Earlier this month, several members of our wine and management teams headed to California. One of the stops was at Antica Winery, in Napa, owned by the Antinori family. We toured the property Wednesday, August 4 and had lunch with winemaker Nate Weiss. Rare flank steak, beet salads, olives, blanched almonds.

Some quick facts:
The wine maker is Nate Weis, since 2008--he was formerly at Patz and Hall. The vineyard boasts 1250 acres; 450 in grapes. They also sell some grapes to Stags Leap for Artemis.

They grow Cabernet, Chardonnay, Cab Franc and Sangiovese here in the Atlas Peak AVA. At an elevation of 1650 feet, there’s a huge range of temperatures: a 20 degree difference is possible daily from valley floor to hilltops. 

In 1989, they completed a cave for barrel storage—the cave maintains a constant 55 degree temp year round—a cool change for us Floridians to visit! The cave has 8000 barrels capacity—but, then, it’s 35,000 square feet!

The winery has an 1800 Ton capacity facility; they process 30 tons for the Antica label and sell the rest.

--Andy Abernathy, COO