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Grgich Hills Cellar

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Sierra
Sierra
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5 out of 5
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Grgich Hills Cellar

  • October 17, 2006
  • Rated 5 of 5 by Sierra from Chicago, Illinois
Grgich Hills Cellar

Grgich Hills Cellar is the first winery I can recall visiting in Napa Valley, circa 1989. At the time, the tasting room was a tiny, cramped room at the front of the Grgich property (the same room as today, which has now been expanded), and I remember an older man talking to us with great enthusiasm about their wines. I have no idea if the older gentleman I remember from that trip was Miljenko "Mike" Grgich, the legendary patriarch of Grgich Hills. It probably was, as we were visiting the winery at a "quiet" time of the year.

If you don't know who Mike Grgich is, then you don't know much about the history of California winemaking. Grgich was born in Croatia and came to America to make wines; he worked for several notable wineries in the Napa region before finally being able to open his own winery in 1977.

Grgich catapulted to fame in mid-1976, when the 1973 Chateau Montelena chardonnay he had produced won top honors at the historic 1976 Paris tasting, which pitted top American wines against France's finest in a blind tasting. The French wine experts, much to their own chagrin, selected Napa wines over French ones for top honors (a 1973 Stag's Leap cabernet took top red honors).

It should be noted that Grgich has embraced biodynamic farming standards, which means using no artificial pesticides, fertilizers, or fungicides; they are the largest biodynamic vineyard in the country. At a time when Napa is becoming increasingly crowded with vineyards, and there is concern for the environmental impact that agriculture has on local ecosystems, Grgich is helping to demonstrate that organic, biodynamic farming does make a difference in the end product, allowing the terroir to show more influence in the wines.

Grgich Hills produce six varietals, and you can usually taste all of them in their expanded tasting room. They're best known for their chardonnay, of course, but they also produce Fumé Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Merlot, and a Chardonnay/Riesling late-harvest, botrytis-affected dessert wine that they have named Violetta, which is not produced every year.

What I like about visiting Grgich is that their tasting room is all about the wine: the room is almost entirely bare aside from some rather modest displays of wine. Like Mike Grgich himself, the tasting room focuses you entirely on the wine, with nothing to distract you.


*

For an excellent history of Mike Grgich's impact on the Valley, as well as extensive information about the Napa region, I would highly recommend James Conaway's Napa: The Story of an American Eden, and for information about the Paris tasting, I'd recommend George M. Taber's Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine.




Tel. (800) 532-3057.
Tasting fee $10; you keep the glass.

From journal Napa Valley: California's Landmark Wine Country

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