What does it take to produce a truly world class Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon? First of all, it takes fruit: grapes grown in that special region that winds around only 2% of the earth’s surface and includes the Napa Valley. But just as important, it takes the expert touch of a master winemaker, someone who can combine artistry, chemistry and a little bit of magic into their craft. For Caspar Estate, that winemaker is Julien Fayard.

Julien is a firm believer that the wine is made in the vineyard. He frequently walks the vineyards and checking on the fruit. Our vineyards have several microclimates because of the row layout and the pockets of the hills and valleys. Julien is very selective, starting with the fruit that is ripe – it can be mid row but often it starts at the end of the row on the western side since it gets the most late afternoon sunlight.

On September 23rd, 2020, Julien supervised the harvest of several tons of our estate cabernet sauvignon, grown on slopes located above the Rutherford Bench in Napa. It was a gorgeous day, producing equally gorgeous fruit.

The fruit was quickly transported to Fayard Winemaking, Julien’s custom winemaking facility at the south end of the valley. This is where the first, critical steps of the process will occur, though as Julien says, it’s not the most important part: “Winemaking begins in the vineyard.” Julien’s wines are a pure expression of Caspar Estate terroir, highlighting the characteristics of the fruit, vineyard management, soil and climate.

Each bin of cabernet grapes Is then weighed. If the grapes are heaped high, each bin holds about a thousand pounds of grapes, meaning each one of these bins will result in about 31 cases of wine. Interestingly, cabernet grapes weigh about half as much as table grapes, as they have far less water content.

Next, the fruit is moved inside and stacked in front of the sorter. Julien’s winemaking team supervises all this work, making sure the fruit is moved as quickly as possible through the process. Consistency is key for Fayard, as it is another way of ensuring that winemaking doesn’t “get in the way” of the grape’s expression, but amplifies it instead.

The fruit is then unloaded into the sorter, then heads up the conveyor belt and into the tank where it will have a preliminary crush. On the way up the conveyor belt, Fayard’s team inspects the fruit to make sure extraneous leaves, branches or other vineyard material don’t make their way into the tank. This extra bit of quality control also ensures true varietal expression.

Yes, we admit it – we love to be there when the fruit comes in! It’s like seeing your children graduate from school!

With the juice now flowing to the tanks, Gingy and Deborah take a moment to pose for a selfie with Julien’s winemaking team. These men and women are the backbone of the operation, and an instrumental part in fulfilling our vision for Caspar Estate Cabernet Sauvignon.

Eventually, our cabernet will wind up here, in 100% new French oaks barrels. Julien prefers the tight grain – as well as the tradition – of French oak. It was a tradition he was introduced to during his years with Chateau Lafite Rothschild, a First-Growth Bordeaux house. Our Caspar Estate Cabernet Sauvignon pays homage to the Bordeaux tradition, while still maintaining its Napa pedigree, thanks to great fruit, a great team, and the expertise of Julien Fayard.

There’s something magical about Caspar Estate. Maybe it’s the location: nestled high above Rutherford in the Mayacamous Mountain Range, the vineyards over look the Napa Valley, on autumn days when the mountain peaks pierce the early morning cloud layer. On clear, fall mornings, like the one pictured here, you can see the hot air balloons as they rise over Yountville to get a peak of this special place – a place unlike any other in the world.

Or maybe the magic comes from the fruit? Our estate comprises ten acres of vineyard land tucked into rocky, volcanic crags, where sunlight graces the hillsides while cold, moist fog and gentle rains sweep by. The result is a natural terroir perfect for Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc and more.

On September 23rd, 2020, we harvested our Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc in the early morning hours. All our fruit is hand-picked by our experienced vineyard crew, supervised by our winemaker, Julien Fayard. We picked a total of several tons of Cabernet Sauvignon, which was then rushed over to our winemaking facility on the south end of Napa Valley, where Julien oversaw the sorting of the fruit as it went to the crush pad.

“Understanding when to pick the fruit is part science, part instinct and part art,” says Fayard. “We want the Cabernet to reach a certain brix before we pick, because that sugar content is critical. But there are other factors at play as well, like weather conditions, moisture levels and more.”

Late summer in Napa saw a strange mix of both heat waves and unexpected rain, followed by a series of wildfires. “Mother Nature will always throw a few curve balls at you,” Fayard says. “That’s where you have to rely on your instincts on when it’s best to pick fruit.”

A mid-September heat spike lead to an earlier-than-usual harvest, with slightly lower yields than the previous year, but no sign of smoke taint. The net result may be a lower alcohol content than previous Caspar Estate vintages, but that’s to be seen.

“Every harvest is different in Napa,” says Fayard. “So, even though I may have winemaking techniques I have honed through experience that I will use on every wine we produce, I have to approach each vintage with a different mindset – one that is focused on maximizing the quality of the fruit from each harvest.”

So, what is it that makes Caspar Estate so magical? Is it our location above Rutherford, the unique terroir, the beauty of our fruit? We like to think it’s the people that make it magic. From our family, to the workers in the vineyards who tend to the grapes daily, to the winemaker who creates delicious, balanced and refined wines vintage after vintage. The magic is in the people who create and nurture the art, science and beauty of wine.

And especially in the people who drink it! Want to be one of them? Sign up for the Allocation Waitlist.

Photo credit @bobmc

Harvest came to our gorgeous sauvignon blanc vineyard at Caspar Estate on August 21st, 2020. As is usual, the fruit was hand-picked in the cool, early-morning hours, then quickly transported to Fayard Winemaking on the south end of Napa Valley, where our delicate fruit continued a journey that started nearly a hundred and forty years ago.

It was back in the 1880’s when Charles Wetmore, founder of Cresta Blanca Winery, brought the first Sauvignon Blanc vines to California from the Sauternes vineyards of Château d’Yquem. Though they were initially planted in the Livermore Valley, the new vintners of Napa quickly got their hands on the new vines, knowing that the soil and climate in their valley closely matched the conditions in Bordeaux, France. The Sauvignon Blanc vines at Caspar Estate – distant relatives of these first immigrants – have their “roots” in this Old World tradition.

Another way that we pay homage to the Old World ways is the method we use when our grapes first arrive at our winemaking facility. Under the supervision of winemaker Julien Fayard – himself a first-generation French immigrant – the grapes are sorted in whole clusters and sent directly to the press. This year, we picked 4.9 tons of grapes: a small number indeed, since we only plant one acre of sauvignon blanc on our estate.

The press only holds room for about four tons of grapes, so we fill the press, do a quick run, then fit the remaining grapes into the press. This extra “press” also extracts just the right amount of tannin from the skins – not enough to become part of the flavor profile, but enough to give the acid just a little kick, making the Caspar Estate Sauvignon Blanc an excellent complement to shellfish and light pastas.

“This wine practically makes itself,” says Fayard. “By closely tending to the vines throughout the growing season, we know that the fruit is going to be gorgeous when we harvest it. Beautiful wines depend on beautiful fruit.”

Originally from Provence, Julien Fayard is one of Napa Valley’s most respected winemakers, with a knack for producing California varietals with French finesse. Formerly of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, he brings two decades of winemaking expertise Caspar Estate’s Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon. Fayard believes that the character of our Sauvignon Blanc, like the fruit grown in Bordeaux, is a result of terroir. “The citrus qualities come from the unique soils of our Estate, from its position above the Rutherford Bench. You cannot manufacture this. This is pure fruit expression.”

Once the juice is pressed, it’s placed in stainless steel tanks for its primary fermentation. Later, the wine will be transferred to French oak barrels, which gives the wine even more complex flavors. “We use oak to draw flavors out of the wine, not to draw flavors out of the oak,” says Fayard. More than anything, our oak treatment is designed to give the wine a round, balanced mouthfeel and a lush but clean finish.

2020 is shaping up to be another excellent vintage in Napa, with a cooler than normal summer despite the heat wave that hit right before the harvest. Our 2019 Caspar Estate Sauvignon Blanc – only our second bottling of this limited-availability wine – was released this month to rave reviews. If you’d like to be among the few who are allocated the 2020 vintage in early spring of next year, sign up on our Allocation List and we’ll let you know how.

Cheers!

For pinot noir, bottling is the last step in a nearly two-year process that takes grapes from the vine and puts wine on your table. If you’ve ever seen a wine bottling, you may think it looks like a lot like manufacturing, and not nearly as romantic as winemaking sounds. The truth is, every step of the process is absolutely essential to ensure that you not only pour a quality wine from that bottle, but that the wine can beautifully and gracefully age in the that bottle.

Let’s take a look at how bottling works. Earlier this month, we bottled our two, newest pinot noirs: the 2019 Russian River Pinot Noir and the 2019 Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir. We’re especially excited about the Santa Lucia Highlands release, as it is our first bottling of pinot noir from this unique and gorgeous appellation.

Bring In The Bottling Truck

It all starts with a big truck that looks like this:

It’s not a food truck – it’s better. It’s a Moble Bottling Truck, which contains all the necessary equipment to clean, fill, cork and label a wine bottle. Trucks like this can set up quickly directly outside a crush pad or warehouse and bottle tens of thousands of gallons of wine per day.

First, the wine is poured from barrels (or stainless steel tanks, if those were used for fermentation) into large tanks like this one. Notice the tubing that leads to a regulator that can start or stop the wine from reaching the bottling truck.

The bottling crew then takes cases of pre-sanitized wine bottles and empties them onto a conveyor belt that guides them onto the first mechanism, a machine that blasts nitrogen into the bottle to not only clear out any remaining dust particles, but to eliminate oxygen from the bottle. The bottle is then transfered from this machine to the one that dispenses a perfect 750 ml of wine into the bottle. In this video, you can see the first process on the right, and the second one on the left.

The bottles are then corked. A machine pops a burst of nitrogen into the top of the bottle to push out the tiny bit of oxygen remaining, then a cork is inserted to the bottle. This ensures that the least amount of oxygen remains in the bottle, so that the wine inside will age without oxydation.

The bottles then move along the conveyer to where they’ll be labeled. The labels are printed on giant rolls, which unwind as the bottle goes by. A roller affixes both the front and back labels.

Finally, the bottles are placed in cases, where they are sealed by hand and placed on pallets for warehousing. At this point, the wine is in “Bottle Shock,” a phenominon that occurs when wine has been shaken or disturbed more than normal. Bottle Shock can result in a wine tasting disjointed or imbalanced, so it’s recommended that recently-bottled wines are allowed to settle for at least a few days. We typically extend that period to 60 days, just to be sure. (Pro Tip: Bottle Shock can even occur after the shipping process, so it’s recommended that wine you purchase by mail be allowed to rest a couple of days before being consumed).

We’ll be celebrating Pinot Noir Day on August 28th, and if the 2019s are ready for their debut by then, they’ll be making their debut. Sign up for our Newsletter to keep informed about our plans for Pinot Noir Day events all that week!

We are thrilled to announce that we won many gold medals at the SF Chronicle Wine Competition! The San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition is currently the largest wine competition in North America. Professional wine judges are sourced throughout the major wine regions in North America to offer diversity of expertise to each judging panel. There were nearly 6,700 entries.

2017 Cultivar Wine Cabernet Franc Oak Knoll District Double Gold
2016 Caspar Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley  Gold – in our February Wine Club shipment
2017 Cultivar Wine Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Barrel Aged  Gold – in our February Wine Club shipment
2018 Cultivar Wine Chardonnay Oak Knoll District Barrel Aged Gold
2018 Caspar Estate Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley  Gold – in our February Wine Club shipment

These wines are available for purchase on our website and at Cultivar San Francisco – 2379 Chestnut Street in San Francisco’s marina district, just a few blocks from the Presidio and the Palace of Fine Arts, minutes from the Golden Gate Bridge. At Cultivar SF you can book a wine tasting, have weekend brunch, lunch on Thursdays and Fridays, weekday happy hours and dinner. We offer a Cultivar Wine Club and a mix of Caspar Estate and Cultivar Club as well. Join the club now for these wonderful wines delivered to your door!