Ketan Mody is Thoreau meets Fukuoka meets a Hell’s Angel with a refined palate for sushi.
“Kedy Mody is a sort of modern-day Thoreau. He’s [in his 30s] and lives in a one-room cabin on top of Diamond Mountain that he built from the ground up. His sentences are coated in transcendentalist residue, made modern by his Midwestern-tinged California drawl and affection for the f-word.”
-Talia Baiocchi, A New Wave in Napa Valley
“Mody has been through his share of ups and downs. That life history is reflected in deeply spiritual wines imbued with real personality. The first wines I have tasted point to a brilliant, emerging talent. Readers with a passion for structured, pulsating Cabernets will want to get on the mailing list right away. The world is made up of leaders and followers. By definition, most people are followers. Ketan Mody is a leader.”
-Antonio Galloni, Vinous
“This special guy started to plant an old school vineyard 11 or so years ago on the top of Diamond Mountain. He has lived in a Thoreau-like cabin working on this project from dawn till dusk. Due to costs, permits, sanity, etc., we may never see a project like this again.”
-@soilpimp
There’s three of the more experienced wine-minds writing rather lovingly about a guy who has yet to release anything from his home estate and only a few vintages from his Beta project.
Nope, very little of this makes any sense. That is your entrance fee.
I suppose we should begin with the fact I never thought when I started this company that we’d be representing a “Napa Cab.” Not that I disliked them at all (very much the opposite in fact), it was just another world from my cool-climate piece of the pie. But I heard about what Ketan was doing, this eccentric on the mountain top, and on a trip selling German/Austrian wines in Napa, I went up to pay a visit.
I ended up basically spending the weekend with him; we walked just about every inch of the vineyards (half of which were not planted yet). We slept in sleeping bags on the floor of his 20 x 20′ cabin. We watched “Chef’s Table;” he gave me a handgun when I had to go outside to grab something out of the car. “Lots of bobcats around here,” he said. (I think he was fucking with me but to this day I’m not 100% sure.)
Ketan bought something over 10 acres on top of Diamond Mountain in or around 2008. The land was completely raw. In the last decade, he has cleared a portion of the land himself. He built two log cabins to live in (one was demolished in a storm, that’s another story). He has planted and tended the vineyard himself, parcel by parcel, vine by vine. He has farmed the entire site organically, since day one, with no irrigation. The vines are all head-trained. For the most part, this is no-till farming, with grass crimping instead of cutting. Ketan is Thoreau meets Fukuoka meets a Hell’s Angel with multiple philosophy degrees and a very refined palate for sushi.
The facts, these data points, sorta gloss over what’s really happening up here. What Ketan Mody has started, all on his own, alone on the top of Diamond Mountain, is nothing short of a spiritual journey. The vines are just marking his time, his life, and eventually, his passing. Ketan would appreciate this morbid note. After all, you can’t undertake a project like this without realizing that you are building something for the time beyond you.
In most of the important ways, that’s the point.
More down-to-earth points to note: There are two projects going on here. First, the Beta Wines. These are explorations in Napa and Sonoma fruit, from places Ketan feels are worthy of exploring. And Ketan does not fuck around with this: There is zero tolerance for anything other than exploring something worth exploring. The first vintage was in 2011 from 50-year-old, head-trained vines on the Sonoma side of Mount Veeder – the “Montecillo Vineyard.” (This 2011 was released in 2018, just FYI). For 2013, the collection has expanded to include the “Vare Vineyard” on the valley floor. There are other bottlings for other vintages, all future releases.
The vineyards on top of Diamond Mountain, the site that Ketan has lived in and wrestled with for over a decade? They gave their first fruit for vintage 2019 labeled “Jasud Estate.”
We will only ever receive paltry amounts of these wines, so we’d refer you to Ketan’s direct-to-consumer list. Sign up for these wines, for this journey, here.
