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Marciano Estate

Review by Dave 3 Comments

Marciano Estate. There are a certain number of properties within Napa Valley that are uniquely special based on the site, history or vineyard pedigree. What is now Marciano Estate is one of these properties. It is 60 acres located in the rolling lower elevation hills of the Mayacamas mountains south west of the town of St. Helena. Some of it’s historical vineyard neighbors include Hayne Vineyard, Lewelling Vineyards and a couple of nearby Beckstoffer owned properties.

The property was under ownership of the Bourn Family, a prominent family in St. Helena. They called this property the Madroño estate. This is the same family that owned the Empire Gold Mine in Grass Valley, California (one of the most notable gold mines in the state and now a State Historic Park). This family (William Bourn II) is also connected with the construction of the impressive Greystone Cellars Winery in St. Helena (now occupied by the Culinary Institute of America). There is still even a Bourn Vineyard just west of the town of St. Helena, a portion of which is owned by prominent grower Andy Beckstoffer. The Bourn’s owned their Madroño property from 1872 until the late 1950’s.

The Bourn Family eventually sold this estate to the Christian Brothers who in turned used it as a Catholic retreat center. After they sold it, a family purchased and planted 20 acres of grapes on site with the fruit going into the portfolio of several local wineries. In 2006 long time collector (especially of older Bordeaux wines) Maurice Marciano purchased the property and over the subsequent years invested his creativity along with many others into building what has become a remarkable estate.

Maurice was born and raised in Marseille, France and is most well-know for being the co-founder of Guess Inc., along with his three brothers. He is also a prolific art collector and opened a contemporary art museum (Marciano Art Foundation) in Los Angeles (one of the great museum cities in the country) at the end of May 2017 but this museum permanently closed at the end of December 2019.

An estate like this with its historical pedigree should be focused on it’s own vineyards and estate wines. And it is; Maurice purchases no grapes from other vineyards. The property has changed dramatically since his purchase in 2006. He hired prominent architect Howard Backen of St. Helena based Backen, Gillam, & Kroeger Architects to design the winery and David Abreu to manage the vineyards.

After David Abreu provided his initial vineyard evaluation, the joint decision was made to cut the vineyard acreage in half from twenty acres to ten – focusing on the most premium sites on the property. Today four of the five major Bordeaux red varietals are planted – the exception being Malbec. Five of the other ten acres were then planted to olive trees – and now there are nearly 1000 olive trees on site planted to both Italian and Spanish cultivars. They produce a premium olive oil each year – most recently taking top recognition at the annual Los Angeles International Extra Virgin Olive Oil Competition.

Ultimately the winery design took on the contours of the rounded shapes and curvatures of the various features on the property. The stand alone barrel room is the signature building on site – one that your eye immediately is attracted to upon pulling up to the winery. This contains two vintages of wine. The winery itself is state-of-the-art featuring small tanks that correspond to each block within the vineyard.

Winemaker Morgan Maureze was an early member of the winemaking team – soon after Mauricio purchased the property. He has played an integral role in both making the wine and helping oversee the vineyards (today they have their own in-house viticulture and vineyard management team).

Morgan was born in France to a wine-making family (where he only spent several years of his childhood). He moved with his family to the Napa Valley in 1985 where his father became the General Manager of Dominus Winery in Yountville. Growing up immersed in both the French and the American wine world perhaps it was natural that he followed his family’s wine pursuits.

He earned his degree in Viticulture and Enology from UC Davis and then moved to France to continue his education through the University of Bordeaux working at famed wineries such as Petrus and ultimately completing his Masters Thesis at the storied Domaine de la Romanee Conti. Returning to the Napa Valley he joined winemaker Andy Erickson’s team – assisting him make wine at a number of Napa’s most premium properties including Screaming Eagle and Dalla Valle among others.

There is something to be said for working on a property since it’s inception – especially the vineyards. Morgan has been able to fine tune details both in the vineyard and in the winery based on the maturity of the vines, differing vintages and the specific terroir on this estate.

His attention to detail is highly focused in the winery – using technology to complement and perhaps backup his own observations both in the vineyard and in the winery. While the technology is nice to have (and this winery certainly uses it), Morgan is quick to state that the human observation of the vineyards is critical. He walks the vines often looking for things out of the ordinary; in the winery they use automatic pump overs, each tank is equipped with it’s own pump (which saves time and prevents possible contamination or blending issues) but he finds he needs to taste the wine more often – checking for flavor development, tannins levels and other important attributes during the actual wine making.

Marciano Estate produces five wines – their total production is around 1200 cases annually (they tend to hold a sizable percentage of wines back for their Library). We tried the following three wines:

Select Wines
Their Sauvignon Blanc vineyard is separate from the rest of the vineyard – this block sees a lot of shade and Morgan often has it picked several times during harvest to ensure he is only picking the grapes when they are ready. They ferment this varietal in concrete eggs (also used in their red wine program). These ‘eggs’ are state of the art with the heating and cooling system built directly into the ‘shell’ or in the concrete rather then being an external device.

The 2015 Marciano Estate Massiglia Sauvignon Blanc was made to preserve the freshness and liveliness of this particular varietal. The wine was not stirred on the lees post fermentation – was aged in both new French Oak, 25% stainless steel barrels and 50% neutral oak. This wine is bright golden in color; it reveals a delicious bouquet bursting with aromatics including green apple, more subtle notes of pineapple and as it opens a diversity of citrus aromas show including lime. It is balanced with lingering sweetness and tartness along with very subtle notes of toasted caramel.

The 2013 Marciano Estate Massiglia Red Wine is dark ruby in the glass revealing a voluptuous nose with an elegant core of fruit woven throughout the bouquet. Black currant, cassis and more – this wine is well layered aromatically. Darker fruit shows – black currant, black cherry with flavors of cassis anchored by earthy tannins – with nuances of smoke on the finish. Ample structure with plenty of flavor.

The 2013 Marciano Estate Cabernet Sauvignon – their flagship wine is from the best blocks on the property. This vintage/wine is also blended with 7% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot. It is ‘generous’ as Morgan puts it – generous in aroma and flavor. It is quite dark in the glass with sweet aromatics showing blackberry, elegant cedar notes and mocha. The tannins, are dusty, earthy in nature – they do not necessarily have a course feel on the palate but provide plenty of structure to the long finish. Balanced but big, yet still retains some elegance.

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A very unique offering from a Napa based winery is Kosher wine. We know of only two other true kosher producers making wine in the Napa Valley (Hagafen & Padis Estate, which is made at Hagafen). Morgan oversees the entire wine-making for this wine but does not physically touch anything related to making this wine (tanks, barrels, the wine itself). Rabbi’s are brought in from Berkeley to do the hands on work as needed. Demand has been high for this premium rare wine (Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc) and production has increased accordingly.

Also of note, Maurice (along with his brother Paul and Christian Navarro – a noted wine expert) – purchased one of Los Angeles’s iconic wine shops, Wally’s Wine & Spirits in 2013. The flagship Wally’s is in Beverly Hills (a diverse and excellent selection at this store from personal experience and attending a Napa winery release here). A second store location is in Santa Monica and in late summer 2021, a third location opened in Las Vegas.

The wines are available through their mailing list and also at select restaurants in both the Napa Valley and Los Angeles including Meadowood and The French Laundry and at Spago and Cut in Beverly Hills. And of course at Wally’s.

For more information about the estate, their wines and olive oil please visit: www.marcianoestate.com


Filed Under: Reviews

Comments

  1. Ralph DeAmiciz says

    June 5, 2021 at 12:36 pm

    Hey Dave,
    Thanks for the insightful review of Marciano. I’m focusing future tv episodes on interesting winery buildings and locations and their round winery is rather unique. How are you doing? I’m sure the travel restrictions were felt very personally. Of course it shut down the tour business and tv production but of course publishing marches on. R

    Reply
  2. Dave says

    June 5, 2021 at 8:27 pm

    Ralph – it is great to hear from you. I’m sure you are back to being busy like the rest of the valley is right now 🙂 The TV episodes on interesting winery buildings and locations sounds like a great niche. Be sure to check out MS Torun one of, if NOT the most UNIQUE overall experience in Napa Valley. They have a round stone building to, that Sid built by himself 🙂 Read my notes on them…

    March 15th 2020 – I took off immediately, no lockdown here whatsoever. Start of a number of cross country road trips – SW USA, North Central up to the Dakotas (stumbled randomly into Valiant Vineyards with their Jessup Cellars connection!!) and one trip made it as far east as Detroit (tonsss of Napa Valley winery connections there). Tried to drive into Canada but border was completely shut down, so I just yelled Bonjour across the water to Windsor ON.

    I was going to save my road trip exploration of the USA for later in life, but last year sorta fell into my lap as far as being a good time to explore this great country. It was an awesome time to travel – NO traffic, gas was very cheap, and resorts and hotels were extremely low priced. I spent a few months cris-crossing the country visiting places and spaces connected to the Napa Valley. 32 states visited. Wierd staying at HALL Arts hotel in downtown Dallas during riots, curfew time was like 5 or 6pm, but I snuck out to see the rioting, wasn’t’ to bad. Story of my trips were EMPTY cities.

    Later in the summer I went to the very remote Tuamotos in French Polynesia – there is a winery with many acres of vines planted directly in coral. They ferry the grapes by boat from the vineyard island to the winery island over aquamarine waters. Never seen anything like it! I arrived back stateside that Sunday and came to Calistoga for the week helping fight fires – staying with my friends who always refuse to evacuate. Knowing the back roads in, and through vineyards got me past the road blocks.

    Several trips to east coast and Florida in fall and winter – my favorite photo of 2020 was one I took clubbing in a nightclub in Naples in December with a full house and people dancing to dj. The receptionist invited me to the club – she never showed, but I made the most of my time there.

    One trip to DC was bizarre – flight was empty, I arrived Friday evening and I was the ONLY customer in the entire car rental center at Dulles along with TWO employees! Crazy.

    Went down to Mexico for two months later in December – returned there to do Napa wine tastings with a few distributors in April. I just returned from an epic Napa Valley in Europe (Luxembourg, Amsterdam, Frankfurt + Mainz and Bordeaux + Provence 10 days ago. Was a really cool time to be in Europe, I’ve never ever seen St. Emillion so empty. I spent an hour in Bordeaux airport after I arrived just to absorb the emptiness as I never see that in airports.

    Curfew was at 7pm, but I didn’t have any problem being out anywhere until much later. Food situation was pathetic, very very few restaurants were open – I hate fast food, ended up driving through Burger King and McDonalds a few too many times.

    So I continued travel for much of last year – just was not able to go to some of the more exotic countries.

    Hope to bump into you in the valley this year.

    ~ Dave

    Reply
    • Ralph DeAmicis says

      October 10, 2021 at 7:34 pm

      Hi Dave, I just saw your response from June as I was doing some research after touring with some wacky clients. That was an epic journey when everybody was hunkered down on their couches. You alluded to this the other night at the historical society, but it even more impressive when I can read it in a stream.

      Reply

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Marciano Estate

www.marcianoestate.com

Phone: 967-0983

Open to Public: Private

Appointments: No

Regular Tours: No

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