In 1973 Jerry Brassfield purchased 1520 acres of land known as High Serenity Ranch in Clearlake Oaks, California. The property served as a cattle ranch and a get-away from busy city life for the Brassfield family and friends as well as a business retreat for some of Jerry’s other businesses. After seeing neighbors planting grapes, Jerry began doing his due diligence in investigating possible vineyard sites on his own property in 1996. They looked at weather patterns and took hundreds of soil samples to find the best locations for each grape variety[2.1]. By 2000, vineyard sites had been chosen and land preparation began, Brassfield Estate Winery was formed.
2001 was a big year for Brassfield Estate Winery as the first vines were planted and the first phase of the winery building was completed. Brassfield began its commitment to sustainability by reusing building materials from a recently torn down shopping center in the San Francisco Bay Area. This same year Brassfield Estate Winery had its inaugural vintage from fruit harvested out of a leased neighboring vineyard. We have been producing estate grown, produced and bottled wine from the beginning.
By 2003 the Round Mountain property had been purchased and Volcano Ridge Vineyard began planting. This 80 acre vineyard is planted directly next to Round Mountain Volcano and is home to several red varietals that would go on to be used in our Eruption Red Blend that had its first vintage in 2005 and is still made to this day.
Over the next few years Jerry and other High Valley growers began to recognize how unique High Valley is and started pushing for their own AVA. Two geological features set High Valley apart from many other North Coast grape growing regions: transverse valley and high elevation. High Valley runs east-to-west rather than the typical north-to-south as is common in nearly all California wine grape regions. This allows cooler ocean air to funnel in and stay in the valley longer as it passes through on its way inland creating unique climate patterns and cooler nights in comparison to other regions. The valley floor sits at 1,800’ elevation and the hillsides go up to nearly 3000’. These features make High Valley very different from any surrounding AVA in the North Coast. In 2005 their work paid off and High Valley AVA was established. [
By 2006 Jerry was able to turn some of his attention into further developing his winemaking facilities and started excavation of the cave systems, 65,000 sq ft, that to this day is used to age our wines in select barrels. He also further developed the winemaking buildings and tasting room. In 2011 Brassfield Estate Winery hosted its grand opening of the tasting room and expanded Estate Winery.
In the meantime vineyards were still being planted. Most notable, Perspective Vineyard, a high density syrah and viognier planting sitting at close to 3000’ elevation. This vineyard produces our acclaimed Syrah Perspective wine. Over the years, Jerry bought up more surrounding properties, expanding the possible vineyard sites. Between 2018 and 2021 our 225 acre Ridgeline Vineyard was developed. This planting nearly doubled the planted area, bringing the total acres under vines to 500.
Brassfield Estate Winery has continued to keep sustainability at the forefront and decided to make the commitment to earning a CSWA Sustainability certification in 2022. Both the winery and vineyards are certified. This means that every year certain standards must be met and we have to set yearly goals to improve our sustainability efforts.
In 2022 High Valley Ranch was purchased, expanding the total land included in Brassfield Estate to 4,747 acres. This means that only around 10% of the property is planted to grapes, leaving the rest of it to be inhabited by the many wild animals and vegetation that has called High Valley home for much longer than we have.
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