Heitz Cellar

Seven years into its new ownership, decades of commitment to place and a traditional approach at this historic Napa Valley producer continue, reflected in a style and elegance that can be seen and tasted in vintages both old and new

- CLIVE PURSEHOUSE

The road that winds its way to Heitz Cellar and the historic property, which includes a barrel house built in 1898, is a trip back in time. A quiet slice of the old Napa, tucked amid sprawling oak trees away from the tasting room traffic on the Silverado Trail.

Founded by Joe and Alice Heitz in 1961, Heitz quickly established itself among America's great producers. A pioneer in many ways, Heitz created America's first single vineyard-designate, the 1966 Martha's Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, becoming the first to champion terroir in Napa and the US.

'There have only been three winemakers in Heitz's history,' Carlton McCoy MS tells me. 'Joe, his son David and Brittany Sherwood. Joe passed the baton to David in the late 1970s. Sherwood, the current director of winemaking, has been at the helm since 2018, when the property was acquired by Lawrence Wine Estates, of which McCoy is CEO. (She worked for six years alongside David Heitz, taking the lead in the cellar with the 2016 vintage.)

Less about the barrel

The 'Heitz style' has always been about flavour from fruit, eschewing extraneous tannin from over-extraction or overt oak. 'Joe felt that it [overtly tannic wine] was just an excuse, a lazy way of making Cabernet,' McCoy explains.

'Oak can give you an illusion of opulence and pedigree, but you're not assessing the density and length of the wine. So we taste the wines a year after harvest, before they see any oak. That's when we choose the single-vineyard wines over the Napa Valley designate. It's also when we decide on ageing regimes and oak to finish the wines, based on what we think they need.'

The single-vineyard Heitz wines are released four years from harvest, and the Napa Valley designate is released three years after harvest.