2016 Nicholas Allen Wines Carte Blanche Proprietary Red

Nicholas Allen Wines is a California producer with deep roots in Bordeaux. The estate founder is Nicholas Allen, and in 1935 his great grandfather, Clarence Dillon, purchased the legendary Château Haut-Brion. Fifty years later the Dillon family company also acquired Château La Mission Haut-Brion. Allen grew up appreciating fine wine and in 2007 he started Nicholas Allen Wines & Carte Blanche, a limited-production estate for luxury wines inspired by traditional French winemaking. Luc Morlet was Allen’s founding winemaker. In 2014 Helen Keplinger took over as winemaker. Nicholas Allen makes red and white wines with grapes sourced from exceptional Napa and Sonoma vineyards. Reviewers have described Carte Blanche wines as “totally striking…rich, voluptuous…opulent.”

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,