Comments on: Frank Family Vineyards

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 19 Oct 2019 15:17:44 +0000

Bill – nice story, thanks for sharing. I saw Paula Kornell a few days ago at the NVV 75th grand celebration.

By: Bill Haddon

Bill Haddon — Sat, 19 Oct 2019 05:56:13 +0000

I visited Hanns Kornell in 1970 on my first trip to wine country. Hanns was sitting contentedly in his winery, chatting with customers while turning those bottles in the rack, explaining the arcane details of champagne production by the traditional method. His dog William Tell was at his side. If Hanns had said to me “one day you will be a vintner” I’d have said “no way.”

By: Dawn Reinhardt

Dawn Reinhardt — Sun, 24 Mar 2019 22:41:50 +0000

We stopped in at Kornell when we were newlyweds. We tasted a wine that had been flavored with brandy? Do you know what I’m talking about? It was SO delicious. Do you still make it?

By: Robert Ruiz

Robert Ruiz — Sun, 21 Feb 2016 15:22:18 +0000

It’s spelled Hanns Kornell, not Hans Cornell. See his obituary in the New York Times at:

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/19/obituaries/hanns-kornell-is-dead-at-83-built-and-lost-a-major-winery.html

There’s a picture of the label with the proper spelling here:

https://images.vivino.com/thumbs/01beca6z7f5cw_375x500.jpg

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 01:07:44 +0000

In reply to Kathryn M. Tominey.

Kathyrn – sounds like a bit of dirty history there by that bank. Riddling marks on wine from Napa – hmm that is a mostly a thing of the past…although if your production is small enough, I suppose it still makes sense to riddle by hand. I know Frank Family does so as does Schramsberg (not sure if Schramsberg riddles their entire production by hand or not). If you want to see a gryopallete in action, check out the tour at Mumm Winery do see how riddling is done large scale! And I’ve heard of several local mobile bottling trucks setup for handling sparkling wines (very rare) – Todd Graff at Frank Family mentioned another one I had never heard of based in St. Helena.

By: Kathryn M. Tominey

Kathryn M. Tominey — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 05:55:45 +0000

I had Hans Cornell brut at my wedding in 1970 – several cases of it. I also recall the WSJ article laying out
the details if how their bank screwed them over. They had a loan which was current but the bank owner wanted a share in the winery. The owners did not want to sell so the bank called in the loan. They were legally allowed it was spiteful and unethical. Presumably this is how the Franks came to have it in the aftermath of bank misbehavior.

Their sparling burgundy was very good but I liked their brut. It was neat to see actual riddling marks on our bottles.

Hope the Franks kept up the quality.