Big Cat Wines

Big Cat Wines was founded in 2018 by Jose Tenorio and Brian David Kulich. Jose is the sole proprietor of Big Cat; he also operates another wine brand called Huino (pronounced like ‘we know‘), both under the parent company of Jo Ten Beverage. Big Cat Wines sources grapes primarily from premium vineyards in Napa Valley, although some of their bottlings are from grapes grown outside of the county.

Jose was born in Zacatecas, the capital city of the province with the same name, a part of Mexico known for its silver mining and also Mezcal. He immigrated to California with his family when he was four years of age. Settling in Rutherford, his grandfather was one of the early employees for the Wagner family (Caymus Vineyards). A few months later they moved to Yountville. His father Mario Tenorio and several uncles also worked at Caymus. The first vintage his father worked in the cellar at Caymus was in 1981. Jose was raised in Yountville surrounded by the wine industry including attending school with children of winemakers or winery owners.

His first job was at a restaurants, working at what was Hilltop Restaurant in Carneros. But like many children of those who work in the wine industry, he needed to leave Napa Valley. He began playing the violin at age 10, was first chair at Napa High. Music was calling. He started studying music engineering at a trade school in Emeryville, and also worked at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. He interned at a studio in Hayward and then began traveling for mixing, recording and artists and repertoire work (A&R).

One day a producer told him about a singer from Vallejo and suggested Jose work with him. So Jose returned to northern California and spent a summer in Napa Valley during his late 20s. He recalls reconnecting with great weather, people, wine and food. He left the music industry and settled once again in Napa Valley; he began busing tables at Cardinale Winery but soon started hosting visitors for wine tastings there. After five years he moved to Lokoya and helped open their hospitality space at their winery on Spring Mountain. His ten years at both Cardinale and Lokoya was invaluable, learning about the business including from their winemaker Chris Carpenter, learning about direct sales and expanding his palate with older vintages of European wines introduced by his colleagues. As he says, “I dove deep into wine”.

Brian entered the hospitality business at an early age. He began working for Mountain Winery in Saratoga (San Francisco Bay Area) at age 16 through his father’s friend who owned the food and beverage licensing for this winery. He remembers serving at weddings during the day on weekends followed by concerts in the evenings. Mountain Winery is known for their popular live music events each year. After graduating with a degree in English from San Jose State he worked in restaurants in San Diego.

Eventually he moved back to northern California and worked at a number of restaurants in San Francisco including Grand Café, Aqua and Boulevard. He helped open OSO in Sonoma and was Senior Captain at the Restaurant at Meadowood. He assisted a number of premium restaurants design their wine lists including Kenzo in downtown Napa and the Omakase Restaurant group. And after moving to Napa Valley, he became an Advanced Sommelier (Level 3) from the Court of Master Sommeliers.

To his credit, Jose enjoys wines made in both ‘old’ and ‘contemporary’ style; both styles are distinctly different from each other. Regardless of style, Jose crafts the wine with passion and intent; these are never cookie cutter bottlings. And he prefers the fruit to be the star of the show, with the oak taking a back seat, and sometimes not even taking a seat at all.

Select Wines
Big Cat
Sparkling
The 2022 Big Cat California Sparkling Wine is 80% Chardonnay; 70% from San Luis Obispo and 10% from Carneros with 20% Pinot Noir also from San Luis Obispo. It was made méthode traditionnelle, produced in San Luis Obispo, aged for two years in bottle and disgorged in January 2025. It is medium straw in color; this wine smells fresh, vivid and full of energy with aromas of honey crisp apple, lightly bruised apple, comise pear, guava and white toast. Flows easily across the palate with plenty of movement, buoyed by its bright acidity. Its flavors include green apple, white nectarine and two of the ‘quats’ including loquat and kumquat, two very different tasting fruits. And additional citrus flavors including mandarin orange, a touch of lime and white grapefruit. Lingers refreshing, zippy and immediately invites another sip. We are enjoying this at the bar at Oxbow Wine Merchant in the city of Napa, but we are thinking of walking the few steps to Hog Island and enjoying this at their bar with a plate of freshly shucked oysters.

Pinot Noir
The 2022 Big Cat Pinot Noir, Calesa Vineyard Petaluma Gap, Sonoma County; this wine is medium ruby in color. The bouquet is a ripe expression of the variety with its dominating scents including dark raspberry and Santa Rosa plum with additional layers of currant, red cherry pomegranate, old cedar and white pepper. Its listed ABV is 15.4%. The palate shows riper than the bouquet with flavors of red cherry, raspberry, red plums and red licorice. Its mouth feel is a hallmark character, sporting a noticeable creamy and supple feel with a pleasing tension between texture and fruit. The finish lingers with both fruit but also a light barrel influence including a note of tobacco leaf. We were expecting some heat on the finish from the high alcohol, but there is none. Still, its character is California, through and through. 25% of the grapes for this wine were fermented whole cluster. This was the first year Jose sourced grapes from Calesa Vineyard; the previous vintage was from Brown Ranch on the Napa Valley side of Carneros.

In the future, Big Cat may also produce a wine from this variety on the other end of the ripeness extreme, showcasing a much lower alcohol featuring more of the energy and typicity that this variety is known for.

Cabernet Sauvignon
The 2021 Big Cat Cabernet Sauvignon, Rutherford is 95% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3% Cabernet Franc from Oakville and 2% Petite Sirah (the addition of this latter variety for color). This wine is deep ruby and opaque; ripe and sweetly fruited the bouquet is focused on its core of fruit with its oak contributing a light complementary character. This wine smells like dark cherry, blackberry, boysenberry, and dark mulberry with a tangible layer of mocha and baker’s chocolate revealed as the wine evolves further. This palate shows as ripe as the bouquet with flavors of blackberry, boysenberry, dark cherry, and dark mulberry. Soft in terms of its texture, the fine-grained tannins are ripe, resolved and rounded with a supple character that seamlessly fits into the finish like a perfectly aligned puzzle piece. This texture is a product of both the vineyard, type of barrels and ripeness. This wine was a 4 barrel production using 75% new French oak and 25% neutral barrels. Its ABV is a listed 14.9%. A crowd favorite, this bottling is already highly approachable only four years post vintage.

The 2022 Big Cat Cabernet Sauvignon, Oakville, Renteria 360 Vineyard is 100% varietal. What is highly unusual for a vineyard designated Oakville bottling, is this wine was aged entirely in 100% neutral French oak barrels (one once used and the other 3 times used) for 24 months. This wine is deep ruby in color; the bouquet is distinctive, dark and savory. Its aromatics include old leather, dark olive, and a dried herb note, perhaps of sage, along with crushed rocks. And the fruit is there to including scents of dark plum, blackberry and dark cherry. This wine tastes like red cherry, dark plum, blackberry at the peak of ripeness, dark mulberry and boysenberry. More red fruited than dark. And there is a minerally or ferrous quality that stands out, perhaps this attribute would be more hidden if this wine was aged in new French oak. Balanced between fruit, acidity and texture. The tannins are felt in a pillowy and powdery textured kind of way. Chalky. Its listed ABV is 14.5%. Beautiful.

The 2022 Big Cat Cabernet Sauvignon, Howell Mountain Napa Valley is 95% Cabernet Sauvignon with 5% Oak Knoll Merlot. This wine is deep ruby and opaque; the first word we wrote to describe its aromas was minerally. It expresses an initial ferrous/iron like character which dissipates in favor of fruit as this wine evolves; brambly, it smells like boysenberry, blackberry and dark raspberry, with some sweeter notes including all-spice, chocolate and dark licorice. Generous across the palate, this wine sings brightly at this age and perhaps shows a bit riper than its listed 14.1 ABV. Its flavors include dark cherry, blackberry, Pakistani mulberry and dark plums. Juicy. Loaded with flavor. Some of the barrel influences on the bouquet are also represented here including a layer of dark chocolate. We love the intensity on the finish; it just keeps going in terms of both fruit and its fully-mouth coating gravelly and chalky textured tannins. Age worthy. This is a 4 barrel production, with 3 barrels new French oak and one neutral.

The 2020 Big Cat Cabernet Sauvignon is 100% varietal. This wine was made when one of Brian’s winemaker friends planned to make wine for a private client. The wine was already in barrels when the client decided to cancel the order. The 2020 Big Cat Cabernet Sauvignon is two barrels of wine, one from Oak Knoll and the other from Yountville. This wine is deep ruby with a light purplish color on the rim; its aromas are sweet including both fruit (plum) and floral (violets). The aromatics become more expressive with time in the glass. The palate features primarily red fruit flavors including cherry and currant. One would not be incorrect in calling the finish savory; it lingers with a mouthwatering juiciness, chewy, gripping and long lasting (still somewhat tight) tannins along with dark pepper and pipe tobacco spices.

Cabernet Franc
The 2018 Big Cat Cabernet Franc Oakville (100% varietal) was sourced from a premium and historical vineyard at the base of the Mayacamas mountains in western Oakville. Only 125 cases were produced. Its color is deep ruby; the bouquet offers a diversity of aromatics including licorice, pipe tobacco, coffee grinds, mocha, espresso and a meaty characteristic. The palate is expressive of the varietal characteristics without any greenness that sometimes this variety is known for, especially from cooler sites (Oakville not being a cooler site). It offers a brightness and freshness across the palate with flavors of plum and red cherry. We tasted this wine 5 years post vintage. It lingers lively with rounded and integrated tannins and a light note of dust. We noted the words, even keel in our tasting notes to describe its overall character. This wine was aged in 100% neutral French oak barrels.

Red Blend
The 2020 Big Cat Red Blend is composed of 44% Cabernet Franc, 44% Cabernet Sauvignon and 12% of what Brian told us is, ‘the kitchen sink’, a Napa Valley barrel blend that includes Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Petit Verdot and Merlot. Brian recalls during blending trials in his kitchen adding varying percentages of the ‘kitchen sink’ to the Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon but realizing the best wine was with the 100%-barrel blend. This vintage is deep ruby and nearly opaque in the glass; its aromatics are initially sweetly fruited with dark berries and ripe plum; they reminded us of the smell of Santa Rosa plums on a warm summer day after picking them from the ground after they have fallen from the tree a day or two prior. But the bouquet is also expressive of other scents including stewed tomato, grilled meats and dried herbs. This wine is bright across the palate offering flavors of cherry and red plum. Its texture is lightly creamy, especially noticeable on the mid palate with a light grainy textured tannins lingering on the lively and slightly tart red fruited finish.

The Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc for this red blend were sourced from a 1/2 acre ‘front yard’ vineyard off of Big Ranch Road just south of Biale Vineyards for the Big Cat Red Blend. The owners of this property were originally interested in making wine and met several times with Brian. He walked them through the business end of starting and maintaining a small wine brand. After hearing all the details, they told Brian they were not interested in pursuing this but would rather enjoy tasting wine he made from their vineyard. Smart people. While we *never* discourage someone from starting a wine brand, we have a unique perspective having archived more than 400 reviews of Napa Valley based wine producers we met with since 2006 who are no longer producing wines – plus well nearly another 300 we removed from our master list who we never had a chance to meet and are also no longer producing. The numbers of Napa Valley based brands who stop producing for whatever reason is truly remarkable.

Huino
Chardonnay
The 2019 HUINO Chardonnay, Oak Knoll District Napa Valley; is medium gold in color. This wine smells fresh and showcases lots of fruit 6 years post vintage. Still youthful both on the bouquet and the palate. Highly generous, this wine smells like golden apples, pineapple, apricot, yellow nectarine, pineapple guava, dried hay, hazelnut, and some soft citrus influences including citrus blossom and tangerine. And give this wine time to evolve; additional layers will start to show including vanilla. Balanced, bright and flavorful, its notes include golden apples, pear, nectarine, a note of honeycomb, mandarin orange, apricot, golden kiwi, white peach and a finishing note of vanilla custard. Its texture is light and almost ethereal, and is saddled by its balanced acidity. This wine is in a very comfortable place 6 years post vintage, but clearly still has the verve for additional cellaring before it peaks. Bone dry. This wine is noteworthy for what it doesn’t have; its not oaky, buttery, flabby or fleshy textured. Rather its bright and lively. This is a 2 barrel production with partial malolactic fermentation on the one new French oak barrel. This wine is 13.8% listed ABV.

The first vintage of Huino was produced in 2018. The name huino was used in Nahuatl, the Aztec language and was a word referring to fermented fruit juice.

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The artwork previously used on the Big Cat labels was also used on Brian’s own wine brand, Lish wines. Brian met Brooklyn based artist Jacob Thomas through one of his wife’s friends. Thomas has worked with numerous prominent clients throughout his career including projects in the fashion industry. His creations are in part inspired by street art, pop art and contemporary culture. During part of his restaurant career, Brian worked with Thomas to create labels for several restaurant house wines. For those wines, he provided more exacting instructions on the type of label design he wanted. For Big Cat Wines he let Thomas have full creative liberty. Thomas then created a series of several standout labels featuring individuals riding the body of a horse but with the head of a big cat.

After Jose took full ownership of Big Cat, the branding changed. Jose wanted an image that conveyed something different from traditional wine brands. Jose took inspiration from the cartoon frog on the Bionic Frog Syrah, produced by Walla Walla, WA based Cayuse Vineyards. While this is a catchy label, this Syrah is a thoughtfully made serious wine. Every bottling of Big Cat features a different cat on the label, but all are wearing stunner shades and a gold necklace. These items are an homage to Jose’s music career including rappers and R&B artists. And the image of the tiger ties into Jose’s love of golf and one of the best who ever played the game, Tiger Woods. These wines are built around fun and a lifestyle including food, wine and travel.

The name Big Cat is a term of endearment that Brian originally used to refer Jose, especially when both were playing golf. Fun name. Serious wine.

Hospitality
Jose hosts visitors at the members only and private Napa Valley Car Club, located in the Oxbow District directly next to the Napa River. Several spaces are available for tastings including weather permitting outside on the nearly 5,000 square foot patio among the palm trees and a private room. The Barn houses a collection of fine exotic automobiles, a lounge area and bar and the upstairs vault for playing pool. Tastings with Jose are unscripted, informative and at your own pace.

And Jose also offers lunch options at The Forum at Meadwood in St. Helena with the Big Cat wines paired with the meal.

Total production of Big Cat wines varies each year with most bottlings only two to four barrels. A limited number of etched large format bottles are also available. Those looking to build wines for their personal collection, corporate gifting, special events or for restaurants or resorts should inquire about the Big Cat Barrel Club. A barrel of wine, bottled under your own label will be produced of either sparkling wine, Pinot Noir or Cabernet Sauvignon.

Locally, sometimes select bottlings are available at the Oxbow Wine Merchant in the Oxbow Public market in the city of Napa. For more information or to order wines, visit: www.bigcatwinescali.com