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COVER STORY vineyard acres are planted at 1,500 feet elevation and above, and encir- cle Clear Lake, one of the oldest geological lakes in North America. The soils, especially on the hill- sides, tend to be rocky and vol- canic; the looming 4,305-foot Mt. Konocti on the lake's south shore was once an active volcano. These are the soils that dominate in the Red Hills Lake County and High Val- ley AVAs, where Shannon farms, and they are typically well-drained. Soon 15% of the vineyards in Lake County will be farmed organi- cally and/or biodynamically, which is one of the highest rates in the state. All of Shannon's vineyards are certified sustainable. The sauvignon blanc grown for Vigilance, 32 acres in all, is on the lower part of Shannon's Red Hills ranch, where it benefits from a cool inversion layer that blows off Clear Lake just to the north, and also helps keep the vines protected from frost. Also on the Vigilance property are 70 acres of cabernet sauvignon, plus syrah, merlot (most of which is sold), zinfandel, petite sirah, petit verdot and chardonnay. "It's the only chardonnay grown in Red Hills," Shannon explained. "Everybody says it's too hot, it's too cold. But chardonnay likes this area and the dirt's good." All the zinfandel and syrah grown here goes into a wine called Cimar- ron, Vigilance's proprietary blend of zin, syrah and petite sirah. With the 2012 vintage, 90% of the fruit will go into Vigilance-brand- ed wines, production of which will probably hover between 75,000 and 85,000 cases per year. All of the wines – with the exception of Cimarron, which includes some of Shannon's High Valley syrah and petite sirah – are Red Hills Lake County AVA. "It's a rock-star brand," Shan- non said of Cimarron. "People put it in their mouth and it tastes good, and it's good value. We make good- value wines, and as people have traded down, they've found a good little niche here in $12 or $15-$20 wines that they like." LAKE COUNTY DISCOVERY A native of Healdsburg, Shannon ran a successful vineyard manage- ment company in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys for many years – at one point overseeing 1,200 employees. Typically seen wearing a cowboy hat and Wrangler jeans, he first came to Lake County in 1995 after hearing that people were planting red-wine grapes in the hills. It was a cloudy, rainy wintery day when he drove up a steep hillside north of Clear Lake in High Valley. At its top, the property reached 2,500 feet as he maneuvered through dense brush in a Jeep Cherokee, getting scraped on its sides all the way up. "It was just ugly," he recalled. "When you get up that high in Lake County you're in the clouds, you can't see anything. I had no clue the views we had." Uninterested at first, he got a call from the realtor that next spring asking him to come back. On a beautiful April day, Shannon's per- spective changed, and in 1996 he bought the first 80 acres of what would become Shannon Ridge. He planted 60 acres to vineyard the next year. "The soil was gorgeous," he Shannon's stunningly beautiful Vigilance property includes 236 acres of vineyards. 40 VINEYARD & WINERY MANAGEMENT SEPT - OCT 2012 WWW.VWM-ONLINE.COM