Cakebread often holds food and wine pairing events, sensory seminars, as well as other educational events. Regular tastings are offered every 15 minutes daily — any visit to Cakebread requires an advance appointment. During a number of visits over the years in the fall we have had the chance to see the winery really in action during harvest — which is always an ideal time to tour a winery.
Cakebread operates two completely separate wine making facilities; one for white wine and one for red wine. During harvest we saw employees zipping back and forth between the two on electric scooters and bicycles.
Tours will stop in both the fermentation and barrel rooms, the rear of the winery where the wine presses are located and a stop in the vineyard to closely examine some of the vines.
One of the tour highlights is of course tasting the wine — and guests do so in a number of spaces on the property including on the second level of their hospitality center. The ceiling above the first floor is literally made from used corks — the most corks you will see in one place at any Napa winery. One of their employees told us he made a rough count and then calculated around 45, corks are here. The views from the 2nd level balcony are excellent — one looks east over a sea of vineyards.
A tour also includes a view of the original winery where Jack Cakebread made his first vintage in The Garden A rather sizable garden about 1 acre of land originally founded by Dolores Cakebread is located in the back of the winery; today it is a source for fresh vegetables and herbs used in their culinary program along with a number of edible flowers.
Small paths bisect rows of plantings — visitors can wander through at their leisure. With their fresh produce straight from the garden, trained chefs on site and excellent wine, Cakebread is the epitome of the Napa Valley lifestyle. Vineyards The estate property which surrounds the winery has grown over the years as neighbors sold off bits and pieces to Cakebread.
Today the home vineyard is 50 acres of vines on 68 total acres — planted to several varieties including Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon. Over the decades, Cakebread has acquired approximately 1, acres with the majority located in the Napa Valley but also several vineyards to the north in Mendocino County.
Nearly acres are planted to vines spread out over 14 different vineyard sites 12 in the Napa Valley and 2 in Anderson Valley. Cakebread produces premium wines at a fairly sizable production for Napa Valley standards ; the wines are found in many high-end restaurants nationwide and it is through this distribution along with word of mouth that people often discover their wines. The Cakebread Chardonnay is very well known especially among the restaurant industry as that is a key sales channel for this wine.
They produce several Chardonnays; during an early visit to the winery, we tried the Cakebread Cellars Napa Valley Chardonnay. Balanced with a noticeable intensity of flavor, the palate is slightly creamy in texture. The Cakebread Chardonnays undergo sur lee barrel aging the lees or sediment at the bottom of the barrels are stirred by hand. Their Chardonnays are also mostly barrel fermented — rather than fermented in tank; their reserve Chardonnay sees more aging than their more widely distributed Chardonnay.
The Cakebread Cellars Reserve wine is dark yellow — it is big for a Chardonnay with a pleasing rounded rich mouth feel and lingering notes of toasted oak. It undergoes some malolactic fermentation and is somewhat creamy and slightly buttery.
The Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc was sourced from 4 vineyards ranging from the cooler Carneros in the south to warmer Calistoga in the north. Through her culinary workshops, masterful gardening and health-focused cookbook, she helped establish Napa Valley as not only a destination for wine tasting but also for experiencing its unique lifestyle.
Dolores Cakebread grew up in Oakland and met her future husband, Jack, while they were both students at Fremont High School. They married in and soon afterward he enlisted in the Air Force. In , while on a photography trip in Napa Valley, the couple stopped by the home of a former neighbor who had retired to Rutherford. They were charmed by Napa Valley and wanted to be a part of it.
Before long, the Cakebreads had persuaded the former neighbors to sell them their acre Rutherford ranch. The next year, they made their first wine, a Chardonnay. A perfect example of its type, this Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is well structured and rich on fruit.
Filter by:. Vintage 1. Producer Cakebread Cellars 9. Format Bottle 8. Wine Type White Wine 2. Grape Cabernet Sauvignon 4. Country North America 9. Region California 9. To go from Chico, Calif. That was pretty cool.
He worked for a band management company, then a side gig with a record label called Exploding in Sound. They just got a new song on NPR, which is pretty cool for them. Keith: You hear a lot about family. This is a family winery.
I want to talk about the family business. To be able to keep this in the family for as long as you guys had and the place that you may wind and watch it evolve the way it evolved is pretty amazing. You just were talking about rerouting the river, and Rutherford alone is incredible. I just wanted to ask about the family business and how that has affected winemaking throughout the years? Bruce: Our family DNA goes back to my grandfather, because he started a garage in downtown Oakland changing oil back in Over the 50 years that they had that business, my grandfather and my father ran it.
My grandparents would take my three brothers up there to get us out of Oakland for a while. Then, we ended up buying it from them. My father and grandfather worked together and then both my brother and I worked with our parents until about We started doing succession planning. They step back and my brother and I have been running it. This is the normal way of how family businesses go. I was in a class out of Kellogg that does great family business work and does Zoom calls for three days a week in February.
Here is a vision where we want to be, where each one of us brought something different to the table to get us on that path, to get us to the goal. We all had our different style and different way of doing it. We all end up on second base. I think that has been really helpful. Then, with the three-generation or the cousins. The cousins are scattered all over the country, whereas Dennis and I live in the same town. My brother and I were older operators.
We grunt at each other walking through the hallway there. We knew what the other guy was thinking or saying. Each generation has its own way.
We need to be able to keep that blend going from the second generation and third generation. Each stage, each transition, can be treacherous.
We have a good foundation of seeing our grandfather and father work and then our parents did for Dennis and myself. Tim: Bruce, this is Tim speaking again. One of the things that I wanted to ask again ties into that idea of consistency that you seem to be alluding towards — maintaining a family style of wines over time.
To my understanding, one of the things that are continuous through Cakebread is this idea of making wines that pair with food, farm-to-table wines before anyone was even putting a hyphen between those words.
Then, Stephanie, if you can follow up by telling me what that actually looks like? What does that process mean from a winemaking and grape-growing standpoint? When we bottle, we bottle on Saturday morning, and our parents would invite a bunch of friends up. They knew they were going to still get fed. I love the fact that, again, this is another comment. Just a comment.
0コメント