Chateau Chamirey

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Catena Alta

Taking the reigns of the family vineyards and wineries in the mid 1960s, he concentrated on expanding distribution throughout Argentina during years of turmoil in the 1970s. But in the early 1980s, Nicolás left Argentina to become a visiting professor of economics at the University of California, on the world-renowned campus at Berkeley. The political and economic situation in Argentina was difficult, with a military government that had just declared war on the United Kingdom and inflation rates of more than 1000 per cent per year.

California, and especially Napa Valley were an inspiration to Nicolás and his wife Elena, who spent weekends visiting the area with their youngest daughter Adrianna in a backpack. Until that time, no one in the new world had dreamed of rivaling France.

Nicolás Catena returned to Mendoza with a vision in mind. From one day to the other, he sold his table wine producing company, keeping only Bodegas Esmeralda, the fine wine branch of the family business. At that time Argentina was perceived as a bulk wine producer and Nicolás was told by many of his colleagues in Argentina that he was “completamente loco” (completely crazy).

But Nicolás Catena is not someone to be easily discouraged. During the 1980s, Nicolás set out to discover the best places to plant vineyards in Mendoza. When recently asked why he decided to plant Chardonnay and Malbec in Gualtallary, at almost 5,000 feet elevation, Nicolás answered, “I felt that the only way we would make a leap in quality would be by pushing the limits of vine cultivation, by taking risks”. His own vineyard manager had told him that Malbec would never ripen there, but it did, and beautifully. Nicolás found that Mendoza was exceptional for vine growing, with each high altitude valley providing the ideal climate for a specific varietal. He found that the poor soils near the Andes, discarded by the original European immigrants due to their low fertility, were actually ideal for quality viticulture. And that the desert climate was an asset because it allowed him to control quality and hang time through strict irrigation control. 

Then came the challenge of what to do with Malbec. Nicolás did not have his father’s confidence in Malbec. Domingo Catena fiercely believed that Argentine Malbec could make a wine as worthy as any first growth Bordeaux. Nicolás was not sure that Malbec would be able to age. In 1989, after his father Domingo died, Nicolás put all his sorrow into trying to see if his father’s intuition was right. It took 5 years of working on the 60 year old Angélica vineyard before Nicolás was satisfied enough to make a Catena Malbec in 1994. Then came the question of which clones to plant in the new vineyards. Since there was no existing Argentine Malbec clonal selection, Nicolás decided to bring clones from Cahors, France. The French Chardonnay clones had given him his best white. But results for French Malbec clones were disappointing. They grew large berries and bunches with rustic aromas and flavors. 

Nicolás set out to develop his own selection of Argentine Malbec clones planting 145 clones in the La Pirámide vineyard. Of these, he selected the best five and began to plant them in different terroirs and altitudes. The results became more than clear in 2003 when his best Malbec came from the Altamira vineyard where the five clones had been planted in separate rows.

M. Chapoutier

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No name is more closely associated with the greatness of the Rhône valley than M. Chapoutier.

The history of the Chapoutier family stretches back to the early nineteenth century when current owner Michel Chapoutier’s great-, great-, great-grandfather Marius purchased an estate and some vineyards in the now famous village of Tain l’Hermitage in the Northern Rhône Valley. Marius Chapoutier made history in the region when he became the first grape grower there to vinify his own fruit. Marius had tasted wines other winemakers produced using his fruit and he realized that something was lost in translation, so to speak. He knew that he owned some of the best growing sites in the appellation and he believed — rightly — that the grapes grown in his vineyards could produce long-lived world-class wines. In a move unusual at the time, he decided that he should make the wine himself. Not only did the quality of the wines increase greatly, but this move provided the capital to expand the Chapoutiers’ already legendary estate.

The Chapoutier sign adorns the Northern Rhône’s most famous vineyards, Hermitage, and is one of the region’s most beloved landmarks.

Expansion, improved vineyard management, and modernization of the winery continued when Max Chapoutier took the reigns from his father Marius: over the last 200 years, the Chapoutier family has acquired what is arguably the most significant holding of vineyard sites in the region and as the interest in Rhône Valley wines grew, so did the house’s reputation for world-class, long-lived wines — white and red. In many respects, the family is an element essential to Rhône-valley winemaking: an entry for their family name has appeared in the Oxford Companion to Wine since its first printing (1994) where it is called one of the region’s “great names.” Today, the famed M. Chapoutier sign in their signature vineyard on Hermitage hill is one of the region’s most recognizable icons.

Since he took over the estate in 1990, Michel — a wine icon in his own right — has revolutionized his family’s winery and the Rhône Valley wine industry. Innovations introduced by him have included: 100% biodynamic viticulture, aggressive vineyard management, vintage dating for all the estate’s wines, and the elimination of fining and filtration.

Biodynamic farming practices include horse-drawn plows in the place of tractors.

“Come to Tain l’Hermitage,” says Michel with well-deserved pride, “and you will see our connection to the vineyards: our winery and our homes are surrounded by the vineyards where we grow our grapes. When I walk outside my door, I find myself in the middle of our vines.”

The winery’s proximity to the vineyards is an essential element to the M. Chapoutier approach to winemaking: not only does this mean that the fruit is not stressed by unnecessary transport (the winery is literally a stone’s throw from the estate’s vineyards), says Michel, but “we live within our terroir. This is why our wines are a true expression of where they are made.”

Chapoutier’s terraced vineyards are among the most famous in France and they produced some of the country’s most collected and coveted wines.

M. Chapoutier wines are widely considered to be among the top offerings from the Rhône Valley. Because of their remarkable longevity, they are also highly coveted among the world’s leading collectors. Today, M. Chapoutier continues to further its legacy as a benchmark for the industry in general: the biodynamic model created by Michel in the 1990s has become the standard by which the entire biodynamic industry is measured in contemporary Europe. Most thought twenty-six-year-old Michel daring when he converted his family’s legendary estate to new methods of growing and winemaking. Today, his peers continue to view him as an innovator, leader, forward-thinker, and risk-taker who changed the course of French winemaking for the better.

Chappellet

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The wine produced on the Chappellet vineyard is Cabernet Sauvignon, and most of the productions in the past 40 years have received rave reviews by experts.

The 6 Bottle Chappellet crate shown in the picture has a flip-top lid and is embossed on multiple sides with both black and red lettering. The lid is also embossed with the Chappellet branding. This is a thick and very sturdy crate with carved handles on both the left and right hand sides.

Chateau Cos D'Estournel 

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The estate has changed hands several times during its history, starting in 1852 when it was purchased by the English banker Charles Cecil Martyns. In 1869, it was sold to the Spanish Errazu family only to be sold again 20 years later in 1889 to the Bordeaux-based Hostein family. Through his marriage to Marie-Thérèse Hostein, Louis-Victor Charmolue, who also owned Château Montrose, gained control of Cos D'Estournel in 1894. In Finally in 1917, it was sold to Fernand Ginestet.

The château has remained in the Ginestet family since then, becoming in 1970 part of Domaines Prats, the combined holdings of the Ginestet and Prats families, and controlled by Bruno Prats.

In June 2008 it was announced that Michel Reybier, current owner of Cos D'Estournel, purchased Napa winery Chateau Montelena for an undisclosed sum. By November 2008, however, this agreement was cancelled, the termination of the transaction by Chateau Montelena stated to be due to that Reybier Investments had been "unable to meet its obligations".