{"id":2460,"date":"2023-08-29T18:18:37","date_gmt":"2023-08-29T18:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2460"},"modified":"2023-08-29T18:18:37","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T18:18:37","slug":"peju-winery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2460","title":{"rendered":"Peju Winery"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have driven up and down Route 29 in the Napa Valley many, many times.\u00a0 Often, we have passed the Peju Winery (www.peju.com<\/a>).\u00a0 That\u2019s exactly what we have done, passed it by without stopping in.\u00a0 We guess that\u2019s because we have never seen their wines in stores or on wine lists so, we thought, why bother?\u00a0 On a recent trip, we did bother and we are glad we did.<\/p>\n

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The rather distinctive Peju winery.<\/em><\/p>\n

The winery is named after its founder, Tony Peju, who only recently passed away.\u00a0 He was credited with being the father of direct-to-the-consumer wine sales.\u00a0 Thus we hadn\u2019t heard of his wines because he bypassed stores and restaurants.\u00a0 Peju wines are for sale only at the winery and through their wine club.\u00a0 The winery is still owned and run by the Peju family, which is something depressingly rare in Napa Valley today.<\/p>\n

The winery is distinctive.\u00a0 As you approach, you see a rather oddly shaped building or, as they prefer to call it, a tower.\u00a0 Surrounding it are lush gardens which visitors are free to roam.\u00a0 There is also a spacious patio where visitors are offered seated tastings.\u00a0 You can also stand at the bar at Peju, which is rather rare these days.\u00a0 We arrived without an appointment and so had our tasting indoors, in the barrel room.\u00a0 However, the winery does urge reservations.<\/p>\n

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The stained glass mural in the winery.<\/em><\/p>\n

Peju makes an enormous variety of wines.\u00a0 Of course, not all are available for tasting on any given day, but we did find that the servers were liberal with little extras that weren\u2019t on the official tasting lists.\u00a0 Located in the heart of Napa Valley in Rutherford, they do specialize in the Bordeaux grapes, especially Cabernet Sauvignon.\u00a0 But there are also Malbec, Pinot Noir and Sangiovese in the red wines.\u00a0 Their selection of white wines includes Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc (of course), but also sparking wines and French Colombard, a rarity these days.\u00a0 We are usually of the ABC (anything but Chardonnay) persuasion, but we rather enjoyed Peju\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The servers seem quite knowledgeable, if a bit chatty.\u00a0 They are attentive, which can be a problem in some wineries.\u00a0 Combining the renewed popularity of wine tasting tourism with a shortage of staff everywhere, we have often found ourselves sitting and waiting for a server to notice that we wanted to be on to our next wine.\u00a0 This was not the case at Peju, much to their credit.\u00a0 For a winery that makes its market with visitors and club members, it is only sensible that they make the tasting experience as enjoyable as possible.\u00a0 It leads to purchases and memberships.\u00a0 We would only wish that more wineries would adopt that attitude.<\/p>\n

Our visit to Peju is an example of why it is a good idea, from time to time, to take a chance on a winery you don\u2019t know.\u00a0 We enjoyed our visit, bought some wine, and will gladly return on another trip.\u00a0 The next time we might even make a reservation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have driven up and down Route 29 in the Napa Valley many, many times.\u00a0 Often, we have passed the Peju Winery (www.peju.com).\u00a0 That\u2019s exactly what we have done, passed it by without stopping in.\u00a0 We guess that\u2019s because we have never seen their wines in stores or on wine lists so, we thought, why … Continue reading Peju Winery<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2461,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460\/revisions\/2461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}