Harlan Estate
Let’s go together to meet one of Napa Valley’s greatest wines
Harlan Estate is a Napa Valley winery located on the heights of Oakville District, speci cally between To Kalon and Martha’s Vineyards. The property covers 100 hectares of which only 16 hectares are planted with vines. It was in 1984 that the estate was founded by Bill Harlan, a passionate real estate promoter and collector of ne wines. Although the rst vintage was in 1987 the wine was not marketed until 1990. From the beginning Bill Harlan surrounded himself with Michel Rolland (oenologist), Bob Lévy (Technical Director) and Don Weaver (Estate Director).
Currently the property produces 24,000 bottles each year divided into two labels: Harlan and The Maiden.They are uniquely blended from the grapes grown on the property and only from Bordeaux grapes.Even though Harlan Estate is a young winery, it has quickly become part of the very exclusive circle of the great wines of Napa Valley. Today H. William Harlan, son of Bill Harlan replaces his father at the head of the property.
Why did you choose to become a winemaker?
When I was 17, I knew I wanted to work in the world of wine.This is very unusual for someone from a family of doctors but also for a child from four generations of Southern Californians. I had a brother-in-law who was 25 years old who introduced me to wine, which opened up my curiosity about wines of the world. I then knew that I wanted to be part of this world, whether as a producer or simply as a collector.When I was 19, I decided to go back to UC Davis University to take a course in oenology. By participating in the first hours of classes and the first tastings in the vineyards of Napa I then knew that I wanted, that I had to live here. Indeed I knew that by coming here I could do everything I love to do, work outdoors, manually, combine science and nature as well as produce a product, natural, gastronomic and that is a form of artistic expression.That’s all I like doing, it’s the job for me!
What is the signature of Harlan Estate wines?
It’s hard to describe with simple words. It is difficult to explain with non-technical words… To understand well it must be understood that of all my career I worked only on hillside vineyards, mountainside. I have an affinity, an attraction for Cabernet Sauvignon hillsides and more particularly in NapaValley.They always have a potential of power, concentration, a potential quality as well as a very particular typicity and quite recognizable. This is what makes the signature of these wines. When you plant vines on deep soils, you will usually irrigate a lot… You may be able to make exceptional wines but they will not be able to express the ‘sense of the terroir’, to share with the tasting all the specificities of the soil, the biodiversity… They may be able to make great Cabernet Sauvignon but will not be good representative of the place where the vine was grown. My goal has always been to work in a winery able to highlight, highlight its terroir without trying to blur it. I want to have, in the wines that I do, this power, this concentration without having a rustic side which was often present in this type of wine. The other challenge involved tannins, it was necessary to preserve the power of the wine while obtaining soft tannins…which is not easy! The challenge is to adapt the work to the vine, the care that is provided, the yield and then the extractions and work in the winery to obtain power, concentration, elegance and soft tannins and ripeness. We bring a lot of importance to obtaining a perfect maturity of tannins.
All that summarizes, I think, our signature, what Harlan is… this wine profile, this balance and this aromatic expression. I often find in our wines aromas of dry forest soil, these same aromatic notes that can be felt when we walk in the forests along our property in the summer.
What makes the typicity of the terroirs of Harlan?
The Napa Valley is very interesting. We can talk about the terroir of this region in a general way or enter the sub-regions of Napa, that is to say, identify the micro-terroir. Even if it is one and the same region the valley offers us many and different soils. When Bill began looking for a property to acquire he knew that historically the best
Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley was all grown between North Yountville and South St Helena. Here we call this part the Benchlands. On this locality the mountain meets the flat of the valley. The soils consist of alluvium. Moreover when the property was acquired there was no vineyard but only the forest. The terroir was therefore devoid of human traces. We also did not want to beat the top of the hil lor at the foot but only on the slopes. The NapaValley is also more or less aligned North – South. So if you are on the east side of the valley you have good sun exposure in the afternoon. It’s a cooler exposure than when you’re on the west side where you have the sun in the morning… This coolness is for us an advantage. The soils are finer, shallower and our vines benefit from the light morning fog that is brought by the Pacific Ocean. This fog extends
from sea level to about 700 feet of altitude. If you are located above this limit in summer you can be between 5 and 10 degrees more than at home. Our altitude also allows us to have a lower thermal ampli- tude with warmer nights than on the flat (or on the peaks) and cooler temperatures during the day. All this brings us a beautiful acidity, beautiful aromatic expressions and optimal maturities.
At the level of the soils we have two types of soils on Harlan, one is vol- canic, the other is oceanic. Most of our Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot are on volcanic soils while Merlot is on ocean soils.
If you had to describe the winery, the wine, the atmosphere of Harlan in a nutshell, what would you say?
What Bill likes to think about and what we’ve been talking about for years is the idea that wine raises our spirits. Harlan is not a simple luxury product or a simple fine wine! It is essential that our wine presents a real experience for consumers. May this discovery raise his spirit, his reflection but also awaken his senses and his heart.
Do you have an anecdote about the property?
The anecdote that I am going to give you is more like a philosophy than an anecdote. It has been the three of us working here from the beginning, Bill, Don Weaver (Estate Director) and myself. We all have the same philosophy, that if you want to try to do something you have to try to reach the highest level, to work and to understand that it is neces- sary to learn continuously. That we should not say to ourselves: ‘Okay, we got 100 points on this vintage so we change nothing to obtain each year 100 points’. It’s wrong ! We known that tomorrow we will have to do better than today. It is this philosophy that has brought all three of us together, which has united us on this same trajectory.
