Million Air Winter 2023/24
INFLUENCE CRAFTSMANSHIP
Below Ted and Heidi Lemon, co owners of Littorai Wines
Opposite page Littorai winery and Gold Ridge Estate with The Pivot Vineyard
TedLemon on wine estates and diversi fi edfarms
Ted Lemon, known as the godfather of modern California Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, speaks to Elite Traveler ’s Elin McCoy at his Sonoma winery on the way forward for winegrowing
Down a narrow road through gentle rolling hills in western Sonoma, not far from the town of Sebastopol, is a small, fog-kissed piece of wine growing paradise: the 30-acre home base of passionate, opinionated winemaker Ted Lemon, co-owner with his wife Heidi of Littorai Wines. He’s been called the godfather of modern California Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and his collectible, long-lived wines from a dozen vineyard sites on the West Sonoma Coast and Mendocino’s Anderson Valley have won accolades for their stunning purity of fruit, bright ener g y and silky textures.
Lemon calls his estate property on Gold Ridge Road “adiversi fi ed wine farm.” Since he and Heidi bought the land and began transforming it in 2003, it’s been the essential laboratory for his beliefs about rede fi ning farming. Over the past several decades Lemon’s ideas about the best way to grow grapes, the importance of terroir, and confronting global warming and climate change have in fl uenced winemakers in California and beyond. In June, I interviewed him on a visit to Littorai during the annual conference of the Areni Institute, a London-based wine think tank (of which I’m a
member) that focuses on important issues about fi newine. Lemon was a leader in the group pushing for the West Sonoma Coast to become an o ffi cial American Viticultural Area (AVA), which it fi nally achieved in 2022. It’s cooler than most parts of Sonoma and, the day I visited, the tall, sandy-haired Lemon was wearing a zipped-up gray down vest over his long-sleeved striped shirt, as well as a tan bill cap towardo ff the bright sun. “The way forward for winegrowing and a healthy planet,” he proclaimed, “is what I call generative
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