The Gateway To Napa Valley
Trefethen Family Vineyards
Wine expert Gosia Young explores Napa's Trefethen Family Vineyards by catching up with the vintners and getting full access to the story of how the family is now in their third generation. Check out her file on why the Signature Chardonnay is a must-sip wine to add to your bucket list.
Courtesy of Trefethen Family Vineyards
SPECIAL OFFER:
Exclusively for our readers, we partnered with Trefethen to offer you 15% OFF + FREE SHIPPING on their unbelievable 2019 Chardonnay! Use coupon code VINTNER15 at checkout to claim this offer. Offer expires Friday at midnight.
Link to order: https://www.trefethen.com/vintner-files-special-offer/
I’ll just lay it out here: Chardonnay is one of my favorite wine varieties. As a young (and broke) scholarship student studying my Masters in Wine Business in Burgundy, my first foray into the world of wine was with Chardonnay. To a wine novice like me, I had found wine heaven on earth. Little did I know, I quite literally had. Upon completing my studies, I returned home and the hunt to find a Burgundian-style Chardonnay in Napa began. My search was somewhat in vain until I heard about Trefethen Family Vineyards. This third-generation, family-run vineyard caught not only my attention, but also the world’s for their renowned Chardonnay. Here’s why it will capture your attention too.
Courtesy of Trefethen Family Vineyards
A CAN-DO-CHARD
While the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma are celebrated for their veritable cornucopia of Chardonnays to select from, if you’re anything like me, you’ll be searching for a wine that you can return to again and again. No one wants to spend $30 or more on a bottle of wine and not be able to drink more than one glass because it’s too overwhelming, or even worse because it’s just not that good. In addition, with the current state of the world, value-for-money is integral to our buying decisions. Student Gosia (and I’ll be honest, present-day Gosia) would want a wine that ticks the boxes of affordability, a good story, and most importantly, a wine with aromas and flavors that will wow both you and your friends at your next gathering (physical or virtual). After all, if we’re honest with ourselves, we are all social creatures that want a gold star for doing good.
With all this front of mind, the Trefethen Signature Chardonnay 2019 is your gal. It’s been described as
“…the yardstick by which all other Chardonnays must be measured” by Robert Drouhin himself.
And at only $38 a bottle, I consider this bottle the gateway to the Napa Valley and the best Chardonnay outside of Burgundy. One sip and you’re hooked.
Courtesy of Trefethen Family Vineyards
A GENERATION OF GOODNESS
So what makes Trefethen so great you ask? Besides the fact that Tenaya Trefethen, the adorable family Golden Retriever, graces the cover of ‘Wine Dogs California Book’, Trefethen has a lot of other fantastic things going for it. With estate vineyards in the Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley, Trefethen Family Vineyards is a perfect combination of real family values, care for the community, and honest-to-goodness hard work.
Their story begins in 1968. Back then, fewer than 30 wineries existed in Napa when Eugene Trefethen and his wife Catherine bought a dilapidated old ghost winery and a pretty rough looking vineyard. In fact, a lot of the Estate’s charm comes in the form of the only surviving 19th-century wooden three-level gravity-flow winery in the valley, which today is painted a beautiful pumpkin color - a true embodiment of Napa’s first golden age.
Taking a substantial leap of faith, Eugene and Catherine Trefethen began planting vines on the gravelly soils of their main ranch. Not too long thereafter, their son John and his wife Janet released the first commercial Trefethen wine, a Chardonnay, in 1973.
Inspired to build onto his father’s legacy, John saw the potential for something bigger. One of his first tasks was restoring the historic winery to its former glory. Then came a moment that changed everything. In 1979, Trefethen shot to oenophile popularity when their 1976 Trefethen Chardonnay was declared the “The Best Chardonnay in the World” at the Wine Olympics in Paris. This was a big deal. At the time, France was singularly dominant in producing the world’s greatest wines, and wine connoisseurs the world over believed French wines, particularly those from Burgundy and Bordeaux, to be superior to wines produced by any other nation. The idea of fine wine to rival the best of Burgundy and Bordeaux coming from a country like the United States, where there was a limited wine culture, seemed absurd.
As news of the results from the Wine Olympics began to make its way across the Atlantic, no one was more surprised by the results than Janet and John Trefethen, as they did not even know their wine had been entered in the tasting. Happily, this early success brought new attention to Napa Valley, and in particular, to the little winery that could. Fast forward to 2021 where today the entire estate is in the hands of 3rd generation Trefethens - Hailey and Lorenzo - who are following in their parents John and Janet’s footsteps to secure the estate’s future success.
I caught up with Lorenzo Trefethen, whose current focus is supporting sales and working closely with the Trefethen team, over Zoom.
“It’s a real team effort,” he explains. “We don’t shine the spotlight on any one person, because everyone plays a hand in creating. That’s why there’s so much power in our estate-grown philosophy,” expands Lorenzo. “We can achieve incredible things and make incredible wines only through our collective work, and I am so appreciative to be a part of this special company. That feeling is always reinforced when I encounter one of our crews working the vineyard. You can literally hear them, singing and laughing, before you can see them.”
Courtesy of Trefethen Family Vineyards
A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN
One can’t argue the close ties Trefethen has to Chardonnay. After their triumphant win at the 1979 Wine Olympics, John and Janet did not rest on their laurels. In terms of regionality, Chardonnay is still a relative newcomer to the area, and one could say that the Trefethen’s were the grape’s chaperone.
Napa’s Oak Knoll District creates the perfect canvas for growing Chardonnay, and John and Janet had a deep understanding of this from an early stage. In fact, in 2004, Janet co-founded the Oak Knoll District AVA after a decade of effort, which today encompasses the area north of the city of Napa at the southern end of the valley. Here, there is a confluence of fog and cooling marine winds that help ensure the grapes ripen perfectly. The Trefethen’s commitment to isolating the ideal terroir for their Chardonnay has undoubtedly led to their continued and consistent top spot on the awards podium.
“Our loamy soil lends a wonderful savoriness to the wine,” Hailey says. “In their youth, the flavor and aroma are fresh and fruity; as the wine evolves, the nose becomes more pronounced with a mineral character. We have always believed our wines should reflect their natural heritage.”
Today, Chardonnay has remained a constant, becoming Napa’s most widely planted white grape. At Trefethen, Chardonnay accounts for almost 30% of their crop and they farm 13 different clones and 28 different combinations of unique clones and rootstocks to achieve the perfect blend that’s representative of each vintage. With that level of attention to detail, the results have to be good, right? Right.
SPECIAL OFFER:
Exclusively for our readers, we partnered with Trefethen to offer you 15% OFF + FREE SHIPPING on their unbelievable 2019 Chardonnay! Use coupon code VINTNER15 at checkout to claim this offer. Offer expires Friday at midnight.
Link to order: https://www.trefethen.com/vintner-files-special-offer/