2019 OVIS Petite Sirah High Valley Lake County 750 ml

Lake County, just north of Napa, is California’s next great winemaking destination. Andy Beckstoffer is making a major play there—yes, the same Beckstoffer that farms the high-dollar To Kalon and George III vineyards in Napa—and big names up and down the state are exploring the rocky, rugged terrain.

But long before Beckstoffer made his move, Shannon realized the potential for Lake County and swooped in. In 1996, he bought over 2,000 prime acres on a series of rocky slopes at an extreme 2,500 feet of elevation, overlooking California’s largest natural lake. 

Shannon is finally starting to get his due in the wider wine world. Just this fall, longtime Food & Wine Wine editor Ray Isle confirmed what we—and our members—have known since we first tasted these bottles. He listed Shannon Ridge among the “Other North Coast Producers to Look For” alongside high-dollar names like Arnot-Roberts, Hanzell, and RAEN—who’ve landed on seemingly every Top 100 list this year—in his book The World in a Wineglass: The Insider's Guide to Artisanal, Sustainable, Extraordinary Wines to Drink Now.

Petite Sirah is particularly suited to this stunning vineyard, and this is a big wine that befits a big estate and the sprawling vision of Clay Shannon. That vision of growth is not rooted in branding or marketing, but in the land itself. Shannon is working to create a self-sustaining farm that requires little in the way of agricultural inputs from outside his property. No herbicides are used, and a herd of sheep graze through the carbon-trapping cover crops that intersperse the rows of vines.