Bottle shot courtesy of Napa Valley Farms
Todd has no distribution outside of California and because of the limited quantities produced the best way to secure the wine is through their website. Napa Valley Farms can typically ship direct domestically.
Napa Valley Farms charges the exact same price for all of their wines! (the exception is their one white, the Viognier). A pricing system like this is uniquely refreshing; it does not place value on the the type of wine, varietal or vineyard source (we must mention here that Napa Valley Farms sources from several high end vineyards in well-known Napa appellations – Oakville, Howell Mountain etc). In addition this type of pricing does not create a preconceived notion of value. Hmm remember Sideways, the movie that killed Merlot for some? What happened there? All of the sudden a number of people’s tastes changed because of seeing a movie. Right. This pricing leaves everything up to you, i.e. your palate and what you find desirable. Excellent!
Because of the fairly large number of wines produced, we will provide tasting notes for just a few of our “highlights”. Overall, their wines usually run about 50% Bordeaux style and 50% more traditional California style. We started our tasting with the 2006 Viognier, their one white wine. This is a nice departure from the almost obligatory Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blancs you find at many Napa wineries. This wine has nice notes of pineapple, green apple; its a lively crisp wine with a good balance between acidity and fruit. The only red wine that is 100% varietal is their Cabernet Franc. This is a very nice example of what you can do with California grown but styled as an elegant old world wine. This unfortunately was sold out but hopefully future vintages will be available.
Two distinctly different Cabernet Sauvignons are produced. The one from Howell Mountain is the typical Napa Cabernet that people flock to this area for. Its a “muscular” wine that is rich and intense in aroma and layers of flavor on the palate. As with the other Red wines this one is blended with Petite Verdot which helps provide the dark inky color and aroma. In contrast to this wine, is the more silky smooth very approachable Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon. This is a very food friendly wine more “old world” in style – nice spices with notes of ginger complete the finish.
Todd was the inspiration and driving force behind the very fun first Friday of every summer month event called Cheers St. Helena (no longer held). For several years this community event allowed businesses on main street St. Helena host a Napa vintner and taste ticket holders on various wines. It was a neat event that helped connect both locals in the community with visitors to the valley.
Todd remains extremely busy in a variety of projects including an exiting new venture, Dry Farm Wines. These are low alcohol non Napa wines sourced mainly from Europe with the focus on minimal intervention farming and winemaking – these wines are all under 12.5% alcohol. For more information about these wines and to signup for their mailing list, visit: www.dryfarmwines.com
NOTE, this review has been archived
Reason: Napa Valley Farms is no longer making wine commercially, however they have a mailing list and members can still purchase older releases.
Leave a Reply