Graham Wehmeier

The Climb

At Cornell Vineyards in Santa Rosa, Spring Mountain (2018), Graham Wehmeier worked as winemaker in the kind of early role that tests judgment fast: site, timing, and restraint have to come into focus before a cellar style does. That experience sits behind the later work at Diamond Creek Vineyards, where the same discipline is applied to a single-estate frame.

Today

At Diamond Creek Vineyards in Calistoga since 2020, the work is split across vineyard and cellar, with the two kept in direct conversation. As winemaker and viticulturist, Graham Wehmeier reads the estate through slope, soil, heat, and shade, then carries that reading into single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. The point is not to erase difference but to hold it steady. In his own words: "The vineyards are very different in terms of temperature, Gravelly Meadow being the coolest, Volcanic Hill being the warmest. When we taste them side by side, the hand print of the three vineyards is quite strong."

Signature

Volcanic Hill, Gravelly Meadow, Red Rock Terrace, and Lake are the signature wines tied to Graham Wehmeier at Diamond Creek. The set is built around site expression rather than broad styling, with each bottling carrying its own balance of texture, ripeness, and structure inside the same Cabernet framework. Taken together, they show how the estate is worked as a sequence of distinct parcels, not a single blended message.

In Their Words “The vineyards are very different in terms of temperature, Gravelly Meadow being the coolest, Volcanic Hill being the warmest. When we taste them side by side, the hand print of the three vineyards is quite strong.”

Recognition

The current benchmark of Graham Wehmeier’s work is the Diamond Creek model itself: vineyard interpretation and winemaking housed in the same role, with the estate read vineyard by vineyard rather than flattened into a uniform style. It is a practical recognition of what the site gives, and of the labor required to keep those differences legible in the finished wine.