Montes Announces Napa Wine Project

By: Anthony Gismondi

Sunday, September 3 2006

Vina Montes has commenced activities in Napa Valley, California where, they "intend to produce Napa wines by Aurelio Montes, starting with this 2006 vintage," says Director, Founding Partner and Guardian of the Spirit Douglas Murray.

The inaugural vintage will be produced by winemakers Aurelio Montes and Larry Levin, formerly of Franciscan and now Montes' consultant for Napa. Douglas reveals the fruit sources as vineyards in the Oakville, Stags Leap and Yountville districts. The plan is to produce one third of an initial 6,600 9-Litre cases as a powerful cabernet sauvignon/syrah blend retailing for US $70.00, two thirds as a reserve line and a stand-alone cabernet sauvignon.

Similar to the low key launch used to get Kaiken up and running in Argentina, Douglas sees, "a parallel future for our Napa Project: progressing rapidly from a conservative start."

"Napa was selected because it is such an irresistible region, quality and reputation-wise, and we want to see how we fare amongst all the American stars. The maiden vintage, 2006, will be offered solely in the USA, initially, and partially exported from the year 2009 onwards, as production allows."

The Montes home in Napa will be at Artesa, in Carneros. There is no name for the wines, yet.

Written By: ag

Anthony Gismondi

Anthony Gismondi is a Canadian wine journalist and one of North America's most influential voices in wine. For over 30 years, he has been the wine columnist for The Vancouver Sun. The twice-weekly column is distributed across Canada through the Postmedia Network to millions of readers. In addition, Anthony hosts the BC Food & Wine Radio Show, broadcast in 25 markets across B.C. and available as a podcast on major platforms. He launched Gismondionwine.com in 1997, attracting one million monthly users from 114 countries. It continues to be a valuable resource full of tasting notes, intelligent wine stories and videos for the trade and consumers. Conversations with wine personalities are available on his YouTube Channel.