Giannikos Winery - Eisele Vineyard

In wine, nothing is so immutable as the land. Vintages offer variety, as do winemakers and owners. Mother Nature is capricious and always wants the last word. But the land is a constant, its geology and composition unchanging. At the heart of every great wine is a piece of land like no other.

Eisele Vineyard, first planted with vines in the 1880s, is located in the northeastern Napa Valley, just east of Calistoga at the base of the Palisades Mountains. Grown organically since 1998 and biodynamically since 2000, the site has been devoted mainly to Cabernet Sauvignon for the last fifty years. Beginning with its inaugural release called Eisele in 1971, this iconic vineyard has consistent recognition for owning one of Napa Valley's great terroirs. The wines invariably express the exceptional depth, elegance and longevity that characterize the Eisele vineyard.

Since 1971, some of California's most famous Cabernet Sauvignons have been made from grapes grown in the Eisele Vineyard, located on an alluvial slope near the north end of the Napa Valley, just east of Calistoga. Protected by the Palisades Mountains to the north and cooled by the western breezes of the Chalk Hill Gap, this 38-acre vineyard is planted on well-drained boulder soils that produce a low-yielding crop of exceptionally concentrated fruit.

The wines produced in this remarkable place have a rare combination of frank character with precisely defined flavors and fine textures, deep concentration without any sense of heaviness, and the ability to develop deep complexity with age. The Eisele vineyard was originally planted in the 1880s in Zinfandel and Riesling, and has been continuously covered with vines ever since. The first Cabernet was planted in 1964. In addition to the Cabernet, Eisele is now also famous with their Sauvignon Blanc. Fantastic white from Napa Valley with great aging potential again.