Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/97133
APPELLATIONS The AT THE CROSSROADS OF HISTORY AND VINES Chalone AVA Panoramic views from ���The Tower,��� high above the Gavilan benchland, reveal the rolling landscape of the Chalone appellation. Just on the other side of the mountains sits the Salinas Valley 1,800 feet below. by Michelle Ball / photos by Jeremy Ball long a twisted dirt road, 1,800 feet above the valley loor, remnants of a A massive tectonic struggle stagger the mountainside, forming a post-pile of rusted, brown pillars of volcanic rock known as the Pinnacles National Monument. Playing out like a geological Star Wars saga, a series of violent tectonic shifts created a unique soil composition throughout the Gavilan benchland that���s unlike anywhere else in California. Decomposed limestone and granitic soils beneath the undulating hillsides bear a startling resemblance to the great vineyards of Burgundy. This may be what attracted Frenchman Charles L. Tamm to plant the irst vineyards in 1900, in what now is known as the Chalone AVA. 1 18 / the tasting panel / november 2012