands of years—the deep connection to the land and the land’s ability to reciprocate.
The Pinot noir vines are among the oldest still producing in Sonoma County. Ulysses farms them single-handedly, pruning and leafing each as devotedly as if it were a one-and-only child, striving for balance over abundance, bio-diversity over monoculture, letting nature inform him and responding in kind. The results are floral wines with finessed tannins reflecting the sacred ground from which they come.
Stewardship flows from the land to those of us fortunate enough to work with the van der Kamps. We feel this kinship, these shared values and our own responsibility for upholding the spirit this land and these grapes provide.
Pinot clones are La Tache, 777, 828, Klevner Mariafeld, UCD 23, Martini, Swan, Pinot Meunier
AVA: Sonoma Mountain
