Spring Mountain boutique winery welcomes Heidi Barrett as new winemaker

“The Fantesca story is as much a history of our experiences, our property and the people who have produced our wine as it is a story of the alluring and fun-loving Fantesca character that personifies it,” say Susan and Duane Hoff.

If you love Napa Valley wines but haven’t followed the history of winemaking in Napa Valley, there’s a name you still quite possibly have heard of. Even if you haven’t, you can soon expect to be hearing it a lot. That name is Heidi Barrett, who has been celebrated worldwide as one of Napa Valley’s finest winemakers. Regarded for the exceptionally high quality of the wines she has produced for Amuse Bouche, Screaming Eagle, Dalla Valle and her own winery, La Sirena, Ms. Barrett has garnered not only one perfect 100-point score for her wines, but four perfect scores! It’s a record that is unrivaled by any other single winemaker. Indeed, Heidi Barrett has assured her place as one of the world’s premium producers of Napa wines, many of which - if not most - have rocketed immediately to highly sought-after “cult” status.

I have never met Heidi Barrett, but I feel as if I’ve come to know her - if only just a little. That’s because during the first quarter of this year, I was privileged to assist Susan and Duane Hoff, proprietors of Fantesca Estate & Winery of St. Helena, with a rebuild of their website at fantesca.com. I knew that Ms. Barrett would be joining the Fantesca winemaking team, but couldn’t really share that news until today, now that the Hoffs have officially announced her participation as Fantesca’s new winemaker, and have included a video on their blog featuring an interview with Ms. Barrett.

I can tell you that I really enjoyed involving myself with the wordcraft that presents Fantesca Winery and the limited-production wines they produce. In my correspondence with Susan and Duane, I have been continually impressed with their passion for winemaking and focus on presenting not only world-class wines, but a world-class presentation of their Spring Mountain-appellation wines. I believe I’ve done my best to help make that presentation a reality. I also believe you will enjoy reading about the Fantesca character inspired by the comic Zanni theatre of the Italian Renaissance that fascinates Susan and Duane. But don’t stop there - take a look at the history of the Fantesca vineyard and cave, the Spring Mountain District and the Hoff’s role in its sustainable production, their active role in supporting the Arts, the Hoff family’s Fortune Corkies tradition, Fantesca’s Adopt-A-Grape program, and the good people that make this boutique-style winery the new buzz that it is about to be.

I believe you will agree that Fantesca’s current line-up of estate-grown Cabernet Sauvignons and Carneros Chardonnays are quite buzzworthy, too, so I recommend you check out their three Zanni-themed wine clubs, which offer Fantesca’s exclusive wines at differing price points. And now that Heidi Barrett is part of the Fantesca team, you might want to hurry to get your own stash of Fantesca wines before they’re elevated to cult status and become part of Napa Valley history.

~winehiker

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 2:32 pm and is filed under grape squeezins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.