This Santa Rosa winery produces one of the best Pinots around

During wildfire season, Jason DeLoach maintains the mindset of a farmer and winemaker.

“The goal is to always have the fruit picked at the best point of flavor and ripeness,” explained the winemaker of Santa Rosa’s Hook & Ladder. “We work very hard to achieve those results. Being as flexible as possible with Mother Nature is extremely important, knowing that we might not always get the chance to get fruit picked under perfect conditions.”

DeLoach, 45, may have inherited his proactive approach from his grandfather, Cecil DeLoach, a retired San Francisco firefighter who founded Hook & Ladder in 2004.

The winery celebrates its founder’s fire fighting days. A fire truck is parked in a barn and the tasting room is decorated with fire station memorabilia, including some 300 t-shirts and patches that were gifted by fire stations in California, the United States and from around the world. It also has a mural, created by Sebastopol artist Dom Chi, that depicts the winery’s signature fire truck within the rolling hills of the Russian River Valley.

An impressive Pinot Noir

In 2020, Hook & Ladder faced conditions that were far from perfect. The vineyard was deluged with a canopy of smoke from the Walbridge Fire, which burned more than 55,000 acres between Aug. 17 and Oct. 2.

That year, the Santa Rosa winery skipped making blends, minimized skin contact with the varietals they produced and checked the wines’ progress every step of the way.

“We worked hard to pick the fruit strategically, while modifying our approach to winemaking to give us the greatest options,” DeLoach said. “Considering the challenges we faced, we made very solid wines for that vintage.”

With that stressful period behind him, DeLoach crafted a Pinot Noir in 2021 that turned heads.

The Hook & Ladder, 2021 Three Alarm Reserve, Russian River Valley, Sonoma County Pinot Noir ($46) is our Wine of the Week winner, with 4.5 stars. The impressive Pinot has notes of cherry, cola, cedar and a kiss of vanilla.

With Labor Day around the corner and wine-lovers and foodies gathering around the grill, this wine will pair well with a range of juicy meats.

“The style we work to create is a wine that is full-bodied, fruit forward and aromatic with a balance of complimentary oak integration,” DeLoach said.

DeLoach has been the winemaker at Hook & Ladder since 2006. Pinot Noir is one of his favorite wines to produce.

“We have the flexibility to really dial in the full potential of the wine through barrel selection from all of our single vineyard Pinot Noir lots,” he said. “Pinot Noir is a thinner-skinned grape that tends to be a delicate wine needing more care and attention to detail.”

The winery produces roughly 20,000 cases of wine from nine different varietals each year.

“My favorite part about winemaking is the challenge of it,” DeLoach said. “I like the puzzle of making wines from grape to bottle.”

You can reach wine writer Peg Melnik at 707-521-5310 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @pegmelnik.

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