Fort Ross Vineyard & Winery

Estate Pinot Noir, Fort Ross-Seaview — The flagship; cool-climate estate Pinot from the mountain vineyard above the Pacific.

Stagecoach Road Pinot Noir, Fort Ross-Seaview — A single-block bottling of black cherry and forest floor (94 points).

Estate Chardonnay, Fort Ross-Seaview — A slow-ripened, gently made white of coastal freshness.

Pinotage — A rare California bottling of the South African variety, the owners' nod to their roots.

Chenin Blanc — A textural, distinctive white from a unique corner of the estate.

Fort Ross Vineyard sits on a coastal ridge above Jenner, looking out over the Pacific from vineyards planted at 1,700 feet. Lester and Linda Schwartz — South African expatriates who left their native country for California in 1976 — purchased this dramatic site in 1988 and planted the first vines in 1994 against advice from every expert they consulted, producing Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that carry the full weight of their ocean-facing origin: mineral, taut, and built for the cellar. The estate takes its name from the nearby Fort Ross State Historic Park, the 19th-century Russian settlement that marks this stretch of coastline. The Schwartzes were also founding voices of the Fort Ross-Seaview AVA, approved in 2012.

Founded in 1994 by Lester and Linda Schwartz on a 957-acre property that rises from the Pacific to 1,700-foot ridgetops, Fort Ross is one of the only working wineries with a tasting room on the Fort Ross-Seaview AVA itself — the closest vineyard to the Pacific Ocean in California, perched above the fog on Meyers Grade Road seven miles north of the Russian River mouth. The 53-acre vineyard is composed of 33 small mountain-vineyard blocks ranging from 1,200 to 1,700 feet elevation. Three experiences: Signature Tasting of four estate wines (indoor, tasting bar, or outdoor patio, walk-ins welcome), full Food + Wine Pairing with seasonal menu prepared by the executive chef, and a guided walking tour through the 957-acre estate with redwood groves, gardens, and panoramic ocean views ending at a chef-pairing tasting. "The most spectacularly sited tasting room in California," per Peter Fish, Sunset.

Took over winemaking at Fort Ross Vineyard in 2009 — the only winery he works with outside his family's Pisoni Estate in the Santa Lucia Highlands, where his father Gary Pisoni planted the legendary Pisoni Vineyard in the 1980s and where his brother Mark serves as vineyard manager. Jeff holds a bachelor of science in enology from California State University, Fresno, and worked at Bernardus and Peter Michael before joining the family enterprise. At Fort Ross, he succeeds a strong lineage: Fred Scherrer (the founding winemaker, who started in 2000 and built production from 100 cases), Ed Kurtzman (from 2003), then Helen Keplinger. “I'm not trying to make a style,” Pisoni says of his work here. “Fort Ross Vineyard is the style.” He works the 50-acre estate — 30 small blocks ranging from 1,200 to 1,700 feet elevation, planted to 40 acres of Pinot Noir (mostly heritage clones), 8 of Chardonnay, and 2 of Pinotage in homage to the Schwartzes' South African roots — with native yeast fermentation, hand-sorting, gentle extraction, and bottling unfined and unfiltered. Production averages around 4,000 cases. The estate sits closer to the Pacific Ocean than any other vineyard in California.

Lester and Linda Schwartz, both born in South Africa, founded Fort Ross Vineyard. They met as students at the University of Cape Town, married in 1967, and moved to California in 1976, where Lester practiced law and Linda worked in arts administration. Longing for the rural life of Lester’s childhood, in 1988 they bought virgin forest and grassland on a coastal ridge above the historic Russian settlement of Fort Ross. They planted one of the closest vineyards to the Pacific in California, and — in tribute to their heritage — became the first private growers to import South Africa’s Pinotage. They also helped establish the Fort Ross-Seaview AVA.