It’s a good day when I discover a winery that produces more than just one decent wine. A great day is finding a winery that makes most or all of their wines skillfully. A couple of weeks ago, I had a great day when I had an opportunity to taste through the portfolio of wines made by the Trefethen family.
The story begins in 1852, when the first grape vines were planted on 50 acres at the Oak Knoll farm in California’s Napa Valley. In 1886, a 250-acre parcel of the farm became known as the Eshcol vineyard, whose winery was designed by former sea captain Hamden McIntyre. Captain McIntyre built an ingenious state-of-the art winery that incorporated a gravity flow system. The grapes were hauled up to the third floor of the winery, where they were crushed. The juice then would flow down to the second floor, where it was vinified, and finally to the first floor, where it was stored and aged in barrels. This was truly a remarkable design at the time, and other wineries soon emulated the model.
