Katie’s Block
1560 Feet - SONOMA COUNTY
There's a version of California Sauvignon Blanc that is soft, broad, and slightly sweet — the style that defined the category for a long time and still dominates the supermarket shelf. Katie's Block makes a different kind of wine.
Situated at 1,560 feet in the coastal mountains of Sonoma County, overlooking the reservoir of Lake Sonoma and surrounded by a Douglas fir and madrone forest, this is one of the highest-elevation Sauvignon Blanc sites in all of Sonoma County. The combination of altitude, cool maritime air, and rocky soils produces a white wine with a character that has more in common with a serious Loire Valley Sancerre than with the warm, tropical style California Sauvignon Blanc is known for.
The setting
Katie's Block sits above the fog line that fills the Alexander Valley below each morning, which means it captures sunlight early and holds warmth through the afternoon. But the elevation brings genuine cold at night — temperatures that drop sharply once the sun moves behind the ridge — and those cool nights are where the wine's personality takes shape. Natural acidity is preserved. Aromatic compounds develop slowly and with precision. The grapes arrive at harvest tasting bright and focused, with none of the flabbiness that warmer, lower sites can produce.
The soil is rocky and well-drained, which keeps vine vigor in check and concentrates what little the plant does produce. Modest yields are not a byproduct of stress here — they're a design feature of the site, built into the geology. The panoramic views of the valley below are spectacular, but the wine drinker's reward is in the glass.
What makes Allium’s Sauvignon Blanc different
Sauvignon Blanc is a grape that expresses its growing site more transparently than almost any other variety. Give it a warm, fertile site and it turns broad and tropical. Give it elevation, cool nights, and poor soil, and it becomes something else entirely — citrus peel, fresh herbs, a saline mineral quality, and a finish that pulls you back for another sip.
Katie's Block consistently delivers the latter. The wines produced from this site have a freshness and structural tension that makes them exceptional at the table. They're not made to be drunk in isolation; they're made to be opened with food — oysters, grilled fish, anything with acidity or salinity in the dish. The wine has enough of its own to hold a conversation.
Sauvignon Blanc is often treated as a casual varietal, something to open on a Tuesday without much thought. The Katie's Block bottling asks for a little more attention than that — and rewards it.
Farming practices. The vineyard benefits from organic and sustainable farming practices consistent with the rest of the Allium portfolio. Cool-climate viticulture at this elevation requires attentive canopy management to ensure even ripening across the hillside blocks, and harvest timing is calibrated to the site's natural pace rather than a target sugar number. We're picking for the balance of citrus, acidity, and aromatic precision that defines what this vineyard does best.
In the cellar, winemaking is restrained. Combination of neutral and new french oak. Minimal intervention. The goal is to move what the vineyard grew into the bottle with as little interference as possible.
The wine. The Katie's Block Sauvignon Blanc is Allium's white wine anchor — a wine that represents what California can do with this variety when grown in the right place. Limited production each vintage. Available through our wine club and the online shop.
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