Except for Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars’ Warren Winiarksi and Clos Du Val’s Bernard Portet, there aren’t too many folks who know the Stags Leap District (SLD) as does Douglas Fletcher. The winemaker began his foray into Stags Leap – the 3-square-mile strip south of Yountville on the Silverado Trail – in 1978 when he bought fruit from the area at his first winery job for Martin Ray. Five years later, he began working at Steltzner Vineyards before moving to Chimney Rock in ’87.

Fletcher now has the high fallutin’ title of vice president of winemaking for the Terlato Wine Group, which owns Chimney Rock, as well as the Rutherford Hill Winery up the road, Alderbrook in the Dry Creek Valley of Sonoma County, and Sanford in Santa Barbara County.

But it’s his longtime work and familiarity in the SLD that had Appellation America seeking out Fletcher for his insight into the AVA. Additionally, Fletcher has developed some interesting and unusual methods at Chimney Rock that are designed to coax the natural terroir of SLD into the bottles of Chimney Rock.

The winery has 119 acres of vineyard stretching from the deep, loamy flatlands of the ‘trail’ to as much as a 45-degree slope in the gravelly hills under Stags Leap Palisades, the rock formation that defines the region.

There, Fletcher has created an asymmetrical trellising system, which Dr. Richard Smart – the world-renowned viticuturist – dubbed the “Fletcher Lyre.” The innovation ensures that fruit from both sides of the vine mature evenly.

In addition, Fletcher employs what he calls a “balanced vine” method of grape growing which is designed to set only the amount of fruit which a vine can ripen and thereby eliminates leaf-pulling, which results in small berries and an even crop.