Silent Hills Vineyard is a ‘backyard’ vineyard on a five acre residential property in the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA.  The owners recruited a local firm, Post & Trellis to plan and plant the vines, and also P&T’s sister company, La Honda Winery, to produce the wine.

SHV used 101-14 rootstock and clone 4 cabernet sauvignon. The SC Mtn AVA was modified at the final ruling of its birth in 1981 to include a section, the Cupertino Quadrangle, that uses 600’ elevation as its border.  Silent Hills is at 670’ in the Santa Cruz Mountain AVA.

With just over 200 vines, SHV produces around 25 cases each year of Cabernet Sauvignon.  Being such a small vineyard creates challenges in responding to Mother Nature from year to year.  We make some adjustments during the growing season to weather, and also have some wiggle room with harvest timing, grape selection (hand sort) and barrel selection/duration.  After bottling the wines are further aged in SHV’s cool, dark cave for several years.

The resulting motif for SHV’s Cabernet is to have something a little different each vintage.  We prefer to make the best of what the terroir offers each year, versus trying to duplicate a same every year wine.  So for example, the 2005 was big fruit and vanilla oak day one out of the bottle, while the 2006 required several years of bottle aging to gain a smooth texture integrated with elegant notes of dark fruit.  Generally, cabs from the Santa Cruz Mountains like to cellar for 2 to 4 years after barrel aging.