The vineyard is the root of all good in wine. The roots of the grapevines find themselves multiplying in the quotient and sum of earthquakes, volcanic action, parent rock material, collapsing hillsides, and the humus resulting from generations of ground cover. Water finds it way into a fissure in a rock. It expands as it freezes, and it cracks the rock. More water fits into the deepening crack, and when it freezes it breaks the rock up into more pieces. Small pieces crumble to provide a place for plants to take hold. Rocks are uplifted by the earth’s movement. They mix with knolls or hillsides which have been loosened and have collapsed from cascading water. They end forming a place a vine can call home.
Water is essential to plant life. The amount of water soil and rock hold or allow to pass determines how well a plant grows. There are some places in which a perfect balance results and occurs between leaves above and roots below ground. A reasonably perfect equilibrium exists there between leaf and grape berry.
Corra Cabernet Sauvignon is made exclusively from Cabernet Sauvignon grapes grown in the Napa Valley. The grapevines struggle quietly in gravelly soils on the western benchlands and on slopes near Pritchard Hill looking over Lake Hennessey. The caretaking of the grapevines is guided by Corra. The needs of the plants are met by experienced viticulturists with whom Celia has long been associated.
To complete her project she chose a few rows of Sauvignon Blanc grapevines in an Oakville vineyard. Sauvignon Blanc is one of the parents of Cabernet Sauvignon, and its light, crisp structure, when contrasted to the power of Cabernet Sauvignon, balances an evening meal with family and friends.
