Gideon Beinstock harvests without a refractometer and often without even tasting the grapes, picking only the clusters that feel right to his hand. From a sliver of volcanic hillside in the northern Sierra Foothills, he and his wife Saron make some of California's most singular, hard-to-find wines.
Backstory
Beinstock spent sixteen years as winemaker at Renaissance before striking out on his own. He and his wife Saron planted their home block in 1995 and founded Clos Saron in 1998, with the goal of expressing their corner of the foothills as purely and distinctively as possible.
The Region
The winery sits near Oregon House in Yuba County, in the northern reaches of the Sierra Foothills. The site belongs to the Smartville Complex, a sub-oceanic volcanic formation roughly 160 million years old, and the vines climb a northeast-facing slope at 1,500 to 1,600 feet.
Vineyards and Farming
The home vineyard covers about two and a half acres of own-rooted Pinot Noir, around 4,500 vines, growing in yellowish clay-loam over fractured volcanic rock laced with quartz. Beinstock farms organically, working chemical-free and as simply as possible. Additional cuvees come from nearby leased and purchased fruit that he also farms.
Winemaking
The cellar approach is deliberately minimalist, a no-winemaking philosophy built on traditional techniques and strict organic methods. Production is famously small, often around a hundred cases or less per wine.
The Wines
The flagship is the estate Pinot Noir from the home block, joined by a rotating cast of idiosyncratic blends. Despite the tiny output, Clos Saron has become a philosophical reference point for the natural wine movement in the United States.
