Kongsgaard

Kongsgaard is not a typical Napa Valley winery. It is a family business, full of local history, run with a mix of old and new ideas. The wines are made with attention to detail, from fruit sourced in difficult-to-farm topsoil that gives them a special edge. If you are ever offered a glass of Kongsgaard Chardonnay, or any of the other varietals the winery produces, make sure to appreciate it for what it is: a Napa Valley wine with a rich backstory and an equally rich mouthfeel.

History

Kongsgaard is a Napa Valley winery, and it's really a family-run operation since John Kongsgaard and his wife, Maggy, are the vintners. John, a fifth-generation Napan, came back home, in the late 1970s, with Maggy to start Kongsgaard Cellars. They didn't release a wine under their own label until 1996, when they put out the 1996 Kongsgaard Chardonnay; so by then, already, Kongsgaard had somewhat of a rep. John's a fabulous winemaker. Why? Well, you can thank two things for that: One, he has talent, and two, he worked at and learned from the master at Newton Vineyards.

Napa's story is linked with John's family history. The mid-1800s saw the settlement of Sonoma by Lilburn Boggs, a former governor and John's great-grandfather. Directly, John descends from the legendary Daniel Boone. The Judge Vineyard's land had been in John's family since the 1920s. Before the 1970s, when John and Maggy planted Chardonnay there, the land served as cattle pasture. The winemaking team that now includes their son Alex carries on the family tradition. They also inject some new ideas into the business, like a greater emphasis on raising grapes in organic conditions.

The Vineyards
Kongsgaard's core is the Judge Vineyard, a ten-acre land on a rocky hilltop southeast of Napa Valley. The soil is tough—volcanic, lots of rocks, and not much to nourish the vines. That’s a good thing for winemaking, however, because it means the vines are working hard and the grapes they produce are small, concentrated, and powerfully flavored. Judge Vineyard sits on the eastern rim of Napa Valley, which gives it a climate and an exposure like no other.

In addition to the family estate, Kongsgaard also works with a couple of other highly rated vineyards in Napa, like Hudson and Hyde, especially for Syrah and über Chardonnay. All the vineyards are farmed with an eye toward sustainability, and in recent years, organic practices.

The Terroir
Everything that makes a vineyard unique (think: soil, climate, slope, and the people who work the land) is what the French fancy as the vineyard's "terroir." At Kongsgaard, the terroir is all about those rocky, volcanic soils and the steep hillside location. The vines are as stressed as they can be, not producing a whole lot of fruit but turning out a tiny amount of intensely flavored, beautiful fruit. San Pablo Bay sends cool breezes that way, keeping things fresh and ensuring that even as the grapes ripen, they maintain their acidity.

Kongsgaard wines are an almost perfect representation of the Napa Valley. Their combination of power and refinement is the hallmark of great wines from this area; their concentration of flavor and aroma is a direct expression of the excellent fruit that comes from the Kongsgaard vineyard.

Way of Winemaking

Kongsgaard's winemaking technique is incredibly traditional. Kongsgaard likes to say his family approach is very 19th-century European, which means, of course, the winemaking is done without electricity (and think of all the modern additives we take for granted), and definitely without any of the high-tech gadgets we use today. What this means, then, in practice:

All wines undergo fermentation with native yeasts that are not commercial strains. French oak barrels, small ones, are used for fermenting and aging the wines, and sometimes they are used for a long while (up to two years is not unheard of). The winemaking process is minimally invasive: no fining, no filtration at bottling, and almost no sulfur. And then there's the labor: by hand, all of it, from picking to pressing to racking.

The outcome is that the wines possess a character all their own and truly demonstrate their origins. The Chardonnays especially are esteemed for their opulence, their multilayered personalities, and their remarkable staying power.

3 Fun Facts
- Cave Melodies: John Kongsgaard loves music almost as much as he loves wine. He often works in the winery’s cave with classical music playing, believing that it helps set the mood and maybe even the wine.

- Small Scale Production: Kongsgaard produces a mere 4,000 cases of wine a year. That's scant even by Napa standards, where the average winery churns out about 30,000 cases annually. And here's the thing: Napa is not known for small. The region is essentially a laboratory for gigantic wines, with lots of fruit, lots of oak, and lots of alcohol.

- In 2004, Food & Wine Magazine named John Kongsgaard "Winemaker of the Year"—a considerable prize in the realm of wine.