Lail Vineyards

Lail Vineyards was founded by long time Napa Valley vintner Robin (Daniel) Lail and her family. Robin’s history in Napa Valley is significant and deeply rooted. Her great-grand uncle was Gustave Niebaum the founder of Napa’s iconic Inglenook Winery. Her father was John Daniel, Jr. (died at age 63 in 1970) who inherited Inglenook winery from his father, also John, and was instrumental in helping elevate the reputation of Napa Valley by improving quality of wines. He ran Inglenook from 1936 until it was sold to United Vintners in 1964. Daniel was also a wine judge, chairman of the board of directors of the Bank America St. Helena branch, a member of numerous wine organizations and a private pilot, often landing at the airstrip on the Inglenook property.

Robin graduated from Stanford University in 1962 (like her father before her). Her family has deep connections to Stanford University; Robin’s great great grandfather Dr. John Norse founded the hospital that eventually became the Stanford School of Medicine.

Robin co-founded Dominus in 1982 with her sister Marky and winemaker Christian Moueix (General Manager of Château Pétrus in Pomerol) located on the historic Napanook Vineyard near Yountville, co-founded Merryvale Vineyards with Bill Harlan and was President of that winery for 12 years, was general manager at the prestigious Meadowood Resort, was Robert Mondavi’s personal assistant and in 1981 helped form the inaugural Napa Valley Wine Auction. This annual event has since transitioned into Collective Napa Valley and is still one of the country’s premiere wine auctions. More recently she serves as the U.S. Representative to The Porto Protocol, the wine industry’s climate action network.

But beyond all of her wine related accomplishments, perhaps her most important contribution is her relentless support and promotion of Napa Valley, even from a young age.

She married Jon Lail in 1966; Jon graduated from the University of Colorado and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University; he was a prominent architect in Napa Valley whose company was Lail Design Group. This firm worked on numerous local wineries including Laird Family, Castello di Amorosa, CADE and Vineyard 29. Jon retired from architecture in 2024 at age 87. Robin and Jon’s daughters, Erin and Shannon who have both built successful careers in other fields, are partners in Lail Vineyards.

In the early 1990s Robin began thinking of creating an outstanding wine to honor her ancestors’ history in Napa Valley; the first vintage of Lail wines, the J. Daniel Cuvée was produced in 1995. In 1998 while selling this single wine, Robin decided they needed a less expensive companion wine, so the Blueprint red wine was introduced with the first vintage produced in 2001. And while showcasing the red wines, she would often pour an outstanding white wine or sparkling wine from another producer. She decided they needed a white wine; their first white wine was Georgia, produced in 2002.

Founding winemaker, Philippe Melka has overseen their production since the first Lail vintage in 1995; in fact, Lail Vineyards was his first wine consulting job in Napa Valley. With that said, Melka also started consulting for Seavey Vineyards in 1995 but was not Seavey’s founding winemaker. Robin first met Philippe at Dominus at the beginning of his career. Today Philippe is the winemaker for a number of small premium producers mostly based in Napa Valley. In the past he has been voted American Winemaker of the year by Robert Parker in Food & Wine Magazine. Philippe has a geology degree as well as a degree in enology and agronomy (he knows his Napa terroir very well) and especially enjoys working with Napa Valley’s hillside vineyards. For someone with such recognition in the industry, he is one of the most down to earth winemakers we have met.

It is always a fine line to craft wines with a special elegance and softness ready to be consumed in their youth, while at the same time ensuring the wine has the acidity, flavor and structure to be aged. This is a line that Philippe and winemaker Maayan Koschitzky walk well; the hallmark of Lail’s wines are their balance upon release but also their stalworth characteristics for cellar aging.

Lail owns and uses grapes from two estate vineyards, both of which are regeneratively farmed and Napa Green certified; the tiny 3-acre dry-farmed Totem Vineyard in Yountville was part of the original Inglenook vineyard estate. It was also part of Napanook Vineyard despite its location on the other side of the highway from the existing Napanook site. This vineyard is named after a totem pole that the founder of Inglenook Winery, Gustav Niebaum (Robin’s great-grand uncle) gave the de Young Museum in San Francisco; see below for description and photographs of this totem pole. This vineyard was planted to Merlot in 1988 and grafted over to Sauvignon Blanc in 2006/2007.

And the Mole Hill vineyard is located high on the slopes of Howell Mountain at about 1600 feet above sea level. The name of this vineyard has interesting origins. When Napa pioneer Louis Martini first made red wine locally, John Daniel, Jr., decided to make some home red wine and included an image of a mole on his label with a cute saying on the back “Mole Hill Red, A Wine You Will Gopher!” Today this small vineyard is planted entirely to Cabernet Sauvignon. Nearby neighbors include Arkenstone Vineyards, Bravante Vineyards and 13th Vineyard at Cade.

And Jon was the architect for Arkenstone Vineyards. Conveniently Lail Vineyards has made their wine at Arkenstone since 2009; they were Arkenstone’s first custom crush client. Prior to production here, the Lail wines were made at Fantesca Winery.

According to Robin there are generally two things that define a winemaker who works for a small producer; they represent the terroir and site location as authoritatively as possible, and they also make a style of wine representing the owner’s taste. Lail’s palate favors a wine that is integrated and seamless, or balanced if you will and meant to enjoy with a diversity of cuisine.

Many small area producers usually only craft one white wine: a Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc. With that said, it is always refreshing when a winery showcases the same variety but makes the wine in different styles. And it makes an interesting side by side comparison when tasting both the Georgia and Blueprint Sauvignon Blanc in tandem with each other.

Select Wines
Sauvignon Blanc, Blueprint
The first vintage of Blueprint was in 2007; today total production is around 45 barrels including some wine that is declassified from the Georgia bottling. Blueprint is named to honor Robin’s husband Jon and his architectural work. Incidentally it was Jon who brought Robin back into the wine business many years after Inglenook was sold.

The 2024 Lail Sauvignon Blanc, Blueprint Napa Valley; this wine is medium gold in color. It is 100% varietal Sauvignon Blanc from four vineyards including two in Yountville (Totem + Gamble Family), Coombsville and the newest addition to this bottling, grapes from a vineyard on Atlas Peak. This wine was fermented in French oak barrels of which 35% were new and then aged in the 7 barrels sur lee for 7 months prior to bottling. Highly aromatic and elegant, it is straddled perfectly between California ripeness and New Zealand restraint. Its scents include pineapple, pineapple guava, passion fruit, and a lift from its citrus influence including lemon zest and young kaffir lime leaf. Bright and minerally, the palate offers flavors of grapefruit, kumquat, passion fruit, green apple and lemon zest. Its texture features a rounded and smooth mouth feel which is lifted high by its vibrant acidity. Lingers refreshing and vivacious with both flavor and acidity in parallel. This wine clearly overdelivers for the price.

The 2021 Lail Blueprint Sauvignon Blanc is light to medium straw color; the bouquet smells like fruits and flowers that we associate with spring and summer. It offers aromas of honeysuckle, apricots, yellow nectarines, baked pineapple, creme Brule, lemon custard, mango, vanilla and bruised apple. Aromatically generous. Minerally, refreshing and lively across the palate, it offers flavors of honey crisp apple, mandarin, Golden kiwi, passion fruit and lime. The balanced acidity is bright, but not bracing and that is an important distinction with this variety in particular. The finish is mouthwatering, lively and begs another sip. This wine is perfectly saddled between Napa Valley ripeness and New Zealand grassiness. Highly worth seeking out. Pair with shellfish – perhaps with seared scallops seasoned with a light dollop of olive oil, salt and freshly squeezed lemon.

The 2008 Lail Vineyards Blueprint Sauvignon Blanc is made in a Sancerre style. As a result, this wine was aged in stainless steel and is a focused expression of its inherent varietal characteristics. Pale straw color in the glass, this is a lively, clean and crisp wine. It offers pleasing aromatics including white florals and notes of green apple and lime, both of which are also mirrored on the palate. The minerally driven palate showcases bright acidity. Layers of fruit linger deliciously on the smooth and extended finish.

Sauvignon Blanc, Georgia
In contrast is the Georgia Sauvignon Blanc made in a Graves style. Robin was initially not keen on making this style of wine. Who back then aged their Sauvignon Blanc in the new world for such an extended time? After tasting the 2002 Georgia, Robert Parker had this to say, “this is potentially one of the most serious Sauvignon Blancs to emerge from California”. The oak influence is often pronounced on this wine around month 10 but by the time it has been bottled 10 months later it has harmoniously integrated with the wine. Production of Georgia is usually approximately 18 barrels a year.

Georgia is named after the first member of the Lail family’s 6th generation, Robin’s oldest granddaughter Georgia Eileen. The aging on this wine is completely different than the Blue Print Sauvignon Blanc. From 2002 until 2017 this wine was aged in 100% new French oak barrels; starting with the 2018 vintage, the amount of new French oak was reduced; each vintage typically is aged in 60% to 70% new French oak on the lees for about 20 months. The use of oak is thoughtful, with up to 10 different coopers used. The difference between the Blueprint and Georgia bottling is pronounced in terms of aromatics, flavor and mouth feel.

The beauty of the Georgia bottling, regardless of vintage is its uncharacteristic depth for a Sauvignon Blanc. It showcases a broad typicity of the variety in terms of its aromatics and flavors. These range from lightly herbal, to citrus, to stone fruits to tropical. But there is always one constant: both the aromatics and palate are always buoyed high by its generous acidity.

And Georgia is the only wine they bottle in 1/2 bottles, specifically for one very important client, The French Laundry.

The 2023 Lail Vineyards Georgia Sauvignon Blanc is medium gold in color; this wine is perhaps a little brighter on the bouquet than the 2022 bottling. Its scents include pineapple, green apples, lemon blossom, and some herbal but not green underlying layers including of thyme and a light note of mint. The freshly cut grass which we noticed in a barrel sample 8 months post vintage, has dissipated. But give it time in the glass, it continues to evolve and open to new layers that weren’t there initially. Harmonious is a good descriptor to already describe its cadence; on the palate there are flavors of not fully ripe pineapple, green apple, lemon zest, lemongrass, kumquat and passion fruit. More herbal than the 2022 vintage, this wine sings soprano, higher toned, juicy and mouth watering. And the finish doesn’t drop off; it continues with both its citrusy characteristics, a note of tarragon, plus its bright and bouncy acidity. It texture is smooth as satin and glides gracefully across the palate like ice skater Peggy Fleming at the height of her career. And it invites another sip and the company of shellfish – perhaps freshly shucked raw oysters. This is an exceptional vintage of Georgia.

The 2022 Lail Vineyards Georgia Sauvignon Blanc was harvest well before the extended Labor Day Heat spike which affected Napa Valley for an unusual extended period of time. This wine is medium gold in color; its aromatics are restrained and elegant. We don’t always describe aromatics as balanced, instead reserving that word primarily for the interplay between flavor, acidity and texture, but in this case it is the perfect descriptor. Its scents include apricot, tangerine, yellow peach, golden delicious apple skins, light pineapple and some white florals including jasmine and orange blossom. The bouquet is a bit more California-esque, while the palate is a bit more restrained, or dare we says French inspired. We love this wine’s texture; it sports a lightly fleshy, rounded and silk-like feel. Its weight is paired perfectly with a vibrancy felt from the driving but balanced acidity. This wine tastes like pineapple, orange zest, lemon juice, lime and white grapefruit. Zippy, juicy and built for the long haul. Looking for an exceptional Sauvignon Blanc that is built to age, the Georgia is always at the top of the short but growing list from Napa Valley producers.

The 2021 Lail Vineyards Georgia Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley is pale to medium straw in color; the bouquet is highly distinctive and is one we hope we could identify out of a lineup of other Napa Valley Sauvignon Blancs from this vintage in a blind tasting. The initial scents are sweet and are a union of pear, apple and white nectarine with additional layers of jasmine, pineapple, white peach, papaya and pineapple guava. This is a beautiful aromatic expression of both stone fruits and floral notes. The palate tastes like Gravenstein apple, lime, white nectarine and peach, not fully ripe pineapple, pomelo and with a chalky and minerally character noticeable from the entry through the finish. The rounded and silky texture is complemented but its crisp acidity. Bright, tangy and superbly balanced this wine sings with a mouth watering freshness but sans of any overt herbal characteristics.

The 2007 Lail Vineyards Georgia Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley is noticeably darker than the Blueprint of this same vintage. The bouquet is highly aromatic with notes of lemon and honeydew melon. The palate is creamy but not overly so. At the time of our tasting, this wine had not yet been released yet and was still showing some notes of oak. As the wine integrates in the bottle this will dissipate as everything comes into balance. And this is a wine that has some nice structure; you can cellar it for a few years…or not.

Reds
Blueprint

Grapes for this wine are an expression of Napa Valley, sourced from multiple sub appellations and vineyards. This wine, “performs as a choir instead of a soloist”, as Managing Director Michael Updegraff so eloquently puts it. And it is representative of the house red style, big, ripe and a higher alcohol expression of the variety. During blending trials for this wine, the team always opens up bottles from two vintages prior to help them calibrate their palates.

The 2023 Lail Blueprint, Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley is 97% Cabernet Sauvignon and 3% Petit Verdot. Its élevage was 17 months in French oak barrels of which 65% were new. This wine is deep ruby and opaque; the bouquet offers aromas of petrichor, cocoa powder, mocha, milk chocolate, pipe tobacco and a hint of old cedar box hiding quietly in the background. Its fruit includes blackberry, an aromatic as fresh as the blackberries we harvest from brambles in mid summertime, dark cherry and dark plum. Noticeably brighter on the palate than the 2022 vintage, this wine tastes like dark cherry, blackberry, boysenberry, dark plum and dark currant. Lingers savory including a note of dried sage. The texture is a hallmark of this bottling; the tannins linger with a firm but integrated grip and a persistent dusty, chalky and chewy character which outpaces the fruit on the finish. This wine is one for the ages, and by this we mean enjoy it now, but it has a bright future ahead in the cellar with 10-20 years of down time.

The 2022 Lail Blueprint, Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley is 97% Cabernet Sauvignon and 3% Petit Verdot. This wine is deep ruby and nearly opaque; dark fruited with a compelling union of both fruit and barrel influences. This vintage and bottling as Robin says, “is always the first empty bottle on the table” or as we like to say, a crowd pleaser. And the bouquet and the palate are both saddled on the riper side of the spectrum but never cross into over ripe territory. The aromatics include scents of blackberry, boysenberry, dark cherry, cloves, cardamom and bakers chocolate. Fully ripe, showcasing the vintage, with a soft acidity and a soft fruit profile, this wine is ready to drink out of the gate. For reference we tasted this 3 years post vintage. Its flavors somewhat mimic the palate including of blackberry, dark raspberry, cherry, ripe boysenberry and a finishing note of cocoa powder. The tannins are seamlessly integrated into the finish at this age with a light gravelly and dusty character. In terms of ease of drinking, this wine has nailed it.

J. Daniel Cuvee
The J. Daniel Cuvee is Lail’s flagship wine; in order to understand the significance of this wine, one has to understand the legacy of who it is named after. It is a tribute to Robin’s father John Daniel, Jr. Not only was he at the helm of the famed Inglenook Winery but he was a founding member of the Napa Valley Vintners association, 3x Chairman of the Wine Institute and is one of the core group of vintners to really promote and “put” Napa Valley on the wine map. Not many vintners land their photo on the cover of a major wine publication such as the Wine Spectator, 30 years after they have died. John Daniel, Jr., certainly is one of the pioneers to have left his mark on this great wine region.

This was also the first wine produced by Lail Vineyards in 1995. When planning to make wine that year, Robin called Robert Mondavi; he wasn’t able to provide her grapes. So she called Bob Phillips, the owner at the time of Vine Hill Ranch. Bob had grapes; Lail Vineyard has made wine from Vine Hill Ranch every year except 2020 when they did not produce any red wines. And to date, this bottling has received eight, 100-point scores from prominent wine critics.

The 2022 Lail Vineyards J. Daniel Cuvee Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley Cuvee (100% varietal); this wine is deep ruby and opaque. Sweetly fruited and smelling like the vintage, the bouquet offers aromas of blackberry pie, prune, boysenberry jam, dark cherry, dark mulberry, bakers chocolate, smoked cedar and mocha. Fully ripe the palate tastes like Satsuma plum, coral cherry, blackberry, dark mulberry and dark raspberry. Despite the challenges of this vintage in Napa Valley, this wine has a lot of stuffing, character and texture. And the acidity is also brighter than we could have expected for both the vintage and this wine’s higher alcohol. The tannins aren’t as ripe as we would have guessed either; they linger with a fully palate coating and grippy, grainy and gritty texture feel. And there is a light note of smoked cedar and smoked sage on the finish pacing each other beyond the fruit on the finish. This is the ripest expression of the J. Daniel Cuvee bottlings we have tried to date.

The 2021 Lail J Daniel Cuvée Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley (100% varietal); this wine is deep ruby and opaque; ripe and sweetly fruited but also bright, the bouquet sings generously 4 years post vintage. Its sweetly fruited aromatics include blackberry pie, baked plums, blueberry pie, boysenberry jam, Pakistani mulberry, white chocolate, cocoa powder, vanilla and mocha with additional layers of sweet baking spices including cloves and cinnamon. These are aromatics that most certainly fall into the crowd pleaser category. The palate follows the lead of the bouquet with flavors of blackberry jam, dark plum, dark cherry, blueberry, and a lingering whisper of dried tobacco leaf and a dried rocks character. This is a ripe expression of the variety, but the palate is accentuated by its lively and balanced acidity. Finishes with layers of persisting fruit, a red fruited tartness and tannins that linger with a firm handshake, sporting gravelly, grainy, chewy and chalky texture. Both fruit and texture parallels each other on this extended finish. This wine has power but also balance and should age quite well for the next 10-15 years. Those who enjoy well-marbled steak and a quintessential big bold Napa valley Cabernet Sauvignon will immediately gravitate towards this bottling and vintage in particular.

The 2019 Lail Vineyards J. Daniel Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley Cuvee 25th Anniversary bottling (100% varietal); this wine is deep ruby and opaque; dark fruited and ripe, this wine smells like blackberry pie, boysenberry jam, baked plums with plenty of influence from its barrel aging, but not in a oak-driven way, more in terms of baking spices and dessert. These complementary scents include dark chocolate, dark cocoa powder, and as the wine evolves further, mocha. This full bodied expression offers loads of very much ripe and primary fruits 6 years post vintage. Full throttle across the palate still at this age, its flavors are of blackberry, boysenberry, plum and dark cherry. The ripeness of fruit is balanced by the acidity so this wine doesn’t show as ‘hot’. The firmly gripping grainy and gravelly tannins still express a noticeable textural feel, but perhaps have been tempered slightly with time in the bottle. They linger with a persistent dusty character, far out running the fruit on the finish.

The 2005 Lail J Daniel Cuvée is dark and inky in color with a bouquet that initially sports a dusty component but as it opens, it reveals rich dark fruit aromas. The entry is immediately soft; the layered palate offers a variety of darker fruit flavors including blackberry, blueberry, black licorice and a note of dark chocolate. A long finish awaits and does not disappoint, showcasing well structured but also simultaneously integrated tannins persisting with an earthy and dusty character, i.e., crushed rocks.

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Robin told us that it is easy to become inspired about their new vintages; each year they strive to learn how to better take care of the land and their vineyards and produce wines which continue to excite their customers. Prior to their transition to capsule-less bottles, four diamonds were located on their capsules. This paid tribute to the Inglenook brand as well as to the four members of the Lail family currently involved in Lail Vineyards.

And we always learn something after meeting with anyone in the Napa Valley – often it’s just gossip, but from the older vintners we always take away something of more value. From Robin, it is her overall wisdom based on her family’s heritage and formidable contributions to the valley. And also from her, even something as basic as tasting red wines before white wines which nearly all the wineries in the valley order their tastings in the opposite direction. The thinking being this is that white wines are higher acid and clean and refresh the palate after the heavier reds. Makes sense, especially in Napa Valley’s contemporary wine scene.

The Totem Pole, De Young Museum, San Francisco
This impressive carving by a Tsimshian artist, dates from the late 1800s and is from western coastal Canada. Most likely this carving was made to be sold rather then used by the native peoples. This totem pole was donated in 1900 by Gustave Niebaum through the Alaska Commercial Company. It is currently located in the de Young Museum (originally opened in 1895) in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park (about a 90-to-2-hour drive from Napa Valley, depending on traffic) – next to one of the walls in gallery number 4 in the Native Artists of Western North America exhibition. From the main entrance to the museum, this gallery is all the way to the left once inside the building.

Long on display before the current de Young Museum opened in 2005, this piece was originally mounted above a doorway in the North American Indian Hall of the original Memorial Museum building. The pole depicts a bald eagle, a grizzly bear holding an upside-down human, a whale and a fish.

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In 2018 the publisher of the Wine Spectator magazine, Marvin Shanken called Robin and asked to do a cover feature on her and her related family history in Napa Valley. Ultimately the lead time from call to publication was 1.5 years. The issue was published in May 2020. The Lail team were initially worried about the timing of the article and that it would not get much traction, especially in light of restaurants and retail shops being closed. But in reality, the timing was absolutely perfect; people were at home with lots of time to both read and drink.

And in 2021 designer and artist Michael Vanderbyl saw Robin speak in 2021 at Solage in Calistoga. He encouraged Robin to make some notes about her family history. So she did. And then Michael assembled the copy including photographs into what is referred to as, The Lail Book, 71 pages detailing the Lail family history, timeline and contributions to Napa Valley.

In 2024 Lail Vineyards were certified Napa Green; that same year it was simultaneously announced that the Lail wines will be bottled using lighter glass, will not be using foil and the corks will be shorter. The first bottlings incorporating this more environmentally friendly packaging were from the 2022 vintage. The diamond that was an homage to Inglenook on the capsule is now branded on top of each cork. Lail also donates 10% of online sales of their Blueprint wines to
organizations fighting climate change including Cool Effect, Climeworks, and The Porto Protocol.

Visitors to Napa Valley can sometimes taste Lail’s wines at the posh RH Yountville, the wine vault at the historic ma(i)sonry building. This is one of the nicer tasting spaces in Yountville and features wines from a limited number of premium producers. Lail Vineyards was a founding vintner partner in this tasting space, previously known as Ma(i)sonry.

Select wines are distributed nationally and internationally, represented by leading wholesalers and importers. And the wines can be enjoyed at select locations within Napa Valley including restaurants and boutique wine shops. For more information, to purchase wine or to join their mailing list, visit: www.lailvineyards.com