Philip Togni

Philip Togni studied at the famous University of Bordeaux. In 1959, he packed up his belongings to leave for California, where he worked at various iconic wineries, including Mayacamas, Chalone and Inglenook. After several years of experience, he decided to start his own vineyard in 1981 and so the first vines were planted. The vineyards and the winery are located 600 feet above sea level on Spring Mountain in California's Napa Valley.

By now, Philip Togni has four hectares in production. The planting consists of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot. In the vineyard, they follow the regulations for organic cultivation. In addition, Philip and his wife choose to use only grapes that come from their own vineyards, which is not always the case in this region. They do this to make sure that the quality meets a certain minimum standard. Three different wines are produced, two of which are red, and one is a rare red dessert wine. These are the cuvées: Philip Togni Vineyard, Tanbark Hill, and Ca' Togni.

On arrival in the cellar, all of the bunches are destemmed before fermentation. This keeps the hard tannins out of the door. After fermentation in stainless steel tanks, the two red wines are transferred to wooden barrels of 40% new French oak. The wine ages in these barrels for an average of 20 months. Philip's wines are an excellent example of Bordeaux-inspired California wines. You can take a Frenchman out of France, but you can’t take France out of the Frenchman.

The wines have excellent aging potential and are only ready to drink after an average of 5 to 10 years. And if the bottle only opens after 20 years? No problem, Philip's wines are easily up to that! The best vintages are: 1994, 1997, 2001, 2016, and 2018.