Meet The Winemakers, The Cellar Angels Podcast

Pellet Estate in Napa Valley

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The Pellet Estate is a spectacular vineyard site in the small town of St. Helena, with a rich history dating back to 1859. Henry Pellet, one of the founding pioneers of Napa Valley winemaking, first planted this site with a vision of producing wines that would be among the best in the world.

The Pellet Vineyard’s origin begins in 1863 with the purchase of 45 acres of land in the Southwest corner of St. Helena that was filled with Manzanita brush Pellet cleared and planted to 38 acres of vines. During the 1870’s, Pellet expanded to a wine cellar under the name of Pellet & Carver, with an on-site capacity of 80,000 gallons that was partially underground. Throughout the following decades, the vineyard continued to produce quality crops over various ownership changes. Today the vineyard produces about equal amounts of Clone 4 and Clone 337 Cabernet Sauvignon, and small amounts of Merlot and Petit Verdot.

Winemaking at Pellet Estate is led by the notable Tom Rinaldi. Raised in San Francisco, Tom made frequent trips to Napa on his motorcycle, buying wines directly from the wineries of the day. After four years in the Navy, Tom enrolled at UC Davis along with notable classmates Mike Martini, Tim Mondavi, Randy Dunn, and Bob Levy.
Eric Risch oversees the winemaking direction and portfolio, day to day winery operations, and sales and marketing. Eric is an entrepreneur with careers at Wells Fargo Bank, the R&D division of Apple Computer, and Medior, Inc. and founder of Grapevine, a corporation that grew to be one of the top eight web marketing firms in the Bay Area in just six years serving start-ups and Fortune 1000 companies.

Getting Back to the Basics of Winemaking with Chris Puppione of Puppione Family Wines

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Having grown up in a family with many rich traditions, Chris Puppione always dreamed of being a dad. So when he finally met the love of his life, Dee, and they got pregnant, he wanted to bottle the moment of pure joy so he could remember the feeling every time he opened a bottle. 

Special wines can do that.

Chris already made a lot of friends and connections working in the wine and hospitality industry for several years. With their help, Chris got access to a small amount of fruit and made his first wine to commemorate the birth of his daughter Ariya. The wine was meant to be a surprise for his wife, a grand gesture.

He never thought this silly idea would lead them to launch a wine brand. He never imagined they would make another wine beyond these first two barrels. He just wanted to create a beautiful reminder of welcoming their first-born into the world.

But then they made their daughter another wine… and then they made her a brother, who would clearly need two wines of his own! Then they realized something else: this was becoming more than a grand gesture.

This was a new tradition. Chris and Dee continue to celebrate special moments and people with new wine releases ever since.

Meet Elaine Sale of Elaine Wines

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Elaine Sale, owner of Elaine Wines always associated her best memories with wine tasting trips to Napa Valley and Sonoma. Reluctant to move to California while her children were still young, Elaine and her husband Mark waited until they were empty nesters to finally realize Elaine’s dream to live on a vineyard and make wine.

While still living in North Carolina, Elaine and Mark spent a year searching for land in Sonoma. They were drawn to the natural beauty and wonderful climate of the Russian River Valley, its welcoming community, supportive grape growers and winemakers and its renowned Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays.

They found a breathtakingly beautiful 3-acre vineyard on a steep, rugged site in the Russian River Valley, planted in 1998 (the same year their son Matt was born) to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Elaine and Mark built their house on the land and planned to continue farming the grapes and selling them – like the previous owners. But the winemaking bug bit her and she made two barrels of wine in 2017 – one barrel of Chardonnay and one Pinot Noir.

Read more on https://cellarangels.com/wineries/elaine-wines/