What is new is old at Sequoia Grove Vineyards

I used to live in New York City with my dad in Tutor Place, which is right across from the United Nations building. I have never been in. Shame on me, but now that I live 3,500 hundred miles away and my daughter is doing a paper on the UN, I sure wish I had gotten up at least one morning earlier and gone across the street to check it out.

If it weren’t for my friends from the East coming to Napa Valley, I am not sure how much time I would spend wine tasting. Even given my job as a writer, I rarely start on Highway 29. I can only imagine the Napa crawl and bad traffic up and down valley. We have all been there — shame on me again, and I’ll tell you why.
A friend came over for dinner recently, and even though it was the middle of summer, we had not given up on drinking reds with our grilled beef medallions. My friend brought by a Rutherford Reserve 2003 Cabernet from Sequoia Grove. I must admit it really turned my head, with plenty of tannins and black fruit and herbs but surprisingly well balanced. I knew there was something new going on over at Sequoia Grove.

I visited the tasting room and found quite a change. There has been a remodel. The old redwood winery and tasting room have been updated and more space added so it was not as crowded, the charm was still there.
Sequoia Grove has a history of being one of the first subterranean cellars in the valley before wine caves.  The winery is built over the barrel storage cellars. I am always looking for a place where my guest can feel at home instead of a factory feel and Sequoia Grove fit the bill nicely. I even got an invite to a winemaker dinner and tasted wines that are not available to the public.

The brief history of Sequoia Grove is that it was founded around 1979 by Jim Allen. The story goes that he worked for the CIA but that is only rumor. Jim had a passion for wine and a love for Bordeaux. He sought out Andre Tchelistcheff to consult and erected a little production facility on 24 acres of land dead center in the middle of premium cabernet country Napa Valley. Cabernet was just becoming fashionable in the U.S., as was wine drinking, spurred on by wine coolers and Bartels and James, so it might be said that Jim and his crew were modern day pioneers of Rutherford cab.
Jim Allen and his crew were made up originally of Jim the visionary, Jim’s brother, Steve Allen, who was the vineyard guy and a marketing team made up of Kobrand wines. Kobrand is and was the marketing team behind sales. Fast forward ownership, Jim Allen retired and the new owners are the the Koptf sisters, whose dad founded Kobrand. The Kobrand family understands what a gem they have as a winery in Sequoia Grove and have given the go ahead to lead the property into the next century with new updates and acquisition of off-property vineyards.

Somewhere around 1982 Mike Trujillo met Jim while laying out vineyards for Domain Carneros. Mike rfers to himself as “one heck of a tractor driver,” and after Mike finished at UC Davis, he came on board to join the Allen team. Mike is now the general manager for the winery and head winemaker. Mike told me those times learning from Andre are something he will never forget. I met Tchelistcheff once at BV, and  I will never forget meeting a true pioneer of American wine.

One of the great reasons to join the Sequoia Grove Wine club is because you get better service when you arrive at the winery and you get invites to special events.  I was lucky to be a part of a wonderful dinner and evening event held just a few weeks ago.

It was one of those perfect Napa Valley evenings. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into because I have been to a ton of these kinds of dinners and they seem to drag on forever. This one was different. We started off with a 2006 savignon blanc,  a wine only available from the tasting room. True to Bordeaux, it tasted right out of Graves — this was a page out of the old French Chateau Magnol. The sauvignon blanc was thick and viscous and plenty of weight. It seemed like a food wine more than a walk-around wine but no sooner did I think that then a server from the old Café Kenyon, now a catering company, showed up with a lightly fried, wonton-like, shrimp that really showed the wine well.

 We moved on to a 2005 Rebellious Red case production of 296 and again only available from the tasting room. Everyone has a little rebel in them says Trujillo who wants to compare himself to Marlon Brando and Bart Simpson. The wine was a cab-syrah blend — Bordeaux meets South of France, soft and subtle, easy drinking with balanced tannins. Serve this with a slight 55 degree chill for hot August nights.

The highlight of the evening was the dinner setting. Mike and guests took a stroll through the vineyards and at the last turn in a maze of vineyard rows was our destination — what can only be described as the Taj Mahal of dinner tents. I was at the Hearst Castle once to see the tent that William Randolph Hearst lived in before the castle, and this could not be far from it.

The temperature was perfect, just enough for a light wrap. Even the yellow jackets had taken the night off.

The dinner was surf and turf. We had scallops as an appetizer, then salad and then the meat course, steak with prawns. We first tasted a 2005 Vintner Select Chardonnay, which was refreshing. It had 25 percent malolactic fermentation and was a crisp compliment to the scallops.

The next line up was a six-flight vertical of the 2002-2004 Napa Valley cabernet and 2002-2004 Rutherford Bench Reserve cabernets. My dad always said, “Drink the expensive stuff first,” so I jumped into the Reserves straight away. This included the 2003 Reserve which brought me to this clandestine meeting. I tend to ride out on the horse I rode in on and once again it was my top choice.

The bottom line? Make it a point to visit your neighbors on Highway 29. The guys who built this valley continue to forge the cutting edge for other wineries. We tend to the think that technology happens from the center of the industry out but what actually occurs is the opposite. Change happens on the fringe and spins inward and becomes the standard.  Next time you want to see “cult” and get a feel for hands on from people that have been trained from the masters like Andre Tchelistcheff, stop in at Sequoia Grove sign up for their wine club and enjoy award-winning wines for many years to come — and maybe get an invite to a vineyard party.