Somehow, in ten-plus years of publishing Power Tasting, we’ve never gotten around to writing about Trefethen. Shame on us, because Trefethen is a great winery, a pioneer in Napa Valley and a winery that offers a memorable experience to visitors. We have tasted there numerous times over the years and are pleased to look back on our visits there.
The Trefethen winery. Photo courtesy of Trefethen.
Trefethen is located in Napa Valley on Oak Knoll Avenue, just off of Route 29, and is one of the first wineries encountered as you drive north. (Think of that, day trippers.) As you approach the winery, you see a very large farmhouse, which is a tale in itself. There has been a winery on this property in this building, off and on since 1886. The building you can see today has been used, abandoned and restored several times. When the Trefethen family took over the property in 1968, they had to restore a bat-infested, leaky old edifice. There they made wine and welcomed the public to taste it.
Then in 2014, the old winery was badly shaken in a 6.0 earthquake. Rather than tear it down, the Trefethens decided to make heroic efforts to restore the building once again, in a more seismic-protected manner. They significantly changed the tasting room as well. Prior to 2014, the Trefethen tasting room had a rustic look and several bars, dispensing generous pours to visitors. While the restoration work was going on, we once had a tasting under a plastic tent, which was not the ideal tasting ambience. The décor of the rebuilt tasting room has gone from rustic to what we would call elegant antique. And like almost all Napa Valley wineries, tastings are now sit down affairs.
A legacy tasting. Photo courtesy of Trefethen.
One of the reasons we are including Trefethen in this issue of Power Tasting is their commitment to sustainability. They have actually won awards in that regard. As an organization that has thrived under three generations of the family, they express a desire to keep it going for at least another three. They encourage biodiversity with resting places for native species of birds (including those old bats, even if they’re not birds). It works out well, because the flying friends capture rodents and insects who would like to make a meal out of grapes. They keep much of the area where they have vineyards wild and free. Trefethen is also invested in carbon capture to keep the air fresh and soil controls by composing everything but the grape juice.
Does any of this show up in the glass? We’re not viniculturists and Power Tasting doesn’t review wines, but we know that Trefethen’s wines have been award-winning for decades. They do make whites and a rosé, but Trefethen has built its reputation on wines made from Bordeaux grapes, especially Cabernet Sauvignon (it is in Napa Valley, after all).
As most wineries do, Trefethen offers some reserve tastings of older and limited distribution wines as well as a tasting of recent releases. With no disrespect to the quality of the reserve wines they serve, we have found that the overall experience of wine tasting at Trefethen is more pleasant in the big house with the newer wines.