In the Early 1980S While Hiking Along Oakville's Southwestern Ridge, H

In the early 1980s while hiking along Oakville’s southwestern ridge, H. William Harlan discovered an isolated territory. The hidden expanse — ancient and untamed — moved him deeply, but remained elusive until the Harlan family finally captured it in 2008. As the second generation explored and worked with the land, they began to make discoveries of their own. At the core of this wild terrain they found a powerful geologic convergence, which had shaped its steep, rugged topography, and created the conditions for an altogether exotic winegrowing environment. Over time they found that the dramatic landscape — just beyond the edge of the known — would slowly change them, and ultimately inspire a new endeavor: Promontory.

I. DISCOVERY – H. William Harlan

As we evolve through the seasons of our lives, there is always the “missing piece” that draws us onwards… maybe it’s the challenge of the next vintage, the next level of enrichment, a new discovery, or a greater meaning. And at a certain point we start to look past our lifetime, with the hope that the next generation might, in their own way, go beyond the dreams we initiated.

When I first came upon the land that would become Promontory, its untamed ruggedness was a surprise — quite different from anything I had encountered in the Napa Valley. This wild place, overlooked for most of the 20th century, emanated a power and a mystery and an undefinable allure.

It wasn’t until the first decade of the 21st century that we had the good fortune of acquiring the unmarked territory. This was the beginning of a new era, a time of exploration and discovery led by the next generation.

II. TERRITORY – Cory Empting

The road to Promontory unfolds slowly. Its winding path begins in the benchlands of south-western Oakville alongside a small seasonal creek, then ascends gradually through a narrow ravine in the mountains. The air cools, ferns appear among rocky outcroppings, and moisture clings to moss hanging from surrounding trees. Almost forbiddingly, steep slopes rise up seven hundred feet on either side and slivers of light struggle to penetrate the dense forest canopy. A moment later reveals a meadow in the full glow of day, and the first glimpse of the territory’s rangelands stretching upward toward the sky.

Promontory is truly a world apart from the Napa Valley that most people experience. Within this secluded canyon there are two distinct fault lines, roughly demarcating the boundaries between volcanic, sedimentary, and metamorphic soils. This diverse geology is stretched across 500 feet of elevation, on a multitude of dramatic slopes and panoramic exposures.

Less than ten percent of the land is under vine, weaving an intricate patchwork among the wild expanse of forest and woodlands. This natural landscape, along with the warmth of the rock-studded western exposure, invites morning fog and slightly cooler air to fill its narrow canyon on an almost daily basis.

The enviable — if sometimes daunting — task of unearthing and translating the essential qualities of this majestic formation has given us a deeply visceral connection to the place. The land is speaking at last, awakening a long-dormant story of this uncharted territory.

III. Vision – Will Harlan

In its highest form, we feel that winegrowing has the potential to transcend fine craftsmanship and enter the realm of art. While it is the pursuit of art that drives us, the role of artist belongs to nature, with our part being more closely defined as translator. We must first listen closely, observe, and work diligently to understand the character of our land; and only then can we begin transposing it into a medium communicable to others: wine. Throughout the years we have strived to identify lands with a story to tell — a story that is beautiful, meaningful, and of epic substance. It is our firm belief that Promontory, through the wine that embodies it, will be able to profoundly move people in a way we have found ourselves moved. My background is not in oenology, formally, above and beyond growing up as my father’s son. What drew me to the family endeavor has been the evolution of our philosophical journey; cultivating those points of discovery that are able to take us beyond the everyday, and reveal a glimpse of the sublime.

The Wine

Wines from hillsides of Promontory reflect the many aspects of the territory: the native forests, the moisture of the ephemeral fog, and the minerality of the geologic underpinnings. These disparate facets in symphony provide a natural balance of freshness, energy, and tannin. We believe these traits, in wine, are the building blocks of great vitality and long life.

Vintage 2012

Growing Season Budbreak on April 18th marked the beginning of an idyllic growing season. The weather was warm throughout the year, but without spells of extreme heat. While most of Napa Valley experienced an earlier harvest, the cooler climate of the territory provided a much more typical ripening pattern. Due to even ripening, the harvest period was compressed to fifteen days as opposed to the normal twenty to thirty in past vintages. Picking began on October 12th along the western ridge and continued a few days later with the low lying blocks on volcanic soil. The east-facing slopes followed, and harvest concluded on October 26th. As has become customary with the diversity of the territory, forty-six harvest passes were made resulting in nearly thirty distinct vinifications. After a year of aging, the selection for the final blend was made. The consistency of quality was a theme, but ultimately the lots that were chosen reflected both the power of the vintage and the restraint of the territory’s more temperate environs.

Tasting Notes A rich garnet color and youthful brilliance define the appearance in glass. As is typical with the youthful wines of Promontory, the nose is subtle yet intricate. Several minutes after pouring, the different facets begin to emerge. Though one might discern distinct aromas of wet stone, cassis, and hints of resin, the nose seems to more appropriately transport one to the place itself. There is a feeling of moist fog, bringing both humidity and the scents of the native landscape, while projecting in the mind’s eye a vision of sunlight without heat. On the palate, this vintage is decidedly forward. The acidity is forthcoming on entry and balanced by the sheer muscle and density of fruit. The tannins have a chiseled definition, but remain soft and pliant, delivering a long and persistent finish. While the 2012 reveals its precocious virtues, it is unable to hide the underlying truth that patience will provide great reward.

March 12, 2018

• The Harlan family is to give the exclusive distribution (outside of USA) of their Napa Valley wine Promontory to 3 wine merchants from La Place de Bordeaux.

• Starting with the 2012 vintage release.

Background

• Harlan family has 40 years of experience of winegrowing and hospitality in Napa Valley. • Generational shift is key to understanding Promontory and how it sits apart from both Harlan Estate and the family’s Bond wines – all Cult Cabs at the top of their game. • It’s not just Will Harlan who represents this shift, but also Cory Empting, the director of winemaking and successor to Bob Levy. • The land was first spotted by Bill Harlan when he was out hiking in the hills behind Oakville in the early 1980s. • At the time it was totally undeveloped, no vineyards, no houses, just a wildly rugged canyon with the remains of a former bootlegging still from the Prohibition era. He was finally able to buy it in 2008. • ‘Promontory is a different story. Different soils, at higher elevation, a little more pared back than Harlan, very much a wine that is about capturing a sense of place’.

Background

• A full soil study revealed ‘a whole new metamorphic soil type that doesn’t really exist elsewhere in Napa’.

• In this small, secluded valley there are two distinct fault lines that roughly demarcate the boundaries between volcanic, sedimentary, and metamorphic soils.

• These diverse soils are arranged from 150m to 340m of elevation, on a multitude of dramatic slopes and panoramic exposures.

• This natural landscape, along with the warmth of the rock-studded western exposure, preferentially invites morning fog and slightly cooler air to fill its narrow valley on an almost daily basis.

• Although much of it had been carelessly planted over the years, there were 11ha of heirloom blocks that gave them a clue to the quality, and that they have kept, replanting 16ha of the rest block by block from 2011, and expanding by an extra 5ha.

Wine

• The wines appeal to both the senses and the intellect. The native beauty, the alluring evocative tones and textures reflect the unique and mysterious aspects of the many complex elements above and below the surface. The land is speaking at last with a very clear voice, awakening the long-dormant story of this uncharted territory.

• ‘Promontory captures both the controlled high-end buzz of a new Napa release with a wine that is a throwback to a more classic Napa style, using only 30% new oak barrels along with the larger-sized Stockinger Austrian oak casks. Adding to all that is the promise of what it means for one of Napa’s most eagerly-watched First Families’. Jane Anson, Decanter February 2018

Facts

• Originally discovered in early 1980’s

• Purchased first parcel starting in 2008

• The entire “territory” is 840 acres (340 hectares)

• Vineyards only make up 74 acres (30 hectares)

• Metamorphic geology discovered (along with sedimentary and volcanic)

• 2008 was first vintage produced, never released

• 2009 was first released vintage, ex-winery

• 2012 is first released vintage with 3 négociants from Bordeaux outside of the USA

• Release schedule is 5 years from harvest

• Production is currently ~ 20,000 bottles

2012 VINTAGE

Budbreak on April 18th marked the beginning of an idyllic growing season. The weather was warm throughout the year, but without spells of extreme heat. While most of Napa Valley experienced an earlier harvest, the cooler climate of the territory provided a much more typical ripening pattern. Due to even ripening, the harvest period was compressed to fifteen days as opposed to the normal twenty to thirty in past vintages. Picking began on October 12th along the western ridge and continued a few days later with the low lying blocks on volcanic soil. The east-facing slopes followed, and harvest concluded on October 26th. As has become customary with the diversity of the territory, forty-six harvest passes were made resulting in nearly thirty distinct vinifications. After a year of aging, the selection for the final blend was made. The consistency of quality was a theme, but ultimately the lots that were chosen reflected both the power of the vintage and the restraint of the territory’s more temperate environs.

TASTING NOTES

A rich garnet color and youthful brilliance define the appearance in glass. As is typical with the youthful wines of Promontory, the nose is subtle yet intricate. Several minutes after pouring, the different facets begin to emerge. Though one might discern distinct aromas of wet stone, cassis, and hints of resin, the nose seems to more appropriately transport one to the place itself. There is a feeling of moist fog, bringing both humidity and the scents of the native landscape, while projecting in the mind’s eye a vision of sunlight without heat. On the palate, this vintage is decidedly forward. The acidity is forthcoming on entry and balanced by the sheer muscle and density of fruit. The tannins have a chiseled definition, but remain soft and pliant, delivering a long and persistent finish. While the 2012 reveals its precocious virtues, it is unable to hide the underlying truth that patience will provide great reward.

PRESS CUTTINGS

March 2018

February, 2018 – Decanter Page 2 Anson : Promontory and Harlan’s ‘200 years plan’ http://www.decanter.com/wine-news/opinion/news-blogs-anson/promontory-wine-profile-harlan-384946/ September 22, 2017 – Wine-Searcher Page 4 Promontory Shows Promise for Harlan https://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2017/09/promontory-shows-promise-for-harlan June 2, 2017 – San Francisco Chronicle Page 6 The story behind Napa’s new blockbuster winery : Promontory https://www.sfchronicle.com/wine/article/Bill-Harlan-s-game-changer-Promontory-winery-11191722.php

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http://www.decanter.com/wine-news/opinion/news-blogs-anson/promontory-wine-profile-harlan-384946/

Anson: Promontory and Harlan’s ‘200 year plan’

Jane Anson - February 22, 2018

Jane Anson speaks to Will Harlan about the launch of Cabernet-based Promontory outside the US via the Place de Bordeaux , and hears more about Harlan Estate's '200 year plan'...

When Bill Harlan arrived on the Californian wine scene, his stated ambition was to create a Napa first growth along the lines of Mouton Rothschild.

Few doubt that Harlan Estate has achieved that aim since launching its inaugural 1992 vintage back in 1996, but it’s always been a First Growth firmly in the California mould – which means notoriety, rarity, price tag, waiting lists, the whole nine yards.

Harlan is a resolutely private space, with no visitors allowed, and even seasoned trophy hunters would find getting hold of more than a few cases a challenge.

A few weeks ago, while chatting to Bill’s son Will Harlan, I found out exactly why. Harlan has not only followed the traditional American model of only one distributor per market, but they are draconian in what they do with each bottle. ‘We have never sold more than 1% of our wine to any one person,’ he told me.

That is a whole other level of tight control, and makes it all the more interesting that for their new wine, the heavily anticipated Promontory, they are choosing to go through the Place de Bordeaux for all export markets. Numbers are small, with exports expected to be around 40% of the current 25,000 total bottle production, at least until the replanting fully comes online and that figure rises to around 60,000 bottles.

‘Thirty years ago, we were new on the scene. We wanted to understand the market first hand and to have control over where Harlan wines were being placed,’ says Will.

‘I grew up watching how Don Weaver and my dad built our network. They were out there meeting all the key influencers, and from very early on demand outstripped supply. So when we started looking at Promontory, I looked back at what worked then, and how the market has changed. We don’t want in any way to be in competition with Harlan, and we knew Page 2 sur 9 that we needed a different relationship with our international ambassadors. A few years ago we were approached by three Bordeaux négociants, who had formed a small group to represent producers outside of Bordeaux (Duclot, CVBG and Joanne).

‘My father and Don have been going to Bordeaux since the 1980s, and have seen this alternative distribution model close up, so the idea wasn’t completely out of the blue. We know that négociants are looking to change their model to do more brand building, so we won’t be spending any less time out there in the market, we feel it is still key that we the family are out there telling our own story. But having the resources and in-depth knowledge on the ground of these merchants will help leverage our efforts.’

The fact that it’s Will taking charge is also a reminder that part of the Napa First Growth strategy pursued by Harlan is the creation of a ‘200 year plan’. Harry Eyres, who co-wrote the Harlan book Observations from the Hillside describes how the generational shift is key to understanding Promontory and how it sits apart from both Harlan Estate and the family’s Bond wines – all Cult Cabs at the top of their game.

‘Promontory is a different story. Different soils, at higher elevation, a little more pared back than Harlan, very much a wine that is about capturing a sense of place. And it’s not just Will who represents this shift, but also Cory Empting, the director of winemaking and successor to Bob Levy. Cory is 36, around five years older than Will, and they share a similar feeling about wine. It’s hard for any son to forge their own identity in a family business, and it’s very important that it feels like Promontory is their project, even though the land was originally scoped out by Bill.’

Promontory is a Harlan story that has been a long time coming. The land was first spotted by Bill Harlan when he was out hiking in the hills behind Oakville in the early 1980s (‘he was always just out there looking for land,’ is how Will puts it). At the time it was totally undeveloped, no vineyards, no houses, just a wildly rugged canyon with the remains of a former bootlegging still from the Prohibition era – all of which maybe explains why they still like to refer to it as The Territory rather than a vineyard.

It wasn’t for sale back then but Bill kept his eye on it over the years. When he was finally able to buy it in 2008, it had passed through a few hands and had vineyards planted, but ‘no one had ever given it the attention it deserved’. They did a full soil study and found ‘a whole new metamorphic soil type that doesn’t really exist elsewhere in Napa, at least not side by side with formations of schists and clays, all the result of two fault lines that pass through this spot’.

It means that the topography has greater diversity of soils and elevation than Harlan Estate, and the micro-climate is cooler because the blocks span elevations from 150m to 340m. Although much of it had been carelessly planted over the years, there were 11ha of heirloom blocks that gave them a clue to the quality, and that they have kept, replanting 16ha of the rest block by block from 2011, and expanding by an extra 5ha.

‘It’s a place where you feel thousands of miles from the rest of Napa, even though it’s only 20 minutes from Harlan,’ says Will, who helped clear out and prepare the land back in 2008, between his junior and senior year at college. Even today there is no real road to get up to Promontory, and they want to keep it that way, even though unlike Harlan this new estate is open to visitors – not the vineyard, but a winery and tasting room which they have built on Oakville Grade Rd, closer to Harlan and Bond. Importantly this is on the site of a former winery, which in tightly-controlled Napa means licensing rights.

It was Ariane Khaida of Duclot who first told me about the Bordeaux connection. ‘Napa always been about selling direct to private consumers, certainly at this very top end, which makes this is a real recognition of Bordeaux expertise on export markets’.

She’s right, but it’s also a fascinating recognition of how Bordeaux and Napa are increasingly finding common ground – Napa in its move towards the European idea of wine reflecting specific geology and terroir, and Bordeaux in wanting to take on board the Napa brilliance in branding and understanding of the customer experience. Promontory is creating such a buzz (the first vintage is out already in the States, and will be released in Europe on March 8) because it sits somewhere in the middle of this. It captures both the controlled high-end buzz of a new Napa release with a wine that is a throwback to a more classic Napa style, using only 30% new oak barrels along with the larger-sized Stockinger Austrian oak casks. Adding to all that is the promise of what it means for one of Napa’s most eagerly-watched First Families.

‘My dad loves to identify things,’ says Will. ‘In Promontory he saw an opportunity that maybe went beyond his original idea, and he’s selfless enough to give my sister Amanda and me the chance to approach a fraction of what he achieved with Harlan’.

Page 3 sur 9 https://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2017/09/promontory-shows-promise-for-harlan Promontory Shows Promise for Harlan

US editor W. Blake Gray delves into Harlan's 200-year plan. Posted Friday, 22-Sep-2017

In The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter helped Starling catch a serial killer by telling her: "We begin by coveting what we see every day." I told that to Bill Harlan as we walked around his newest winery, Promontory. He laughed. There's a stylish waterspout on the patio that points directly at Harlan Estate on a hill directly opposite a small valley; you can't easily walk to it, but you can see it.

And obviously, from Harlan Estate you have a terrific view of the hillside winery on Oakville Grade. Harlan could sit and watch what an industrial-looking winery, with tanks outside, looked like as it went through several iterations. Robert Mondavi first called it Vichon after taking over that brand, then renamed it La Famiglia di Robert Mondavi. I tried to picnic there once in that incarnation and we were chased away by swarms of bees. Will Harlan, Bill's son, speculated the bees were drawn by the open tanks and grape skins scattered about.

In 2003, a real estate investor bought the winery Harlan saw every day for his Diamond Oaks brand. That investor filed for bankruptcy in 2009, and finally Harlan was able to buy it. Now it's Promontory, and Harlan can sit at either of his properties and look across the valley at the other.

Bee swarms at Promontory would be unexpected. Identically sized tanks of Austrian wood and stainless steel sit pristinely inside. If you told me, on a July visit, that the product being made required no agricultural inputs, I wouldn't be surprised. The architecture is cool, austere, Japanese influenced. It seems as well designed for a yoga guru's headquarters as for winemaking. It goes without saying that it's a lot prettier to look at from across the valley than the previous incarnation.

The vineyards for Promontory, though, that's another story. Nobody coveted those, not even Harlan initially, who first spotted them more than 30 years ago when he was hiking in the hills. They're in a hidden valley that not even many locals are aware of that includes portions of both the Oakville and Yountville AVAs. The parts of it that were planted were being farmed for high yields. The soil had been treated with herbicides for so long that erosion had become a problem. Felled trees from land clearing were scattered about.

"The mindset was to get a huge amount of Napa Valley Cabernet," said Will Harlan, who is taking the lead on the Promontory project. "They weren't looking for anything more than that."

But the ground itself was interesting. Two fault lines cut through the property, giving it a fascinating soil profile.

"Promontory has a convergence of all three geologic formations found on the planet: igneous (volcanic), sedimentary and metamorphic," said winemaker Cory Empting.

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Harlan didn't see it every day, but he had already learned to covet, and he came to want this messy, poorly kept site. He eventually pieced together 840 acres, 80 of them planted, by buying several different parcels. Even so, he didn't know exactly what he had.

"[Estate director] Don Weaver came out and said: 'This place is scary'," Will Harlan said.

But Bill Harlan thinks longer-term than anyone else in the California wine industry. He says he has a 200-year plan (no pressure, Will.) He first decided to create an estate winery in 1980, but it took him four years to find the right property and another 12 years before he released his first wine, the inaugural 1990 Harlan Estate didn't come out until 1996. He owns Meadowood resort, so he has cashflow, but that is still unusually patient.

"Harlan Estate took about 20 years to break even," Bill Harlan said. "Businesses that have lasted for hundreds of years have three things in common. They're based on land; they're family owned; they don't have any debt."

In this case, however, Harlan does have partners, and they're more deep-pocketed than he is: Stan Kroenke, owner of the Los Angeles Rams football team (and other sports franchises) as well as Screaming Eagle winery, and Illinois governor Bruce Rauner, who spent a record $26 million of his own money to get elected.

Like everyone else – including the Harlans themselves – they will have to wait to see what the Promontory project will eventually yield. There are already wines, and those wines are very different from the potent dark fruit-driven wines of Harlan Estate. These are red fruit wines, but wrapped tightly in tannins that might take years to open. I tasted three vintages – a 2013 that won't be released for a couple of years, the current-release 2011 and 2009 – and only the 2009 had opened enough to show the minerality, pretty perfume and freshness that the Harlans expect from early incarnations of the wine.

"Early incarnations" is the key phrase. Empting is taking advantage of the longterm view by slowly reconditioning the vineyards at the natural speed of the Earth. Empting believes in Masanobu Fukuoka's agrarian philosophy of "do-nothing farming," which means no tilling or herbicides. The idea is to let the soil recover at its own pace.

They're also not replanting right away because, whatever they may think of the way the vines are planted now, vine age is a saving grace.

"We put together a 25-year replant plan," Empting says. "The older vines I call the heirloom block. It's planted to 98 percent Cabernet. There's a little Petit Verdot and a really small amount of Malbec. We put in a little bit of Cabernet Franc, but it's going to be 98-99 percent Cabernet Sauvignon when we're done. Merlot's a little too wimpy for this climate."

The heirloom block was planted for volume farming, so rows are wide enough to allow tractors. The new plantings will be much closer together. They're even planting dense head-trained vines, very unusual in modern Napa Valley. The team visited Dominio de Pingus in Ribera del Duero to see a modern, expensive wine made by this anachronistic planting style.

"They'll get cross-shading from one canopy to another," Empting said. "It also keeps humidity in the soil." Bill Harlan, now 76, will have to stay healthy to see the ultimate output of Promontory. But he doesn't seem to mind.

"Is this land going to be able to produce a wine that wasn't made anywhere else?" Harlan said. "It's not something we can predefine. It's not a wine of Napa Valley. It's not a wine of the old world. It has an otherness."

Page 5 sur 9 https://www.sfchronicle.com/wine/article/Bill-Harlan-s-game-changer-Promontory-winery-11191722.php

Tasting notes: The wines of Promontory

By Esther Mobley June 2, 2017

Once upon a time, Bill Harlan raced motorcycles, docked a schooner on seven continents and played professional poker. Now, he buys unwieldy swaths of Napa Valley wilderness.

Same sensation of thrill seeking, perhaps; different resource set.

Harlan rests in a singular sort of Napa Valley regency. With his fortune first built on the real estate firm Pacific Union, Harlan’s crown is now studded with the jewels of Harlan Estate and Bond wineries, and Meadowood resort with its three-star Michelin restaurant. At 76, he is about to officially unveil his latest — and presumably, last — wine estate, Promontory.

Developing Promontory, as both a vineyard property and a wine brand, might from the outside look like a thrill seeker’s gamble. In the foothills of Mount Veeder, straddling Oakville and Yountville’s borderlands, the vineyard doesn’t fall within the boundaries of any AVA. Two seismic fault lines bisect it. Averaging a 40 percent slope, it’s nearly too precipitous for cultivation. Scarcely 10 percent of the 840-acre territory is plantable.

This unique geography, and its quality of feral grandeur, has prompted many wine pundits to already declare Promontory Harlan’s crowning achievement: It “has set the wine world abuzz with anticipation,” wrote Karen MacNeil in 2014. It reimagines “the classic Napa Cabs of the ’70s,” by Jay McInerney’s estimation. Bill Harlan himself has told several writers that the wine from the Promontory vineyard will fill in Napa’s “missing shade of red” — a provocatively immodest goal.

But Promontory also represents the Harlan family’s attempt to be more accessible — a relative term, granted, when you’re in Napa, and when you’re a Harlan.

So unlike Harlan Estate, famously shuttered to the public, the Promontory winery will be open for tastings. Promontory will actually have wine for sale at the winery, unlike Harlan Estate and Bond, which sell wine only through their allocated mailing lists. And whereas Harlan Estate’s current release sells for $850 a bottle, Promontory’s is $450.

Allowing customers to visit your winery hardly sounds like a radical innovation. But Harlan Estate, considered one of Napa’s “cult Cabernets,” first gained fame in the nineties not only for its wine quality — its ripe, generous, concentrated wines helped define a new era of wine style — but also for its astronomical prices, for the wines’ scarcity and for the estate’s all-around secrecy. It wasn’t just that you couldn’t visit the winery. Even if you had the money, you couldn’t buy the wines. Page 6 sur 9

Promontory’s tasting appointments, in limited supply, cost $200 a person. But they’re also instituting a modified, discounted group session, likely $50, on Saturdays at 8 a.m. That discount is a nod, they say, to Bill Harlan’s own frugal college student days in the 1960s, when he enjoyed tastings at Napa wineries, then all free. It also seems designed to discourage the rowdier, louder tourist crowds that tend to arrive at wineries much later in the day.

“While in today’s era the free program isn’t quite feasible, we wanted to be able to engage younger folks at an earlier stage of their wine development,” Will Harlan, Bill’s son, says. “If they’re genuinely curious ... and willing to wake up a bit early, we feel it would be really important to be able to offer an experience at a price that’s attainable.”

Will Harlan, Bill Harlan's son, at Promontory Estate winery in Napa. Photo: John Storey, Special To The Chronicle

Bill Harlan likes to talk about having a “200-year plan” for his businesses. Phase one is securing a successor. That’s how 29-year-old Will has come to play such a large role in Promontory, and Cory Empting — the 36-year-old winemaker for Harlan Estate and Bond under longtime director of winegrowing Bob Levy — to assume the new winery’s director position.

Promontory has been in the making Will’s entire life; the 200-year plan doesn’t move quickly. Bill Harlan had had his eye on the Promontory property since he’d hiked there in 1984, while he was planting Harlan Estate nearby. It wasn’t until 2008 that he was able to begin buying the land, which he acquired in three parcels.

Only someone with Harlan-level resources, perhaps, could endeavor to harness Promontory’s ferocity. Though just a quarter-mile south as the crow flies from Harlan Estate, in the Oakville hillsides, and a scant mile from the French Laundry, it feels a world away from both. “These aren’t the soft rolling hills of Harlan Estate,” Empting says. Instead, Promontory — whose two seismic fault lines give it three distinct soil series, including a highly heterogeneous metamorphic pocket — is jagged, steep, rocky. Empting believes the wines reflect this landscape. “They scream purity and wildness,” he says.

OK, but not too wild. When the Harlans first bought the property, it needed a lot of work: Cut-down trees had been dumped negligently; erosion was rampant; the roads were getting washed out. The soil, formerly treated with harsh herbicides and acidulated fertilizers, was infirm.

Empting’s prescription: “do-nothing farming,” the agrarian philosophy prescribed by Masanobu Fukuoka in his treatise “The One-Straw Revolution.” (Sometimes called “natural farming,” it shares many goals with biodynamic agriculture, but deviates from it in practices and spiritual principles.) Promontory’s soil variation and tendency toward compaction, Empting says, demanded a novel approach. And though Harlan Estate and the Bond properties are farmed organically, the do-nothing imperatives — no tilling, no soil ripping, no weeding — have inspired changes there, too. (The company does not pursue sustainability certifications.)

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The view from Promontory Estate, nestled in the hillsides of Oakville Grade. Photo: John Storey, Special To The Chronicle

The first year the Harlans had Promontory, 2008, they made wine from the vineyard but weren’t satisfied with it. They will never sell it. Ever since, vineyard manager Mary Maher has been chipping away piecemeal at restoring Promontory, replanting underperforming vines block by block. “I’m gonna be in my 70s before our replanting program comes to completion,” the younger Harlan says.

The only remnants of infrastructure on the 840 acres are an abandoned creekside cabin and the ruins of a vestigial Prohibition-era bootlegging still. In order to keep Promontory wild, the Harlans decided not to build a winery there, which would have required complicated permits, not to mention paved roads.

Instead, Harlan purchased an existing winery on Oakville Grade, 300 yards north of Harlan Estate. The building has had several lives before — as Vichon, in the early eighties, later as the Cal-Ital project La Famiglia di Robert Mondavi, most recently as Diamond Oaks — and as such, was grandfathered into some now-unheard-of use permits. For instance, they can serve full meals there and hold nighttime events, activities permitted to few Napa wineries anymore. (The culinary program, likely to involve Meadowood chef Christopher Kostow and a hearty, family-style midday meal, won’t debut until next year.)

“We have a certain freedom,” Will Harlan says.

The wineries’ proximity may look to some like the equivalent of buying a vacation house on the same block as your home. Indeed, the physical winery looks much like its Harlan Estate counterpart; both were designed by Howard Backen, Napa Valley’s architect to the stars. But Promontory is Howard Backen Contemporary: “almost industrial,” in Will Harlan’s words, incorporating more concrete, steel and glass than the other, which is dominated by stone and redwood. Construction, begun in 2012, finished in May.

In this kingdom of bottomless resources, the winery has been outfitted with equipment designed to complement the Promontory vineyard’s rustic wildness — though calling anything the Harlans do “rustic” would be a stretch for most people. The hallmark of the apparatus: After the standard nine to twelve months of aging in French oak barrels, the Promontory Cabernets are blended and put into Stockinger Austrian oak casks.

Concrete and oak fermentation tanks at Promontory Estate. Photo: John Storey, Special To The Chronicle Page 8 sur 9

Austrian oak? “It’s a big departure,” Empting concedes. “But what was working at Harlan and Bond” — all sweet, toasty French wood — “wasn’t working here.” Bill Harlan wasn’t immediately on board with the idea, especially since they initially had to import the casks from the cooperage themselves, but Empting prevailed.

Similar to the Austrian and German vessels that Inglenook used in the old days, the casks help realize the retrograde personality of the Promontory wines. Though still rich and driven by fruit, these wines are a little quieter, wearing a little bit less of the opulent polish of the Harlan Estate powerhouses.

That shift is simply a reflection of the vineyard’s personality, Empting insists. But it’s hard not to read into it, too, a sign of the times — a concession to the terms of restraint that have crept into the California Cabernet conversation over the last decade. That conversation has often targeted benchmarks of hedonism that came of age in the nineties and early aughts, like Harlan Estate.

Empting himself engages in that conversation: “There’s a sweetness to Napa fruit already. And to reinforce that doesn’t seem intuitive.”

Likewise, the decision to open Promontory to the public feels like an acknowledgment that luxury branding is now better served in transparency than in secrecy. Harlan Estate, lavish secluded wine palace never intended for public eyes, thrived on mystery, but building a wine business — or any business — in 2017 demands face-to-face connection. “We know how important it is to have direct relationships with people,” Will Harlan says.

Empting agrees: “It seemed like it was worth fostering those relationships, and not being so exclusive.” He pauses. “I say this, but I was probably the biggest advocate at first for not having visitors.”

It doesn’t take a cynic to see the irony in calling a $200 tasting appointment “accessible.” And then again, accessibility by that standard is not what the Harlans are going for. It’s rather the posture of openness — a controlled transparency.

That the Promontory vineyard can produce an original wine, not merely a copy of Harlan Estate, testifies to the character of Napa Valley land — that two vineyards separated by a mere quarter-mile, even when handled by the same people, can turn out meaningfully different wines.

But with the Harlans it’s never just about a patch of dirt. It’s about establishing institutions. Is Promontory the institution meaningfully different from Harlan Estate?

Will a $200 tasting appointment help the wines reach a new audience? Will the wineries, in the end, appear as twins, steel and concrete notwithstanding? In the nineties, Harlan Estate defined the era, introducing a new wine style, stoking a new level of demand for Napa Valley wines. Will Promontory sound that same, comfortable horn?

Or will it have something new to say?

If you go

Visits to Promontory will begin with a glass of Dom Pérignon Champagne — likely one of their experimentally aged cuvees, P2 and P3 — since, after all, Promontory produces only red wine. Each party will have its own individual host, who will use a map to orient guests to the Promontory vineyard. (They won’t visit the vineyard.) A tour of the winery follows, culminating in a cask sample tasting — a young wine not yet bottled — while standing among the Stockinger oak casks. Finally, they’ll retire to a private room, where the host will guide guests through tastings of a few different vintages, including the upcoming release and a library selection. Wine may be purchased. (Longtime mailing-list customers of Promontory, Harlan Estate and Bond may expect an enhanced itinerary.)

To request an appointment, email [email protected] or call (707) 963-2206. Appointments offered 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily, $200 per person.

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