Who We Are…
With pure passion, our vineyard prides itself on bringing the best grapes to glass, Topping & Legnon strive to create something unique and special in every bottle.
Dana Topping & Rick Legnon, who have always had a deep passion for wines, decided to finally take the leap into the industry by purchasing a gorgeous 18 acre vineyard in Lake Country, CA, previously the Burgess Family personal vines. The Bordeaux varietals on the property had been there for 26 years and showing some incredible potential. After a couple years of love and care for the vineyard, all was ready for harvest. We began to produce our first vintage in 2009 but sold off much of the fermented juice to some surrounding ‘very big names’ in the industry. After several years, the resulting wine kept getting better and better..we then decided to create a premium brand and start to share this wine with the world! The name ‘Topping & Legnon’ was decided – as we are family! The first labelled vintage was 2012 and we created a gorgeous classic label, showing all our hand-written winemaker’s notes. With such small production (1000 cases per year) we are considered a Micro-Boutique Winery. We are able to control everything from grape to glass. In the vineyard, we don’t use a single harmful chemical or pesticide. We use superior farming methods with organic composting and biodynamic methods (and even bring in some little pests ourselves to counteract the nasty ones!) It’s truly wonderful to sometimes sit back and let nature do what it does best!
After a carefully selected, hand-picked harvest, the grapes are ready for crush – we typically do a cold-soak for 4 to 5 days..then allow the ‘wild’ yeasts to begin their beautiful process of converting sugars to alcohol. For some vintages, we have ‘pressed’ the grapes by raising the tank and allowing a natural gravity flow. This is completely stress-free on the grapes, resulting in gorgeous fruit flavours and powerful tannins. We age all wines for a minimum of 12 months and reserve wines for 24 months – with a mixture of New French Oak from Provence and Neutral Oak from Burgundy.
We believe that this dedication to an all-natural product will contribute to the highest quality, world-class wines. We hope you share this passion with us!