For the wine and food lover in your life, a subscription-based gift that keeps on giving – in the form of wine and wagyu – might just be your best holiday bet. This joint offering from a family-owned and -operated California ranch and vineyard has an unlikely beginning.
“It’s not everyday that I get to speak with the Founder/CEO of a brand that I admire. In this episode of Freshly Brewed (and the final episode of a three-part series on wine), I speak with Florencia Palmaz, leader and co-founder of the world famous Palmaz Vineyards. We talk trust and loyalty, technology, supporting staff during tough times, and what wine means to the head of a winery. It’s a beautiful episode, so I hope you enjoy it!” – Jeffery Fenton
Few Napa Valley wineries – or any throughout the world for that matter – can claim history and proprietorship as compelling as that of Palmaz Vineyards. With its combination of Argentinian roots, 19th century California history, depth and breadth of fine wines, an ambitious culinary program, and show-stopping architecture and technology, Palmaz Vineyards can easily claim the title of Napa’s most distinctive luxury wine estate.
Founded in 1881 by Henry Hagen, a young entrepreneur who headed west in the 1850s amid the Gold Rush, Cedar Knoll Vineyard and Winery quickly established itself as notable, serving wine to San Francisco’s finest and even winning a silver medal for Hagen’s brandy in 1889 at the World’s Fair in Paris. The winery, one of Napa’s first, occupied the southern end of Napa along Mount George, on some 450 acres of hillside.
Grape: 83% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Merlot, 3% Petit Verdot, 2% Cabernet Franc
So often it’s assumed the appreciation of wine is a skill and pleasure that comes later in life, but Asian millennials are turning the notion on its head.
Using open source machine learning, Palmaz Vineyards developed a tool to automatically alert winemakers of environmental conditions. Soon, the data flowed like wine.
Christian Gastón Palmaz wanted to make winemaking smarter.
As the story goes, Louis M Martini was ready to hit the ground running the moment Prohibition ended in 1933. His plan was to produce quality California dry table wines, but he didn’t intend to make them in the hot San Joaquin Valley where he once produced bulk wines. Instead, he had his eye on Napa Valley—and, as it turned out, on a few other places as well.
Napa Valley is known for idealic conditions. After all, even with climate change, it will forever be associated with its rolling terrain, mild year-‘round temperatures, and a home-grown wine and artisanal food scene with an international reputation. Some extremely fortunate couples and families have taken things even further, finding a way to live that dream for the long-term by setting down roots there for their retirement years, or perhaps, their second careers.
To those familiar with the brand, a bottle of wine created by the Palmaz family evokes elegance, luxury, and the anticipation of pleasure on the palate. This was the intention of Dr. Julio Palmaz and his wife Amalia when they founded the winery. And so it remains today, as son Christian Gaston Palmaz and his sister Florencia continue the tradition started by their parents.
When it comes to choosing wines, sometimes you just want to go for the popular choice. If that resonates with you, then don’t miss Vivino’s latest 2019 Wine Style Award, which celebrates the best 1,640 wines across 164 different styles based on 40 million reviews and 120 million ratings on the wine app and website, according to founder Heini Zachariassen.
