Dutch Henry Winery is a small family-owned winery at the northern end of the Silverado Trail. The Dutch Henry Winery is a family run affair. The owners are Less and Maggie Chafen of San Francisco, and their son Scott Chafen is the winemaker and vineyard manager. The family opened the winery in 1992. The winery has estate vineyards located at the winery as well as other areas in the Napa Valley. The winery is named for a somewhat shady character, Dutch Henry, who was a silver miner in the area during the mid 1800’s. Read the rest of this entry »

In celebration of Earth Day, we thought it would be fitting to list the wineries in the Napa Valley and Los Carneros that are recognized as leaders in utilizing “Green Activities” in their vineyards and winery facilities. The term “Green” can mean many things but in the case of this blog post we use the term “Green” to include the following activities:

• Organic farming (no use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers)
• Use of solar power
• Use of bio diesel fuels (fuels derived from vegetable oil)
• Water conservation
• Reduction of waste

The following is a list of Napa wineries that we consider to be exemplary in their attempt to reduce their carbon footprint and preserve the environment for future generations. Read the rest of this entry »

We just read a great review of the “House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty” in the wine blog Vinography. The review reminded us that the author of this, Julia Flynn Siler, will be one of three featured authors at the Burlingame Library Foundation Book and Author Luncheon on Saturday, May 3, 2008 from 11:30 am to 3:00 pm. The cost is $65 per person and all proceeds benefit the Burlingame Public Library.

We live in Burlingame so you can easily understand why this event is of great interest to us. We get double pleasure out of attending this event. It helps our library and we get to hear Julia Flynn Siler talk about ‘The House of Mondavi,” a book that we thoroughly enjoyed reading. Having started our wine enjoyment adventures in the mid 1960’s, the book brought back many memories and experiences of the early days of the Napa Valley. We often wonder what the Napa Valley would be like today without the influence and pioneering of Robert Mondavi.

If you would like to attend this event, you can order your tickets online from the Burlingame Library Foundation.

The term “sustainability” means preserving the environment and using the land in such a way as to preserve it for future generations. Honig Vineyards & Winery is proof positive that a winery can make really good wines while at the same time preserving the planet by adopting sustainable practices. In the case of Honig Vineyards, sustainable practices include cover crops instead of chemical fertilizers, owl houses and bat houses instead of pesticides, the use of solar energy and bio diesel fuel, and much more.

We recently visited Honig Vineyards on a beautiful spring day. The winery is open by appointment only so we were expecting few visitors during a Tuesday visit. We were surprised to find the winery quite busy. It is obvious that Honig is a popular winery among tourists.

Our host gave us the choice of tasting wines in the tasting room or at the tables in their outdoor tasting area. That was an easy choice considering how pleasant a day it was. Tasting fee is $10 for a taste of five wines including their high-end Bartolucci Vineyard Cabernet. Our host poured us a taste of their Sauvignon Blanc and sat down to welcome us to Honig and chat about their philosophy of sustainable practices. Our host was very enthusiastic but not overbearing. He gave us plenty of time alone to savor each wine. Each time he returned he gave us a brief description of the wine he was pouring and answered our questions knowledgeably. We spent a very leisurely time in the sun enjoying all the delicious Honig wines. The Rutherford Sauvignon Blanc is a wonderful wine and has been one of our favorites over the years. The Bartolucci Vineyard Cabernet is an outstanding wine highly rated by various wine critics. However, at $75 a bottle, it is a just a bit out of our price range.

Before we left, we walked in the vineyards to observe the owl and hawk houses posted at the end of several of the vineyard rows. The rows between the vines had been recently tilled so that the cover crops were now mulched into the soil.

One more thing, our host, also explained that the sustainable practices concept is applied to employees. The winery provides full benefits and other workplace practices to keep employees working productively and remaining on the job.

The Good: A fine example of what can be done using sustainable practices, delicious wines.
The Bad: The Bartolucci Vineyard Cabernet is out of our price range.

We hadn’t heard much about Buehler Vineyards nor tasted their wines until we went to a wine tasting event sponsored by the Napa Valley Vintners Association. We enjoyed the Buehler wines we tasted and then shortly thereafter, the Wine Spectator rated their Buehler Vineyards 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon 90 points and listed this wine on its annual issue of Top Value wines. So on our next trip to the Napa Valley, we arranged to visit Buehler Vineyards.

You won’t find too many visitors at Buehler because the winery is open by appointment only and the winery’s location is at the base of Howell Mountain, some six miles in from the Silverado Trail. Don’t let this stop you from visiting, the views are breathtaking and the wines are a great value.

We met with John Buehler Jr. the owner of Buehler Vineyards and John gave us a brief history of the winery. In 1971 John Buehler Sr. retired and purchased this beautiful hillside property. John Jr. went to work managing the winery and making the wines until the winery became well established. In 1982 John Jr. hired Heidi Barrett, now the renowned consulting winemaker for several of Napa Valley’s most prestigious wineries. Today, David Cronin is winemaker and has been crafting the Buehler wines since 1993.

John took us on a vineyard tour that was quite amazing. The views are very pretty and there is also the structure that was a “ghost” winery before the days of prohibition. Today, it houses the horses and some bats and owls. The winery has 55 acres of hillside vineyards planted with Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel. In addition, the winery brings in Chardonnay grapes from the Russian River Valley to make its gentle Chardonnay wine.

Following our vineyard and winery tour John took us into the tasting room and we sampled five wines, three Cabernets, a Zinfandel, and the Chardonnay. All the wines were very delicious. We were surprised by the fact that the wines were priced so reasonably, compared to other wineries with the same type of hillside vineyards. For example, the vineyard designated Papa’s Knoll Estate Cabernet Sauvignon is priced at $45. We have seen many hillside wines like this for well over $100. Earlier in the day, we had tasted a Cabernet on the Valley floor that was not nearly as tasty but priced at $75. The Buehler Zinfandel was a lovely wine but unfortunately, even though it was available for tasting, there is none left to sell at the winery. Fortunately, we were able to find a few bottles of the Buehler Zinfandel at our local wine shop.

We had a very nice visit and once again reaffirmed our notion that visiting family-owned wineries is always a unique and exciting experience.

The Good: Spectacular views, hillside wines at reasonable prices, family owned.
The Bad: Zinfandel sold out.