According to Tegan Passalacqua in a GuildSomm article, the northeastern reaches of Contra Costa County harbors what might be the highest proportion of own-rooted plantings in California.
GuildSomm
“Lodi, Looking Forward”
by Matt Stamp
May 6, 2014
“…The Highway 12 Wine Route (and a Contra Costa Detour)”
"When one imagines the Highway 12 wine route, images of Russian River Valley, Sonoma Valley, and Carneros materialize; yet the highway traverses the Sacramento River and California Delta as it leads eastward toward the Sierra Foothills, running right through Lodi. We followed the 12 eastward, detouring through a grape-growing sector of Contra Costa County in and around Antioch. In the shadow of Mt. Diablo, Antioch - which earned the ignoble distinction of having one of the nation’s highest foreclosure rates in 2008 - is a curious mixture of run-down and ramped-up: vineyards lie scattered among abandoned almond orchards, broken-down motor homes, tightly spaced McMansions, jalopies (El Camino is the favorite brand), and ancient, towering olive trees. All framed against a backdrop of migrant labor, meth addiction, and hard-core religion.
"‘The wind here drives people crazy,’ Tegan [Passalacqua] interprets, as we pull up to ‘Evangelho Vineyard’, a 40-acre site originally planted in 1889 and a component site for Turley’s ‘Duarte’ Zinfandel. The vineyard, planted on deep wind-deposited, 40-foot-deep Delhi sands, is an example of mixed blacks - a blend of head-trained varieties in the vineyard, led by Zinfandel, and supported with a mixture of other red Spanish and Rhône grapes, teinturiers, and the occasional white variety. ‘Evangelho’, for instance, is roughly 60% Zinfandel, with Mataro (Mourvèdre), Carignan, Alicante Bouchet, Palomino and perhaps another odd variety or two. Rarely is the identity of every single individual vine known beyond a shadow of a doubt in historic mixed blacks vineyards. And as one might suspect, in such sandy soils phylloxera is not an issue; in fact, Tegan speculates that Contra Costa County might hold one of the largest concentrations of own-rooted vineyards in California.
“Another champion of CA’s historic vineyards, Morgan Twain-Peterson of Bedrock Wines, is sourcing from this site, and Neyers makes an ‘Evangelho’-designate Mourvèdre. All of Antioch’s vineyards lie outside the boundaries of any specific AVA, amid its artifice of minimum-wage dreams and vacant potential. ‘Evangelho’, ‘Salvador’, ‘Pato’, ‘Del Barba’…the historic sites are only a mile or two removed from the Delta, where winds and water moderate temperatures and relieve any worry of frost pressure. Organic farming in this sunny, windswept region is a fairly easy proposition - if the grower is on board - and most of the old-vine vineyards here are dry-farmed…”.
GuildSomm website:
https://www.guildsomm.com/
Wine Berserkers
“Contra Costa Wine Heritage” thread:
https://www.wineberserkers.com/t/contra-costa-county-wine-heritage/121833
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