Recent Developments at To Kalon Vineyard (Oakville AVA, Napa)

I recently came across a Decanter article on To Kalon Vineyard attaining California Certified Organic Farmer (CCOF) certification and it prompted two observations on my part:

1. I had not updated my To-Kalon writings to reflect recent developments  
2. I had never presented a view of farming practices across the Crabbe-Stelling vineyard (illustrated below).

I address these shortcomings in this and a subsequent post, beginning herein with recent developments.

Legal Developments

In a late 2019 post titled To Kalon: Land or Brand, I wrote about the Vineyard House Winery suit to allow its use of the To Kalon name on its labels. At the time of that writing, the case was still pending.

One of Vineyard House Winery's claims was that To Kalon was a place name and, as such, not "trademarkable." Constellation, which had received the To Kalon (registered by Mondavi in 1988) and To Kalon Vineyard (registered by Mondavi in 1994) trademarks as part of the proceeds of the Robert Mondavi purchase, contested this claim vigorously.

A decision was handed down in January 2021. The judge ruled that Constellation could use the term To Kalon both as a brand and " a reference to all of their alluvial fields in Oakville." In addition, a permanent injunction was granted preventing non-Constellation use of To Kalon without the trademark holder's permission.

I sought input from Graeme Macdonald of Macdonald Vineyards as to whether this ruling had had any direct impact on Constellation's effort to have the newly named To Kalon Creek renamed Doak Creek instead. According to Graeme:

• The Napa County Board of Supervisors reaffirmed their support for the To Kalon Creek name. 
• The California Committee on Geographic Names deferred to their original decision in support of the To Kalon Creek name.
• A local tribe was contesting Constellation's effort to use the name Doak on the basis of D.P. Doak having displaced them from their ancestral lands in the early 1900s.

Harvesting Synergies

In my post refuting the Tim Carl proposition of the Constellation Schrader acquisition being part of a master plan to commodify To Kalon, I had proposed a plan whereby Constellation could, instead, reap greater value by combining the Schrader infrastructure and the To Kalon Vineyard to provide new offerings. Constellation has deployed such a strategy.

As it relates to Schrader proper, Constellation has introduced two new wines under this eponymous label: Heritage Clone To Kalon Vineyard and Monastery Block To Kalon. The latter, first released with the 2017 vintage, is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon Clone 169 from the vineyard's Monastery Block. The former, initiated with the 2018 vintage, is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon Clone 39 from Block N2S of the vineyard.

Schrader has a second label called Double Diamond which it had placed on hiatus in 2016. This label was first introduced in 2001 as a Cabernet Sauvignon cuvée which drew its fruit from top Napa Valley sites. With access to To Kalon fruit, the label was brought out of cold storage with the 2018 vintage as an Oakville cuvée with the bulk of its fruit sourced from the home vineyard.

Further Leveraging the To Kalon Vineyard: To Kalon Vineyard Company

In May of 2019, Constellation Brands announced its Fine Wine Division's launch of To Kalon Vineyard Wine Company, a label helmed by Andy Erickson and using fruit sourced from the To Kalon Vineyard. The initial offering -- named Highest Beauty (100% Cabernet Sauvignon) -- utilized fruit from the vineyard's 2016 harvest.

Subsequently, To Kalon Vineyard Wine Company has introduced two additional wines: (i) H.W.C.  Cabernet Sauvignon (Initials of the To Kalon founder; 100% Cabernet Sauvignon Heritage Clone) and (ii) Eliza's Red Wine (Cabernet Sauvignon-Cabernet Franc blend named after Elizabeth Yount, the widow of the founder of Yountville). The 2019 edition of this wine was a blend of 63% Cabernet Sauvignon and 37% Cabernet Franc.

Organic Certification

According to the previously referenced Decanter article, Constellation has been hard at work over the past three years readying the Tokalon Vineyard for organic certification. Constellation currently manages 497 acres of the combined historic To Kalon Vineyard plus the non-Opus portion of the Stelling Extension and of this, a total of 331 acres have attained organic certification. Younger vines and buffer blocks remain uncertified at this time. The first vintage of organic fruit will come with the 2023 harvest.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme