Charnu Winery

Charnu Winery
PO Box 852
Saintt Helena, California
USA 94574
Phone: 707 963 6045
http://www.charnuwinery.com/

Contact: Bob & Louise Dye
Email: [email protected]

How Charnu Winery Started: We moved to St. Helena in 2001 because we loved the town and the area. Over time, we became friends with a lot of people in the local wine industry and decided to try our hand at winemaking.

In 2004, we purchased almost a ton of high-quality St. Helena Cabernet Sauvignon and did everything by hand—a true "garage wine". During this adventure, we got a lot of advice from Mark Porembski, a winemaker at another St. Helena winery (no doubt one reason why our home wine turned out to be quite tasty).

Having been through the whole process, we decided we'd like to make wine that we could sell. Although our home wine turned out well, we had no illusions that we had the experience to make a commercial brand. Luckily, Mark was willing to be our winemaker.

A Great Appellation to Grow Cabernet Sauvignon: The St. Helena Appellation is a great place to grow Cabernet Sauvignon. Through friends in the business, we found some very promising St. Helena vineyard blocks that had been replanted and were not yet under contract. Since we liked the soil profile and knew that the owners were excellent growers, we jumped at the opportunity. This gives us a consistent source of high-quality grapes.

Production: For our winemaking, we lease space at a large winery in Napa. They have a state-of-the-art facility, including a lot of equipment that we'd never be able to afford.

Our first vintage was 2005, released in Fall 2008. We expect that our production will gradually rise to around 500 cases per year. That makes us very tiny by Napa Valley standards.

What Charnu Wine Is Like: We think that we produce a Cabernet Sauvignon that wine lovers will consider "elegant". We chose the name and logo both to reflect that elegance and to have a little fun (follow the link to get the details).

What to Expect If You Visit: At our home, where we have our offices, we have a private cave where we present our wine to friends and visitors. If you'd like to try our wine and decide for yourself, please give us a call.

Winemaker: Mark Porembski

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