Panek Vineyards was founded by Jim and Cyndi Panek with their first vintage, a Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon produced in 2018. Jim was born and raised in the Chicago area and Cyndi is from Detroit. Both met while studying at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Like many who eventually become more serious about wine, their first introduction to wine was at college where Jim recalls drinking Boon’s Farm and Blue Nun. Work took them to California; they moved here in 1982 and is where their appreciation for fine wines began. They would often take day trips up to Sonoma Valley and Napa Valley.
While one of Jim’s grandmothers made pumpkin wine during the Depression in the 1930s – sealing the vessel with wax and hiding it in her dark basement, Jim was never introduced to wine by his family. But he always loved the process of fermentation; after graduating with a degree in Chemical Engineering he worked in the pharmaceutical industry. He remembers working with large-scale anti-biotic fermentations including penicillin and penicillin precursors. And later while living in California, he worked with mammalian cell cultures, a form of fermentation.
During an anniversary trip to Napa Valley, he and Cyndi discussed the possibilities of owning property in the valley. They contacted a realtor with a focused set of property requirements: they wanted a parcel approximately 20 acres, asked for land located on the valley floor but also requested it have some elevation. The realtor soon called back on a Sunday afternoon and said he had the perfect property. This was in late March; Jim remembers driving in and seeing all the fruit trees in bloom. Ultimately they only looked at this one property and then made a bid. The realtor called back and said he had some bad news; there were 8 other bids including some from wineries and one from someone flying in from Italy to see the property. A personalized letter to the owners helped their case; the owners accepted their offer. This was in 2000.
The 22 acre property was planted at the time to about 50% diseased Cabernet Sauvignon and 40+ year old head pruned and dry farmed Zinfandel. The Cabernet Sauvignon was going to Kendall Jackson and the Zinfandel to Beringer Vineyards. An old chicken farm used to be located on the property and it was planted to walnut orchards. This fine vineyard neighborhood is located several miles north of St. Helena; nearby neighbors include Shibumi Knoll, Battuello Vineyards, the Collins Holystone Vineyard and AIDA Vineyard.
In 2003 and 2006 the property was replanted to 12 acres of Sauvignon Blanc (cuttings from nearby Vineyard 29) and one acre each of Sauvignon Blanc and Petit Verdot. The vines are separated into 10 distinctive blocks. The well-drained soils are deep and in part are alluvial with rounded gravel deposits from Milliken Creek which flows through one side of their property.
With input from winemaker Philippe Melka in terms of variety and clone selection, Pina Vineyard Management planted the property; they continue to oversee its vineyard management. Philippe also chose the Sauvignon Blanc Musqué clone of the variety, a lower yielding but very high quality clone. Jim and Cyndi were already familiar with the wines of Vineyard 29; Pina Vineyard Management connected them to Melka. Jim and Cyndi contacted 20 small producers when they were thinking about starting their small label. And all 20 replied and shared their experiences of starting and running small brands.
When the Panek’s purchased the property, property foreman at the time, Roberto Rodriguez worked nights as a janitor in St. Helena and worked on their property 6 days a week, assisting with vineyard work and landscaping. He was hired by the previous owner Mr. Victor Cole, but has long since retired. The Panek’s have sold to a diversity of producers including Vineyard 29, Pulido Walker, Revana, Amici Cellars, Diamond & Key and Fluent Wine Company.
Winemaker, Thomas Brown
Thomas Rivers Brown, their founding winemaker continues to craft their wines. He is one of the busiest wine makers in the Napa Valley. Several producers have showed us lists of all the Napa brands that he consults for and or provides direct winemaking services; this is an extensive list. He is from Sumter, South Carolina and developed an interest in wine while attending the University of Virginia where his major was not wine related (he studied English and Economics).
He moved to Napa Valley in 1996 and took a job at All Seasons in Calistoga, known for their California cuisine, wine selection and long time in business. Unfortunately All Seasons Bistro permanently closed in 2020. While there, Thomas met winemaker Ehren Jordan who was working for Larry Turley at the time of Turley Wine Cellars. Thomas took a job with Ehren in the cellar at Turley in 1997 – spent several years there before beginning his own career and starting to consult for various clients (some of which were clients that Ehren was already working with).
And within only 10 years of making wine in Napa Valley Thomas received two 100-point scores from Robert Parker; regardless of what your perception is of scores, creating several wines within a short period of time that receive 100 points from Parker was a watershed moment in Thomas’s consulting career.
Today Thomas is highly sought after for his winemaking services, experience and access to premium area vineyards. And while he was once the student, over the years he has become the teacher. We have met with a number of winemakers who worked under Thomas and consider him one of their mentors. These are winemakers who have since established their own brands or consult for other Napa Valley based brands.
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Select Wines
Sauvignon Blanc
The 2018 Panek Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc was tasted seven years post vintage. With age, the color of this wine has evolved and is a medium to deep gold. The tangy bouquet reveals scents of baked pineapple, honeycomb, honeydew melon, passionfruit, golden apples, bruised apples, straw, lemon oil, hazelnut and lanolin. And a floral note including of honeysuckle. Not green, not grassy and not herbaceous, but hiding behind all the fruit is a light note of thyme and dill. Brightly lit across the palate with an ethereal mouth feel, perhaps attributed to its age in the bottle, this wine delivers flavors of pineapple, Golden delicious apples, honeycomb, apricot, Babcock peach, white nectarine and cantaloupe. Silky smooth and with a rounded mouth feel, the texture is almost slippery, flowing across the palate with a gentle weight. The finish lingers with loads of fruit still and a light by lasting note of sweet dill and tarragon. We would love to pair this with lightly seared scallops in butter, a light dusting of salt and lemon juice.
The 2021 Panek Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc is medium gold; the bouquet is a union of floral, citrus and apple. These aromas include golden apples, not fully ripe pineapple, a flinty note, apple skin, a light note of chamomile more in the background. Minerally, fleshy in terms of texture and richly flavored, this wine tastes like Golden delicious apples, loquat, cantaloupe, golden plums, papaya, yellow nectarine and peach. This wine is superbly balanced in terms of its tension between acid, flavor and texture. Lingers bright and mouth watering; this bottling showcases plenty of California sunshine and warmth, especially reflective of up valley, but at the same time there is a lovely vein of acidity running the length of the palate. This wine was aged for 8 months in 100% French oak barrels of which 20% were new. This wine is showing in a sweet spot 4 years post vintage.
Cabernet Sauvignon
The 2018 Panek Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon is deep ruby and opaque in the glass; the aromatics are compelling at 7 years post vintage, a union of both fruit and savory attributes. Its scents include dark plum, black cherry, boysenberry and blackberry – but there are so many more layers at play here including walnut husk, dark olive, old cedar box, old baseball mitt leather. And speaking of leather, there is an aroma here that brings us back to our childhood of working summers on a ranch owned by friends of our parents. The smell of leather gloves after chain sawing and cutting under brush all day. And as the wine evolves it expresses a note of baker’s chocolate and dried herbs including dried sage and bay leaf. This is a wine that is hard to stop smelling. A mouthful of dark fruits, brimming with flavors of dark cherry, plum, blackberry and Himalayan mulberry. Plush in terms of the interplay between ripe fruit and texture, the well-tumbled tannins feel soft and pillowy with a light but persistent gravelly character. The fruit parallels the tannins in tandem on the extended finish. This wine is aged for 20 months in 100% French oak barrels of which 80% are new barrels. Crowd friendly.
The 2019 Panek Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon is deep ruby and opaque; color extraction has never been a problem from this vineyard, regardless of vintage. Shows similarities aromatically to the 2018 vintage but with some distinctive differences that hopefully one can tell them apart in a blind tasting. Its initial scents include chalkboard, a diversity of baking spices including nutmeg, cardamom and clove. And dark cocoa powder and dark chocolate. The fruit is ripe on the nose including plum, cherry and boysenberry. This wine is a little darker, more savory and a skosh brighter than the 2018 and 2020 vintages in terms of the palate; its flavors include bramble, dark plum, black cherry and boysenberry. The fruit is accompanied by notes of roasted herbs, dried sage, dust, smoked cedar and gravelly and grainy tannins which outpace the fruit on the bright and mouth watering finish. This wine has loads of life ahead with the proper cellaring. This is more of a cerebral bottling than the 2018 vintage, one you want to sit with and let all its layers slowly evolve.
The 2020 Panek Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon is deep ruby and opaque; the bouquet is more barrel influenced than some of the earlier vintages. The nose offers aromas of mocha, cocoa powder, milk and dark chocolate with dark fruits including blackberry, boysenberry, dark cherry and plum and a note of blood orange. Let this wine evolve; its fruit begins to open the more the wine sits in the glass. This is one of the finer 2020 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon bottlings from this challenging year – it is balanced, easy drinking and highly approachable 5 years post vintage. Its flavors include dark and ripe fruits including cherry, blackberry and mulberry with additional layers of dark chocolate, cocoa powder and a lasting note of roasted herbs. The tannins are polished and are seamlessly integrated into the plush and persistent dusty finish. A large part of their production this year was bottled as private label to clients on the east coast of the U.S. They lost all their Petit Verdot this year due to smoke issues.
Both the Panek Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon are bottle aged for a period of time much longer than most wineries.
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Jim and Cyndi’s daughter in law, Megan ‘Oz’ Panek designed the label. She is a teacher but also enjoys working with a variety of artistic mediums including acrylic; this was her first wine label design.
Private tastings can be arranged at Mending Wall Winery, south of Calistoga, where the Panek wines are produced and where Thomas Brown crafts wines for some of his other clients. And they maintain some limited distribution in Texas, New York and New Jersey. ACME carries their wines and can arrange private tastings at their retail space in St. Helena. Total production is 50-70 cases annually of their Sauvignon Blanc and 250-275 cases of their Cabernet Sauvignon, squarely placing them among some of the smaller producers in Napa Valley. For more information to schedule a tasting, or to purchase wines, visit: www.panekvineyards.com
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