About The Vineyard...

Starting in 1999, we began an experiment with the Sangiacomo family and Pinot Gris. Based on that initial success, we embarked on a larger scale project, and the Sangiacomo’s planted 2 acres of Pinot Gris exclusively for Ancien, using clones that we imported from Alsace. The rich, clay soils and eastern aspect of the site, coupled with the farming expertise of the Sangiacomo’s, produces ideal fruit for the richer flavored, fuller bodied, well structured Alsatian style that we are striving to produce. The vineyard has matured nicely, yielding consistently ripe fruit with bracing acidity. We are the sole winery that is sourcing Pinot Gris from this special plot, our “vineyard-within-the-vineyard.”

About The Vintage...

Ample rain brought an end to our five-year drought and the 2017 vintage produced the high quality of fruit that we had enjoyed in the prior seasons.  It was an unusually wet year that gave us vigorous vines and an abundance of fruit.  Record-breaking heat in the days leading to harvest fully ripened the grapes, developing sugar and flavor, while cool nights ensured wines would retain mouthwatering acidity.  Our harvest wrapped up, with wine aging in barrel and safe from smoke damage, long before the October fires visited Napa. 

About The Wine...

We pressed aggressively for maximum extraction of the exotic spices and to gain additional structure. We then separated press fractions in order to insure the proper development of structure and lushness while in barrel. We fermented the must entirely in neutral French oak barrels at a cool 50 °F, capturing and retaining rich fruit flavors while also developing a lush, expansive palate. In addition, we stirred lees to enhance texture and develop additional layers.  518 cases produced.

Tasting Notes...

Delightful aromatics are enhanced by a refreshingly mineral mouthfeel and lingering finish.  A mélange of Asian pear and summer nectarine greet the nose, followed by subtler notes of fragrant white flowers, fresh Granny Smith apples, and tangerine zest.  On the palate, citrus-kissed stone fruit complements star fruit and green apple leading to a lingering finish of peach and grapefruit.  Pair this with grilled meats, seafood, pastas with olive oil or cream sauces, Asian cuisine...the combination of its rich mid-palate, smooth tannins, and acidic structure make this wine unusually versatile at the table.

About The Vineyard…

Toyon Farm, owned by Ed and Camille Penhoet, is located on a southwest-facing slope on the eastern (Napa) side of the Carneros.  The topsoil is dark rich clay, averaging just around 24 inches in depth.  These soils promote a dark, brooding fruit, emphasizing texture and tannin.  The Toyon designate is now entirely from a block of Pinot noir planted on the north slope of the vineyard.   The cuttings are originally from a famous vineyard in Burgundy, via Ed Penhoet’s River Ranch vineyard planted in the ‘70s.  As the original source of the Pisoni vineyard – it also referred to as “Pisoni Clone” or River Ranch selection.

About The Vintage...

Ample rain brought an end to our five-year drought and the 2017 vintage produced the high quality of fruit that we had enjoyed in the prior seasons.  It was an unusually wet year with a mild spring that allowed the vigorous vines to flower extensively.  Record-breaking heat in the days leading to harvest fully ripened the grapes, developing sugar and flavor, while cool nights ensured wines would retain mouthwatering acidity.  Our harvest wrapped up, with wine aging in barrel and safe from smoke damage, long before the October fires visited Napa.  Ultimately, we were gifted a smaller vintage than the originally anticipated and we were very happy with the high quality of the grapes.  Deliciously juicy, our wines excited our palates months before bottling!

 About The Wine…

We separated the entire lot into 1 ton, open-top fermenters, employing traditional punch-downs by hand in order to achieve optimal extraction.  About 5% of the fruit was fermented as whole clusters.  The wine was aged in an array of French cooperage, nearly half new, and gently racked once prior to bottling.  Grapes, must, and wines were moved using gravity through to the barrel and with a gentle push of inert gas through racking and bottling.  45 cases produced.

Tasting Notes...

Our single vineyard designation from Carneros showcases the power and complex depth of Toyon Farm terroir.  Dark and well spiced, the rich mouthfeel of this wine is intoxicatingly smooth.  The bouquet is filled with notes of dark berries and earthy spiced herbs.  The brooding palate, dominated by mouth-coating tannins and mid-palate flavors of mocha and raspberry, is balanced with palate-lifting acidity.  It finishes round with chewy chocolaty tannins that accentuate a luxuriating finish that offers promise for greater things to come. This deep and balanced wine is structured to age gracefully for years, revealing ever-evolving velvety layers to explore and enjoy.

About The Vineyard…

The Mink Vineyard is located next door to the winery, in the Coombsville Viticultural Area of Napa Valley.  Open to the same morning fogs and afternoon breezes that cool Carneros to the west, Coombsville is consistently one of the coolest pockets in Napa.  Mink sits inside a small “bowl”, allowing cooler air to settle during the evenings, and making Mink’s mesoclimate a couple degrees cooler, even, than the surrounding hills.  But the real secret to Mink’s explosive flavors, smooth, mouth-coating minerality, comes from the soil. Underneath is a layer of compressed volcanic ash, called tufa. The tufa drains the topsoil, storing moisture in its porous structure. The vines are able, with some work, to grow roots into the tufa layer, accessing moisture during the long, dry growing season.

About The Vintage…

Ample rain brought an end to our five-year drought and the 2017 vintage produced the high quality of fruit that we had enjoyed in the prior seasons.  It was an unusually wet year with a mild spring that allowed the vigorous vines to flower extensively.  Record-breaking heat in the days leading to harvest fully ripened the grapes, developing sugar and flavor, while cool nights ensured wines would retain mouthwatering acidity.  Our harvest wrapped up, with wine aging in barrel and safe from smoke damage, long before the October fires visited Napa.  Ultimately, we were gifted a smaller vintage than the originally anticipated and we were very happy with the high quality of the grapes.  Deliciously juicy, our wines excited our palates months before bottling!

About The Wine…

The grapes were destemmed into small, one-ton, open-top fermenters, with traditional hand punch downs, and aged the wine in Billon cooperage, a barrel that tends to sit subtly underneath the delicate fruit, lifting aromas without crowding them.  The wines were racked once, gently, prior to bottling.   Grapes, must, and wines were moved using gravity through to the barrel and a gentle push with inert gas through racking and bottling.  258 cases produced.

Tasting Notes…

We love this opulent vintage from our tiny two and a half acre vineyard in Coombsville.  Juicy blueberry jam notes blend with pomegranate and preserved mandarin.  Fine, chalky tannins and minerality balance the hedonism of the Mink fruit and beckon you in for another mouthwatering sip.  A unique offering from this corner of Napa, this softly textural wine will excite the senses with its many complexities.  Age in the bottle will reveal the underlying depth of this wine as it evolves and broadens on the palate.

A HISTORIC VINEYARD...

The Old Block of the Haynes Vineyard, located in a cool pocket of the southeastern Napa Valley, is a part of California winemaking history.  Among the vines in the Old Block of Haynes Vineyard Chardonnay, Ken found through examining and tasting the grapes that a handful of these vines showed “musque" characteristics.  A selection of these specific vines led to our Musque Chardonnay.

ABOUT THE VINTAGE...

The 2017 vintage began with plenty of rain, giving us plenty of reason to be optimistic about the growing season as we enjoyed a mild spring that allowed the vigorous vines to flower extensively.  After a bizarre hail storm in June, summer heat spurts served to fully ripen grapes right before harvest time.  Ultimately, we were gifted a smaller vintage than the originally anticipated and we were very happy with the high quality of the grapes.  All of our wines were aging safely in barrel well ahead of the fall wild fires visited Napa Valley.  Deliciously juicy, our wines excited our palates months before bottling!

ABOUT THE WINE...

Our Musque Chardonnay bottling is the culmination of a multi-year selection process at the Haynes Vineyard in Coombsville.  Grapes were tasted and selected on a vine-by-vine basis evaluating for the rare “musque” character.  The cuttings were then taken and planted to two rows in another section of the vineyard, which yield just a couple barrels each vintage.  The vines are all varietal Chardonnay, but possess the unique clonal traits lending the floral “terpene” aromatics reminiscent of varieties like Muscat, Viognier or Gewurtztraminer - though certainly in more subtle fashion. This wine was made much in the same way as our other Chardonnays, fermented entirely in French cooperage.  Bottling was done after a total of 9 months in barrel.  88 cases produced.

TASTING NOTES...

An ethereal mélange of fruit-kissed floral notes await you in this bottle!   Juicy tropical fruits abound revealing notes of lychee, papaya and pineapple guava.  Over the first year of release this wine continues to develop its intoxicating mixture of fruit and floral.   While the lush, opulent texture of this wine point to this is as 100% Chardonnay, its uniquely bright and vibrant aromatics will keep your friends guessing about just what grape could create such a delight for the senses.

About The Vineyard…

Gilbert Perez’s two acre vineyard in the southwestern corner of the appellation, only nominally protected by the coastal hills and open to the maritime influence of the Pacific Ocean, is the single source for these grapes.  The soils here are sandy loam and very well drained, typical for the Russian River Valley. The cooler sections of Russian River, near Sebastopol, are known for producing explosive and aromatic fruit flavors balanced with acidity and earthy aromas.  All seventeen rows are planted with Dijon 115 clones, which tend to add perfumed aromas and light spice notes to the lush fruitiness obtained from the soils.

About The Vintage...

Ample rain brought an end to our five-year drought and the 2017 vintage produced the high quality of fruit that we had enjoyed in the prior seasons.  It was an unusually wet year with a mild spring that allowed the vigorous vines to flower extensively.  Record-breaking heat in the days leading to harvest fully ripened the grapes, developing sugar and flavor, while cool nights ensured wines would retain mouthwatering acidity.  Our harvest wrapped up, with wine aging in barrel and safe from smoke damage, long before the October fires visited Napa.  Ultimately, we were gifted a smaller vintage than the originally anticipated and we were very happy with the high quality of the grapes.  Deliciously juicy, our wines excited our palates months before bottling!

About the Wine...

We fermented in our one ton, open-top tanks, layering the bottom 25% of each tank with whole clusters of fruit, adding structure and spice notes to the back palate and balancing the otherwise plush fruit of Gilbert’s Vineyard.  A warm fermentation with a combination of native and isolated Burgundian yeasts produced excellent and focused flavor extraction, complemented with traditional punch-downs by hand. The wine was aged entirely in Francois Freres cooperage, half new, and racked once, gently, prior to bottling.  Grapes, must, and wines were moved using gravity through to the barrel and using inert gas through racking and bottling.   241 cases produced.

Tasting Notes...

Notes of strawberry and tart pie cherry are accompanied by notes of sweet vanillin, toasted hazelnut and coffee as an introduction to this joyfully juicy blend of rich fruit and earthy spice. The wine opens to a well integrated mid-palate of dark berries, toffee and cassis.  The broad palate is elevated and brightened with a mouthwatering acidity that welcomes this wine to the table.  Sassafras, herbal notes and baking spices are revealed in the satisfying finish.

About The Vineyard…

Our Carneros Pinot Noir comes entirely from the Toyon Vineyard, located in the Napa side of Carneros.  This vineyard was originally planted for us in 1998 with cuttings tracing back to the Swan estate in Sonoma County and Dijon 115 - followed by cuttings from Ed Penhoet’s vineyard in Carmel Valley.  Ed’s selection from River Selection is a story into itself (ask us sometime!), and is sometimes referred as “Pisoni Clone” since Gary Pisoni took cuttings from the vineyard in the early ‘80s.  

About The Vintage...

We received much needed rain in the winter of 2015, which put us back on the road to having healthier levels of soil moisture.  The 2016 vintage began early, much like the previous vintages, and the optimal growing season caused us to speculate that this would be a very early harvest as well.  An unseasonably cool spell visited us mid-summer, slowing down growth.  After this brief spell, very warm days followed by cool nights finished off the growing season, giving us a great balance of ripe fruit and mouthwatering acidity.  While not as early as projected, our harvest still ended up wrapping up long before the rains of October came.

About The Wine…

We separated the entire lot into one ton, open-top fermenters, employing traditional punch-downs by hand in order to achieve optimal extraction.  About 5% of the fruit was fermented as whole clusters.  The wine was aged in an array of French cooperage, nearly half new, and gently racked once prior to bottling.  Grapes, must, and wines were moved using gravity through to the barrel and using inert gas through racking and bottling.
699 cases produced.

Tasting Notes...

Carneros spice blends in an endless symphony with wild berry notes.  Delicious blueberry notes grace the palate and combine seamlessly with hints of dark chocolate and juicy Asian plum.  The palate is round and full of textural, mouth-coating tannins balanced by a bright acidity.   Broad chewy tannins, earthy spices and minerality complement the fruit and exotic floral notes of this wine.  The palate will continue to develop in opulence over years of aging, revealing even darker layers and an increasingly smooth texture.

A Historic Vineyard…

In 1966, Pat and Duncan Haynes planted their vineyard to Martini Pinot Noir and Wente Chardonnay.  In the 47 years that have passed since then, there have been many significant changes in the science and technology of viticulture.  However, not every supposed advance results in an improvement quality. These old school, widely spaced, cane pruned vines have found a most perfect balance point as tended by Fernando Delgado since 1970.  He prunes each vine individually, according to its strength and potential, choosing which canes to keep and how many canes and shoots that each vine will grow. There is no technological substitute for this level of knowledge and experience coupled with pure love for the vine and its fruit. 

About The Vintage...

We received much needed rain in the winter of 2015, which put us back on the road to having healthier levels of soil moisture.  The 2016 vintage began early, much like the previous vintages, and the optimal growing season caused us to speculate that this would be a very early harvest as well.  An unseasonably cool spell visited us mid-summer, slowing down growth.  After this brief spell, very warm days followed by cool nights finished off the growing season, giving us a great balance of ripe fruit and mouthwatering acidity.  While not as early as projected, our harvest still ended up wrapping up long before the rains of October came.

About The Wine...

Inspired by the classic and most revered Chardonnay vineyard in the world, Le Montrachet, we utilize the same classic techniques.  It is fermented in tight-grained French Oak cask after a gentle squeeze as whole clusters.  The wine is not moved through the fermentation and aging period, only pushed by inert gas in gentle fashion into the bottling tank.  In vintages where the wine achieves good clarity through natural settling, the wine is not filtered – otherwise it undergoes a light polish to help reveal is core of fruit.  45 cases produced.

Tasting Notes...

Notes of lemon meringue and hints of lychee and key lime leap from the glass.  The palate is vibrant and fresh, and the richly textured mouth-feel is expansive, finishing long to showcase the power of these old vines.  Baked apple tart and ripe pear emerge from the full-bodied midpalate, brightened by notes lemon and kaffir lime.  The focused finish features a powerful amalgamation of ripe fruit, baking spices and minerality.  A white for red drinkers, this is a cellar worthy Chardonnay that will reveal increasing complex textural layers as it evolves over the years.

A Historic Vineyard…

In 1966, Pat and Duncan Haynes planted their vineyard to Martini Pinot Noir and Wente Chardonnay.  In the 52 years that have passed since then, there have been many significant changes in the science and technology of viticulture.  However, not every supposed advance results in an improvement quality. These old school, widely spaced, cane pruned vines have found a most perfect balance point as tended by Fernando Delgado since 1970.  He prunes each vine individually, according to its strength and potential, choosing which canes to keep and how many canes and shoots that each vine will grow. There is no technological substitute for this level of knowledge and experience coupled with pure love for the vine and its fruit.

About The Vintage...

We received much needed rain in the winter of 2015, which put us back on the road to having healthier levels of soil moisture.  The 2016 vintage began early, much like the previous vintages, and the optimal growing season caused us to speculate that this would be a very early harvest as well.  An unseasonably cool spell visited us mid-summer, slowing down growth.  After this brief spell, very warm days followed by cool nights finished off the growing season, giving us a great balance of ripe fruit and mouthwatering acidity.  While not as early as projected, our harvest still ended up wrapping up long before the rains of October came.

About the wine...

Before the harvest, Ken and Fernando walk these rows together and mark the most flavorful old vines from the original planting.  Only the original and healthiest vines are allowed to be included in this limited pick to produce this very special wine.   After the careful vine-by-vine selection in the field, classic Ancien small lot winemaking is performed using one gravity-filled fermenter, punched down by hand. 78 cases produced

Tasting Notes...

With its brilliant garnet color, this wine always displays balance, grace, and the most velvety of textures.  A lovely bouquet of roses and red licorice intermix with notes of cocoa, berries, sandalwood, and toasted grains to invite your first sip.  The fruit concentrates on the mid-palate somewhat, revealing subtle notes of cherry pie and earl grey tea.  The legendary palate is expansive, bright with acidity layered into a silky texture. It finishes with a light, understated grip, and moves backward through the finish.  It continues to evolve toward more earthen and mineral notes, spreading to coat the entire palate and continue to reveal new aromas.

About The Vineyard...

Dick Shea planted his first vines in the late 80’s, just a few short years after Ken Bernards moved from his birthplace in the Willamette Valley to Napa to work his first harvest.  The vineyards have grown, along with Shea’s reputation for quality, and today his vines produce a disproportionately large percentage of the most renowned Willamette Pinot Noirs.  Good sedimentary soils, sitting on two well-drained hillsides, along with careful, sustainable farming practices, routinely yield quality, well-ripened fruit in a viticultural area known for wide vintage variation.  Both wine makers and wine connoisseurs look to Shea for Pinot Noirs with density, structure, and intense, spicy fruit. 

About The Vintage...

The warm, but not hot growing season of 2016 was as long or longer than previous vintages and began with an early bud break and ended by the beginning of October.  With no pressure from the weather, growers were able to relax throughout the year and enjoy a warm, dry harvest.  The vintage was ripe, aromatic, and showed more restraint than the previous more opulent vintages.

About The Wine...

Ken Bernards returns to the land of his youth, Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Working with fruit grown this far from the winery produces special challenges and requires an extremely high element of trust between the wine maker and the grower.  Dick Shea’s farming skills are up to this challenge. This was the last fruit that we harvested.  It fermented traditionally in one ton, open top containers using hand punch downs to achieve optimal extraction.  Gravity provided movement from reception through pressing with inert gas used from then on.  It was aged in François Frères and Remond cooperage for sixteen months and racked once in the springtime.  203 cases produced.

Tasting Notes...

Another outstanding vintage from the revered Shea Vineyard!  Earthy, organic aromas accompanied by a fruit kissed perfume tantalize you in for a taste.  The rich, tilled earth is peppered with light toasty notes, dried floral perfumes, clover, rose petal and geranium flower.  Lifted aromatics of huckleberry and wild strawberry give beautiful balance to characteristic notes of earthiness.  The broad palate is generous with brambly plum and blueberry, which complement mouth-coating tannins.  While the finesse of this vintage makes it enjoyable in its youth, you can also expect many years of cellar worthiness!

About The Vineyard…

The Fiddlestix Vineyard is located in the Sta. Rita Hills AVA, which straddle the Santa Ynez River as it makes its way to the Pacific Ocean. As an East-West oriented valley, opening its mouth to the cool Pacific breezes, the consistent and cooling marine influence is significant. The vineyard is managed and owned in partnership by Kathy Joseph, who has planted an array of clones and rootstocks on several, varied soils to create a staggering level of diversity from this single vineyard. The remarkably consistent weather, characterized by lower highs and higher lows than our North Coast vineyards, conspires with silica-laden, marine sedimentary soils to make wines of power and exceptional structure. This vintage marks our eighth working with Kathy and this remarkable vineyard.

About The Vintage...

We received much needed rain in the winter of 2015, which put us back on the road to having healthier levels of soil moisture.  The 2016 vintage began early, much like the previous vintages, and the optimal growing season caused us to speculate that this would be a very early harvest as well.  An unseasonably cool spell visited us mid-summer, slowing down growth.  After this brief spell, very warm days followed by cool nights finished off the growing season, giving us a great balance of ripe fruit and mouthwatering acidity.  While not as early as projected, our harvest still ended up wrapping up long before the rains of October came.

About The Wine...

The grapes were 100% destemmed into an open top fermenter and cold soaked for 5 days.  We utilized a combination of hand punch-downs and a submerged cap device in order to optimally control extraction from the skins.   We fermented with a combination of RC212 and Assmannshausen yeasts, with a peak temperature of 94°F.  The wine was aged for 17 months in an array of Francois Frères and Remond cooperage, entirely of Bertrange Oak and a majority new.  We held the wine in bottle for nearly a year before release.  
207 cases produced.

Tasting Notes...

Youthfully bold with notes of fruit and exotic spice, this wine is enjoyable to drink now with plenty of life to give for years down the line.  The nose greets with rich notes of black cherry, ripe blueberry, wet slate, and blood orange.  Fresh dark fruits lead the palate, and the focus settles on ripe flavors of blackberry and currants spiced with peppercorn and tobacco.  The firm, velvety and mouth-filling tannins emphasize structure, while ever present acidity balances and brightens. The spicy aromatics and flavors continue through the long finish.  Cellaring this wine for a decade or beyond will reveal a silky texture hidden beneath layers of relatively powerful tannins that dominate its early years.

About The Vineyard…

Our Chardonnay owes it style, depth, and structure to intensely flavored, low yielding, heirloom clones growing in two Carneros vineyards: on the Napa side, the Toyon Farm and on the Sonoma side, the Sangiacomo Vella Ranch. We hand-selected the cuttings ourselves, from older vineyards in the Carneros area. These cuttings are reputed to have origins tracing to Paul Masson who imported them from Burgundy in the early 1940’s, from Louis Latour's renowned Corton Charlemagne vineyard. These selections are often referred to as “Old Wente” or “Robert Young,” denoting the sourced mother blocks in the 1960s.

About The Vintage...

Small but intense, the 2015 vintage did not give us a lot of fruit to work with but what we received yielded outstanding wines. The drought continued and its effects were only exacerbated by unseasonable weather – warm in the winter on into spring resulted in early bud break, yet cold weather during flowering resulted in an uneven fruit set, which ultimately meant smaller crops. Once summer arrived, it brought warmth with it and led to another early harvesting vintage. Attention to detail in the vineyard meant that the grapes that made it to harvest were high quality . . . giving us wines with exciting flavors and a lot of personality!

About The Wine...

We aspire to guide our Chardonnay toward a layered, complex, and expressive style that develops gracefully in the bottle and shows enticing minerality, vivacious fruit, length and structure. For us, the watchword is balance. We pressed the grapes as whole clusters, settled and fermented entirely in French oak from four different coopers, chosen for their unique synergism and support of the fruit on the palate. One third of the barrels were new. We used a variety of yeasts, including native strains, and fermentation proceeded evenly and slowly, averaging a cool 55°F. The wine was aged on its yeast lees, which were stirred weekly through the spring. 460 cases produced.

Tasting Notes...

A beautiful mélange of citrus and pomaceous fruit, perfumed with light notes of freesia. Bright tangerine zest and creamy lemon meringue dominate, softened by notes of pear and apple blossom. Bright acidity with a generous and opulent mouthfeel caresses the palate and leads into a finish that will continue to lengthen in the coming months.  Give this complex vintage time to open up in the glass and show the full array of Old Wente Chardonnay beauty.