2019 Spring Release

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Dear Friends,

Beginning a new growing season always brings a sense of excitement and a long “to do” list. This year marks the 20th harvest we will have for Trespass Vineyard. The time has certainly flown by and we still love being farmers and winemakers. What a special way to connect with the world on so many levels. As I write this letter, our vineyard is quietly about to burst forth after a very wet, cool winter. We pruned the vineyard a little later than usual because of the rains, so that always delays budbreak. This doesn’t necessarily delay harvest in the fall as so many variables come into play over the growing season as a whole.

When we look back to the beginning of this project, our original idea was one Bordeaux blend wine from the three grape varietals we grow on our five acres. However, with that very first vintage in 2000, we decided to bottle both a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon and a 100% Cabernet Franc instead. (The Merlot wasn’t yet ready to play!) That one decision to focus on the individual varietals first set a course for us from that point forward and helped put Trespass Vineyard on the list of exceptional small producers staying true to their terrior! We couldn’t be more flattered to be part of that group.

The spring release is Cabernet Franc time!! Following are Donny and Kirk’s notes about the wines, all of which have our beloved varietal included in their blend. Available to order now on a first come, first serve basis.

2016 Trespass Cabernet Franc

125 cases produced

A lofty wine with big aspirations, the 2016 Cabernet Franc is built for the long haul. A red berry finesse along with cherry, tobacco and sandalwood permeates the nose with what one expects from this varietal, but with a tannic structure and phenolic complexity that will carry it for years to come. Brooding fleshy fruit on the mid palate with a creamy raspberry, smooth and lingering on the finish. This varietal does so well at the Trespass Estate site, I always wish for more! It’s a winery favorite every year and a cellar library favorite at home. 100% Cabernet Franc aged for 22 months in 80% new French oak and bottled unfiltered and unfined.

2016 Trespass MAYHEM

125 cases produced

A beautiful blend of 50% Cabernet Franc and 50% Merlot, this is a very sensory diverse Right Bank blend. It leads with spice and dried currants with a smooth yet lavish mouthfeel. A powdery cherry sweet tart with a touch of cinnamon with grilled meats. What a beautiful and interesting wine, full of enjoyment and only five barrels produced! Some time given to this wine will certainly add to the complexity, but even now it is drinking beautifully. Aged for 22 months in 75% new French Oak, bottled unfiltered and unfined.

2016 Trespass INTRIGUE

75 cases produced

In a slight departure from our usual Intrigue blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, we have gone rogue with this vintage – a more typical Bordeaux blend. One third each of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot, this wine is wild, powerful and exciting with youthful granular tannins and muscle! The ripeness has an awesome and understated power to it. The nose is focused and shows outward clove cooking spices and on the palate, hints of espresso roast and dark brownie chocolate. A deep, rich, savory and fun wine for sure that should stretch for many years to come! A smaller production this year with on 75 cases made. Aged in 75% new French oak, bottled unfiltered and unfined.

2016 Trespass MISCHIEF

125 cases produced

Donny just can’t resist getting his hands on some great fruit and blending in the barrel stacks! This Bordeaux blend is a direct cousin to our Rendezvous with 50% Cabernet Franc and 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, but sourced from two other well respected vineyards. The Stagecoach Cabernet Sauvignon and Sugarloaf Franc from southeastern Napa Valley work beautifully together to create this wine. Opening with dark red fruit, deep black cheery and blackberry preserves! This wine hangs on the balance of fantastically playful and on a more serious side, it has enormous aromatics as an array of pleasure wafts from the glass. With years to build on, this wine will become more savory with some olive notes that will eventually make their way in and hence refine the wine in an incredible way! Aged for 22 months in 75% new French oak and bottled unfined, unfiltered.

Please feel free to reach out to us anytime, we truly love hearing from all of you! We have recently received emails about how our older wines are being enjoyed and it means so much to us (and usually a trip deep into the cellar to try a bottle ourselves!) One collector told us how beautifully our 2003 Cabernet Franc was drinking which has prompted the idea of a grand library tasting later this summer. Watch our website for our reviews on each vintage later in the year.

We raise a glass to all of you and a wonderful 20th vintage ahead!

~ Donny and Dana Gallagher

2018 Fall Release

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Dear Trespass Friends,

We have just finished with harvest and the 2018 vintage is happily fermenting at the winery! The vineyard is basking in the golden light of fall, its hard work completed for the year! What a wonderful growing season we have enjoyed. There were no real weather extremes, which allow the fruit to gain beautiful flavors and balance. Now we can reflect a bit and turn our attention to the release of the final wines from the 2015 vintage. We have three wines for you to add to your cellar this fall as well as two favorites from our Spring release if you would like to restock.

One question we often get is what would be the “optimum” aging for our wines to enjoy them at their peak. As you all know, we like to make our wines to be enjoyed shortly after release; however Donny would say that his personal “sweet spot” is when the wines reach six to eight years old. We have been pulling out some older vintages lately to enjoy with friends and so we can speak from experience! During the upcoming winter when activity slows a bit in the vineyard, we plan to set up a more formalized vertical tasting of our wines with our winemaker Kirk Venge, and we will happily report back to you all what our thoughts are and what wines are just singing right now!

Below are the compiled tasting notes from Kirk and Donny. They independently taste the wines and write their thoughts, which we then blend into what you see below! We just can’t get away from that blending metaphor, can we.

2015 Trespass Cabernet Sauvignon

150 cases produced

This is a beautiful expression of what a premium Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon should be! Upon opening this wine you are immediately captivated by the aromas, fresh with blackberry, boysenberry and oak spice. This deep purple wine delivers on the palate as well, bright entry with mature dark wild berry fruit. The finish is complete, with robust tannin that goes on and on. Decant and drink now, or cellar onward toward 15 to 20 years. From a low yielding vintage comes a very high quality wine, just not a lot, so grab some now!
100% Cabernet Sauvignon aged for 22 months in 80% new French oak.

2015 Trespass Rendezvous

125 cases produced

Massive, intense and seductive! We are very excited about this release of our 50-50 co-fermented blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. (Always Donny and Kirk’s favorite) There are layers and layers that are generous and profound with purity of black fruit and exotic expressions. The aromatics are right! Light scorched herbs, barrel toast, black cherry jam and sweet plumbs. On the palate it is explosive and fills every corner of the palate with blackberry and vanilla, soft and round, but with firm tannins. This wine keeps evolving in the glass, showing great complexity, Wow! Fermented and aged for 22 months in 100% new French oak.

2015 Trespass Old Vine Zinfandel

150 cases produced

This 115 year old vineyard is producing some of the best Zinfandel grapes in the Napa Valley! We feel lucky to have been able to consistently procure this fruit each year. This classy Zin has a focus on the “pretty” core fruit. The 50% new French oak supports and brightens seamless red fruits of wild berry, currant, dried cherry and fresh raspberry. On the palate we have plum jam with a touch of clove and Christmas spice. Not pushy in the least, this is a very nice elegant Zinfandel.

Please feel free to call us any time if you have questions on these new releases or want to inquire about large format bottles or older vintages. We try to keep a few treasures tucked away! As we rush towards the end of the year and happy gatherings ahead, we wish you all the best and many thanks for letting Trespass be a part of your world. We are so grateful you enjoy what we love creating!

We look forward to hearing from you!

Dana & Donny Gallagher

2018 Spring Release

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Dear Trespass Friends,

Welcome to our Spring Release and the first peek at our 2015 vintage Estate wines! The yields from our vineyard and across the Napa Valley were lower than average once again as we worked through an unprecedented fourth year of drought. However the resulting flavors were spectacularly concentrated and we are very proud of the wines we have created. You will notice for some of the wines we have half the production we had in previous years. We will fill orders on a first come basis, so please order soon.

Life has been extremely busy in the vineyard since the last harvest as we began phase one of a twelve year process to replant portions of our vineyard. Our overriding directive was to retain the character and quality of the wines we produce, so we made the conscious decision to only remove small blocks as needed. We are also using our own budwood for the Cabernet Franc specifically, because as we know (and have been told by several consultants) the particular clone we have is “magic”! We won’t take a crop from these new vines for four years, so a lot of TLC and patience is required of us.

Now, on to the Spring releases!!

Below are our tasting notes on the four wines available to you for shipment right away.

2015 Trespass Cabernet Franc – 75 cases produced

Winemaker Kirk Venge describes this wine as the “philosopher” of the estate. Dark and brooding with chocolatey tannins, it nonetheless conveys a savory vanillin warmth. Toasty blueberry on the nose along with mocha, fresh cut sage and toasty sandalwood. Rich flavors of milk chocolate covered blueberries and a wonderful spice box of nutmeg and clove fill the pallet. As usual this wine is 100% Cabernet Franc aged in 80% new French oak for 22 months.

2015 Trespass MAYHEM – 50 cases produced

Donny’s baby to be sure, he describes this wine as “elegance in the glass”. A savory nose wafting with dark cocoa that evolves on the palate with ripe berries, blue fruit, black currant and layers of dusty cocoa and violets. The finish is long and lingering. Absolutely perfect with either a delicious filet or our favorite Skuna Bay salmon steak! A blend of 55% Cabernet Franc and 45% Merlot aged for 22 months in 80% new French oak.

2017 Fall Release

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Dear Friends,

I had written our fall release letter and was preparing to send it out when life in the wine country took a dramatic change. The crisp, clear mornings usually filled with the exciting hustle and bustle of the picking crews were transformed into smoke filled skies. The sheer magnitude of the devastation came trickling in as we were without power for almost two days in St. Helena. As the fires spread and anxiousness prevailed in our community, all we could do was get prepared to leave then wait and watch.

We were fortunate to have no lasting effects from these fires, but we know of so many friends and valley neighbors who have been displaced and lost their homes. The stories are heartbreaking. However the common thread has been the overwhelming gratitude to the first responders who came to fight these fires. We are all truly humbled by their dedication to protect us! The focus of the firefighters both on the ground and in the air was awe inspiring. Each day as the flames glowed on the ridges above us, the constant air attacks held back any advancement into St. Helena.

As I write this it is the first day in almost two weeks that the sky is no longer smoky. A bit of light rain is in the forecast this evening. Mother Nature will now begin her work to heal the valleys. Our community is strong and will pull together to heal each other. We are blessed to have an opportunity to do what we can with this process.

This fall we have the final three of our 2014 wines to share with you, our Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, and the Rendezvous Blend. As a special treat for our “No Limits” allocation level we have a fourth wine, a one barrel lot of 2014 Merlot that is available only to you as well as a few cases of magnums of the wines in this release. As always, Donny and our winemaker Kirk Venge have compiled their notes on the wines which you will find on the reverse side.

So many of you have reached out to us over the past few weeks to check in, to send your thoughts and prayers and we can’t thank you enough. The both of us consider ourselves lucky to call all of you friends. As we wrap up this harvest season we are finding that we are taking things a bit slower and appreciating the smallest of details that surround us each day. We wish the same for all of you this fall season.

With Love,
Dana & Donny

2016 Fall Newsletter

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Dear Trespass Friends,

The beautiful fall season is upon us and it is time to celebrate a fabulous harvest and the release of the last of our Trespass Vineyard wines from the 2013 vintage!! The Cabernet Sauvignon, Old Vine Zinfandel, and the Rendezvous blend are ready to make their way from our cellar to yours.

Heritage and legacy are themes that resonate deeply in our business, as well as all kinds of farming. After all we are simply stewards of our special piece of land, a responsibility Donny and I keep in our minds at all times. Our property had been under vine for over 100 years, however when we purchased it the old “Italian field blend” varietals had been ripped out. We were able to make rootstock and clonal selections that we felt would prosper in this unique corner of St. Helena and have been aptly rewarded!

Many of you have asked if any of our children plan to get into the wine business. One has not fallen far from the vine. Our son Michael has been making wine since 2010 and his brand is called MTGA. I can’t believe he just released his fourth vintage! Check out his wonderful wines at mtgawines.com and get a few bottles to try. And don’t miss reading his blog – I always enjoy his perspectives and his journey. (Yes, a proud Mom moment!) The other four in our “Brady Bunch” have now scattered in different directions but you just never know what may happen around the corner. We are always happy to send wine care packages their way so they always have a taste of home nearby.

The 2013 is a vintage of the ages and was one of the most concentrated in quite some time. Donny likes to say the silver lining from the drought conditions we had experienced for several years is that the wines made during this time have been richer, bolder, and more concentrated than ever. Fortunately we have returned to a more normal weather pattern in the Napa Valley, but it is Mother Nature’s annual stamp that marks each vintage as a special moment in time for Trespass Vineyard.