Hanzell Vineyards
The Sonoma estate that brought Burgundy to California in 1953, home to North America’s oldest producing pinot noir and chardonnay vines.
Few California wineries have shaped how the state makes chardonnay and pinot noir as quietly and completely as Hanzell. Founded in 1953 on the southern slopes of the Mayacamas above the town of Sonoma, it was where Burgundian ideas first took serious root in California soil.
An ambassador’s vision
James D. Zellerbach, the United States Ambassador to Italy, fell for the wines of Burgundy and came home determined to make something that could stand beside them. He named the estate Hanzell for his wife Hana and, in 1953, planted three acres each of chardonnay and pinot noir at a time when there were only a few hundred acres of either in all of North America.
The site looks southwest across Sonoma Valley toward San Pablo Bay, its cool air and well-drained slopes a deliberate echo of the Cote d’Or.
The innovations that changed California
Hanzell’s first winemaker, Brad Webb, was hired in 1956 as the Heritage Winery was completed, and the first vintage followed in 1957. Webb helped introduce temperature-controlled stainless steel fermentation, the deliberate use of French oak barrels, and controlled malolactic fermentation. Those practices are standard across fine wine today, but they were radical when Hanzell pioneered them.
Living history in the vineyard
The original 1953 plantings, known as the Ambassador’s block, are the oldest continuously producing pinot noir and chardonnay vines in North America. Successive stewards protected them: the Day family from 1965, Barbara de Brye from 1975, and Alexander de Brye from 1991. Bob Sessions, hired in 1973, made the wine for decades and carried the founding philosophy forward.
A modern, holistic estate
Under president and director of winemaking Jason Jardine, who joined in 2014, Hanzell became certified organic through CCOF in 2021 and now farms holistically, with sheep, pigs, chickens, and guardian dogs working the land. The estate’s Sebella chardonnay, first released in 2009, offers an approachable way into a very serious house.
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