Cinnabar Vineyards & Winery is family-owned by winemaker Tom Mudd and his wife Melissa Frank. Before starting Cinnabar, he was a senior research engineer at SRI (Stanford Research Institute) International and had 10 years of home grape growing and winemaking experience at his one-acre vineyard in Woodside. Tom Mudd cites several factors that contribute to the uniqueness of his mountain wines:

Estate Grown. Our vineyard and winery are located above the town of Saratoga in the Santa Cruz Mountains, at an elevation of 1,650 feet. All of the grapes for our estate wines are grown in our mountain vineyard, which we planted ourselves in 1984.

Unique Mountain Mesoclimate. Situated above the fog and overlooking the southern end of the San Francisco Bay, we experience bountiful sunshine and a cool marine influence. Our mountain vines enjoy a long, balanced growing season. As a result, we harvest our grapes with high sugar and acid levels - perfect chemistry!

Special Clones. We planted the Mount Eden clones - Cabernet Sauvignon, which descended from Chateau Margaux, and Chardonnay, that can be traced back to Corton-Charlemagne. Because both clones are so low-yielding, only a handful of California wineries use them. We chose them because they have a 100-year history of producing great wines in these mountains.

Dry Farmed Vines. We do not irrigate our 30-acre mountain vineyard during the growing season and this results in more intensely flavored wines.

Handcrafted Wines. Our estate vines yield only a few tons per acre so our production is small, allowing us to take a hands-on approach to each step of the grape growing and wine making process.

Ageability. While our mountain wines can be enjoyed young, they evolve dramatically, displaying added flavor nuances with time.

Cinnabar - Modern-Day Alchemy. Cinnabar, a beautiful red mineral of mercury, was the most inspirational material to the alchemists of old; from it they could easily make "quicksilver" - which they thought could then be fashioned into gold. Tom Mudd's 30-acre vineyard is his inspiration, and like the 13th century alchemists, he too is involved in a "miraculous transformation" - not that of turning base metals into gold, but rather transforming rainwater into wonderful wine.

Cinnabar Vineyards & Winery / 23000 Congress Springs Road / P.O. Box 245 / Saratoga, CA 95071 / 408-741-5858