Terra Valentine was founded in 1999 by Christopher Angus (died 2017) & Margaret Wurtele. Christopher was always known by his middle name of Angus. In 1996 they purchased 75 acres of land including existing vineyards in the Mayacamas mountains above the town of St. Helena. The named their vineyard Wurtele Vineyard. In 1999 they purchased the nearby Yverdon Winery. The Wurteles had always enjoyed visiting Napa Valley and were interested in permanently “retiring” here, which never happened as their primary home was in Minnesota.
The original site of Terra Valentine on Spring Mountain was purchased by Switzerland born Fred Aves in 1965; he was an engineer who invented and manufactured airplane and automobile accessories, including remote controlled mirrors on vehicles and a light bulb tester for lightbulbs in airplane instrument panels. He founded his first company, Aves Electric Company (AECO), in 1934 in Beverly Hills. He also was very successful in the self-storage business. We never met Fred, but he sounds exactly like the quintessential brilliant southern California engineer who could make anything out of any material. We were first introduced to these types of individuals, primarily from Los Angeles, during our years attending Cal Poly in Luis Obispo and through our work helping build a solar car.
According to an article published by the Venice High School Alumni, the high school from which Fred graduated from and the beneficiary of a sizable amount of money donated upon his death, his interest in winemaking began before he moved to Napa Valley. The article mentions that he took a winemaking class at UCLA, later traveled to northern California and purchased grapes for making home wine. And then he purchased land in Beverly Hills and planted a few wine grapes and built a small wine cave to store his home wines.
He called this special slice of Napa Valley, Yverdon, named after his mother’s hometown in Switzerland, located along the shoreline of Lac de Neuchatel. Fred initially planted grape varieties found in Switzerland, but these were not successful. Winemaker Cathy Corison of Corison Winery worked with Fred for two full vintages including in 1979 and 1980. Fred (died 1997) and his son Russell (died in 2019) built a small ‘castle’ of out of local stone quarried from Napa Valley and completed construction in the early 1970s. Their first harvest here was in 1971. According to an article in the The Napa Valley Register dated August 31, 1973 Yverdon’s Johannisberg Riesling was listed in wine writer Robert Balthazar’s list of top 50 wines from California that year. And an ad for Vallergas Market in the city of Napa in the The Napa Valley Register dated August 13, 1983 listed a 750ml bottle of Yverdon Cabernet Sauvignon for $5.29.
Fred Aves closed the winery operations in 1986.
Angus Wurtele earned his MBA from Stanford University in 1961 and the following year became president of Minnesota Paints Inc. Over the decades he built the company into what became Valspar Corporation; for reference, Minnesota Paints merged with Valspar in 1970. Eventually he was chairman of the company; today it is one of the largest painting and coatings companies in the world. Eventually he sold the company to Sherwin-Williams and retired as CEO in 1995. The Wurtele’s were generous philanthropists in Minnesota. The Wurtle Center for Leadership at Smith College in Northampton, MA is named in honor of their financial contribution to the college. And Angus generously donated both time and money to his alma mater, Stanford University.
Margaret is an author having published several personal memoirs after her son Phil, a student ranger died climbing Mt. Rainier at age 22 in 1995 on a rescue mission. These books are: Taking Root: A Spiritual Memoir (1998) and Touching the Edge, A Mother’s Spiritual Path from Loss to Life (2002). Following his tragic death, Margaret and Angus created the Philip Otis Environmental Authors Program at The Blake School in Minneapolis. This program is still active; and the student courtyard at the Upper Campus (one of four campuses) is named in his honor.
Another Napa Valley vintner who wrote two books on the subject of losing children was Arlene Bernstein, the co-founder of Mt. Veeder Vineyards. Margaret wrote her first fictional novel in 2012 called: The Golden Hour.
The winery is named after his Angus’s father whose first name was Valentine. Like his son Angus, Valentine spent a long career in the paint and coatings business in Minnesota. He became director of Minnesota Paints, Inc., in 1923 and from 1931 until he retired in 1952 he was the president of the company. After his ‘retirement’ he became chairman of the board.
During his career, Valentine Wurtle served on a number of boards and executive committees directly related to paints and grain products. He died at age 86 in 1972 and is buried in the Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. We will pay a visit to his grave, hopefully in 2024. When you combine retirement with starting a new winery, the word “retirement” loses its meaning rather quickly. When they purchased the physical winery on Spring Mountain, it needed much work; they completely remodeled and added a state-of-the-art wine making facility.
In 1999 the Wurtle’s partnered with winemaker Dennis Fife (died in 2016), who used to be married to wine writer Karen MacNeil. Fife also used to own Fife Vineyards with two sites, one on Spring Mountain and the Redhead Vineyard in Mendocino County; we visited his production and hospitality operations in Mendocino County years ago.
The Wurtele’s later hired Phillip Baxter as their consulting winemaker who also used to help make wine at Fife Vineyards. Phillip moved to Napa Valley in 1969 and worked at Charles Krug Winery; later he became the head winemaker at Rutherford Hill Winery. His son Phillip Jr and his wife Claire currently own and operate BAXTER, a hillside located winery about a 20-minute drive from Elk on the coastline which focuses on wines from Anderson Valley and other parts of Mendocino County. They also operate a small tasting room next to Highway 128 in Philo (Anderson Valley) which is about a 30-minute drive from the winery.
It was through his father’s role at Terra Valentine that his son Sam Baxter was hired as cellarmaster in 1999 a year after he graduated from the University of California Davis with a degree in enology. Later Sam became head winemaker and ultimately General Manger of Terra Valentine.
In late 2013 the Wurteles sold the physical winery and one of their two vineyards, the Yverdon Vineyard to Jackson Family Estates (Kendall Jackson). The original home of Terra Valentine is now the home of Lokoya Winery. In 2014 while looking to take an additional step closer to really retiring the Wurteles also sold their Terra Valentine brand to their longtime winemaker Sam Baxter and his wife Angela. With the Wurteles living in Minnesota, for many years Sam was the face of the winery and was synonymous with the brand. It made perfect sense for him to take over the ownership.
When ownership changed, Terra Valentine was no longer tied to the estate model of vineyard ownership. Because of this change, Sam relished the new opportunities including being able to source grapes from select vineyards throughout the valley. However, the desire to own his own vineyard piece of Napa Valley came to fruition in late 2015 when they purchased a 112-acre property called Spring Summit Ranch located at 2200 feet high on the uppermost slopes of the Spring Mountain appellation; a tiny house is also located on the property replacing the previous structure which burned along with nearly the entire property in the Glass Fire of 20202. Along with Paloma, these are the two highest vineyard properties on Spring Mountain. This site was not planted to vines at the time of their purchase; approximately 90% of the property is in Sonoma County within the Fountaingrove Appellation, which extends almost all the way to the northern city limits of Santa Rosa. Ten percent of this property is in Napa Valley within the Spring Mountain Appellation.
Regardless, the views from the top are spectacular taking in the hilly landscape looking west in Sonoma County all the way to a gap leading to the Russian River in the distance – with also excellent views of Mt. St. Helena and a tiny sliver of the northernmost part of Napa Valley floor. From here, one can also look down into the canyon that contains the headwaters of Santa Rosa Creek – the same creek the runs through downtown Santa Rosa.
Plans call for eventually planting up to seven acres of grapes on the Sonoma side of the property.
They currently make a wide variety of limited production wines. Sam continues to focus on these wines that they have made for years but has also added several other small production wines to their portfolio. Unusual by Napa standards is a Riesling (dry and from Spring Mountain) and a Blanc de Noir, a sparkling wine sourced from grapes grown in Sonoma County. They also make a rosé – with 2013 being their first rosé of Sangiovese and Pinot Noir (usually Cabernet Sauvignon is part of their rosé program).
Sam and Angela debuted an exciting label in early 2015, Foretell which focuses on small production (around 100 cases) Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon. The name of this wine is based around the idea of a winemaker trying to “foretell” or predict the characteristics of a wine and how it will age – starting from the vineyard, through the wine making process through its aging.
Select Wines
Since 2004 Terra Valentine has sourced grapes for their Pinot Noir from three vineyards in Sonoma County – in the Russian River region.
The 2012 Terra Valentine Pinot Noir is aged sur lie, un-fined and lightly filtered. Initially the bouquet shows a spicy and earthy note but that is not what this wine is solely about. After the wine opens the bouquet transitions to a rich expression of fruit including raspberry and strawberry with a hint of vanilla. The mouth feel is soft and rounded with flavors of cola cherry, raspberry and assorted baking spices. Supple finish.
The 2009 Terra Valentine Syrah (100 cases) is 94% varietal with 6% Mourvèdre; it is noticeably dark in the glass. The bouquet shows dark fruit, some toasted oak and hints of cedar along with a blackberry note – almost briar like. It is a powerful and an inviting nose. The palate is juicy, mouthwatering with plenty of flavor. The finish is long with layers of fruit but without huge tannins. Rather the tannins are clean, very well integrated and show delicately in the front of the palate rather than the back.
For many years they have made two Cabernet Sauvignon wines from what were their two estate vineyards: Yverdon and the Wurtele Vineyard. With the sale of the Yverdon Vineyard they will no longer be making wines from here but for upcoming vintages Sam made arrangements to source fruit from the vineyard that directly borders Yverdon. After the sale of the winery and Yverdon Vineyard the Wurtele’s decided to keep the Wurtele Vineyard and today they lease the grapes from this vineyard to Terra Valentine. They tend to hold back their red wines longer than the average winery – during a recent revisit we were tasting 5-year-old red wines.
The 2008 Terra Valentine Yverdon Cabernet Sauvignon is blended with 5% Merlot. The nose is sweet, perfume-like with plenty of black fruit (blackberry, ripe plum) including aromas of black licorice. Layers of flavor with big fruit up front and lingering dusty tannins on the finish along with notes of oak.
The 2008 Terra Valentine Wurtele Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon is 100% varietal. The bouquet is chalky or dusty if you will, complemented by dark berry fruit and notes of cocoa powder, baking spices and a unique hint of an Indian spice. This wine packs plenty of power on the palate with both flavor and big mouth filling chewy tannins that linger for quite some time.
The 2008 Terra Valentine Marriage is a Bordeaux blend barrel selection from both the Wurtele and the Yverdon vineyards. The wine is a blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon with smaller amounts of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. The nose shows slightly dusty with blackberry and black cherry aroma – the palate is well layered yet maintains a nice balance between fruit and structure. The tannins are certainly there (not as big as in the Wurtele Cabernet Sauvignon), are somewhat chalky and are fairly well integrated into the overall profile of this wine.
NOTE: this section of the review has been identified as needing a major update including tasting notes for current release wines.
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After the sale of the Terra Valentine property, they temporarily opened for tastings by appointment at a small winery they leased on the east side of Napa Valley. This winery was sold, and Terra Valentine has since moved their operations a winery in St. Helena.
Private tastings are held selectively in a private tasting room above the production facility or at the location where the Terra Valentine wines are produced. Sam is often around, and his wife Angela also helps with hospitality and conducts tastings from time to time.
For more information, to purchase wine including a limited number of library wines, to schedule a visit or to join one of their three wine clubs, visit: www.terravalentine.com
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