2000 Wallis Family Estate Special Cuvee Two Barrels Meritage

Wallis Family Estate was started by Edward Wallis in 1975, even though it would be decades before it produced wine. Barely out of college in 1975, Wallis was drawn by the estate’s dramatic 85-acre site on Diamond Mountain Road and its “castle” and carriage house. The buildings date from the early 1900s when the estate, then called Château Pacheteau, produced sherry to export to the East Coast. In 1988 Wallis married Marilyn Belk, and a decade later they replanted 13 acres of vineyards. Within a few years they were selling fruit to Ramey Wine Cellar and Lokoya Winery, but in 2006 they started their own label. Two years later they brought in Thomas Rivers Brown, one of California’s most admired winemakers. Wallis Family Estate makes Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and red blends. Robert M. Parker has rated the estate’s wines in the mid-90s and complimented them for “finesse and elegance as well as substance and concentration.”

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,