Casa Nuestra crafts several wines including Meritage, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, dry Chenin Blanc, White Riesling, French Colombard, Rosado, a dry rosé and two proprietary red wines called Tinto Classico and Tinto St. Helena - unique wines made from rare, one-of-a-kind " field blend" vineyards. All of their wines are award winning and very limited.
The original vineyard producing their Tinto Classico was one of the first hillside vineyards planted in the famed Oakville region. It was planted sometime before 1956, at a time when some famous vineyards, which now surround it - such as Martha's Vineyard , Far Niente, Screaming Eagle and Harlan, were prune orchards or cow pastures. This vineyard is a field mix, which means that it is not a homogenous vineyard planted to a single variety of grapes. Rather, it is planted to a collection of grape varietals, some of which mystify identification experts. It is a wine recipe planted in the ground, reflecting the traditional Old World practices that were common several generations ago. The Kirkham family acquired this unique vineyard in 1956. It was due to the industry's growing desire for commercial, single-grape vineyards that these once common field-mix vineyards too quickly disappeared. In 1994, to keep the history alive, the Kirkhams took cuttings from the original Oakville vineyard and t-budded them onto vines in St. Helena until the entire vineyard was successfully reproduced there. Wines from the cloned vineyard in St. Helena are labeled "Tinto St. Helena" while wines from the original Oakville stand are labeled "Tinto Classico."
All of the other varietals used in Casa Nuestra's wines are grown in the twenty-two acre St. Helena vineyard. Some of the vines located in the St. Helena vineyards date back past 1960. Throughout its tenure, Casa Nuestra has focused on maximizing fruit intensity through the estate vineyards while sacrificing only larger yields. They are committed to sustainable farming practices to keep the estate's ecosystem in good health. Use of chemical herbicides and pesticides has been kept minimal and will soon be replaced completely by organic techniques such as composting, cover crops and even goats! In the cellar, the fruit is processed with gentleness and tender loving care. Traditional basket presses, special low-impact pumps and a variety of French and American oak barrels are used to produce these wines of such high caliber and acclaim.
Almost all of Casa Nuestra's limited production is sold to a loyal community of customers directly from the winery and through their wine club. They open to club members Monday through Saturday, 10 to |
PRESS
RELEASE:
Important message, on every bottle, every
year.
In an unusual gesture, Casa Nuestra Winery of St. Helena California has added
a peace message to their back labels starting with the 2002 bottling. The
design shows a dove embracing the earth with her wings. The globe is fashioned
into a peace symbol, and is titled "World with Inner Peace." Above the
graphic appear the words, "Embrace Peace." Co-owner, Gene Kirkham, explained
his reasons: "In the current world crisis, where war and even nuclear war
is threatened with chilling casualness, I cannot maintain a "business as
usual"attitude. Although a consensus on how peace is to be achieved has
not yet arisen in our global community, we can all agree that peace is
our unifying objective. I hope our label may be a bell of mindfulness reminding
each person to focus on peace as our common goal."
Casa Nuestra bottled
1300 cases of wines in August 2002 bearing the
peace message, including Meritage, Cabernet Franc,
Merlot, Tinto, and Chenin Blanc. "Our bottles and
cases pass through a lot of hands," Kirkham says. "If
each imprint is seen by four people, we will eventually
reach almost 70,000 people. Like a note in a bottle
tossed out to sea, we have no idea where it may
wash up and the good that it may do. I do believe
that whatever can be done to send a positive message
into our suffering world is an important contribution,
whatever the numbers may turn out to be."
Casa
Nuestra is a small wine estate in the upper Napa
valley, which has been producing handcrafted wines
for over twenty years. For more information contact
the Casa at 3451 Silverado Trail, St. Helena, Ca.
94574, 707-963-5783, www.casanuestra.com. |
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CATCH AN
OYSTER??
Origin of "Casa Nuestra"
Over the years, we have had many comical misspellings and misstatements
of our trade name. Would you believe a shipment of goods came addressed to Catch
An Oyster Winery? Casa Nuestra is a Spanish name meaning "our house." It is not,
as sometimes suggested, "Cosa Nostra", which is Italian for something else.
One astute linguist objected that Casa Nuestra is improper grammar,
because the adjective should precede the noun thus: Nuestra Casa. Most Spanish
linguists consulted agree that Casa Nuestra is permissible.
It was our predecessor, Tom Blackburn, who originally gave the name
to the property. He intended to use Casa Nuestra as a trade name for a commercial
kennel of golden retrievers. The sign "Casa Nuestra" was proudly hanging on the
Silverado Trail when we first came to look in 1975. Tom loved the Mexican-Spanish
heritage of California, so he called his home Casa Nuestra, and he named the
vineyard La Jolla Del Norte. These names are reminders of the fact that it was
the Spanish padres who first introduced viticulture to California. In the future,
when California's status as a primary wine-growing region of the world has settled
in for a century or two, it may seem odd that wineries went through a period
of avoiding California identification by assuming French names.
Reprinted
from the Casa Nuestra Journal 1985 |
info@casanuestra.com
