The Grapevine: Trefethen Family Vineyards also has made a name for Napa Valley

By Laurie Daniel

When Kaiser Industries executive Eugene Trefethen and his wife, Katie, purchased the old Eshcol Ranch property north of the city of Napa in 1968, half of the valley was planted to something other than grapes, and there were fewer than 30 wineries there. But vineyard acreage was increasing steadily, and the Trefethens started replanting their ranch, which had been a mix of grapes, fruit orchards and walnuts, to wine grapes.

Forty years later, Trefethen Family Vineyards has the distinction of never having used a grape from outside the estate, although “there certainly were times when we should have,” jokes John Trefethen, Eugene and Katie’s son. And the winery has, over those years, remained true to its vision of creating wines with what John’s wife, Janet, calls the three B’s: balance, brightness and beauty.

A school project

The Trefethens didn’t start producing wine right away. But John developed an interest in wine (he dabbled some in home winemaking) and vineyards, and in 1970 he developed a business plan for a small, family-run winery as a project for one of his Stanford business school classes. He and Janet put the plan into action in 1973, producing the first commercial vintage of Trefethen wine from the estate vineyard.

The Trefethens recently celebrated the property’s 40th anniversary with a retrospective tasting of selected vintages of chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon stretching back to the mid-1970s. “We’re going to taste the evolution of a vineyard and its wines,” Janet Trefethen said as the tasting began.

Trefethen’s vineyards in the Oak Knoll District encompass nearly 500 acres. Most of that acreage is at what’s known as the Main Ranch, a flat parcel along Oak Knoll Avenue, on the valley floor. The remainder is at Hillspring Vineyard, a property three miles north of the Main Ranch in the western foothills of the valley. While the Main Ranch has a wide range of grape varieties, Hillspring is focused on cabernet sauvignon and the other red grapes of Bordeaux.

Red and white side by side

Cabernet and chardonnay don’t usually grow side by side; the former requires a warmer site to get ripe, which the latter thrives in a cool climate. But the Main Ranch is cooler than sites farther up the valley. “We can do chardonnay and cabernet in the same place,” says viticulturist Jon Ruel, although he acknowledges that the site is on the cool side for cabernet and a little warm for chardonnay.

Consequently, to preserve brightness, Trefethen chardonnays over the years have undergone little or no malolactic (ML) fermentation, a secondary fermentation that softens the sharp acid often found in chardonnay. The winery’s early chardonnays were fermented in stainless steel tanks, with no ML. In the early ’90s, the style began to shift some, with the use of barrel fermentation and partial ML. The wines now are definitely riper and richer, but they’re still quite fresh, with plenty of juicy acidity. The current release, 2006 ($33) is fresh and fragrant, with flavors of lemon and golden delicious apple. It will benefit from another year or two in the bottle.

I’m not sure whether this wine will age as well as some of its predecessors— two chardonnays from the ’70s were still vibrant, and the 1987 was amazingly fresh—but I don’t know many people who age their chardonnays for 20 or 30 years. Two bottles from the late-’90s, when the wines already were getting riper, certainly had held their own. The 1997 was fleshy and rich, but with a taut core of acidity. And the 1999 was ripe yet bright, with rich fruit and a hint of toffee.

A balanced cabernet

As for cabernet, the wines have good concentration, and the moderate temperatures result in good levels of acidity—these cabs are not the sort of jammy fruit bombs that are becoming so common in Napa. As is the case with the chardonnay, many of the older cabernets are aging quite gracefully. The 1985 estate cab, for example, is dense and concentrated, with a persistent finish, and the 1995 estate is outstanding: dark and youthful, with ample black cherry fruit and a savory note of olive. The 1986 reserve cabernet is a little earthy but still displays sweet fruit flavors; the 1999 explodes with mouth-filling flavors of black cherry, cassis, mocha and cedar.

Like the chardonnay, the cabernets are getting riper. But the wines aren’t losing their balance and elegance. The 2004 estate cabernet sauvignon ($50) offers concentrated black cherry and cassis fruit accented by a note of cedar, while the 2003 reserve ($100) — from a vintage in which a lot of Napa cabernets weren’t terribly successful — is seamless and complex, with ripe black fruit, firm acidity and a long finish.

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Trefethen Family Vineyards:

www.trefethenfamilyvineyards.com