Hoffmann Vineyards is a veteran/family owned and operated small business based in Applegate, Michigan and Fallbrook, California. The venture began when John Hoffmann, a 21 year veteran of the US Navy and original founding partner of Hoffmann Vineyards, purchased a 50 acre Malbec and Bonarda vineyard with four other partners in Mendoza, Argentina in 2003. John and his partners’ objective was to grow and produce premium Malbec wines for a local Michigan winery from manually farmed high quality grapes in the most celebrated Malbec wine region in the world. John and his three sons assumed ownership and management of the vineyard in 2013 and produced their first Malbec vintage in 2015 in collaboration with Mark Johnson of Chateau Chantel Winery in Michigan and José Girotti of Tamascal Winery in Mendoza under the Three Boys Rock and Pirates Rock labels. Hoffmann Vineyards added Malbec Especial and Rufous Red Blend Reserve wines in 2019 and has recently planted Merlot, Syrah, Petite Verdot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Chardonnay grapes to offer more varieties and blending opportunities for our wines. Today, John’s three sons, Raymond, Harold and Donald manage and operate the vineyard. Raymond produces the wines with Tamascal Winery winemaker José Girotti and local Mendoza enologists José Di Marco and Carolina Colqui. The Hoffmann, Girotti, Colqui and Di Marco families have over 100 years of Argentine, Italian and California winemaking heritage. Together, our objective is to produce great Malbec wines.
Our Wines
Three Boys Rock
Hoffmann Vineyards produces super premium Malbec wines that started with the first release of our brand Three Boys Rock and Pirates Rock Malbec in 2015. Pirates Rock is 100% fruit forward Malbec aged in concrete vats and Three Boys Rock is 100% Malbec aged in French oak. All of our grapes are hand-picked with our reserve and top reserve selections carefully chosen and harvested from optimum sections of the vineyard then hand sorted to produce our best wines. In 2016, we released our first “reserve” Malbec produced from grapes that were hand-picked and sorted from the older vines in the vineyard and aged in French oak barrels. 2017, 2021 and 2023 great years for our vineyard and produced the finest quality grapes we’ve harvested.
MALBEC Reserve Especial/Rufous Red Blend
Hoffmann Vineyards first reserve wines released in January 2022 under the Hoffmann Vineyards label. Malbec Especial is 100% Malbec aged in French oak barrels and Rufous Red Blend is 65% Malbec and 35% Cabernet Sauvignon aged in French and American oak barrels. Both reserve wines are a collaborative effort with our partners at Tamascal Winery in Mendoza. These special vintages are highlighted on our new Hoffmann Vineyards label depicting the vineyard in Lujan de Cuyo with the massive Andes mountain view in the background.
Why the Bird on the Red Blend label?
Rufous Red Blend features the Rufous Hornero (Red Ovenbird), the Argentinian National Bird, on the label. Our label artist, Vicky Enright, came up with the idea and it seemed fitting to honor our collaboration with the Girotti family in making the Malbec/Cabernet blend with an Argentinian symbol.
More about our vineyard…
Our vineyard, as depicted by a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student Dominic Juliano, highlights Cerro El Platta soaring 19,520 feet above sea level. The vines consist of 100% Malbec in two trellised variations, espalier and canopy. The entire vineyard is irrigated by well in a combination drip and flood system to provide ample water to the vines early in the growing season. The oldest sections of the vineyard were planted in the 1980’s and make up the majority of the vineyard. We replanted two smaller sections of the vineyard beginning in 2013 and recently added Merlot, Syrah, Petite Verdot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay grapes to offer more variety to our winemaking production. Hoffmann Vineyards produces Reserve and Reserve Especial vintages only from the finest grapes in select portions of the vineyard in consultation with our agronomist Juan Argerich and enologists José Di Marco and Carolina Colqui throughout the growing season and at harvest. We source Cabernet Sauvignon from our partners at Tamascal to produce a truly spectacular Reserve Especial Malbec Cabernet blend.
Veteran/family Owned Small Business
Hoffmann Vineyards is a veteran and family owned small business - we have over 60 years of combined service as Naval Aviators and continual service between 1957 and 2007. Collectively, we completed ten combat deployments aboard USS’ Franklin D. Roosevelt, Coral Sea, Kitty Hawk, Carl Vinson and John C. Stennis and nearly 1500 carrier landings in various aircraft including E-1 Tracer, E-2 Hawkeye, A-7 Corsair and FA-18 Hornet.