The 2023 vintage marks the 30-year milestone for the Littorai family estate, and this tasting covers 21 wines from 1993 through 2023. Except for the 1993 Pinot Noir One Acre, all of the wines for this retrospective were tasted at the end of May in New York at Union Square Cafe. While I taste with Ted Lemon once a year in his cellar for the current releases, this experience left me tremendously excited to see the ageability of the wines, nearly across the board. I am pleasantly surprised to say that I likely have been too conservative in my recommended drinking windows for many of their wines in my coverage these past few years. While there have been subtle shifts within the cellar, these wines are highly expressive of site, with notable structure and consistent restraint with regard to ripeness and oak across vintages.
Since 2008, Heidi and Ted Lemon have been operating Littorai from their Gold Ridge Estate in Sebastopol. They produce Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Chenin Blanc from exceptional cool-climate vineyard sites on the Sonoma Coast and in Anderson Valley. In 1993, they began with purchased fruit to create two wines: Pinot Noir from One Acre in the Anderson Valley and Mays Canyon Chardonnay from the Sonoma Coast. Gradually expanding from there, they were the first estate to bottle vineyard-designated wines of Chardonnay from the Charles Heintz Vineyard and Pinot Noirs from the Cerise, Savoy, Wendling, and Roman vineyards. In 2022, they introduced the first vintage of Richardson Ranch, near Annapolis and the Peay estate, and that wine is included in my regional report of Sonoma this year. Rounding out the portfolio’s single vineyards (with one exception), they have been working with B.A. Thieriot Vineyard, The Haven, The Pivot, One Acre, and The Return since 2000. Today, they work with roughly equal parts estate and purchased fruit.
The relationships that Heidi and Ted have cultivated over the past 30 years are one of the cornerstones for understanding what lies beneath the surface, and their work with the Hirsch Vineyard is one of the more profound. While he was not the first to produce a vineyard-designated bottling, Ted is the longest-standing winemaker and holds the longest tenured contract, producing wines from the Hirsch Vineyard since 1994. It is important to note that Hirsch Vineyards was not a winery until 2002, and the wines of Littorai, Williams-Selyem, and Steve Kistler helped put the Hirsch Vineyard on the map. Littorai works with two sections of the vineyard to this day, Block 6 on West Ridge and Block 15 on Raschen Ridge. Block 6 on the West Ridge was the first they converted to biodynamic farming, primarily due to Ted’s dedication, persistence, and engagement with the Hirsch family to improve the vineyard’s ecosystem. I spoke with Jasmine Hirsch for this article, who commented, “We all recognize Ted as a great winemaker, but he is one of the greatest farmers, and personally, I think that is more important.” She reflected further on a memory of walking the vineyard with Ted:
“A few years after we had converted Block 6, which was the first section that we converted [to biodynamics], I remember, he dropped to his knees at the base of a vine, and with joy and awe in his voice, he said, ‘Look! It’s a wild strawberry plant, growing here in the middle of the vineyard! You never would have seen this a few years ago!’ And it opened my eyes to what you are inviting into the vineyard when you stop using herbicides and take a more ecological view. His observational capacities and his appreciation for that, pointing out the meaning of this one little modest plant. While wild strawberries grow all over the ranch, they had not been growing in the vineyard up until that point. He is a resource for us all.”
Though they farm biodynamically at Littorai, they prefer to describe their vineyard practices as “generative farming,” a term intended to include the human relationship to the stewardship and shaping of the land as part of modern nature and integrated farming. In my three years of covering Sonoma thus far, I have been on numerous vineyard tours where Ted’s name has popped up in conversation with other winegrowers when touring sites that border sections he and his team work with. They have often admitted to me that they have tried to mimic or follow suit to see if they can implement his techniques to improve their work. They are all watching and paying attention to see what is being done and when those decisions are being made. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, as the saying goes.
Heidi and Ted’s work has an impact far beyond Sonoma. In 2020, when the smoke from fires impacted both Sonoma and Oregon, many of those further north relied on his wisdom to approach their work and move through that difficult time. He took the time to write a letter to those who were far less familiar with such conditions in the Willamette Valley, telling a cautionary tale. In over 40 visits, almost every producer brought this up with me in my interviews while I was reviewing the vintage, and many made the difficult and costly decision to not produce wines or to repurpose fruit that would typically go into top bottlings. His honesty and transparency gave many producers the confidence to make tremendous sacrifices in the short run to preserve their integrity over the long haul.
Mentorship and Legacy
Legacy comes to mind when tasting a retrospective such as this, and for this I reached out to Daniel Estrin, who has been the winemaker and vineyard manager at Cristom Vineyards in the Willamette Valley since 2019 and worked at Littorai for seven years. Daniel began working with Littorai in 2012 as an intern after studying viticulture at Cal Poly and was immediately struck by Ted’s versatility and proficiency in both the vineyard and the cellar. Coming from a more sterile and conventional farming education, the commitment to generative farming and biodynamic practices captivated him. Following two consecutive years of interning, he knew he wanted to work with Ted and Heidi, and when they lost one of their young team members, he saw an opportunity to get his foot in the door. On a sampling run up to Hirsch, he asked Ted if he could come on board. Ted responded yes, he could join the team, adding “But it comes with a caveat. You have to go down to Central Otago to work harvest at Burn Cottage.” Daniel recalled to me that Ted was not one to give lavish praise, and he was ready to work like hell to make a good impression and prove himself. Two months after completing that assignment, Ted asked him to stay late one evening and meet with him in his office. At that point, he wasn’t sure if he had messed up and was about to be let go, but instead, he was offered the position of assistant winemaker. Daniel summarizes:
“Ted and Heidi are the definition of mentors. In my time working for them, I always wanted Ted’s affirmation. He always dangled it, he doesn’t give it to you easily. There would be nods, and kind words here and there, but very brief. It brought so much maturity to me, and I have carried that through my career and have brought a lot of this to Cristom. When you have his attention, you feel like the most important person in the world. He is able to tease things out of you that you weren’t even aware you are capable of. If Ted is the ego, Heidi is the heart – the soft skills, the open ear, the one that you come to when you need emotional support. It is the two of them making decisions together.”
In The Cellar
All the wines undergo spontaneous fermentation in the winery, with the reds going through two to three weeks of fermentation. Although Ted is not dogmatic in his approach, each of the wines is raised similarly. Regarding the red wines over the years, Ted said that from 1998 to 2002, all the wines were destemmed, while today they use a proportion of whole clusters when they reach certain criteria to do so (but rarely exceed 50%). “The older the vines, the greater the chance that we will use some whole clusters. The remaining fruit is de-stemmed but not crushed.” The vineyard-designated reds are aged for an average of 14-17 months, with 20-25% new oak from Jaques Damy of Meursault and trials from additional cooperages. The appellation wines are intended to be enjoyed earlier and are raised for 11 months in barrel.
This tasting was an outstanding reflection of the winery and shows not only the potential of the wines from this estate but also what the wines of the Sonoma Coast and Anderson Valley can achieve in terms of aging potential. They are highly expressive of place and boast the diverse nature of these two appellations.