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Information About the Company
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The first time Gustavo talked to Thrace was when he called her to tell her that he was her son’s little league baseball coach. Who would have thought that would lead to joining forces to start a winery? Turns out that they each had talents that, when combined, would work well together to form a winery. Gustavo had been a winemaker, first at Chateau Montelena and then at Grgich Hills, for the past 21 years when they met. Thrace had a background in small business management and had already started two other companies by the time she met Gustavo. Thirteen years later there is a pretty definite separation of duties: Gustavo makes the wine and Thrace sells it.
In 1996 we found some ‘second crop’ grapes and bought enough to make 200 cases of an inaugural Zinfandel. We custom crushed at another facility that year but by 1997 had found our own home in downtown Napa. We moved the winery to the industrial park in Napa three years and now Gustavo does custom crush for others as well as being the winemaker for a number of other boutique wineries.
The first production was 250 cases of a 1996 Zinfandel from the Chiles Valley Appellation. This was followed by a Carneros Chardonnay and a Chiles Valley Cabernet Sauvignon in 1997. In 2000 we added Sauvignon Blanc from the Mohr-Fry ranch in Lodi. In 2004 we released the first Merlot under the GustavoThrace label and have since added very small quantities of a number of other varietals. What we make each year depends on the grapes that Gustavo finds and wants to work with. He continues to challenge himself with new varietals, clones and yeasts. In 2005 we started The 3rd Bottle, which is a Napa Valley Red Table wine. This has really let Gustavo demonstrate his blending skills as he puts these wines together.
The Chardonnay is sourced from a single vineyard lot in the Carneros. Our 1997 Chardonnay was the first fruit harvested from those vines and we have continued to use the same vineyard block each year since then. This gives us the chance to compare each vintage and learn how the maturity of the vines in each successive year affects the finished product. While the vineyard consists of a number of soil types, Gustavo chooses his fruit from the rocky portion of the vineyard, searching for a mineral quality to the fruit.
The Sauvignon Blanc is intended to be “an oyster wine.” It has been styled to give a crisp mineral finish to the wine while retaining the true fruit character inherent in the grape. The fruit was crushed and pressed into stainless steel where it underwent fermentation and aged there until bottling, giving it a Sancerre style finish. It is sourced from the Mohr-Fry ranch in Lodi and we have chosen to vineyard designate this wine because we are so happy with the fruit that these guys are growing for us.
The 3rd Bottle, is a fun little table wine designed to be that 3rd bottle you SHOULD have drunk after opening a couple of your great wines. But, it’s so good everyone is using it as their 1st or 2nd bottles too.
We have added Pinot Noir, Syrah, Petite Sirah and Barbera to the lineup. Our latest project is called Tessera – the Greek word for 4. On ½ acre we planted 1,300 vines on 4 x 4 centers. We planted cabernet, merlot, petit verdot and malbec. We had our first harvest in 2006 with just one ton of fruit. The grapes were all picked at the same time, they were co-crushed and co-fermented – a true field blend. After fermentation the wine went into new French oak and we will be bottling the first release of that in the summer of 2009.
The winery tasting room is located in downtown Napa across the street from the new Oxbow center. The winery production is at our winery facility in the south end of Napa.
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