Winelog #4 Chappellet

Chappellet Vineyard & Winery: 1581 Sage Canyon Rd., St Helena, CA. 94574 (707) 963-7136 

by appointment only.

We took a turn off the trail and headed up onto Sage Canyon Road to Pritchard Hill for a visit at to Chappellet where Amy Pakter was setting up the glasses to host us for a tour and tasting. The settings of the mountain wineries are always my favorite. I like getting off the Valley floor and away from the crowds, and I especially appreciate the mineral and spice qualities and robustness of mountain-grown fruit. Property goes from 1300 to 2000 feet, overlooking Lake Hennessey.

Amy left, Brett right, Lake Hennessey behind. 

Not another soul for miles.  

I would say that Amy pours "friendly". 

640 acres purchased in '67. Don Chappellet had previously purchased an original patent for a press-button stand-up coffee machine. Came up here afterward to pursue his dream of winemaking. Had been a big collector of Latoure and Mouton, other big-name French Domaines. He wanted to get out of LA area where he lived with 5 children. Consulted directly with the great Andre Tschelischeff. (See Beaulieu Vineyards, Judgment of Paris by George M. Taber) Said he wanted to do Bordeaux style wine, Andre told him to buy hillside property, rocky, well-aerated, volcanic inert soil + struggling vines with a deeper tap roots pushing through more layers of sediment = smaller, more robust fruit with more complex mineral flavor components present. Donn bought property and built winery in 1968, the second winery built after prohibition, Robert Mondavi being the first.

View from outside one of back corners

of the Chappellet pyramid.

Molly (Donn's wife) was docent at LA County Museum and friendly with many up and coming contemporary artists, such as Ed Moses, who designed this winery house. This is a pyramid of massive douglass fir beams and rafters, a monolith of wooden geometry built into the living-rock hilltop, (the bottle logo takes after a bird's eye of the roof). The building is almost completely integrated into the landscape and only appreciated fully from inside.

View inside Chappellet Winery

The administrative offices are built into a loft with some eighty skeletal steps leading up to it off the winery floor. 

  

With 12 current releases and only four distributed nationally, Chappellet has much more to offer for folks who visit the property and join the club than for the wine shop in New York.  

1) Chenin Blanc- Special wine for them. There was Chenin growing up here when they bought the property (and so, it is a component of the original unimproved land for them, a remnant of the beginnings of the winery). Originally Chenin Blanc is more known to come from the Loire Valley of France. It had done well on Pritchard Hill in the past. Molly Chappellet was a big fan. They grow a little vineyard up on the hill, it's the only white they grow, they age it in a
"nomblot" (a concrete egg), giving it a minerality, and also in new and neutral french oak. I wished I could pick one of these up. Incredible apply, stone fruity, off-dry floral delight!

2 Chardonnays, from grapes grown in the Carneros area where the fog rolls in off the bay and blankets the grapes in a nice cool cover protecting them from the sun, "The Irish Girls" Amy calls them!!  

2) Napa Valley Chard, nationally distributed, burgundian style, aged 1/3 new French oak, 1/3 stainless steel and 1/3 neutral oak. 

3) Signature Chard, 100% ml, french oak aged, much smaller production California style creamy, buttery, delicious! Only available through the club. 

3) Zinfandel- very complex, and yet extremely approachable. They have library wines at really reasonable prices; '05 for $40. Club wine only.

Donn turned 80 last month and he and Molly just celebrated their 60th anniversary. Kids are running the business now for the most part. Jon Marc Chappellet as head of operations along with Vineyard manager sits in office at top of the Pyramid; oldest daughter and first born Lygia is an artist; Cyril is oldest brother and in charge of sales and marketing; Carissa Chappellet is lawyer who handles legal end of business; and Dominic, the baby, is videographer and here every day working in the winery as well. Lovely family business with employees who have been here over 10 years. Amy and Dominic are childhood sweethearts. Amy's very first glass of wine she ever had was with Donn Chappellet!    

They are building a new facility under the solar panel array to move in their off-site barrels and their fermentation tanks inside. They are 100% solar powered.

Bordeaux style cab sauv, Robert Parker opened their 1969 cab sauv in 2010 and said it was one of most compelling Cab Sauvs he had ever tried. 

4) Malbec and Merlot blended in with Cab. World class. 

Amy took us on a long hike up above the winery house through the vineyard to a giant rock garden pouring wines along the way, then finally back down to finish the tasting around a heated table cut from a solid wood log. Out of almost 100 properties visited now, I could not imagine a more personable, friendly and delicious tasting experience in the Valley, and after all, it's all about the experience!

Contemplating Cabernet on the rock.