is owned by three partners who actually met when they were working at Mayacamas Winery in the mid 1990′s. We met with Jeffrey Popick one of the owners and winemakers. Initially he was working in vineyard management but became tired of always being in the “fields” and started to learn winemaking. Chameleon’s original focus was on Sangiovese and Barbera but … [Read more...]

recently began producing wine from Yountville – however their story goes much back much further. In 1988 Don and Dolly Grupalo moved to Napa to find a place to retire and enjoy a slower paced lifestyle. They were not looking to grow grapes or make wine. They found an 8 acre parcel just east of the town of Yountville. At the time rather than vineyards their … [Read more...]

is one of the few wineries in the Napa Valley just focusing on a single varietal, in this case on Merlot. We have mentioned the Napa Allure several times and we can mention it again here. The owners, John and Barbara Witt are originally from Ohio and have always enjoyed drinking wine. They found themselves taken multiple annual vacations to the Napa Valley … [Read more...]

was founded by Kal and Dorothy Showket in 1988 after they looked for property for 3 years in the valley. They originally moved to the Napa Valley with the intent to retire and fortuitously chose land that is among the most coveted in Napa. These are the rocky red hillside soils of “magic hill” a small vineyard covered section of land in the Vaca Mountain … [Read more...]

produces wine under the Serene Cellars label and is located on a hillside not far from the northern most arm of Lake Hennessy. The winery is about a 10 minute drive from the Silverado Trail all on narrow windy roads. There are several other small vintners in the area and a visit here is always pleasant and is as far from the heavily touristic winery … [Read more...]

The winery facility can only be accessed from the south bound lane as there is a divider in the middle of the highway (just go up to the next light and make a U-turn if necessary). Cartlidge & Brown is the southern most winery we visited during this project – its about as far south as you can get and still be considered a Napa “area” winery. They were … [Read more...]

We visited cleavage Creek in eastern Napa County (Pope Valley) on one of those beautiful warm spring days that makes visits to the back roads of Napa Valley so wonderful. With so much good this winery has done it was truly unfortunate that the owner Robert “Budge” Brown had been discovered in the Sierras, deceased at age 78 in a single engine plane crash the … [Read more...]

are located high on Atlas Peak in a location that while is only about 15 minutes driving from the valley floor feels rather remote. Their 4.5 acres of vineyard grow on rocky rolling hillsides, planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and just a small block of Petite Verdot. These grape vines have excellent views – on a clear day you can look east across the … [Read more...]

has been producing wine since 1990. They have a good sized vineyard near BV Winery in Rutherford with ownership of other planted vineyard properties in Napa and nearby Pope Valley. Think Napa Valley is 100% planted to vineyards? Bettinelli’s Rutherford vineyard is surrounded by several acres of Olives and when we visited in early fall we found rows and rows … [Read more...]

Arete Wines was founded in 2009 by Dejan Nikitovic. Dejan is originally from the former Yugoslavia (Serbia) and immigrated to the United States in 1991. He’s a man of many talents. Upon arriving to the states, he settled in Chicago and was a Civil Engineer; he managed some of Chicago’s largest projects during the 1990′s. Looking for a career change and some … [Read more...]