Winemaker Notes
Our classic Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc from the Riverbound Vineyard in Yountville opens with alluring notes of vanilla, citrus, and honeysuckle on the nose, leading way to a full and refreshing palate, with hints of melon, minerals, and lemon merengue, and a long, delicate finish. Just 200 cases of this single vineyard, hand-crafted white wine produced.
About Anthem Winery
We formed Team Anthem in early 2009 to produce small quantities of handcrafted wines from the most distinctive and promising mountainous vineyards in Napa Valley. The Valley is undergoing tremendous change as many of the families which have made Napa Valley wines world renown are turning over their operations to others. This change has created opportunity and in assembling the team we sought the very best of this next generation. After considering over 100 applicants from around the world we selected Jeff Ames as Anthem’s head winemaker. An explosive talent, Jeff has made some of California’s most acclaimed wines over the last few years and has a long and brilliant career ahead of him. In turning to John Truchard to manage our vineyards we get the rare combination of a skilled viticulturist, sound vineyard manager, successful winery owner and someone with firsthand knowledge of dozens of the area’s top vineyards. John also knows Mt. Veeder – a vastly rewarding yet temperamental AVA. Both Jeff and John are hardworking, no nonsense, low ego professionals – the kind of guys you’d like to sit down with and have a glass of wine. Our kind of people.
As proprietors, we’ve consistently provided the team with very simple yet important guidance: let every decision made be solely guided by its impact on the quality of wine we produce. Quality has trumped quantity at every turn and the team has been free to produce without regard to cost, resources, marketing timetables or other extraneous factors. We’ve left the fruit from entire vineyard blocks on the vine, foregoing harvest completely, because the grapes though serviceable, did not develop to our standards. We’ve bulked off perfectly good wine to other producers simply because it was not great and may well do so again in the future.
This exacting focus on quality means for any given vintage we do not know how much wine we will actually release until several years after harvest. We do know if our wine does find its way into our (beautiful) bottle and pass from our hands to yours we believe it to be outstanding. A wine to be enjoyed with loved ones on special occasions in your life as it is enjoyed in ours.
