Alder Springs Vineyard
2300 feet - MENDOCINO COUNTY, MENDOCINO
Most vineyards in California are relatively easy to reach. Alder Springs is not. Three hours north of San Francisco, set into the mountains east of the Mendocino Coast, the vineyard sits in a part of Northern California that most wine drinkers have never visited and most winemakers have never farmed. That remoteness is not incidental — it's the whole point.
Alder Springs occupies a landscape shaped by the Eel River, redwood forests, and dramatic coastal ridgelines. The hilly terrain climbs to 4,000 feet at its highest, and the vineyard blocks themselves sit around 2,300 feet — a true high-altitude site by any measure. What grows here does so under conditions of genuine difficulty: low-vigor soils with no room for error, steep slopes that require hand-farming for every task, and a climate defined by the push and pull of warm inland air and cool coastal marine influence.
A different kind of California wine
The wines from Alder Springs don't taste like Napa. They don't taste like central Sonoma Valley. They taste like a place most people haven't encountered — a northern frontier of California viticulture where the rules are written by the landscape rather than by convention.
That means cool nights that preserve aromatic intensity and firm acidity. It means low yields driven by the site's inherent low-vigor soils — small berries, concentrated flavor, natural tannin structure that doesn't need to be engineered in the cellar. And it means an organic farming approach that has been part of the vineyard's identity since its inception, with no synthetic inputs and a deep respect for the ecosystem the vineyard inhabits. Wildlife corridors, native vegetation, and watershed stewardship are part of what Alder Springs is.
Cabernet Franc from the edge
Allium sources Cabernet Franc from Alder Springs — a variety that rewards the kind of marginal, high-elevation growing conditions this site provides. At 2,300 feet, with significant coastal influence and a long, slow growing season, the grape develops a precision and aromatic lift that flat-ground farming simply cannot replicate. Where valley-floor Cabernet Franc can veer toward the simple, Alder Springs produces something more layered: forest floor, dried herbs, red fruit that carries tension and brightness all the way through the finish.
This is among the most distinctive sources of Cabernet Franc in California. It is not widely known — in part because the vineyard is remote, the production is small, and the winemakers lucky enough to work with it tend to hold the relationship closely. Allium is among them.
The farming. Every row at Alder Springs is hand-tended. The steep grades make mechanization impractical, which means the viticulture is as hands-on as it gets. Organic certification is maintained through careful integrated pest management, cover-cropping, and water stewardship that accounts for the vineyard's position within a larger, functioning watershed. The yields are modest by design — this is not a site you push for volume.
We pick based on flavor and acidity rather than a calendar date, which at Alder Springs often means patience into October while the mountain does its work.
The wine. The Alder Springs Cabernet Franc is one of Allium's most limited-production wines and among the most unusual expressions of the variety in California. It is available to Inner Circle members first.
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