Cathiard Vineyard
Cathiard Vineyard
In 1885 two Scottish immigrant brothers, James and William Rennie, bought land in the Napa Valley and planted 60 acres of vines straddling the Rutherford and St. Helena AVAs. Inspired by their uncle Sir John Rennie, the engineer behind the completion of London Bridge, they built an innovative stone gravity-flow winery. A devastating fire and the spread of phylloxera brought it all to an end, and the winery closed in 1920.
The property changed hands several times over the years before being acquired in January 2020 by Florence and Daniel Cathiard, owners of Château Smith Haut Lafitte in Bordeaux. The Cathiards hold respect for nature at the centre of everything they do, and the winemaking here continues in that spirit.
On the slopes of the Mayacamas Mountains, each vine in the vineyard is tended as carefully as a bonsai. The wines show a perfect meeting of terroir and the human hand. To sharpen that expression, a new stainless-steel winery and the horseshoe cellar have been renovated, and Bordelais know-how brought to bear.
