Tulocay was one of the "new" wineries to start up in the early 1970's, and the owner, Bill Cadman, is still at it and still making great Napa wines, in the traditional style. This means that his wines are very well-balanced and play well with food - they don't dominate, they enhance and compliment, good meals. They also age very well. Another plus is that the Tulocay wines are generally very well-priced compared with your average Napa wine - many if not most of his wines are in the 20 to 30 dollar range.

In the 1950s and 1960s, a renaissance in the California wine industry emerged as a group of Napa Valley pioneers recognized the region’s potential to meet the evolving tastes of American wine consumers. Among these visionaries was Jay Corley, founder of Monticello, who would go on to establish a winery that, over five decades, would produce more than a thousand wines rated 90 or higher.

Winemaking in Napa Valley dates back to the mid-1800s. The industry thrived throughout the latter part of the 19th century, with hundreds of wineries sprouting across the valley. However, the late 1800s brought devastation in the form of phylloxera, a pest that ravaged over 90% of the valley’s vineyards.

The remnants of the wine industry were further obliterated in 1920 with the onset of Prohibition, which rendered wine production and consumption illegal. Wine grapes were rendered useless for anything other than wine, leading farmers to uproot their vines and replant the valley with prunes, walnuts, and figs in a bid for survival.

In 1969, Jay Corley ventured to Napa Valley seeking land to craft exceptional wines. He acquired a prune orchard from the Prohibition era and established Monticello in 1970. True to his preference for subtlety, Jay chose not to name the winery after himself but instead named it Monticello after Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia estate, modeling the winery’s estate house after Jefferson’s Monticello, inspired by the Palladian architectural style of the Italian Renaissance.

A connoisseur of food and wine, Jay admired Jefferson’s preference for wine over ale, the popular American drink of Jefferson’s era. Jay embraced Jefferson’s belief that “Good wine is a necessity of life” and shared a passion for pairing wine with food.

Although Jay hailed from a family of farmers, he himself was a businessman who recognized his own limitations. He surrounded himself with skilled individuals necessary for producing world-class wines. Decades later, these talents have been carried on by Jay’s own children, who are involved in growing the grapes, making the wines, managing the business, and preparing the way for the third generation of the family. In an era when many of Napa’s pioneering wineries have been sold to conglomerates, Monticello proudly remains one of the few family-owned wineries in the valley.

Shypoke calls the Calistoga AVA home, with its Estate vineyard nestled in the northwestern corner of the world-famous Napa Valley. The dirt-to-bottle journey began in 1904 when Peter Heitz’s great-grandparents, having immigrated from Alsace, planted roots and established bonded winery #130 for the production of fine wines. Over five generations of grape growers and winemakers, the Heitz family has continued the vision and efforts initiated in 1904. Each wine honors the traditions of a family working together to farm heirloom vines and handcraft the resulting fruit into uniquely elegant and honest wines that reflect their place and vintage.

In 1974, shortly after their Peace Corp assignment in Colombia, Tom Clark and Laurie Claudon came to the Napa Valley, new baby boy in tow. Immediately caught up in the infectious energy, they were ready to take their place among a small group of visionary grape growers and winemakers. Together, that group of pioneers laid the foundation for the unrivaled status of today’s Napa Valley.