2017 Eisele Vineyard Altagracia

Eisele Vineyard is the new name of the former Araujo Estate, one of Napa Valley’s most heralded producers. Araujo was owned and operated by Daphne and Bart Araujo from 1990 through 2013, when they sold it to the Artemis Group, a French company that owns Château Latour and other estates in Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Rhone Valley. The Artemis Group is owned by financier and industrialist Francois Pinault and his family. By acquiring the Napa estate, the Artemis Group now owns one of the greatest terroirs in California. The 38-acre estate has been a premier vineyard since the late 19th century, and for much off the 20th century it was a source of top-quality grapes for such producers as Ridge, Conn Creek and Joseph Phelps. The Araujo Estate Cabernet Sauvignon became one of the legendary cult Cabs of the 1990s and it has maintained its reputation as one of Napa’s first growth Cabernet Sauvignons. The estate is organic and is certified biodynamic. Francoise Peschon was Araujo’s winemaker for 14 years, and she is now Eisele’s consulting winemaker. Hélène Mingot is Technical Director of Winemaking and Winegrowing. Under French ownership, the estate continues to impress. Robert Parker Jr. wrote in late 2016 that a tasting of recent Eisele wines indicated that the change in ownership “is proceeding brilliantly….so the greatness from this fabulous terroir continues unabated.”

Napa Valley AVA is the most famous winemaking region in the United States and one of the most prestigious in the world. With nearly 43,000 acres of vineyards and more than 300 wineries, it is the heart of fine wine production in the United States. Winemaking started in Napa in 1838 when George C. Yount planted grapes and began producing wine commercially. Other winemaking pioneers followed in the late 19th century, including the founders of Charles Krug, Schramsberg, Inglenook and Beaulieu Vineyards. An infestation of phylloxera, an insect that attacks vine roots, and the onset of Prohibition nearly wiped out the nascent Napa wine industry in the early 20th century. But by the late 1950s and early 1960s Robert Mondavi and other visionaries were producing quality wines easily distinguishable from the mass-produced jug wines made in California’s Central Valley. Napa Valley’s AVA was established in 1983, and today there are 16 sub-appellations within the Napa Valley AVA. Many grapes grow well in Napa’s Mediterranean climate, but the region is best known for Cabernet Sauvignon. Chardonnay is also very successfully cultivated, and about 30% of the AVA’s acreage is planted to white grapes, with the majority of those grapes being Chardonnay,