Winemaker Robert Pepi — Bob to his friends — said something so remarkable that it was several seconds before I realized I was staring at his face. Pepi casually mentioned that he was starting his 51st harvest this year. What? That would make him north of 70 years old, and if that were true, I wanted to get my hands on his secret anti-aging diet. Reading the confusion on my face, he quickly solved the mystery. In addition to making wines for clients in California and Colorado, as well as his own project in Napa Valley, he is also the consulting winemaker for Valentin Bianchi, one of the oldest wineries in Argentina, where the harvests take place in the spring. So, for almost two decades, Pepi has been trotting between South and North America, picking grapes and making wines twice a year.
It all began in the mid-1960s, when his dad bought a vineyard in the Oakville district in Napa Valley. By 1980, Pepi and his dad set up a winery and started making Robert Pepi wines. Soon, Pepi’s wines were receiving high praise and great scores. Success attracts attention. In 1994, Pepi’s family sold the winery and the Robert Pepi label to Kendall-Jackson, which became the foundation for K-J’s famous, ultra-high-end brand Cardinale. Without the family winery as his anchor, Pepi was now free to indulge his ultimate passion — wine consulting.
