At a time when Ruby Cabernet was becoming an afterthought in California’s wine industry, a Lodi farmer, the late George Mettler, saw something worth saving.
Mettler, the fourth-generation patriarch of Harney Lane Vineyards, refused to give up on a three-acre block of the once-popular grape at the family’s Lodi estate. Nearly two decades later, that decision has become the story behind one of Harney Lane’s most distinctive wines — and a project that has raised more than $100,000 for cancer-related charities.
The family-owned winery is now revealing that Patriarch’s Promise, which debuted in 2012, is a 100% single-vineyard Ruby Cabernet.
For years, Harney Lane kept the grape variety largely under wraps, allowing the wine to develop without the preconceptions that often accompany a varietal that had fallen out of favor.
Ruby Cabernet was once widely planted and sought after in California, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s. But as consumer tastes and the premium wine industry shifted, the grape was increasingly abandoned in favor of other varieties.
Mettler wasn’t ready to let it go.
“My dad never walked away from a vineyard if he believed it still had a story left to tell,” said Jorja Lerner, Harney Lane’s fifth-generation proprietor. “When everyone else gave up on this varietal, he made a stubborn promise to see it through.”
That promise eventually became Patriarch’s Promise.
The wine was initially aggressive and edgy, according to Harney Lane, but the winery took its time with it. It spent nearly three years in barrels, allowing the wine to evolve into something the family describes as elegant, structured and luxurious.
Since its debut, the wine has attracted attention from wine professionals and collectors, even as the identity of the grape remained something of a Harney Lane secret.
Now, the winery is pulling back the curtain and celebrating what it describes as a rare example of a premium, single-vineyard, single-varietal Ruby Cabernet in California.
There is another reason the wine remains particularly meaningful to the Mettler family.
In George Mettler’s honor, Harney Lane has donated a portion of the proceeds from every bottle of Patriarch’s Promise to cancer-related charities. The winery says those donations have now surpassed $100,000.
