RESERVE WINES

Bordeaux

Bordeaux has more than two thousand years of winemaking history and remains one of the world's most important and influential wine regions.

Defined by the Gironde estuary and the Garonne and Dordogne rivers, Bordeaux is traditionally divided into the Left Bank and Right Bank. The Left Bank is particularly renowned for Cabernet Sauvignon–dominant blends, while the Right Bank is known for wines in which Merlot generally plays the leading role.

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The Classification of 1855

Among Bordeaux's many appellations and classification systems, the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 remains the most famous.

The classification was created for the 1855 Exposition Universelle de Paris, organized during the reign of Emperor Napoleon III. Bordeaux's wine trade was asked to identify the region's most prestigious wines for visitors attending the world's fair.

The wines were ranked into five levels, known as Growths, or Crus, with the most prestigious estates receiving the designation Premier Cru, or First Growth.

The Premier Crus

Four estates were originally designated First Growths:

• Château Lafite Rothschild
• Château Latour
• Château Margaux
• Château Haut-Brion

More than a century later, in 1973, Château Mouton Rothschild was elevated from Second Growth to First Growth, becoming the fifth and final Premier Cru in the 1855 Classification.

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The Grand Experiment

During visits with our French wine-industry friends, we had the opportunity to study the blending practices and historical formulas used by the Premier Cru estates over many vintages.

We combined those insights with more than forty years of experience crafting exceptional Bordeaux-style wines and used them as a foundation for developing our own Reserve wine program.

The objective was never to reproduce Bordeaux in California. Instead, we wanted to understand the principles behind some of the world's most celebrated blends and apply those principles to the exceptional fruit grown in our own Napa and Sonoma vineyards.

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The Reserve Wines

Using only our finest barrels from the exceptional 2014 vintage, we created six Reserve wines—four inspired by the Left Bank and two by the Right Bank.

While we followed the broad blending philosophies of our French counterparts, we had no desire to create simple copies of Bordeaux wines.

Our focus remained firmly on California: the natural complexity, concentration, and distinctive character of our Northern California vineyards, combined with the structure, balance, and understated opulence associated with appropriately aged Bordeaux.

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Our Winemaking Philosophy

Dawn and Bill would tell you that their winemaking philosophy can be summed up in one sentence:

"We do everything possible to make each vintage of red and white wine worthy of our magnificent Northern California terroir and to perpetuate our tradition of excellence."

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