THE LONE BUFFALO STORY
Lone Buffalo Vineyards, is a family-owned micro-winery – launched in 2007 as the culmination of owner and winemaker Phil Maddux’s 40+ year passion for wine making. We do everything ourselves. From the harvest to the crush and from bottling to labeling, the production process is truly a labor of love.
Phillip J. Maddux, Owner/Boss Winemaker& Vineyard Manager
Jill Maddux, Owner/Sales & Marketing
Jocelyn Maddux, J Brand Marketing & Wines, Tasting Room Manager & Other Miscellaneous Stuff
Matt Stone, Winemaker & Vineyard Manager, JBrand Winemaker
THE LONE BUFFALO PHILOSOPHY
We are Lone Buffalo Vineyards, a family run winery proudly serving Placer County for almost the past two decades, but our reach spans the globe. Phil, Jill, and Jocelyn Maddux are the estate family members that have tirelessly built the winery to what it is today. Matt Stone, the newest addition to the herd fulfills the, “Jack of All Trades” role (Official Title: Vineyard Manager & Winemaker) taking it upon himself to ensure that the winery is operating at its full potential.
Our mission at Lone Buffalo is simple: Make the best wines possible by sourcing the highest quality fruit that the Sierra Nevada Foothills have to offer. We believe that great wines cannot be made from mediocre fruit, so we meticulously develop and support key partnerships with local vineyards (exclusively working with vineyards in Placer, El Dorado and Nevada Counties) which are the “Crème de la Crème” of what the Sierra Foothills can produce. We grow roughly 40% of our own fruit and source the remaining 60% from those vineyards. We crush the fruit on our on-site crush pad, ferment the must to wine in the winery, age it in our temperature-controlled barrel room and hand bottle each wine in our bottling bay. We then have the pleasure of pouring that wine into your glass in our tasting room every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We truly are a grape to glass operation and could not imagine making our wines any other way.
VINEYARD MANAGEMENT & THE ROLE OF REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE
Creating a great wine starts with being an excellent caretaker of what nature has given you. Our vineyard management and wine making philosophies are quite similar – let nature do the work and apply a benevolent guiding hand to help it along. In the vineyard, we apply regenerative agricultural practices which prioritize soil health, biodiversity, and ecosystem resilience and not only sustain our vineyard but also contribute to the overall health of our local biome as a whole. We also “dry farm” where supplemental irrigation is kept to the minimum as a means to produce richer, more complex and concentrated finished wine. The more the vines have to struggle, the more complex and concentrated the wines will be.
As for what happens in the winery, we believe that the less done, the better. Ninety-five percent of good wine is made in the vineyard before the fruit is harvested. We harvest at optimum ripeness and vinify as simply as possible. We use both French and American Oak, do minimal racking and no filtering for the reds.
THE WINEMAKERS
Phill Maddux, Owner / Senior Winemaker
Phil has been making wine since 1971. Born and raised in Sonoma County, he started making wine the early ‘70s when Napa and Sonoma were just getting started. He combines over thirty years of home wine making, 17 years of commercial wine making with wine chemistry and viticulture courses at Sonoma State University, UC Davis and Consumnes River Community College from 1971 to the present. Well known California winemakers Dick Arrowood (Chateau St. Jean, Arrowood Vineyards) and Cecil DeLoach (DeLoach Vineyards and Hook & Ladder Winery) are among his “personal mentors.”
Matt Stone, Vineyard Manager/Winemaker/ Wine Pourer (also…Plumber/Electrician/Shepard/IT Support/Psychiatrist/Director of Fun and Everything Else Under the Sun)
Phil’s right- hand man and dubbed by the Maddux family as Lone Buffalo’s “Jack of All Trades” Matt Stone. Matt was born and raised in San Jose, CA. He has Bachelor’s Degrees in Urban Planning & Sociology from University of California, San Diego and Master’s Degrees in Organic Agriculture & Forestry from the Technical University of Munich, Germany. During his studies in Germany, he specialized in the drought tolerance of perennial plants and utilized his skillset to travel to drought prone areas around Europe to help them grow better grapes during times of low water availability. He subsequently learned winemaking by apprenticing under Vignerons who have been crafting wine and passing down ancestral knowledge of the land for centuries in Germany, Italy, and France. Be sure to come by the winery and say “Hi” to Matt. You can find him in the tasting room most Fridays and Saturdays from 12-5.
THE VINEYARDS & WINERY
Our original vineyards in South Auburn were planted to Zinfandel, Syrah, Tempranillo, Sangiovese and Viognier. With our move to a larger property in North Auburn in January of 2013, the estate vineyards are now planted to Syrah, Zinfandel, Tempranillo and Malbec. We also buy supplementary varietals (primarily Viognier. Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Mourvedre and Grenache) from other premium Sierra Foothills growers. We employ sustainable practices — we don’t disc between the rows (we mow), we maintain a cover crop of clover, we limit chemicals and pesticides to wettable sulphur for powdery mildew control and we spread the pommace from the wine production on the vineyard as mulch. We practice “deficit irrigation” or “dry farming” (watering as little as possible) which means we generally don’t water at all until July, and then only one or two extended sessions (24 to 48 hours) by drip for the rest of the season. We believe making the vines struggle a bit produces wines with richer, more intense fruit flavors.
Our winery sits on a twelve acre parcel of historic Placer County farmland. It was split off from a larger parcel (the Historic J.V. Ranch) which is still owned by the same family who started farming pears and other stone fruit over six generations ago. The 2400 square foot winery building houses tasting, production and storage and is constructed from energy efficient, state-of-the-art pre-insulated metal siding – yet still achieves a rustic and classic farm/ranch style fit for both cowboys and kings.
EVENTS
Food Trucks on Deck – Thanksgiving Weekend
November 30 @ 12:00 pm - December 1 @ 5:00 pm
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