Grapes Never Before Grown in California
Centennial Mountain was the vision of our team at Rhys Vineyards, which has produced world-class Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from some of California’s most exciting coastal mountain vineyards since 2004. Rhys Vineyard’s eight estate sites have been painstakingly developed from steep, rocky, and remote hillsides in the Santa Cruz Mountains and northern Mendocino County.
In 2013, after years of meticulous planning, we began planting Centennial Mountain Vineyard on a pristine ridgeline high in Sonoma County to explore our love of Italian varietals. Our goal for Centennial Mountain was ambitious: to unlock the full potential of Italy’s finest grapes here in California, particularly Nebbiolo, along with Carricante and Nerello Mascalese, the celebrated white and red grapes that have been grown on Sicily’s Mount Etna for millennia.
This goal was the culmination of years of studying the perfect climate and soils for these varieties, paired with invaluable experience gained from establishing two vineyards on Mount Etna in Sicily. There, we worked closely with Italian viticultural and winemaking masters to learn the intricacies of these grapes, how best to cultivate them, and how to steward them into wines of uncommon character and complexity. Our time in Italy was inspiring and transformative, providing the foundation that guided the design and planting of our Centennial Mountain Vineyard.

Driven by a passion to share these exceptional grapes and wines with the world, Founder Kevin Harvey and our team, which includes renowned viticulturist and General Manager Javier Tapia Meza, Director of Winemaking Jeff Brinkman and Winemaker Eric Prahl, studied the soils and climates of both Piedmont and Mount Etna.
They discovered that unlike French varietals, which generally benefit from a significant diurnal temperature swing, Nebbiolo, Nerello Mascalese, and Carricante benefit from more modest diurnal swings, with cool days preserving freshness and complexity, and warm nights bringing acids and sugars into perfect balance.
After evaluating numerous Californian wine regions, they identified Centennial Mountain in Northern Sonoma County as the perfect location to grow Italian winegrapes. Situated 15 miles from the Pacific Ocean at over 2,000 feet elevation, with well-drained Franciscan shale, schist, and quartz soils, the site offered the ideal conditions for these rare varietals to flourish.
Establishing the vineyard has been a true labor of love, requiring both thoughtfulness and patience. Today, the maturing vines at Centennial Mountain Vineyard are producing wines of ever-greater complexity and allure, including the only Carricante and Nerello Mascalese wines grown in the United States. Offering a world of discoveries for avid wine enthusiasts, each bottle of Centennial Mountain wine is a testament to our belief that when grown in the right climate and soils, these grapes can produce wines of extraordinary complexity and character here in California.

CENTENNIAL
MOUNTAIN
38.70290
-123.11549
Our search for the rare combination of perfect climate and interesting rocky soils led us to plant a remote ridgetop in the rugged mountains of Northern Sonoma County.