Chateau St. Jean

Region: Sonoma, CA

2009 marked Margo Van Staaveren's 30th harvest at Chateau St. Jean. During her long tenure with the winery, Margo has played a pivotal role in every facet of the winemaking process. As winemaker, she makes the final decisions involving blend and style to produce consistently high quality wines in the super premium and luxury category.

Margo is a firm believer that great wines are grown - a conviction she shares with the Chateau founders who led the way for Chateau St. Jean to become a pioneer of vineyard designated wines in the early 1970s. To achieve Chateau St. Jean vineyard designation, the superior quality of the vineyards must be proven year after year and the grapes must consistently exhibit exceptional varietal character.

The art of blending is the cornerstone of Margo's winemaking philosophy. To her, one of the greatest accomplishments is to create a wine style or signature blend that carries from vintage to vintage while still capturing the uniqueness of that particular growing year.

Mount Veeder Winery

Region: Napa, CA

The philosophy at Mount Veeder Winery is that each of our wines has its own remarkable way of expressing the mountain soil from which it was born. We believe that great wines are a reflection of their terroir—the combination of soil, topography, microclimate and people—and we believe that excellent grapes handled with minimal processing have the potential to produce the greatest wines.

Mount Veeder Winery was the first vineyard in Napa Valley planted to all five of the grape varieties used in a classic Bordeaux blend. We feel that blending is the key to crafting the most complete, balanced wine and enhancing the inherent characteristics of each variety. The ultimate goal is the creation of a rich, seamless wine.

Mount Veeder Winery was one born from the hard work and dedication of Michael and Arlene Bernstein. The Bernsteins first discovered the rugged property in the early 1960s and later bought it as a rustic retreat. In the ensuing years they transformed it into an enviable vineyard, almost by accident. After farming the property’s prune orchard for the first few years, a farmhand who lived on the property presented the Bernsteins with a bundle of cast-off grapevine cuttings. Michael stuck the unrooted cuttings into the ground and never gave them a drop of water. Miraculously, of the 60 cuttings planted, 58 lived. Michael turned his full attention to the vines and built his land into a thriving vineyard, ultimately making history as the first vintner in Napa Valley to plant one property to all five of the classic Bordeaux varieties.

The debut wine from Mount Veeder Winery was the 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon. Since that first vintage, Mount Veeder Winery has expanded to three vineyard ranches nestled high in the Mayacamas Mountains and continues to produce powerful, bold wines that are a true expression of this unique wine-growing region. 

Resembling a giant staircase, Mount Veeder's vines are planted on wide terraces of earth cut into steep slopes. At elevations of 1,000 to 1,600 feet, the microclimate is very different from the Napa Valley floor. Above the fog bank, exposed to the gentle morning sun and protected from the afternoon heat by the surrounding mountains, grapes on these vines ripen slowly and evenly. And in autumn, the mountain's cool days and warm nights mean extra hang time.

il Mosnel

Lombardia, Italia

In the heart of Franciacorta, in Camignone, lies the historic villa with its 16th-century wine cellars and surrounding properties that offers eloquent testimony to the venerable winemaking patrimony that the Barboglio family inherited in 1836. This viticultural wealth was developed still further through the far-sighted efforts of Emanuela Barboglio, who planted the first modern, specialized vineyards and in 1968 was one of the first to produce DOC Franciacorta wine.

In 1976 the name of the winery was changed from Azienda Agricola Barzanò Barboglio to the current "il Mosnel," a local dialect word, of Celtic origin, that means "heap of stones," an apt characterisation for the site of the winery. Directing il Mosnel today is the fifth generation of winegrowers, the children of Emanuela Barboglio. Giulio Barzanò oversees production and sales, while Lucia Barzanò directs marketing, external relations, and administration. The family is fortunate to enjoy the support of a highly professional staff, expert agronomists, and experienced winemaking technicians, all of whom exercise painstaking attention to the production process and to the winery's growth.