Cover Story:

That was the belief of winemaker André Tchelistcheff, a Russian é migré who settled in Rutherford, Calif., in 1938 to work at Beaulieu Vineyards in the heart of Napa Valley.

Tchelistcheff soon realized that the soil and geography of Rutherford possessed special attributes for winegrowing that he hadn’t seen in France. Within a few years of his arrival, Beaulieu Vineyards (BV) wines were attracting international attention.

“Before Tchelistcheff came to California, the vintner would say to the grower, ‘Bring me grapes, and I’ll make wine.’ But André emphasized the contribution of the vineyard,” says Andy Beckstoffer, one of the largest vineyard owners in Rutherford. BV Cabernet Sauvignon became known for its elegant, earthy
characteristics, what Tchelistcheff called “black tea” elements, says Joel Atkins, the director of BV winemaking. “BV’s vineyards across the street from the winery are in the sweet spot for Cabernet. The weather and soil create a small berry with a special intensity.”

Like many enophiles, Atkins first learned to enjoy red wine while drinking BV in college, long before he knew Rutherford geography, the name Tchelistcheff, or the history of Georges de Latour and Gustave Niebaum, the founders, respectively, of BV and nearby Inglenook, the grand estate founded in 1880. The former
Inglenook winery is now Rubicon Estate, owned by filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.

Rutherford is a mere blip along Highway 29 in Napa Valley. From the car, the vineyards of Oakville are
indistinguishable from those of its northern neighbor, Rutherford. A small sign announces the town and informs you that it has a population of 525 and an elevation of 170 feet. Roughly following the town’s boundary, the Rutherford federal winemaking district, or appellation, runs three miles up the highway
from Cakebread Cellars to just beyond Whitehall Lane Winery.

Regulated as an appellation only since 1993, Rutherford-designated wines (wines with at least 85 percent Rutherford grapes) first appeared on a dozen labels in the mid 1990s. Now there are more than 30 wines with Rutherford on the label, and Rutherford grapes are highly sought by vintners outside the district. About 40 wineries are located within the appellation.

Why is Rutherford so famous for Cabernet Sauvignon? At six square miles, Rutherford is the widest appellation in Napa Valley, and its vineyards receive more sun than most other areas—a growing condition
favorable to Cabernet. More than 2,250 acres in Rutherford are planted with the grape. Merlot, at 427 acres, is a distant second. Other grapes, such as Sauvignon Blanc, thrive on the sedimentary soils of the more fertile valley floor, closer to the Napa River, on the eastern side of the highway.

On the western side of the highway, several alluvial fans have developed over the years from deposits of gravel, sand, silt and clay carried and deposited by streams from volcanic mountains. These elevated layers of gravelly soil became known as “benches”—a terroir, or environment, in which Cabernet thrives.

Struggling mightily to reach deep into the gravelly dirt to find water, Cabernet vines on the bench create what is sometimes called a“ dusty” element in the tannins, a trait that marks out the grapes as being of Rutherford origin. John Williams, the owner of Frog’s Leap Winery in Rutherford, describes this
characteristic: “The weight of the tannins— how the tannins feel in your mouth—is like rubbing your hand back and forth along your grandmother’s red velour couch in her dusty living room.”

The diminutive Russian who first brought Rutherford’s tannin structures to the fore was just over five feet tall, yet he has cast a long shadow on American winemaking. Tchelistcheff was the first professionally
trained European winemaker in Napa Valley. He initiated many changes in American winemaking, from controlling malolactic fermentation—a secondary process that adds richness to wines such as Chardonnay—to making wine bottling more sterile by applying Louis Pasteur’s findings about bacteria. He
also operated an independent analytical laboratory for wineries and helped train Napa icons such as Robert Mondavi of Robert Mondavi Winery in Oakville and Joe Heitz of Heitz Cellars in St. Helena.

Mike Grgich, owner of Grgich Hills Cellar in Rutherford, worked for Tchelistcheff at BV from 1958 to 1962. Grgich recalls his boss’s mantra: “The best winemaker has one foot in the vineyard and one foot in the winery.”

“Tchelistcheff walked the vineyard and decided when to pick,” Grgich says. “He analyzed everything and kept me busy in the lab.” This precision influenced Grgich, who won the famous 1976 Paris Tasting with the 1973 Chardonnay he made at Château Montelena.

After retiring from BV in 1973, Tchelistcheff consulted for other wineries. In the early 1980s, he mentored Mike Martini, the grandson of his friend Louis Martini, founder of Louis M. Martini Winery in St. Helena. “Tchelistcheff taught us to adopt winemaking to each lot of wine,” Mike Martini says. “It’s like watching
over a child, being attuned to the vineyard and then adding intuition and taste to science.”

As an octogenarian, Tchelistcheff returned to BV as a consultant in the early 1990s.
Joel Atkins, then a young winemaker at BV, was ready to make changes; but other staff wanted to preserve André’s traditions. “André backed me up when I blended Cabernet Sauvignon with other varietals rather than bottling Cabernet on its own,” Atkins says. In honor of Tchelistcheff’s nickname, “the maestro,” Atkins crafts a special BV wine series called Maestro and also blends BV Rutherford Private Reserve Cabernet from the clones, or genetic variations of Cabernet, in the Rutherford vineyards first nurtured by Tchelistcheff.

While BV has achieved fame with a variety of different wines, others in Rutherford have made their mark by being specialists. Augustin Huneeus, a Chilean by birth, managed Franciscan Estates on the northern edge of Rutherford from 1985 until 1999. In 1993, he and his wife purchased 280 acres of rolling hills on the eastern side of Rutherford and began farming grapes and soon produced Quintessa, a Cabernet Sauvignon-based wine.

“ The name is made up, but it refers to my fifth winery, the five hills on our property, and the echo of our belief in making the quintessential Rutherford wine from the best grapes on our property,” says Huneeus. Each lot is hand-sorted, then vinified in separate barrels.

Huneeus releases only one wine, Quintessa. But, added winemaker Aaron Pott, “This property is so diverse in its soils and exposures that each wine lot that comes together to make Quintessa is different, bringing various elements to the final wine. It is like making 156 different wines every year until we select that
20 percent that ultimately becomes Quintessa.” The remaining wine is used in Huneeus’ Faust label or sold on the open market. Huneeus and his wife, a viticulturist, use biodynamic methods. In simple terms, this
means developing a closed vineyard system. Everything needed to care for the vines is produced on site without commercial pesticides or herbicides. The compost fertilizers come from the skins and seeds drawn from the tanks, and from cows and chickens on the property.

At nearby Frog’s Leap Winery, John Williams also employs biodynamic techniques and has obtained organic certification for his Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc blend. Frog’s Leap has been recognized as one of the first wineries to satisfy total energy needs through solar and geothermal power.

At Rutherford Hill Winery, the emphasis is on sustainable agriculture. Instead of using sulfur to spray for mildew, the winery uses new compounds that do not kill beneficial insects. Doug Fletcher, director of winemaking for the Terlato Wine Group, which owns Rutherford Hill, believes that nurturing the vines with
more selective spraying yields a positive impact on both the environment and the fruit.

Merlot, the most well-known wine in the Rutherford Hill portfolio, is sourced throughout Napa Valley. But the winery is taking steps to increase its production of Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon by planting
additional vines on the hill behind the winery.

To that end, Rutherford Hill Winery is also creating an alluvial fan in their Rutherford valley floor vineyards. The Terlato group invested half a million dollars to install a drainage system, laying pipes four feet deep
in trenched earth to drain water from the flat valley land into irrigation ponds and the Napa River, which keeps the fish happy, Fletcher says. Both Merlot and Cabernet are planted on the 60 irrigated acres, and Fletcher looks forward to producing more estate wines under the Rutherford appellation.

The most well-known wines at St. Supéry Vineyards and Winery are Élu and Virtú, blends of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and other Bordeaux varietals. Yet winemaker Michael Beaulac gets most excited about the recent Rutherford-designated Merlot release, which is a small-production wine destined mainly
for wine clubs.

Just as Merlot thrives in Rutherford, Sauvignon Blanc, another Bordeaux grape, also flourishes. Elaine Honig, co-owner of Honig Winery in Rutherford, describes why the Rutherford weather patterns are ideal for Sauvignon Blanc: “ It’s neither too hot nor too cool, and although it rains to the north and south of us at harvest, we usually stay dry. We get tropical fruit flavors from the long ripening in the wine.”



In the olden days, says vineyard owner Beckstoffer, Rutherford vintners were so focused on making wine that they used to say, “Never let the sun set on the tourists,” and they hurried tourists out of town. Now,
Rutherford is a tourist destination in its own right, albeit on a smaller scale than Napa or St. Helena. Rutherford is home to the Auberge du Soleil resort and its award-winning eponymous restaurant. Near BV Winery are four-star restaurant La Toque and the Rutherford Grill, known for its ribs and wood-fired rotisserie chicken with a side of skillet cornbread.

These days, the wineries’ hospitality is as exceptional as their wines. At BV, the staff greets guests at the door with a big welcome and a glass of refreshing Sauvignon Blanc or Viognier. At St. Supéry, self-guided tours conclude with the Smell-a-Vision exhibit, where guess explore the grapefruit and grassy aromas of a typical Sauvignon Blanc and the blackberry, green pepper and cedar aromas of Cabernet Sauvignon.

The view from the picnic area at Rutherford Hill is a must-see. But many Rutherford wineries, such as
Rubicon and Quintessa, require reservations to enable concierge-style individual attention and customized tours and tastings. Unique tasting rooms abound, such as the one at Mumm Napa, with its two rotating world-class photography exhibits and a glass-enclosed tasting room.

Rutherford vintners are committed to leaving a positive legacy for the next generation. Their winegrowers group, appropriately named the Rutherford Dust Society, has a subgroup named the Rutherford Dust Restoration Team (RDRT, pronounced “Our Dirt”), whose mission is to develop a plan to manage and restore the Napa River. Other regions are now joining the initiative, to leave a positive imprint on the
local ecology for many years to come.

When Tchelistcheff returned to BV in his later years, he taped an interview after he stepped off the train at the Rutherford depot. His remarks included this pronouncement:

“ My physical presence in the days of the ’ 40s and ’50s was to build a new image of international wine [here]. We had to challenge things that were completely foreign to us. We had the chance to create something different, maybe something even more charming than Europe.”

His early vision proved to be prophetic for the slice of Napa known as Rutherford.

Deborah Grossman is a San Francisco Bay Area writer and
columnist on wine and food.

(Lisa Peju and Peju Vineyards photos: Rocco Ceselin, www.roccostudio.net)

Home |  Advertising | Archives | Feature Issue | Recent Issue | More Articles on Wine
Locations | Wine Events | Wine News | Restaurant Partners | Wine Humor
Wine Photos | Subscriptions | Wine Merchants | Wine of the Month 
Wine Merchandise| Wine Links
Contact Us
Security and Privacy Statement

© 2005 - 2006 The Wine Report® All rights reserved.
The Wine Report® and The Wine Report® logo are registered trademarks of Wine & Culinary, LLC.
The Wine Report® magazine is published by L.A. Publishing & Media Group LLC,
590 Madison Avenue, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10022
Contact Us 

 

 

 

Web management:

Thompson Wine Group
thompsonwine.com