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Selected winery 1
Portal:Wine/Selected winery/1 Mas de Daumas Gassac is a French winery located in the wine region Languedoc in the southeast of France, in the commune of Aniane. The wine produced here is classified as Vin de Pays de l'Hérault due to its use of grape varieties outside specifications of its AOC. Despite its modest designation and location, the vineyard has received widespread acknowledgement, described by the The Times to taste like a “Latour” and by the French magazine Gault-Milau as the "Lafite Rothschild of the Languedoc-Roussillon", it is frequently referred to as the Grand Cru of the Languedoc.
On land sold by the Daumas family to a former glove manufacturer Aimé Guibert, wines were first planted at this vineyard in 1974. Following the recommendation of Henri Enjalbert, a professor of Geography at the University of Bordeaux, whose assessment of the terroir determined the microclimate to be uncharacteristically favourable for cultivation of wine in such a warm region, the first vintage was produced in 1978 with the assistance of the oenologist Émile Peynaud. Aimé Guibert has since featured in the documentary film Mondovino, stating that "wine is dead". (Full article...)
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Portal:Wine/Selected winery/3 Château Musar is the name of a Lebanese winery in Ghazir, Lebanon, 15 miles north of the capital Beirut. Musar grapes grow in the Beqaa Valley, a fertile sunny valley at an altitude of ca. 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), situated 25 miles east of Beirut. The winery was established by Gaston Hochar in 1930. The current proprietors are the sons, Ronald and Serge Hochar, the latter managing the estate since 1959, with Ronald Hochar assuming marketing and finance department responsibilities since 1962. The international discovery of Musar took place at the Bristol Wine Fair of 1979 when auctioneer and taster Michael Broadbent and journalist Roger Voss selected Musar 1967 as the "discovery of the Fair". (Full article...)
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Portal:Wine/Selected winery/4 Bodegas Vega Sicilia is a Spanish winery located in the Ribera del Duero Denominación de Origen in the north of Spain. In 1848 a Basque landowner, Don Toribio Lecanda, met the bankrupt Marques de Valbuena and bought from him a 2,000 hectare estate, the Pago de la Vega Santa Cecilia y Carrascal, in the western part of what now is the Ribera del Duero wine region. At some stage that was shortened to Vega Sicilia.
For the first 16 years, the land was used for agriculture, until Don Lecanda's son, Don Eloy Lecanda y Chaves, founded the winery in 1864. From one Monsieur Beguerié in Bordeaux he bought 18,000 young vines of Cabernet Sauvignon, Carménère, Malbec, Merlot and Pinot noir. They may have made some wine at that stage, but most of the production went into brandy and ratafia. In due course Don Lecanda y Chaves went bust and the estate passed over to the Herrero family, and another Basque, Domingo Garramiola Txomin, who had trained as a winemaker at the Haro Oenological Centre. At first most of the wine was sold in bulk and – presumably – passed off as Rioja. When the Rioja vineyards had recovered from phylloxera in 1915, Garramiola turned to making estate-bottled wine. Initially this wasn't a commercial venture, but was given away to aristocratic friends and acquaintances of the Herrero family. The quality of these wines was obviously not an issue: the 1917 and 1918 wines won prizes at the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition, an achievement still celebrated on the labels of all Vega Sicilia's Unico today. (Full article...)
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Portal:Wine/Selected winery/5 Château Cantemerle is a winery in the Haut-Médoc appellation of the Bordeaux wine region of France, in the commune of Macau. The wine produced here was the final estate to be classified as one of eighteen Cinquièmes Crus (Fifth Growths) in the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855. Its absence from the classification map featured at the 1855 Exposition Universelle de Paris created some controversy, even though it has been listed on all maps published after 1856. Some sources will include an asterisk next to Château Cantemerle listing in reference to this controversy. The estate has a long history in the Haut-Médoc with records detailing its existence since at least the 12th century and wine production since at least the 14th century. In the 19th century, the estate was hard hit by the phylloxera epidemic as well as grapevine attacks of downy mildew, after which production dropped nearly 50%. Towards the end of the 20th century, the estate was sold to French insurance group Les Mutuelles d'Assurance du Bâtiment et des Travaux Public who have contributed significant investment in the estate's vineyards and winemaking facilities.
The status of Château Cantemerle as an original 1855 classification wine may be questioned as it was not included in the first publication of the classification, nor was it shown on the map that was displayed at the 1855 Exposition Universelle de Paris. It has been included on all listings dated 1856 and later. This was the result of an intense lobbying effort by Caroline de Villeneuve-Durfort who had supplied documentation to the brokers originally responsible for the price-based 1855 classification. Hence, its entry in the classification today is often accompanied by an asterisk denoting the only change in the classification that had occurred in more than 110 years. (Full article...)
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Tenuta Dell'Ornellaia was established by Marchese Lodovico Antinori of the Antoniori family, behind one of Italy's most historic negociant firms, with the help of winemaker Tibor Gál. The property is adjacent to Tenuta San Guido. producer of Sassicaia and considered the seminal Super Tuscan, and Ornellaia was suggested to be Lodovico Antinori’s competitive answer to his cousin Nicolò Incisa’s Sassicaia and his older brother Piero Antinori’s Solaia. The vineyards of the Ornellaia estate were planted in 1981, producing the first vintage in 1985. A modern winery was built in 1987, and a second 56 hectare property was later added, Bellaria, situated north of Bolgheri. (Full article...)
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Portal:Wine/Selected winery/7 Dominus Estate, formerly Napanook Vineyards, is a California wine estate producing Bordeaux style blends, owned by Christian Moueix. The winery is located in Yountville within the Napa Valley AVA. George C. Yount, the founder of Yountville, planted in 1836 the first vines of the valley on the location of Napanook vineyard. In 1850 the property was bought by Charles Hopper, and owners since include Hugh La Rue, a pioneer in the use of rootstock and John Daniel Jr., the owner of Inglenook Winery who bought the estate in 1946.
Following Daniel's death in 1970, Napanook passed to his daughters Robin Lail and Marcia Smith who in 1982 began a partnership with Christian Moueix, acting on a recommendation by Robert Mondavi to establish production in Napa Valley. Moueix, also in charge of production at Château Pétrus and president of Établissements Jean-Pierre Moueix, became the sole owner of Dominus Estate when Lail and Smith sold their shares in 1995. Napanook, the estate's second wine, was first released in 1996. (Full article...)
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Portal:Wine/Selected winery/8 Alban Vineyards is a California wine estate producing various Rhône style blends and varietal wine. The winery is located in Edna Valley, near Arroyo Grande in the southern corner of San Luis Obispo County.
Starting in 1985, John Alban planted grapes for other people until he bought an estate in 1989. With a focus on creating wines made from Rhône Valley varietals, Alban came to be a pioneer of the Rhone Rangers movement, and is considered one of the most influential American Rhone producers. (Full article...)
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Under the Torres brand name they trade wine based on a range of different labels, as well as brandies. Some of these are Viña Sol, Sangre de Toro, De Casta, Coronas, Atrium and Viña Esmeralda, with their best known brandies being Torres 5 and Torres 10. Many Torres wines are produced from international rather than traditional Spanish grape varieties and are varietally labelled. The company is currently managed by the fourth generation of the Torres family. (Full article...)
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Portal:Wine/Selected winery/10 The Eyrie Vineyards is an American winery in Oregon that consists of 49 acres (20 ha) in several different vineyards in the Willamette Valley. The vineyards and winery were established by owner and winemaker David Lett, who produced the first Pinot gris in the United States. Against the advice of viticultural professors at the University of California, Davis, Lett and his wife, Diana, moved to Oregon to plant Pinot noir in 1965. They founded Eyrie Vineyards in 1966, and their first vintage was 1970.
The 1975 Eyrie Vineyards Reserve Pinot Noir won tenth place among Pinot noirs in blind tasting at the Wine Olympics in 1979. Burgundy winemaker Robert Drouhin organized a re-match at Maison Joseph Drouhin in France. The 1975 Eyrie Vineyards Reserve won second place, losing to Drouhin's 1959 Chambolle-Musigny by only two tenths of a point. Drouhin later purchased land in Oregon and built Domaine Drouhin Oregon.
Over the years, David Lett (known locally as "Papa Pinot") maintained a light-handed style of Pinot noir that did not follow the trend toward greater flavor, tannin, and color extraction, believing color not to be an indicator of quality in Pinot Noir. This put him at odds with some of the wine critics. (Full article...)
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Inniskillin was founded by Donald Ziraldo and Karl Kaiser and saw its beginnings in 1974. Before embarking on the Innskillin project, Ziraldo was running a grapevine nursery and Karl Kaiser, a trained chemist, was a home wine maker. The first vines were planted in 1974, and since the duo had the ambition to make better-quality wines, their vineyard was planted with traditional European grape varieties, of the Vitis vinifera species, chosen from those cultivated in colder European regions. Their first vineyard, of 32 acres (13 ha) was planted with Riesling, Chardonnay and Gamay. (Full article...)
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Portal:Wine/Selected winery/12 Champagne Salon is a small producer of Champagne made in the blanc de blancs style, and therefore made from 100% Chardonnay. Salon, along with Delamotte, is part of the Laurent-Perrier group. It is regarded as one of the most expensive Champagnes on the market.
Champagne Salon was founded by Eugène Aimé Salon in the early 20th century. Salon was convinced that the Chardonnay grapes from the Le Mesnil-sur-Oger vineyards could produce wine with favorable levels of finesse and elegance without the need to add Pinot noir or Pinot Meunier. Around the turn of the 20th century, Salon began producing a Chardonnay-only cuvée that he shared privately with friends. Following Eugène Aimé Salon's death in 1943, his niece inherited the company which was eventually sold to Laurent-Perrier. (Full article...)
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Portal:Wine/Selected winery/13 Screaming Eagle Winery and Vineyards is a California wine estate producing limited amounts of varietal wine. The winery is located in Oakville, California, north of the town of Napa in the Napa Valley, and their product has risen to the status of "cult wine".
Jean Phillips, a former real estate agent, bought the 57 acres (23 ha) vineyard in 1986 which was planted to produce a mix of varieties, most of which Phillips sold to various Napa wineries. With all white varieties but for 1-acre (0.40 ha), approximately 80 vines of Cabernet Sauvignon, Philips sought the opinions of Robert Mondavi Winery staffmembers on the commercial potential of her wine before hiring Richard Peterson as a consultant, and subsequently met Peterson's daughter, Heidi Peterson Barrett, who became her winemaker. (Full article...)
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The estate also produces a second wine named Pavillon Rouge du Château Margaux, as well as a dry white wine named Pavillon Blanc du Château Margaux which does not conform to the Margaux appellation directives.
The estate has been occupied since at least the 12th century, with the site occupied by a fortified castle known as Lamothe or La Mothe (from motte, a small rise in the land), and wine under names such as "Margou" and "Margous" was known in the 15th century. (Full article...)
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Portal:Wine/Selected winery/15 Sine Qua Non (also known as SQN) is a California cult winery known for its Rhône style blends, a tendency to avoid repetition, and a very limited production of wine that is highly difficulty to obtain. The winery is located in Ventura County, within the Central Coast AVA.
Founded in 1994 by Manfred Krankl and his wife Elaine to supply the restaurant Campanile, the wines have been titled with names such as Queen of Spades, Twisted & Bent, Imposter McCoy, The Bride, Poker Face and Red Handed, and the bottles come uncommonly shaped with distinctive labels featuring own artwork. (Full article...)
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Records date the estate's origins to the 18th century, and connect them to Jean Saint-Marc du Latourblanche, treasurer-general to Louis XIV. Following the French Revolution, the estate was owned by Pierre Pécherie, but a later owner, the German Frederic Focke raised the reputation of the winery, and was for a period credited with bringing the tradition of sweet white wine to Sauternes from his Rhine origins. After the rewarding outcome of the 1855 Classification and Focke's death, the estate was eventually acquired by Daniel "Osiris" Iffla who among several patrotic acts, left in his testament La Tour Blanche to the State upon his death in 1907, on the condition it would become an agricultural college. From 1911, the La Tour Blanche School of Viticulture and Oenology has been responsible for education and training of wine industry professionals, as well as running La Tour Blanche as a classed winery. (Full article...)
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In the 1980s, Kendall-Jackson rejected the California wine industry's trend toward vineyard-specific wine labeling. It ignored the concept of terroir in favor of blending wines from different regions to achieve desired wine characteristics. Jackson Family Wines is now a large and growing wine empire that owns many successful brands.
Their investments in wine have reached beyond US borders, now owning wineries in Italy (Tenuta di Arceno), France (Château Lassègue), Australia (Yangarra Estate Vineyards), and Chile (Viña Calina). (Full article...)
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The winery was founded by Jeff and Mary Stai, and opened in 2001. The Stais hired Scott Klann, a native of Murphys, who had over a decade of experience in the Calaveras County wine industry, as Twisted Oak's first winemaker. The original 10 acre (4 ha) vineyard on the 120 acre (48.5 ha) property was planted to Tempranillo, Grenache, and Graciano, grape varieties native to the Mediterranean regions of France, Spain and Portugal. The decision to plant Iberian grape varieties, uncommon in California, was in part due to a dinner that Stai and Klann attended at a Spanish restaurant in which they tried many Spanish wines that impressed them.
The winery's first vintage was 2002, when they produced 10 different wines, all made from purchased grapes. The wines were produced in a custom crush facility at the Olde Lockeford Winery in the town of Lockeford, California. The first vintage began a tradition of naming wines with exclusively non-alphabetic symbols (in a style often used to replace profane words in written English), such as the *%#&@!, a red blend of Mourvedre, Syrah, and Grenache grapes, and the %@#$!, a white wine made of Marsanne and Roussanne grapes (introduced two years later). The unusual wine names were inspired from the owner and winemaker's frustration at being unable to come up with a good name for the red blend. The unique wine labels have been the subject of doctoral research in communications. (Full article...)
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Penfold was a believer in the medicinal benefits of wine and before emigrating to Australia, obtained some vine cuttings from France. Arriving in Australia, he set up in practice at Magill on the eastern outskirts of Adelaide, South Australia and planted vines around his stone cottage which he called The Grange after his wife, Mary's, former home. Initially, Penfold produced fortified wines, for his patients in the style of sherry and port. As demand for the wines increased the winery was expanded.
Mary Penfold assumed the running of the winery after the death of her husband in 1870. After Mary retired in 1884 her daughter Georgina and son-in-law Thomas Hyland took over the day to day running of the winery. The Penfold family continued to operate the business very successfully and although the company became public in 1962 the Penfold family remained in control until 1976.
During the 1940s and 1950s the company changed its focus to table wines to accommodate changing tastes. This led to experiments by Penfolds' chief winemaker, Max Schubert which would eventually lead to the production of Penfolds' and Australia's most famous wine, Grange Hermitage, later renamed simply Grange.
Control of Penfolds passed to Tooth & Co, a brewer based in New South Wales in 1976, to the Adelaide Steamship Co in 1982 and then in 1990 to S.A.Brewing which became part of Southcorp, an Australian conglomerate. Since 2005, the Southcorp wine brands and wineries have been owned by the Foster's Group. Penfolds currently operates two wineries; at Magill, near Adelaide and at Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley. (Full article...)
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In 2002, Proprietors Evelyn & Chris Campbell bought the 2 year old 17-hectare Prpich Hills Winery on the road between Okanagan Falls and Penticton. The property once housed a wooden church. In 1929, the church was dismantled, via a controlled dynamite explosion which loosened the nails, and reassembled in the center of Okanagan Falls where it now stands. The transformation or Prpich Hills in Blasted Church started with creative label redesigns by Vancouver designer Bernie Hadley-Beauregard of the design firm Brandever.
Blasted Church's first winemaker, Frank Supernak, died unexpectedly during the first harvest, prompting many other local vintners to assist the Campbell family in completing the production of finished wine. The images of these winemakers now adorn the bottle labels at Blasted Church. In 2004, Blasted Church became the first Okanagan vintners to produce all of their wines with screw-top bottle caps. (Full article...)
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Groot Constantia was established in 1684 by the VOC Governor of the Cape of Good Hope Simon van der Stel, and was used to produce wine as well as other fruit and vegetables and cattle farming. Following Van der Stel's death in 1712 the estate was broken up and sold in three parts.
In 1778 the portion of the estate surrounding Van der Stel's Cape Dutch-style manor house was sold to the Cloete family, who planted extensive vineyards and extended and improved the mansion by commissioning the architect Thibault. The house remained in the possession of the Cloete family until 1885, during which period the estate became famous for its production of Constantia dessert wine.
In 1885 Groot Constantia was purchased by the government of the Cape of Good Hope and was used as an experimental wine and agricultural estate. Following a disastrous fire in 1925 the house was extensively restored. In 1969 the manor house became part of the South African Cultural History Museum, and in 1993 the estate passed into the ownership of the Groot Constantia Trust. The exhibition in the house is managed by Museums of Cape Town, and is particularly focused on rural slavery and the life of slaves during the early Cape colonial period. (Full article...)
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Portal:Wine/Selected winery/22 Abreu Vineyards is a cult winery in Napa Valley, California founded by well-known viticulturist David Abreu.
David Abreu, a third-generation rancher from St. Helena, California and graduate of the Viticulture and Enology program at UC Davis, founded Abreu Vineyards in 1980 after working briefly at Caymus Vineyards. That year he formed David Abreu Vineyard Management, working with pioneering winemaker Richard Forman to manage ranching operations at Inglenook Winery.
Abreu and Forman became friends and traveled frequently to Bordeaux, where they observed French winemaking operations. They brought back French rootstock, trellis designs, and Bordelais planting and farming techniques.
Abreu's fame spread as Other wineries hired Abreu's company to plant and manage ranching operations. By 1999 he was considered the premier viticulturist for premium grapes in Napa Valley. Abreu's company has raised grapes for some of the most respected wineries in Napa and Sonoma Valleys, and in 2006 Abreu was hired to replant vineyards at Screaming Eagle Winery and Vineyards.
Wine critic Robert M. Parker, Jr. included Abreu in his 1998 list of the "most influential wine personalities of the last 20 years." (Full article...)
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Portal:Wine/Selected winery/23 Orlando Wines is a famous Australian winery located in the small township of Rowland Flat, between Lyndoch and Tanunda, in South Australia's Barossa Valley wine-growing region. Orlando Wines was the valley's first commercial winery. It is currently part of Pernod Ricard Pacific, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pernod Ricard. It is best known as the producer of Jacob's Creek, Orlando's main wine brand, which was first released in 1976.
In 1847 Bavarian immigrant Johann Gramp planted his first grape vines on the banks of the then recently named Jacob's Creek. The vines flourished and led to the production of their first vintage in 1850, making around 12 dozen bottles of hock style white wine from one small octave barrel.
The winery now produces some of Australia's most successful export wines, with some 80% of sales being made in 50+ export markets and having the leading brand in the UK, New Zealand and Asia. Orlando Wines was named Australian Exporter of the Year in 1993 and won the Maurice O'Shea Award in 1994.
A modern visitor's centre and wine tasting cellar, known as the Jacob's Creek Visitor's Centre, was opened in 2002, at which time a time capsule was buried to be opened in 2027. (Full article...)
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In 1882, entrepreneur Alfred Loving Tubbs bought 254 acres of land just north of Calistoga at the foot of Mount Saint Helena. Tubbs had made a fortune from the rope business during the Gold Rush, and knew the area from visits to the White Sulphur Springs Resort nearby. He planted vines, and by 1896 Chateau Montelena was the seventh largest winery in the Napa Valley.
However, winemaking ceased at the Chateau with the onset of Prohibition in the United States and afterwards the Tubbs sold grapes but did not make wine.
In 1958 the Tubbs family sold the Chateau to Yort Wing Frank, a Chinese electrical engineer, and his wife Jeanie, who were looking for a retirement home. The Franks created a garden in the style of their homeland, and excavated Jade Lake.
In 1968, Lee and Helen Paschich bought the property, and brought in as partners lawyer James L. Barrett and property developer Earnest Hahn. Jim Barrett replanted the vineyard and installed winemaking equipment in the historic buildings and it began producing wines again in 1972.
Four years later, the Chateau Montelena Chardonnay 1973 won first place in the Judgment of Paris. A bottle of that vintage is in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. (Full article...)