Abloom Wine

Abloom Wine was founded by three winemakers, Molly Hill, Ashley Hepworth and Sally Johnson Blum. Each brings years of winemaking experience from making wines for other brands, but also the perspective of each operating their own small wine brands. All have spent years crafting Cabernet Sauvignon. But more importantly, they carry a vision of producing something distinctly unique from other wines in contemporary Napa Valley. This is about elevating rosé to something that is spoken about in terms of sophistication and luxury, a rare bottling that sets new expectations for rosé. And it is about producing a bottle meant to be enjoyed during special occasions upon release or within a few years of age. And to celebrate joyous moments.

All women are equally involved in this brand and their signatures on the front label of the wine represents this. Each contributes a specific skillset; Molly is the President and oversees the business aspects of the brand, Ashley takes the lead on sales and marketing and Sally oversees the direct day to day winemaking. And a high level of communication between each of them has been an integral part of their success.

It is always an exciting time when launching a new brand, especially one so thoughtfully put together as this one. Sally recalls their first bottle was sold to a couple who discovered her own brand Stereograph while researching their trip to Napa Valley to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary. They met Sally at Tamber Bey Winery in Calistoga and tasted through a number of wines for various brands she makes wine for. The husband said he wanted to order a bottle of Abloom. His wife looked at him and was surprised he gravitated towards the rosé. Encapsulating everything this bottling is meant for, he told his wife that because they were celebrating their special anniversary, including treating themselves to a luxurious getaways including spa treatments, massages and fine dinners, that the Abloom rosé would be a perfect accompaniment to their vacation in Napa Valley. And then they kissed. Special moments. Special wines.

The Vintners
Sally Johnson
Overseeing winemaking for Abloom, Sally was born and raised in Michigan; she inherited her love of the outdoors, gardening and being project oriented from her parents. They were gardening enthusiasts farming a communal garden and later growing fruit trees and grapes on their own property. Her father produced both home-made grape and fruit wine.

She comes from a family of scientists; her mom is a biochemist and her father is a toxicologist while various aunts and uncles are engineers. Her family encouraged her to study science so she did, graduating from the University of Michigan with a degree in Biology, but also a second degree in French Literature. Besides her father’s home wine, her early introduction to wine was taking a study abroad trip as a freshman to France visiting a number of wineries and meeting vintners. After college she interned at Parke-Davis, the same company her mother worked for. But she soon realized she didn’t enjoy being in the lab all day and wanted to do something more creative.

So she enrolled in the viticulture program at UC Davis and then transitioned to enology. Her early interest was to pursue a career in farming but soon gravitated towards both the science and creative aspects of winemaking. She graduated with her Master’s in Winemaking from UC Davis in 1999 and then worked at St. Francis Winery for 8 years as an enologist. While at St. Francis she took 8 months off to work in the Barossa Valley in South Australia at Saint Hallett Winery. She realized she most enjoyed working for smaller wineries. She was winemaker for 15 years at Pride Mountain Vineyards, crediting Steve Pride as an early mentor.

Molly Hill
Overseeing business operations for Abloom, Molly is originally from Santa Barbara. She enrolled at UC Davis with the intent to study veterinary medicine but pivoted and earned a degree in viticulture and enology from the University of California, Davis. Early in her career she worked at Beringer Vineyards and Domain Carneros. Later she was assistant winemaker at Sequoia Grove Vineyards (where we first met her) and then became head winemaker; she spent 18 years at Sequoia Grove where one of her wines was included in the Wine Spectator’s Top 100 wine list, before stepping away from her position in late 2021 to focus her efforts on her and her husband, Lar’s small Swedish-inspired brand, GRO Wines.

Ashley Hepworth
Overseeing the sales for Abloom, Ashley is originally from Denver, worked for two years as a chef at the acclaimed Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago before moving to Napa Valley. Her winemaking career began at Joseph Phelps, taking a harvest intern position in 1999 before becoming their head winemaker in 2008. During her time at Phelps she oversaw a diverse portfolio of winemaking ranging from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, sparkling wine and their red program including their flagship bottling, Insignia. She left Phelps in early 2023 to focus on her consulting career, and now overseeing Ashley Hepworth Wine Consulting.

Select Wines
The 2024 Abloom Rosé of Grenache wine is 100% varietal; it is medium copper in color; the bouquet smells elegant, vibrant and fresh. On the bouquet there are aromas of dried orange peel, raspberry, white strawberry, rose petals, a minerally/flinty character and a light note of lilac. Give it time to open, the fruit becomes more pronounced. Straight up easy drinking and enjoyable but with inherent complexities in terms of flavor and texture, this crowd favorite will appeal to a variety of palates. It is meant to be an enjoyable, fun and unique expression of the variety. But it can be a cerebral wine if you want it to be. And most rosé’s are not that. Balanced with an easy going cadence, but also a noticeable richness of flavor, this wine offers flavors of raspberry, rainier cherry, pomegranate, a light note of cranberry, a light kiss of citrus and a lingering note of dill/fennel and dried herbs. Its texture is supple with a gentle weight, which is carried nicely by a balanced but bright acidity. Sally recommends serving this wine lightly cold but not overly chilled, so as to preserve and enhance the richness. It is versatile in terms of pairing; from personal experience, this wine goes particularly well with seafood, including scallops and halibut.

This rosé was sourced from Alban clone D from two of the highest blocks within Paras Vineyard on the rugged slopes of Mt. Veeder, located at an elevation of approximately 1,400 feet. Grapes from block 14 (since pulled out) were from vines planted in 1994 and block 5 was planted in 1991. Both blocks total approximately 1 acre. Block 7 was added for the 2025 harvest; its vines were planted in 1994.

Nearby winery neighbors include Mayacamas, Wing Canyon and Mt. Veeder. Professor Carole Lagier Meredith who along with her husband Steve oversee Lagier Meredith Vineyard not far from Paras Vineyard once told us that Syrah likes a view. We can say the same about Grenache. And on a clear day, the views from Paras Vineyard are spectacular. A vigorous variety, its strength is somewhat tempered by age. The low yielding and still very healthy vines grow in terraced rows in Fagan loam soils (decomposed shale). There is not an abundance of Grenache in Napa Valley, much less older Grenache. The grapes were harvested specifically to make this wine and were left on skins for several hours upon arriving at the winery, prior to going direct to press.

Sally remembers standing by the press, and as she puts it, “agonizingly debating when to make the cuts”. The pressed fractions were kept separate. This wine was fermented and aged in 1/3 ceramic globe, 1/3 new lightly toasted Damy French oak barrels (with a light battonage) and in 1/3 stainless steel tanks. And 0.5% of the fermentation was carbonic, carefully managed using five, two-gallon glass hocking jars. The wine was then aged on its fine lees before being bottled. No color corrections were made.

Unique to this aging is the Clayver S.r.l., a heat fired manufacturer of ceramic vessels specifically for the wine industry based in Vado Ligure (near Genoa) in northern Italy. This vessel is slightly porous with less deep crevasses as compared to that of an amphorae vessel and is used to highlight the purity of the grape as well as enhance mouth feel.

This is a rare Napa Valley direct to press Grenache rosé and is among the most thoughtfully made small production rosé’s we have ever tasted in Napa Valley.

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While the production of the brand is small, it has been a collaborative effort. The simple but creative label was the work of Madeleine Corson, of San Francisco based Madeleine Corson Design Office. Her works have been used by other premium wineries including Napa Valley based Kerr Cellars, Ovid, Pine Ridge, Spottswoode, Trujillo and Vine Hill Ranch. Molly was already familiar with her work as Madeleine designed the label for her own wine brand, GRO.

And Madeleine was also instrumental in fine-tuning the women’s vision for the brand and helping them decide on its creative nomenclature; the wine is bottled under its parent brand House of Mas – where mas is a French word that refers to a traditional farmhouses located in the Provence and Languedoc-Roussillon regions of the southern part of that country. And those are two regions where rosé is popular and an integral part of their wine making. And ‘bloom’ is a play on Sally’s last name and ties in nicely with the word rosé and rose petals. Two symbols on the label are worth noting; the birds in flight represent friendship and transformation and the fleur-de-lis refers to light and strength.

The detail and precision on the wine making side is worth noting, but so are these same attributes on the wine’s presentation. They use 54mm certified TCA free corks from Amorim (the worlds largest producer and supplier of cork), carefully chose the Burgundian shaped bottle as the same mold is also available as a magnum, the bottle runs through the bottling line twice, as each bottle receives a unique number. The level of detail on label design, printing and ensuring the labels are lined properly on the glass during bottling is always critical. Its all in the details; during the design of their label they made sure to check how the colors performed under a diversity of lighting, looked in detail at various foil colors and the depth of the emboss.

And Out of the Box in St. Helena, a DTC fulfillment, shipping and creative marketing firm, wax dipped and tissue wrapped each of the bottles.

Only 1,188 bottles of their inaugural 2024 vintage were produced with the expectation to increase production in 2025 to between 1700 – 1800 bottles. The wine is sold primarily via a mailing list as either a single bottle or a three packs purchase. A limited number of magnums are also available. Locally the wine can be found at ACME in St. Helena. Those interested in tasting the wine while in Napa Valley can do so by appointment, with tastings hosted at Tamber Bey Winery in Calistoga. Visits are with Sally and also include tastes of wines from other projects she is involved in.

For more information, to schedule a visit, to join their mailing list or to purchase wine, visit: www.abloomwine.com