The sun was coming down rather intensely on a late afternoon in Napa, occasionally ducking behind a cloud for a moment, only to reemerge shortly thereafter with renewed tenacity. I was in one of my favorite places in the entire world, but I was burdened by a seemingly unfair number of pressures...
The Napa Valley is as old as it is well-known, though what few realize is just how diminutive the nation's most famous wine region truly is. Accounting for less than 5% of California's total wine production, from point to point, the Napa Valley runs no more than thirty miles in length, from Mt....
The northern Napa Valley was still a thickly forested, rugged terrain, and a difficult place to navigate when Jacob Schram set forth to establish the second winery in the area, one year after Charles Krug had opened up shop just a little ways to the south. Krug was a Prussian immigrant, Schram a...
I got one for ya: The manager of a wine bar, a sommelier, two wine writers, and two college students are all sitting on a front porch one evening drinking expensive Napa Cabs, and they unanimously conclude that Sutter Home is easily one of the most important wineries in the entire wine industry....
Peter Mondavi (moan-dah-vee), for much of his early life Peter Mondavi (mon-day-vee), died on February the 20th, 2016, in his home in St. Helena, California, just about two weeks prior to my visit to his winery. My flights were already booked, and I had born no real expectation of meeting the...
So many of the historic wineries of the Napa Valley exist in stone and splendor, chateaus in name or in appearance, carved into massive hillsides, previously the toys of those wealthy enough to experiment with wine in a place that, at that time, no one was sure could produce it. Their names are...
My wife became pregnant during the winter of 2014, and in September of the following year, little Titus was born. Somewhere between those two points in time, I discovered something that interested me greatly: One of the most outstanding Cabernet Sauvignons on the market, then and now, shared the...
The Ledson Winery in Sonoma is about people. I didn't yet realize that the first time my wife, Sonja, and I visited the grand estate on our honeymoon many years ago. At the time, it seemed like just another grandiose winery in the Sonoma Valley, producing fantastic wines because, well, because...
When I think of Rombauer wines, I think first of overstatement. Their famous Zinfandel typically sits just under a hot 16%, while their notorious Chardonnay, unaffectionately known as cougar juice by many in the wine industry, tastes a lot like an oak stave slathered in butter. These are...
A heavy fog lay draped across an historic block of vineyard, dividing the world into two at eye level and serving as a curtain to partially shield the world -and the vines -- from the bright and rising sun. I took in this scene, idyllic, serene, and indistinguishable in time, from my second...
Randle Johnson is a slender man, appearing to be perhaps in his late 50's, with graying hair, a gentle smile, and a persistent warmth and generosity of spirit that he unknowingly projects with every firm handshake and warm embrace. The senior winemaker for the esteemed Hess Collection, Randle...
Forty years ago, the name Napa Valley meant little to anyone who wasn't already living there. To those in the wine industry, it was something of a cute experiment, the residents of the area apparently harboring some vague and unrealistic notion that they could make wine that the rest of the...