Quintessa Winery is a curved architecturally pleasing building which physically sits very low to the ground. It is located on the west side of the Silverado trail just north of the Rutherford Cross Road. Their vineyards are Bio-Dynamically farmed and the winery was founded in 1989 by well-known Chilean vintners Agustin Huneeus and his wife Valeria. Briefly, Biodynamically farming involves three things; you build the soil naturally using special natural compost, philosophically farm (prune and harvest based on phases of the moon and planets, and control pests and diseases without chemicals (cover crops, use plants that attract beneficial insects). Quintessa specializes in one Ultra Premium Cabernet Sauvignon each vintage; this wine is reflective of their great attention to detail in the vineyards as well as with the wine making. Their motto is "fine wine is a reflection of place" and their wines reflect the specific terroir regions on their property. This was one of the last large (280 acres) "virgin" Napa Valley floor properties available at the time of purchase in 1989. This property had never been planted to grapes before; it sits in the Rutherford appellation and is weighted with hillside vineyards but also a mix of valley floor property. For the complete Quintessa experience take one of their tri-daily tours. You will start your tour with a walk up the hill behind the winery to an overlook with great views of the valley floor in the distance, many of their vineyards and the large pond below which dates from the 1930's. From here you can walk into the edge of one of the vineyards. Next up is a tour of the 17,000 square foot wine caves, a visit to the actual winery facility and then your tour ends with a sit down tasting. Wondering what those raised square boxes are that sit on top of the roof located near the parking? Those "boxes" actually open and are used during harvest for dropping the grapes below to the actual tanks. Note the large steel riveted box that sits next to the elevator in the winery. When Quintessa finished the winery they invited many well known Napa winemakers to bring some of their best vintages of wine. Notables like Araujo Estate, Harlan, Screaming Eagle, Shafer and many others brought their wine and sealed it inside this climate controlled steel box. This will be opened in 2051 and will be donated to the Premier Napa Valley wine auction. Whoever runs up the winning bid on this item is going to be very pleased indeed...and yes for something of this value its going to be a serious bid! All the signatures of the owners and winemakers who contributed wine are listed on a plaque above the box. The architects have done a great job with this building - from the outside you cannot get a feel for the fairly large space available in the actual winery facility. It is set back inside the hillside and 'unobtrusive' is a good word to describe how well Quintessa fits into the surrounding landscape. A nice warm fire will greet you for cold winter day tastings once you walk inside the main entrance. It is a very cozy atmosphere. The tasting facility is situated against the main stone part of the building and glass is built into the roof so you always have a neat ambient light shining into the room. The actual sit down wine tasting is in an intimate room - only 5 or 6 small tables are available. Your personal wine guide will stand or sit next to your small table and discuss in detail each of the wines and how they are made. The famed French wine consultant Michel Roland consults for Quintessa. When he is in town for their blending decisions over 100 glasses are poured individually for him, the owner and the winemaker (over 300 glasses of wine in the same room) - each glass representing different vineyard blocks and parts of the property. Fortunately your sit down tasting is not this complex! Two main vineyard block samples are provided so that you can taste some of the individual components that make up the final blend and then you will taste the current vintage. We tried the 2005 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Initially the aromas are very earthy, almost gravelly - think of the smell of dust after the first rain...there is a reason why people talk about the "Rutherford Dust". Hints of tobacco and smoke round out the nose and as the wine opens up in the glass some of these earthy aromas blow off revealing layers of beautiful fruit. Notes of blackberry on the nose lead to a layered elegant palate of blackberry, plum and cherry. This elegant wine is wonderfully balanced and structured with a very smooth finish. Quintessa has a chef on site and during one of our visits we enjoyed some small delicious pairings with the wine. Try grass fed New York Steak with a green Tarragon Salsa or truffle scented Potato and Spring Vegetable Salad. Other visitors were speaking highly of the rosemary cayenne pepper coated cashew nuts. Nice! Reserve well in advance for busy summer and weekend tasting. Huneeus also runs a second label, called Faust which we have reviewed here. Visit: www.quintessa.com Overview of Quintessa:

Quick Info Open to Public: No Appointments: Yes Regular Tours: No Hours: 10-4pm Phone: 967-1601 Address: 1601 Silverado Trail - Rutherford Winery Photos Winery Website | View Comments (0) | | Add Comment |

Quivet Cellars focuses on extremely small production Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah using the finest artisan techniques, hands on winemaking, top vineyard sources and limited production often highly allocated French Oak barrels. Quivet Cellars is a partnership between four partners who needless to say, all have a passion for fine wine. The name Quivet comes from Quivet Neck, a very historical area in eastern Massachusetts located on the bay side of Cape Cod. Several of the partners involved with Quivet have strong family ties to this east coast region. One of the partners was introduced to Mike Smith who at the time was assisting Thomas Brown with some of his winemaking projects. Later Mike was asked to become Quivet's winemaker and has been on board since the beginning; Mike has already helped make wine for Napa notables, Schrader Cellars, Maybach and Outpost. Today he runs his own small label called Myriad which we have also reviewed **link here**. The source vineyard for Quivet's Syrah is from the Sonoma side of the Carneros region located close to the cooling effects of the San Pablo Bay. This is a cool weather Syrah but the actual vineyard site is located in a bowl, which helps protect the vineyard from the notorious windy conditions of the Carneros region and geographically helps retains additional heat. The vineyard site and terroir produces fruit which has excellent acidity year in and year out. It is always nice to try a Syrah that is balanced and doesn't show big amounts of pepper both in the bouquet and on the palate. We tried the 2006 vintage. The bouquet is elegant and balanced; it is very aromatic, almost perfumy. The bouquet shows an interesting display of cooking spices. The mouth feel is soft and rounded throughout; it is rich, plush and juicy with intense flavor including cherry and dark berry fruit. The long finish so characteristic of Mike Smith's hand crafted wines is clearly evident here. The good news is this is a very enjoyable wine; the bad news is only 48 cases were made. The 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon is sourced from the same vineyard as another Cabernet Sauvignon made for Mike's own label, Myriad Cellars (the fruit source is the same for both wines - even picked on the same day) but stylistically it is very interesting to notice the differences in part based on the different winemaking programs. This wine is sourced from a very steep hillside hand terraced vineyard at about 900 feet in the Mayacamas Mountains in the Spring Mountain Appellation. The nose starts out wonderfully with aromas of the smell of dry earth on a warm summers day, mineralities and crushed rock. Good spices and notes of cedar are also present. The palate is full of ripe fruit, boysenberry, and blackberry with notes of dark chocolate. A touch of toasted oak helps complete the finish which is well structured yet also very well balanced. Any notes of oak in this wine are subtle, found on the nose and then again on the finish. As with the Cabernet Sauvignon made from this vineyard for Myriad cellars, this wine is all about the terroir and well represents this particular vineyard site. Quivet also makes a Cabernet Sauvignon from the Kenefick Ranch located in the northern part of the valley. We had a chance to try a barrel sample of the 2007 vintage. While not yet built as a "complete wine" (still needing future blending), this is already a showy wine with great fruit with intense mouth filling flavors. Because of their extremely small distribution, Quivet's wines are available exclusively to mailing list customers. For more information visit: www.quivetcellars.com

Quick Info Open to Public: Private Appointments: No Regular Tours: No Hours: N/A Phone: 287-1630 Address: PO BOX 2016, St. Helena Winery Website | View Comments (0) | | Add Comment |

Quixote Winery is a real find in the Napa Valley and looks quite a bit different from all the other Napa wineries we have visited. Unfortunately we broke our first wine glass here, out of 600+ Napa wineries visited to date. We suspect the hand of the deceased designer somehow caused this mishap (see more about him below). If we had used a Go Vino glass this would never have happened! Quixote looks like a building out of a fairy tale; the reason being is that it was designed by the famous Viennese often nude artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928-2000). This is his only design located in the USA. He has a number of well-known works in Europe including a housing complex in Vienna in which some of the rooms in that building have real trees growing out of windows. His work is all about curvilinear forms and avoiding vertical design in structures. He tried to incorporate buildings that blend in with nature, hence the roof of this winery is covered with grass and trees. There were two large "hills" of dirt built up in front of the winery which now hide the building very well. One of his other philosophies was to never throw away construction materials even if they break so this winery has several sections constructed of broken material. It took over 7 years to construct, partly due to the rigidity of his design ideas - he would visit the winery and find something he didn't like (sometimes major) and it would have to be entirely torn down and reconstructed. Once he visited the winery during construction and whacked on a nice hand-made column with a hammer (imported from Europe). It looked too nice for his taste and he wanted to give it a broken look all the while the owner looked on in disbelief. The owner is the well-known Carl Doumani who originally owned the nearby Stags' Leap winery. His daughter is also a famous chef and runs Terra Restaurant in St. Helena. A cute story of their attempted first meeting: Carl was to meet Friedensreich in a restaurant but after some time Friedensreich's agent showed up and told Carl that Friedensreich had to cancel their meeting because he was spending some time with the "ladies". Friedensreich was truly a free soul who lived his life impulsively in strict accordance to his tastes, desires and imagination. The total production here is small - about 3000 cases with the focus being on Petite Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. All varietals for their wines are grown on site including the uncommon to Napa Grenache and Mourvedre. Their vineyards are farmed organically. The tasting is held in an intimate room - note the undulating floor so hold onto your chairs! The designer felt feet were best designed to walk on uneven surfaces. Also note that no two windows are alike in this room and this was done on purpose. We tasted about 7 wines. Their Quixote label was designed by Friedensreich (who was also a painter) and is their high end, high quality wine, typically 100% varietal. Their Panza label represents blended wines. The 2004 Claret is a delightful very fruity wine with wonderful flavor and mouth feel. The Cabernets we tasted were light to medium bodied, silky and smooth with great noses. Their philosophy is to not over oak a wine and as a result, the varietal characteristics really stand out. The 2004 Quixote Petite Syrah has a very fruit driven bouquet which follows onto the palate with both ripe blackberry and black cherry. Hints of chocolate, mocha and coffee are also on the nose. The finish is clean and long with beautiful silky tannins. Contrast this with the 2002 Quixote Petite Syrah which has more of an earthiness, minerality, and dusty quality to the nose. It is not as fruit driven as the 2002 but notes of plum, currant and blackberry are interwoven together nicely on the palate. Visit: www.quixotewinery.com

Quick Info Open to Public: No Appointments: Yes, Closed Mon & Tues Regular Tours: Yes Hours: Call Phone: 944-2659 Address: 6126 Silverado Trail, Napa Winery Photos Winery Website | View Comments (0) | | Add Comment |