2025 Langtry Farms Rose Tephra Ridge Lake County 750 ml

The volcanic soils that make Howell Mountain Cabernet famous don't stop at the Napa County line. On the Lake County side of the ridge sits Tephra Ridge, a steep estate vineyard planted on the same ancient volcanic ground, and the source of this rosé.

Tephra is the Greek word for the rock and ash a volcano throws off, and the name is literal here. The soils are thin, gravelly loam over old volcanic material, well-drained and low in vigor—the kind of ground that keeps yields down and concentrates what the vines produce.

The estate has been farming this corner of California since 1888, when the British stage star Lillie Langtry bought the property sight unseen and set out to make what she called the finest claret in the country. Her profile still appears on the label. Some of the oldest vines in the state, Syrah dating to the 1850s, still grow at the top of Tephra Ridge.

Winemaking falls to Bryan Parker, who came to the estate by way of Beringer, Hartford Court, Pine Ridge, and Rutherford Hill, and who studied viticulture and enology at UC Davis after finishing a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. The vineyards are certified sustainable under the Lodi Rules, and the winery runs entirely on solar power.

The 2025 growing season suited a wine like this. A cool, even year across the North Coast with none of the late-summer heat spikes that flatten acidity, it brought the fruit in fresh and bright—the backbone a dry rosé needs.

Plenty of rosé is made to be easy and anonymous. This one carries a volcanic hillside, old vines with roots in the 1850s, and 137 years of estate history.