My wife and I recently traveled to Napa Valley and visited many historic wineries. We focused on wineries directly involved in the 1976 Paris tasting. We knew, however, that we had to make time and schedule a tasting at a relatively new winery producing wine for only 12 years, Gustavo Thrace.
The winery was founded by Thrace Bromberger and winemaker-general manager Gustavo Brambila in 1996. If this last name sounds familiar, then you must have seen the recent movie “Bottle Shock,” about how Chateau Montelena’s Napa Valley chardonnay beat some of France’s best white Burgundies in the 1976 blind tasting. Brambila was portrayed in the movie by Freddy Rodriquez. A good portion of the movie focused on Brambila as a young assistant winemaker at Chateau Montelena and his friendship with Bo Barrett, son of Montelena owner Jim Barrett.
We met Brambila at the winemaking facility and were surprised to find him soft-spoken. Although he admitted Rodriguez added a lot of pizazz to his personality in the movie, he was happy how the actor picked up on his passion for winemaking and transferred that to the big screen.
That passion emerged during my interview with Brambila. We talked about his long tenure working with a Napa Valley legend, Mike Grgich, the winemaker at Chateau Montelena when Brambila started there. When Grgich left Montelena in 1977 to start his own winery, Grgich Hills, Brambila went with him. He worked there for 23 years.
In the interview, he always referred to him as “Mr. Grgich,” and you could feel the respect he had for the man who made the Montelena chardonnay that won the 1976 tasting. Brambila left Grgich Hills in 1999 to pursue his dream of owning and working full-time at his own winery.
We were joined by partner Bromberger, who left a law practice and moved to Napa from Los Angeles in 1984. Her role is managing sales and marketing at the winery as well as running the tasting room.
We tasted current releases of Gustavo Thrace’s barbera, petit sirah, syrah, sauvignon blanc, pinot noir, merlot, chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon. They were all quality wines, and prices ranged from $14 to $70. We bought six of these wines, including a 2004 cabernet that was our favorite.
Gustavo Thrace produces about 3,000 cases and sources its grapes from many different vineyards. If you are in Napa, make sure Gustavo Thrace is on your winery list. For more information, call (707) 257-6796, e-mail gustavot@napanet.net or visit http://www.gustavothrace.com.
