Still Scaling the

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Still Scaling the “Heitz”
Forty-seven years out, an iconic Napa winery shows no let-up in quality.
Richard Paul Hinkle
Kathleen Heitz Myers, Alice Heitz,
and David Heitz
I
clearly remember the first time I
met the late, legendary Joe Heitz.
I was writing harvest reports for
the (then) wine newspaper I helped
found (initials WS), and I was asking
Joe to assess his most recent round
of grape picking. Must have been
1977 or 1978. His words were crisp
and hard: “Mother Nature’s a mean
old lady!”
Ma may be mean, but Joe seemed
to know how to handle the old gal
in milieus as diverse as Grignolino and Martha’s Vineyard
Cabernet Sauvignon. The winery was founded by Joe and
Alice Heitz in 1961 on the site of Leon Brendel’s ancient facility (it is now the Heitz tasting room on Highway 29 in St.
Helena). Brendel only made Grignolino, and sold it under
his “Only One” label. (Alice, by the way, is still going strong.
She lives much of the year in a San Francisco retirement community, where she can partake of the city’s vast cultural opportunities. She is particularly pleased that they don’t charge corkage
when she brings her own wines to the dinner table!)
“We still make Grignolino,” says winery president Kathleen
Heitz Myers. “We make a little Rosé from it, we make a red,
and we also make a little Port from it. It has such a lovely floral
quality about it that you almost expect it to be sweet. But it’s
got fairly high acidity, so it’s great with spicy foods. I think of
it as something akin to a red Gewürztraminer. We call it our
‘midweek wine.’ You know, for your Tuesday night spaghetti.
It’s not for special occasions; it’s for the hamburgers or pasta
that you put on the table on a daily basis and it’s especially good
as an ingredient in your favorite red pasta sauce!”
Quarterly Review of Wines, Spring 2008
(Kathleen has the honor — and the
extreme responsibility — of chairing
Auction Napa Valley 2008. “As you
know, it’s a charitable event that
raises funds for our community’s
healthcare, housing and youth service
non-profits. We see ourselves as
neighbors helping neighbors.” It’s
almost hard to imagine, but when
Heitz was founded, the large wooden
oval barrel-end sign that welcomes
people to the Napa Valley … listed
fewer than 20 wineries then existing in the valley.)
That said, Cabernet Sauvignon remains Heitz’s raison d’etre.
Of the winery’s 40,000-case annual production, more than 25,000
cases are devoted to the variety Bordeaux made famous. The
largest part of that is the Napa Valley Cabernet, followed by
much smaller allotments of the three vineyard-designate wines:
Martha’s Vineyard, Bella Oaks, and Trailside Vineyard.
“We have made some subtle changes in our production
of Cabernet over the years,” admits David, who graduated
from Fresno State in 1974. “What’s the same is that we’ve
managed to stick with our extended aging program [see
below]. What’s different is that we’ve got a new, more gentle
Willmes press, new filtering equipment, and we’re one of the
very few to use Limousin oak with Cabernet. We just like the
flavors better. Limousin is a sweeter oak, with less harshness,
and we want the unique qualities of each vineyard to show
through in the finished product. Part of the equation, too,
is that our extended aging period allows the oak to better
integrate into the wine without overpowering it. We use a
blend of new and once-used oak barrels for most of our Cabs,
but the Trailside is big enough to handle
all new oak.”
David allows that he had always
intended to become a winemaker. “I love
the business. I love the Napa Valley. I love
the agricultural basis of the business. I love
to watch how each wine ages and develops.
The creativity that’s involved, the artistic
challenges and the opportunities to learn
are exciting. It’s always a mystery how
wine develops. That’s the wonder of it all. I
have a particular fondness for Ports, which
started when I was in college. I would write
to the producers in Portugal, and read any-
thing I could lay my hands on. By the late
1980s we had planted
nearly six acres to the Portuguese
varieties: Touriga National, Tinta
Roriz, Tinta Cao, Sauzao, Tinta Bairrada, Tinta Madeira, Tinta Amaraella and Bastardo.” Curiously,
though the wine can carry the
“Napa Valley” appellation, as all
the fruit is Napa Valley-grown,
it does not carry the “Napa
Valley Grapes 100%” emblem
(on the back label), since the
high-proof alcohol needed to
fortify the wine comes from
San Joaquin Valley fruit.
A T T HE T A S T IN G T A B LE
• Chardonnay 2006 Napa Valley, $20. Wonderfully creamy,
oily texture, with lemon, green apple and sweet pear fruit,
and just a touch of sweet oak. “This wine shows some of my
influence,” says Kathleen. “I didn’t like the intrusion of oak
into our Chardonnay, so we tempered that a bit, so that the
fruit could show through in a lighter, crisper, more refreshing
style.” Taste it, and you’ll see the wisdom of her words.
• Grignolino 2005 Napa Valley, $15. Native to Italy’s
Piemont area, this varietal reminds you a bit of Tempranillo,
with its round, fleshy, come-hither sweet plum, blood orange
and strawberry fruitiness — along with that floral quality that
is artless and innocent. “Youthful exuberance” is Kathleen’s
apt phrase.
• Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 Napa Valley, $39. Voluptuous, with fluid black currant, violet and blackberry fruit
that is silky yet solid. That is a killer price for a Napa Valley
Cabernet that is this well put together. “Some people are put
off by our pricing, saying, ‘Aren’t your wines any good?’”
grumbles Kathleen. “I don’t know quite how to respond
to that, except to say that that’s part of our family ethic.
We want people to drink our wines. It took us nearly 50 years
to break the $100 barrier. Way back, our Chardonnay used
to bring a higher price than our Cabernet, if you can believe
that!” Yes, in 1963, the Riesling cost almost 50¢ more than
the Cabernet, at $2.07 the bottle, and in 1965 the Chardonnay was an outrageous $8 the bottle (as against the poor old
Cabernet at just $1.85).
• Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 Bella Oaks Vineyard, $65.
Crisp and tangy, with iodine and coffee up front, backed up
artfully with a smoky peppermint quality that adds to this
wine’s inherent liveliness. “This is the lighter, more feminine
of our vineyard designate wines,” says Kathleen. “As delicate
as it seems, it has a strong backbone, and is thus quite popular
in restaurants.” You can see why.
• Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 Trailside Vineyard, $80.
A richly-textured wine, this one has a thick cloak of currant and plum, framed with plenty of toasty-bacon-like
oak [David calls it “briary”]; the ripeness of the fruit, and
subsequent alcohol, is noticeable. Not made for the faint of
heart. “Where Bella Oaks and Martha’s are owned by longtime family friends, Trailside is our own vineyard, located on
the Silverado Trail near the Rutherford Crossroad [between
Mumm and Conn Creek],” says David. “All of our vineyard
designate Cabernets go through an extended aging process:
three years in barrel, a year in oak uprights, and then a year
in bottle prior to release. We want these wines to be ready to
drink when they are purchased, though we know that they
are capable of extended aging in the bottle as well.”
• Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 Martha’s Vineyard, $138.
Deep, long and marvelously fluid texture, with great depth
of blackberry and violet fruit that lasts and lasts on the
palate. Yes, if you really look for it, you’ll find that timehonored eucalyptus spiciness, but it’s only there as a most
subtle complexing agent; the primary fruit speaks loudly
and succinctly for itself. Tom and Martha May still own and
work this extraordinary 35-acre vineyard, and two of their
three children are presently working there too.
• Inkgrade Vineyard Port (non-vintage), $25. Oily
texture that simply coats your tongue with rich orange peel,
black walnut and black currant fruit. Great fruit sweetness,
enough to stand up to the sharpest of cheddars. You’ll want
a roaring fire in the background, to be sure. 
Quarterly Review of Wines, Spring 2008