What Nicholson Vineyards is known for
Nicholson Vineyards is a family wine estate in Pleasant Valley near Aptos, within the Santa Cruz Mountain appellation. Its vineyards were first planted in 1995, followed by olive groves in 2006 on land once used for apples. Visitors can taste the estate's small-lot wines with views across the vineyards and olive groves from beneath heritage oaks.
Nicholson Vineyards is an eleven-acre family estate on Pleasant Valley Road in Aptos, in the Santa Cruz Mountain appellation on California's Central Coast. The vines sit at nearly seven hundred feet, high enough to take the appellation's full daily swing: blankets of early morning fog, sun through the afternoon, cool evenings. That swing is what the family credits for the complexity in the fruit.
The estate is planted in three blocks, and the names are domestic. Chardonnay occupies the west side, on ground where apples grew for nearly a hundred years before the vines went in. The Brooks Block Pinot Noir, named for their son, carries both Pommard and Dijon clones and sits next to the tasting room; Three Sisters, the smallest lot, is entirely Dijon. Production stays deliberately limited, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from estate fruit alongside other varietals, made with winemakers Ellie Loustalot and Matt DeSilva.
The Nicholsons count eleven generations on the Central Coast and the place reads that way, with olive groves and heritage oaks around the tasting room, ten minutes from the beach and forty-five from the Bay Area.
Best for — Small-lot wine tasting at a family estate near Aptos
Aptos, California
Where next
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