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WINERY SPOTLIGHT Robert Foley Vineyards, Napa Valley, California Benjamin T. Weinberg Benjamin T. Weinberg, JD, MBA, MCSE, is a certified sommelier and author of “Weinberg’s Wine Notes,” published every Wednesday in Denver’s Rocky Mountain News. Contact him at benweinberg@comcast.net, and read his most recent column by clicking on his picture in the Columnists area of the Rocky’s Living section home page: www.rockymountainnews.com/news/living.
Snuggled up to the backside of Howell Mountain, away from the hustle of Napa but close enough to drive in for dinner, lies Robert Foley’s new winery.
It’s the first crush facility and wine cave he’s ever owned, after decades of turning other people’s visions into wine. So as I barged in at lunchtime on a beautiful September day during harvest, I expected he would be pleased with his new domain. But that turned out to be an understatement.
“Welcome to the compound!” he shouted from his seat at the far end of the table, over the buzz of hungry cellar rats devouring their noon meal. “Have a sandwich.” He waved his hand—the one not wrapped around turkey on wheat—in my general direction, then pointed toward the wall at my back, beyond which resided his crush pad. “It may not look like much, but we haven’t finished moving in yet. I’ve got 500 barrels coming tomorrow; it’s controlled chaos,” he told me. “But here I can make the best wines possible. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
Foley admitted that not everything had gone precisely as planned in the winery last fall, but that spells of cool weather had spread out the harvest, allowing him to fine-tune the facility on the fly. The outdoor crush pad and fermentation area is indeed quite spartan, representing no-frills winemaking at its best, with little investment to this point on nonessentials like landscaping. Or a roof. As it turned out, after 15 minutes, we didn’t even have Foley, who had to leave for the airport. But his nephew Peter Foley and Kelly Peterson-Holmes of Switchback Ridge led me through a tasting of the current releases of both Robert Foley Vineyards and Switchback Ridge (see box) and gave me a tour of the property.
We started with the alfresco work area, which was designed for easy, methodical access during the craziness of crush. Then we descended into the wine cave, a labyrinthine, newly bored tunnel dug deep into the mountain, with tracks laid along the floor to make transporting barrels a more automated chore. Utilitarian, to be sure, but also strangely beautiful when the dark rocks offset the cream-colored barrels as they marched into the distance.
The level of thought, detail, and planning that had gone into the execution of Foley’s vision was impressive. When I mentioned this, he just smiled and asked, “Isn’t that the whole point?” The same philosophy permeates all of Foley’s Napa Valley projects.
Robert Foley Vineyards
“As a Napa Valley winemaker since 1977, I thoroughly enjoy working with some of the fin- est grapes in the world,” Foley says on his web- site. His favorite terroirs combine mountainous, well-drained soils and the exposure of high ele- vations to concentrate aromas, flavors, color, and density. The goal is to make the most expressive wines imaginable using traditional techniques and hands-on care.
Robert Foley Vineyards produces about 8,000 cases a year, divided among six varietals. His own 5-acre Howell Mountain vineyard is a major contributor of Cabernet Sauvignon for the winery.
