2009 Behrens Family Winery The Change Up

Behrens Family Winery is an artisanal winery in St. Helena owned and operated by Les Behrens and Lisa Drinkward, a couple who have been the founders of several small wine in Napa Valley. The couple work with grape growers who farm low-yielding, high-quality vineyards and they produce small amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon, Bordeaux blends and Petite Sirah. Behrens and Drinkward have spent more than 20 years in the food and wine business. They opened an award-winning restaurant in Arcata in 1991, and began making wine with purchased grapes in 1993. With partners Bob and Lilly Hitchcock they later established Behrens & Hitchcock winery. When the Hitchcocks retired in 2005, Behrens and Drinkward bought them out, and now continue to make wine under the Behrens Family Winery and Behrens & Hitchcock labels.

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,